He came closer, grasping the armrest on the command chair. I brushed my fingers over his knuckles, and relief gentled his face. Although he didn’t look at Ragnar, we were both aware of the admiral’s presence—and how much we needed him. An uneasy alliance.
Ragnar was speaking into his wrist comm, directing his people as they secured the ship. Although technically I was in command, he was the ranking officer. I had no intention of taking his loyalty for granted. I couldn’t give him what he wanted, the title of Pharaoh’s consort, but other rewards existed. While we laid our plans, I would find out what else he sought.
The comm on the armrest hummed. Touching it, I said, “Selei here.”
“This is Lieutenant Qahot, Your Highness,” a woman said. “I’m picking up a ship entering the Delos system.”
“Do you have an ID?”
“Not yet, ma’am.”
Ragnar glanced at me, his face puzzled. I put my hand over the transmit panel and spoke to him. “It could be from Earth. Colonel Yamada may have slipped a message past our blockade.”
His expression turned wry. “We’ve been so involved with our affairs here, I’d almost forgotten Delos.”
Qahot spoke again. “Pharaoh Dyhianna, the ship is one of ours. An ISC scout.”
“Are you expecting anyone?” I asked Ragnar.
He shook his head, pulling himself closer along a cable. Leaning over the comm, he said, “Lieutenant Qahot, this is Admiral Bloodmark. Escort the scout in. As soon as you know why they’re here, let me know.”
“Aye, sir.”
As I turned off the comm, Ragnar said, “It might be from HQ, perhaps even from General Majda.”
“Is Primary Majda still in the brig?”
“That’s right. I gave her the option of joining us.” His eyes glinted. “She declined.”
Eldrin spoke tightly. “Were Althor alive, she wouldn’t have gone against us.”
Ragnar shrugged. “If Prince Althor were here, he would be Imperator. That would release Primary Majda from her loyalty conflict between the Ruby Dynasty and the Imperator.”
Lieutenant Qahot’s voice crackled on the comm. “Pharaoh Dyhianna, we have two more ships coming in, a Jag starfighter and a Jackhammer.”
“Anything further on the scout?” I asked.
“Nothing yet—make that six more ships, another Jag, a destroyer, two more frigates—no, that’s two destroyers—” Qahot drew in a sharp breath. “Gods, they’re dropping out of inversion like pop-jacks. We have forty-three on scan. Forty-four.”
I gripped the armrests. “Lieutenant, find out where they’re from. Report to Admiral Bloodmark.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sixty-eight ships now. Seventy.”
“Are they Fleet?” Ragnar asked. “Army? ASC? J-force?”
“All of those, sir,” Qahot said. “They’re evading our questions”
Eldrin spoke uneasily. “Jag fighters often accompany army Talons.”
“To Delos?” Ragnar snorted. “For what?”
“You brought your ships here,” I said.
“I received word of Jon’s fleet. We were cut off from HQ, so I came to rendezvous with Casestar.”
I exhaled. “Pray these are doing the same.”
Ragnar regarded me evenly. “Jon Casestar or Vazar Majda may have managed to send messengers to HQ asking for backup.”
“This couldn’t be a response to that,” I said, hoping I was right. “How could Naaj mobilize the few forces we have left and get them here so fast? Even if anyone did slip out a message, it probably hasn’t reached HQ yet.”
Lieutenant Qahot’s voice snapped out of the comm. “Admiral Bloodmark, I have that ID on the ships now.”
“Who are they?”
She took an audible breath. Then she said, “It’s the Radiance Fleet.”
They came in waves: tens, hundreds, thousands, then tens of thousands, all that remained of the greatest fleet we had ever assembled. They had invaded Eube’s Glory, the heart of the Trader Empire and broken the Trader military, but to do it they paid an almost unimaginable price. Eight hundred thousand ships had gone into Eube, hundreds of billions if you counted the smart missiles, drones and dust.
Seventy thousand returned.
They streamed through space, some damaged, some whole, all intent on one goal. Delos. They came in every form: bristling destroyers, frigates with deadly aplomb, Jag starfighters brilliant and fast; stinging Wasps and Scorpions; razor-edged Scythes; Bolts, Masts, Rafts, Tugs, Booms, Blades, Fists, and hundreds of even smaller vessels darting through the fleet Ram stealth tanks appeared on our sensors and then disappeared, camouflaged even in plain view. Needle Spacewings soared alongside the unfolding Jackknives. Leos, Asps, and Cobras cut through the advancing fleet, as deadly as their namesakes. Thunderbolts and Starslammers rumbled with power. Then came the Firestorm battle cruisers, star-faring cities, massive and rugged, dwarfing the other ships that hurtled by them.
The vessels raced, lumbered, sprinted, or limped. Some barely made it in tow. Others blasted their exhaust with triumphant energy. They swelled in a colossal wave of living, thinking ships, filling the star system. From all directions they kept coming, in the plane of the ecliptic where the planets orbited their parent star, “below” the ecliptic according to the southern hemisphere of Delos, and above it. The fleet moved steadily onward, stretching from the outreaches of the star system all the way into its inner planets.
More ships continued to drop out of inversion, rank after rank of the armada that had turned the tide of the Radiance War. They had done the impossible, breaking the backbone of Traders’ brutal military machine, and in doing so, they made it possible for the rest of us to remain free. It may not have been the largest fleet ever gathered in the history of the human race, but as far as we were concerned, it was without doubt the greatest.
Colonel Yamada was not sanguine.
“We’re registering over seventy thousand ships.” His alarmed voice crackled out of Ragnar’s wrist comm. “Admiral Bloodmark, we are a peaceful world dedicated to sanctuary, a diplomatic outpost.”
Ragnar was floating by my chair, holding a cable. “We appreciate your situation, Colonel.”
“Admiral Casestar gave me reason to believe no actions would be taken against Delos beyond the occupation.”
Ragnar’s gaze darkened. “Admiral Casestar has been relieved of command.”
A silence followed his words. Then Yamada said, “I see.”
I had no doubt he did see, probably all too well. One admiral wouldn’t relieve another during an occupation unless major changes were taking place, changes that might signal political upheavals Yamada probably didn’t even want to be near, let alone caught in without backup.
Lieutenant Qahot’s voice came over the comm on my command chair. “Ma’am, I have a Lieutenant Garr on six. He’s an aide to Rear Admiral Chad Barzun, who is now in command of the Radiance Fleet.”
We were building up a regular plethora of admirals here. “Route it to Admiral Bloodmark.” I kept my channels open and listened while Lieutenant Qahot and Lieutenant Garr arranged for Barzun and Ragnar to talk.
As a full admiral, Ragnar outranked Barzun, but that wouldn’t mean squat if Naaj Majda had sent Barzun and his seventy thousand ships to stop our mutiny. Where had the Radiance Fleet come from? How did they find us?
When ships jumped into inversion, for superluminal travel, they couldn’t communicate by conventional methods. It did no good to shoot photons at one another if you were traveling faster than light. Using superluminal particles wasn’t much better; the uncertainty in their time and location made signals unreliable. Superluminal ships communicated through the psiberweb; without it, Barzun had no way to maintain contact within his fleet during inversion. The longer they spent in inversion without communications, the more the ships would be spread out in space and time when they dropped into normal space.
And yet, for all that Barzun’s fleet stretched throughout the system, and despite
how long it took them all to arrive, their formation was remarkably organized. To keep anything resembling a coherent formation, Barzun must have regularly dropped the ships out of inversion, then used hours or even days to regroup. Proceeding that way, it would take the Radiance Fleet months to reach any major ISC center. They certainly couldn’t have already made it to headquarters and then back out here to a distant volume of space where Trader, Allied, and Skolian territory abutted.
This made no sense, unless the fleet had come straight here from their battle with the Traders. It had only been several months since the invasion of the Trader capital; the Radiance Fleet could conceivably make it to Delos in that time. But why? What did they know?
It was possible that, before Jon and Vazar were confined, one or both had managed to send messenger ships to HQ asking for reinforcements. The Radiance Fleet might well have intercepted one, with its own ships dropping in and out of inversion so much. And they were a formidable force. Against them, our four thousand ships had no chance.
When the lengthy protocols finished, Chad Barzun’s voice came out of the comm. I didn’t activate any visuals; we had no idea how much Barzun knew. If he didn’t realize I was alive, that could work in our favor.
“Admiral Bloodmark,” Chad said, following the ISC protocol that required the lower ranked officer to speak first
“Rear Admiral Barzun,” Ragnar acknowledged.
Chad spoke simply, with no preamble. “Request permission to speak to Pharaoh Dyhianna.”
I silently swore. Ragnar glanced up at me, the question in his gaze.
Pushing back the long tendrils of hair that had escaped my braid, I nodded. Then I said, “This is Pharaoh Dyhianna.”
A sharp intake of breath came over the comm. When Chad spoke again, his voice sounded uneven. “My honor at your presence, Your Highness.” Then, more softly, he added, “Gods almighty, it really is you.”
“Yes.” I couldn’t say more until I knew why he had come.
Chad continued wthout hesitation. “It is the honor of the Radiance Fleet to serve the Ruby Pharaoh.”
23
Majda Quandary
Virtual simulations of Admiral Bloodmark, Rear Admiral Barzun, Admiral Casestar, Primary Majda, Eldrin, and myself stood clustered in a virtual conference room on Roca’s Pride, the battle cruiser commanded by Chad Barzun. We Were all actually sitting at computer consoles in VR suits on our respective ships. In the sim, no one wanted to sit down, a position we all apparently associated with a weakening of status. So here we stood in a room with no furniture, just white marble walls veined with gold. The starburst emblem of Skolia was emblazoned on one wall in a flare of crimson and gold.
I had brought all my advisors together in the sim, current and former, including Jon and Vazar, who were still in custody. I had long ago learned that the only way to maximize my chances of receiving strong, thorough advice was to include everyone’s opinion regardless of whether or not they agreed with me.
“You’re suggesting treason.” An uncharacteristic anger honed Jon’s words as he faced Chad Barzun in the center of the room. “Take the Radiance Fleet to Earth? Are you insane? It’s a blatant declaration of hostilities.”
Chad showed no sign of relenting. “Earth made that declaration when they refused to release Web Key Eldrinson and Councilor Roca.” His square chin, beak of a nose, and bushy eyebrows, iron-gray like his hair, made a sharp contrast to Jon’s even-featured face.
Jon Casestar’s frustration sparked, creating red flashes around his simulated body. “What about your loyalty to ISC and the Assembly? Are you going to throw that away?”
“Don’t question my loyalty,” Chad said harshly. “I commanded the fleet that took out the Traders. I saw our ships go down, over ninety percent of them.” His voice roughened. “I saw the shuttle with Imperator Skolia and her brother Prince Althor explode. Damn it, Jon! I won’t turn against the Ruby Dynasty.”
Jon met his gaze. “More people will die if we go to Earth.”
“We aren’t going to attack,” I said. Although I was standing near the wall, the sim carried my words as if I were right next to them. “A show of force may be all we need.” Even though Eldrin’s dream had put his father on Lyshriol, Eldrin remained convinced that his parents, if still alive, were on Earth, not Lyshriol. My models agreed. Nor had the Allieds notified ISC that they had moved any members of the Ruby Dynasty.
Ragnar was pacing back and forth. “We don’t know that we won’t have to fight.” He had darkened his clothes and hair in the sim, giving him a shadowed quality. “And we have to decide what to do about Lyshriol.” He stalked over to me. “Even if we rescue your sister and her husband, their children are still imprisoned on the planet Lyshriol. The Allieds are using our own defenses at Lyshriol to keep us out.”
“And it’s a damn good system,” Vazar said. She was leaning against the wall across from me. “It’s just as good when used against us as by us. The Allieds also have their own forces there. They could do serious damage if we engaged them.” She strode forward to where Jon and Chad stood, her body shedding fiery light. Stopping with an admiral on either side, she glared between them straight at me. “I want it on record that I protest any such plans.”
“No one has suggested we attack Lyshriol,” I said mildly. Vazar, we need your support, I thought, even knowing she was too far away to pick it up. Although she was no longer in the brig, she remained confined to her quarters on Havyrl’s Valor just as Jon Casestar was confined to his.
“Something is going on with Lyshriol,” Chad Barzun said.
“You’ve had word?” Vazar asked.
“A lot,” Chad said. “Almost every time the Radiance Fleet dropped out of inversion, we picked up reports from ships we encountered. One of the Ruby princes—Havyrl Valdoria—has organized some sort of continent-wide act of nonviolent civil disobedience. ISC managed to slip in a Jagernaut team to help him. It’s been going on for weeks.”
Jon spoke dryly. “I would hardly call on Jagernauts for a nonviolent protest.”
Ragnar shrugged. “I don’t see the point. What can a crowd of planet-bound rustics armed with swords and bows do against Allied Space Command?”
“They aren’t armed,” Chad said. “That’s the whole point. They’re fighting this battle with social opinion. Somehow the J-team is sending footage of the protest to one of our ships, the Ascendant The PR people on the Ascendant put together reports and send them to the holo-news broadcasters: Skolian, Allied, even Trader. Without the psiberweb, it takes days, even weeks, to spread the news to so many worlds, but the media still loves it. The image of these helpless natives and their noble, rustic prince holding a valiant protest against the mighty invading army. It’s one hell of a good story.”
“Rustic prince?” Eldrin quirked his eyebrow at that description of his brother Havyrl. He was standing against a nearby wall. “Vyrl has a doctorate in agriculture from one of the top universities in the Skolian Imperialate.”
“Well, yes,” Chad acknowledged. “The reports don’t mention that.”
I thought of Havyrl, one of Eldrin’s younger brothers. He and Eldrin resembled each other, both with violet eyes and those handsome Valdoria features women loved. Vyrl was taller, with a curly, red-gold mane of hair. Unlike Eldrin, Vyrl had never had any problem reading and writing, or dealing with Skolian culture. Yet he was the one who had opted to stay on Lyshriol, as a farmer, rather than live a more modern life offworld, as Eldrin had done.
“Is the protest having any effect?” Jon asked.
“How could it?” Ragnar demanded, incredulous.
“It’s making the Allieds look like a bunch of warmongers.” Chad turned to Eldrin. “Your brother is brilliant He’s brought together almost the entire population of the Rillian subcontinent. Two hundred thousand people. They’ve gathered at that small starport near your village on the Dalvador Plains. They plan to stay until the Allieds withdraw from Lyshriol.”
“It’s a noble
sentiment,” Eldrin said. “But I don’t see how it can do any good.”
Chad beamed at him. “Lyshriol has become a symbol. The longer the Allieds refuse to withdraw, the more bellicose they look. And now they have three interstellar civilizations watching everything they do.”
I couldn’t resist a smirk. “That’s a switch for Earth. Usually they’re the saints, we’re the sinners, and the Traders are the devils.”
“So.” Vazar bestowed on us an implacable stare. “What a great help it will be to Prince Havyrl when we show up at Earth with seventy thousand war ships. What shall we say? ‘Greetings, Allieds. Would you care for tea?’”
“She’s right,” Jon said. “Our moving on Earth in full force could weaken what they’re trying to do at Lyshriol.”
“Not if we make a lot of noise about our friendly intentions,” I said. “We tell them we’ve just come to pick up Roca, Eldrin-son, and the others, and we thank them for giving protection. Then we make sure the media gets reports of everything.”
Jon wasn’t buying it. “No one will believe we come in peace with a fleet this large.”
Chad looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure about that. It’s big enough now to be a respectable deterrent, but not so large as to form an overt threat. Sure, they could defeat us if they attacked, but it would be a brutal battle. Do you really think they want that, especially if we come claiming peace?”
“Ah, hell,” Vazar said. “They may be right, Admiral Cases-tar. Everyone knows the Allieds are holding their Ruby Dynasty ‘guests’ prisoner. Of course we would bring ships to defend ourselves. But with a fleet this size, we look careful rather than belligerent.”
Chad grinned. “Roca’s Pride should be our flagship. It’s great symbolism, given that they’re holding Roca Skolia prisoner.”
Vazar grunted. “Pah.”
Ragnar paced over to her. “I thought you agreed with us.”
She met his aggressive stare without a twitch. “I said it makes sense. It also makes sense that you will all be tried and executed for treason.”