I just prayed we were still free and alive then.
Natil stood in the doorway of J’chabi Na’s home. “Come in, may I?”
J’chabi moved aside, inviting her to enter.
I was waiting a few steps back in the hall. “Have you news of Hajune and Skyhold?”
Natil walked into the hall. “Skyhold recovers slowly.” The taciturn officer actually cracked a smile. “But recover she does.”
“This is good,” J’chabi said.
Natil seemed distracted. “Another problem we have.”
J’chabi ushered us into the main living area. “Problem?”
“A ship in orbit.”
My hope surged. “Skolian?”
Natil turned her dark gaze on me. “Lady, I hope this ship comes not for you.”
I regarded her uneasily. “Why?”
She answered flatly. “Trader.”
Ah, no. We were fast running out of options. “Are they looking for the crashed Aristo ship?”
“Yes. We gave them the two Razers.” Natil grimaced. “Still the Traders say, ‘We punish.’”
Her words cut like honed steel. I had seen how the Traders punished worlds. How far they took it would depend on the importance of the Aristo who had died, how close their kinship ties were to his family, and what they thought they could get away with. Their retaliation could range from kidnapping Shay natives to slagging this entire moon. Most likely they would abduct whatever Shay they could sell for a good price in their slave markets and then destroy this city.
“This is a Skolian world,” I said. “They’re breaking so many treaties by coming here, I can’t count them.” I could, actually. They were violating four clauses in the Halstaad Code of War. We could take them to trial on any one and win—which right now meant about as much as nits in a nova.
“What can we do?” Natil asked.
Good question. “Are any starport defenses still operable?”
J’chabi answered. “All were destroyed.”
I stood thinking. “Tell them this: our ISC backup forces have the Aristo and crew from the Trader ship that crashed.”
“No ISC backup here,” Natil pointed out.
“We know that. They don’t.” I was mangling the Shay syntax, but it didn’t matter. The tension indicated by my “inverted” sentences fit the situation. “Remind them about the Halstaad Code. They know they’re violating it.”
J’chabi frowned. “I doubt that will stop them. It won’t be hard to verify that we have no ISC support.”
“But it will stall them. I’ll keep trying to reach ISC.” If I could bring in armed ships, it would put teeth into our bluff. Otherwise, the Traders would discover that they had chanced upon a far greater prize than they expected: the Ruby Pharaoh.
8
The Brooding Night
… Again I awoke in J’chabi’s home. This time I was alone. As I sat up, my arms became translucent. Alarmed, I concentrated until they solidified.
J’chabi appeared in the doorway, holding the laser carbine. “You are back.”
I spoke in a rasp, my throat dry. “How long this time?”
Concern shaded his face. “You were gone half a decadar.”
Five Opalite days. Twenty hours. It was taking longer and longer to re-form. “The Traders?”
“We sent your message to them.” He entered the room, moving with the careful courtesy he always used around me. “They have made no more hostile moves. But they haven’t left either. They seem to be waiting.”
I could guess why. They had probably surmised that ISC had little presence here aside from its orbital defense system, which was in tatters now. With the destruction of the port, no functional base remained on the moon. And apparently Opalite had only this one city, an outpost intended for scientific research. Soon the Traders would call our bluff.
“Did you reach anyone?” J’chabi asked.
“I don’t recall any contact.” I wished I had a more encouraging answer. Desperation suffused his mind. Without ISC intervention, we would become slaves or die. And more was at stake than most anyone knew. For the Traders to capture any member of the Ruby Dynasty would create a crisis. If they seized the Pharaoh, it would be a disaster.
I shuddered, trying not to think of pain and fear. My brain had neurological defenses. They blocked me from answering questions that would compromise ISC security or hurt my family. If interrogation became impossible to bear, the implants would erase my memories by disrupting neural links. But no defenses were foolproof. The Traders could learn enough from me to cripple Skolia. I would rather die than betray the people and family I loved.
J’chabi was watching my face. “What do you want me to do?”
I took a steadying breath. Then I indicated his carbine. “If the Traders come … I mustn’t go with them.”
His face paled, but he didn’t look surprised. “I understand.”
Gods willing, he wouldn’t have to kill me. The longer this standoff continued, the greater the chance that help would reach us.
A more optimistic thought came to me. “I have another idea.”
His face brightened. “Yes?”
I grinned. “It’s time to confuse our Trader guests.”
Natil scratched her chin. “Why do you want to send pretend messages?”
We were standing in an alcove off the city’s web room. Two of the security officers, Natil and the man Zinc, had joined Hajune, J’chabi, and me. With the starport destroyed, the communication console in this alcove offered the only way for us to talk with ships in orbit.
Today J’chabi translated my Iotic into Shay for the others, and their Shay in Iotic for me. Although I was learning the language, right now I couldn’t risk a mistake due to my stumbles with its nuances.
“I will make the messages sound like ISC chatter,” I said. “Both outgoing and incoming. It will all be in ISC code. But FU use a code the Traders have broken. If this works, then when they pick up the messages, they will believe ISC ships are on approach to this system.”
“But they are not,” Zinc pointed out. “Obvious this soon will be.”
I paused, considering what to reveal. During the war, our naval research labs had figured out how to hide ships in giant antimatter fuel bottles. They weren’t “bottles” in a physical sense, but rather containment fields in the shape of a Klein bottle. A normal bottle twisted the fuel out of normal space; a giant bottle could twist out an entire ship. Soz had used it to sneak an invasion fleet into Trader territory, so by now the Traders probably knew we could hide ships. That might fool these into thinking ISC forces lurked nearby, at least until they began to question why these concealed forces did nothing to assert their presence.
If, if, if. I wished I knew what was going on out there. I couldn’t tell the Shay too much, lest the Traders capture them.
I spoke carefully. “I can make it sound like ISC has new stealth tech.”
Natil didn’t look convinced. “That won’t fool anyone long.”
“Any time it can give will help,” I said.
Zinc shook his head. “We don’t know ISC codes. Nor do we know military protocols. But the Traders do. We can’t fool them.”
J’chabi watched me closely as he translated. I answered quietly. “I know the codes and protocols.”
Silence greeted my words. Then Natil said, “Very few people have such information.”
“Yes.” I left it at that.
Natil and Zinc appraised me for a long moment. Finally Natil set her hand on the high back of the comm console. “Shall we start, then?”
I exhaled, trying to release tension. “An excellent idea.”
Then I went to work.
“We demand reparations for our destroyed ship.” The voice of the Trader commander crackled on the comm. He spoke in Eubic, a standardized language used by their slave castes. It left little doubt about how he viewed us.
I wanted to answer in Highton, the language of their aristocracy, just to defy h
is assumptions of our inferiority. Given how few people knew Highton, though, it would make him suspicious. So I used Eubic, keeping my voice cool. “You can address these issues with Colonel Stonemason.” I used the name of a real person. Stonemason was an officer renowned—the Traders might say infamous—for his military prowess. He supposedly commanded the ships en route to Opalite. But I knew our bluff wouldn’t hold much longer.
“We await his arrival.” The commander’s tone had more bite than the last time we had spoken, a few hours ago.
After we finished, I leaned my elbows on the console and rested my forehead on my palms, disheartened. Natil, Zinc, and J’chabi waited, standing around the console.
Natil touched my shoulder. “Lady?”
Looking up, I spoke tiredly. “You need to evacuate the city.”
“If the Traders want to find us,” she said, “no place on Opalite will be safe.”
“True. But perhaps if we make it inconvenient enough, they will decide it isn’t worth the effort.” I pushed my hand through my hair. “They will probably destroy the city in retaliation for the ship they lost. But they might consider it a waste of time to hunt down your people. They have trillions of slaves on thousands of worlds. They don’t need more, except psions.”
J’chabi blanched as he looked at me. Natil considered him, then me. “I understand that Hajune Tailor and his wife are empaths.”
“Yes.” My thoughts lurched at the memory of Skyhold. “The Razers found him in the upper forest, so he and Sky-hold should flee into the lower forest. But evacuate the city in all directions. It will help confuse matters. The Traders may not consider Hajune worth a lengthy search. They must have far more pressing concerns right now, after the Radiance War.”
Natil spoke quietly. “I think you too should evacuate into the lower forest.”
I swallowed. Then I gave an affirmative lift of my hand. Even that slight motion felt heavy.
For now the Traders were holding off. But their commander was becoming impatient.
“Lady Dehya.” Urgency filled J’chabi’s words. “We must go.”
I snapped awake, sitting up even before the sleep cleared from my mind. J’chabi was kneeling next to me, with Natil and Zinc looming behind him.
“What is it?” I asked, pulling on my boots.
“The Traders are sending down shuttles.” He spoke in a low voice, as if they could hear us even here, despite the aural shields that shrouded his home. He handed me a pulse gun. As I strapped its belt around my hips, I saw he had a similar gun at his side. Anyone he shot would die instantly, their body torn apart by serrated projectiles that moved at hypersonic speeds.
Including me.
We fled his home during the brooding night, beneath the great banded orb of Slowcoal. Bathed in its red light, we ran for our lives and our freedom.
Ridges, tripods, beetle-tanks. Forest surrounded us. Natil and Zinc walked ahead, and J’chabi came with me. Behind us, Hajune supported Skyhold, helping her keep our pace. His bittersweet love suffused the night. For all his joy at her survival, he knew that if they became slaves, they both faced a lifetime of what she had already endured. Aristos lavished care on their pleasure slaves, far better than the Razers had treated Skyhold, but it was only because they wanted their valuable property in good shape. It didn’t make them any less sadistic, only more accomplished in what they inflicted.
I tried not to dwell on the future. Instead, I sought memories of good times, knowing they might soon be all that remained of what I cherished. Once, in his youth, Eldrin had set up a surprise for me. I had worked a grueling day in the web. That evening, exhausted, I had gone home to my new husband, a man I hardly knew. I opened the door into an empty living room dimly lit from an orb in one corner. Suddenly a slew of small holos had run into the room: soldiers, dancers, jugglers, mimes, drummers, revelers—all one hand-span high. They whirled around me and I stopped, dumbfounded.
A deep laugh came from the archway across the room. Eldrin stood there, mischief in his gaze. Like my friends? he asked. They’re for you.
Later that evening, I had shown him how much I appreciated his greeting. Taquinil had been born nine months later.
Up ahead, Natil froze, holding up her hand. We all stopped, listening.
Voices. They spoke Eubic.
My stomach felt as if it dropped. The Traders were off to our left, closing on our location.
J’chabi spoke in a low voice. “Dehya and I should separate from the rest of you.”
“Go,” Natil said urgently. “We will draw their attention.”
I glanced at Hajune and Skyhold, he with his arm around her waist. The color had drained from their faces, making them ghostly in the red light.
“Be well,” I said in Shay. Then J’chabi and I took off, going west.
After several minutes, we came out of the trees on the shore of a lake. We dove in and swam hard. Large swells roiled the surface. Even soaking wet, my clothes caused little problem; I had the same strength as always, but less weight to move through the water. My body displaced just as much liquid as it would on a heavier gravity world, though. I felt as if I were floating in a heavy mist.
On the far shore, we waded out onto a gravel beach. As an armored crab-creature scuttled in front of us, we surveyed the area, looking and listening. The forest started twenty paces up the beach.
J’chabi said, “I think it is all ri—”
Then he froze, his sentence lost.
Trader soldiers were striding out of the forest.
9
Yazar
They came like specters through the mist, eight of them, all in gray flex-armor. Helmets hid their faces. Some had pulse rifles, deadly silver mammoths that caught glints of red from the ruddy night.
I had no time for fear. Whirling around, I sprinted away from them, my hand dropping to my gun. Before I had gone more than a few steps, a projectile hit my back. It didn’t explode, rip me up, shake apart my insides, or otherwise commit mayhem. It just knocked me over. Even as I fell, I yanked out my weapon. Twisting in the air, I landed on my back, already firing, my body toggled into an enhanced speed mode.
Something thunked my wrist, and a loud crack split the air. As my hand spasmed, my gun went flying. Still moving, not even pausing to breathe, I scrambled to my feet. Jaichabi was already up to his knees, his gun out and aimed. But against this many soldiers we had less chance of escape than an ice cube in hell.
My sense of time changed, slowing, though my nodes claimed I was still in an accelerated mode. “Jaichabi.” My voice sounded deathly in the thick air. “Now.”
He turned, bringing his gun to bear on me. Grief etched his face, but he never wavered. We both knew the price of my capture by the Traders. With a dream-like calm, I watched his thumb press the firing stud. Thunder echoed in the forest.
Yet even as he fired, his gun snapped out of his hand as if a giant had tapped it. The weapon sailed in a slow arc toward the lake. The bullet he had fired whipped past my head, close enough for its serrated edges to slice off a tendril of my hair. The lock wisped across my cheek and fell down my front.
Still caught in a slowed time sense, I turned my head. New commandos were broiling out of the forest, these in black armor instead of gray, their dark forms vivid against the backdrop of foggy trees. Their black visors glinted, probably giving them heads-down displays. Conduits on their armor glittered with a hard-edged sheen. I had no doubt that the techno-warriors inside that armor had the enhanced speed, strength, and neural augmentation of lethal combat machines. They ran across the beach, six of them, like shadows come to life, deadly shades.
The Traders turned their attack on the newcomers. Both groups were firing now, using weapons far more fatal than whatever had hit my wrist Bursts of light jumped in the misty air. The armor they all wore offered some protection, but it couldn’t stop pulse weapons and lasers.
The battle ended in seconds. The three surviving Traders threw down their weapons and raised
their arms. The remains of four others lay crumpled in fused piles of gray armor. One of the Traders had run, but I doubted he could outpace the black-armored commandos.
Then the leader of the commandos removed her helmet. Her hair fell free, dark as a moonless night, wild around her face and shoulders. Towering on the beach, long-legged and muscular, all in black, she stood with her booted feet planted wide and her laser carbine trained on J’chabi. The gigantic weapon glittered red. Fierce exultation flushed her face, as if she were the incarnation of an avenging goddess descended to scourge the world.
My sister-in-law had arrived.
10
Majda Prime
“Vazar?” I gaped at her. Time snapped back to normal and nausea rolled over me, a delayed reaction to the carnage on the beach. Pain stabbed my wrist, then receded, probably as my nanomeds numbed the area.
Vazar strode forward, her gun trained on J’chabi. With eloquence, she said, “Shoot at her again, you scum on a slime-mold, and you’re fucking dead.”
“Vaz, wait,” I said.
She directed one of her warriors to J’chabi. “Watch him.”
“Vaz, listen to me,” I said. “This is Jaichabi Na, my contact here. He gave me shelter and aid. He was following my orders to shoot, so the Traders wouldn’t capture me. I don’t want him hurt. Understand?”
Vazar stopped in front of me. My head barely came to her shoulder. Her fierce gaze was even more disconcerting up close. She motioned over two of her commandos, giants in black body-armor. “Don’t let anyone near the Pharaoh. If anyone threatens Her Highness, slag the worm-eating vermin.”
I tried again. “Vazar, answer me.”
She finally focused on my face. “My honor at your exalted presence, Pharaoh Dyhianna.”
“I’m glad to see you.” That was certainly an understatement. I could have hugged her, if I hadn’t been afraid her return embrace would crack me in half. “But I don’t want you killing everything that moves.” In all the years I had known her, I had seen her like this only one other time. But then, I had never seen her in battle before.