"I told you what I'd do if I saw you again," Kys said, struggling up to meet her.
"What? Kill me?" Madsen answered. She sneered and raised her auto.
Kys turned. She had no weapon. There was a bloody hole in her left shoulder.
Madsen began to fire.
Kys flipped the fish scales off her collar stud telekinetically... one, two, three...
Spinning, whirring, they sliced into Madsen's windpipe.
Limbs flailing, weapon firing, Madsen fell backwards off the broken gantry and plunged away into the firestorm.
"Come on." Kys yelled, staggering back to Zael. "Come on!" They ran as the drive room began to collapse around them.
The bridge was empty. Kinsky's body lay in the second helm station. Halstrom lay in the command throne. The display screens and hololiths showed how the Oktober Country's guns were punishing the Hinterlight.
Kinsky twitched in his coma. A smile twitched on his lips. It had been a hard fight, certainly the hardest psi-duel he'd ever fought in his life. He had to give Ravenor that much. But it was at an end now. Far away in enginarium basic, Ravenor was down, dazed, pinned, and Kinsky's non-corporeal jaws were closing around the inquisitor's throat. As a final, artistic flourish, Kinsky's mind-form sprouted venomous teeth to deliver the coup.
With a ghastly intake of air, Wystan Frauka sat up. A bubble of blood bulged at his nostril and popped.
Slowly, very slowly, he pulled himself upright and bent over Kinsky.
"Hey," he said. He slapped Kinsky's cheek. "Hey!"
Swaying back, Frauka produced his lho-stick carton and his lighter. He stuck a stick in his mouth and lit it. When he exhaled, smoke puffed out of the hole in his chest too.
"Frig! These things'll kill you," he said, to no one in particular. Then he leaned over.
"Hey," he said again, kicking at Kinsky's leg. Kinsky remained still.
Frauka reached up and deactivated his limiter.
Suddenly, shockingly, sucked back into his own skull, Kinsky thrashed and woke up. Feebly, he reached out, and looked up at Frauka's face.
Frauka took the stick out of his mouth, exhaled, put it back between his lips, and lent down. He took Kinsky's skull in his hands and wrenched it around. Kinsky's neck snapped with a pop.
"And there you go," Frauka said. He switched his limiter back on, took the lho-stick out of his mouth, and fell over.
FIVE
Suddenly Kinsky was gone. His psi-form melted, the ectoplasmic structure of it thawing away like snow. He was dead. I was in no doubt about that, though I had no idea how.
My mind was lacerated, damaged from the fight, but I knew I could not submit to unconsciousness yet. I could sense the terrible damage being inflicted on the defenceless ship.
I looked down at enginarium basic around me. Mathuin and Preest were still pinned down behind the stack console by Skoh's hunters. I stabbed out, and each hunter was felled by a psychic-dagger. Dead or unconscious - I didn't much care which - they dropped where they were.
+Cynia!+
"G-Gideon?"
+Get up! You're clear! There's no time! Get up and override Madsen's codes... Quickly, woman! +
She and Mathuin rose. She started working at the console. Struck again, the ship rolled badly.
"What the bloody hell is happening to my darling?" Preest wailed.
+Just override the codes! We need to get the shields raised! +
She did as she was told. But even if she was successful, there needed to be someone on the bridge to get the shields up.
I soared out of enginarium basic and hurtled up through the decks, through bulkheads, through cabins open to hard vacuum, through chambers gutted by fire.
I swept through the light cargo holds, burning out the minds of the hunters about to overwhelm dear Kara as I passed.
+Get my chair to the bridge!+ I left the command ringing in her head as I flew on.
Up through spinal, through the lateral halls, along the midships companion way. There was Nayl. Without even pausing, I slammed Feaver Skoh into the wall as I went by. He fell heavily, unconscious.
I entered the bridge. It was in uproar - klaxons, alarms, red hazard lights and runes on almost every display. There was Kinsky, dead in one seat, Wystan Frauka sprawled across him, dead or dying. In the command throne, Halstrom. He looked dead too.
His breathing was shallow. His mind had been badly abused.
+Halstrom! Halstrom!+
He twitched, but he did not wake.
I had no other option. I had to ware him.
He cried out as I went in, waking with the shock. Using his expertise, I studied the main console. Still locked out. The auspex showed the Oktober Country all but alongside, firing still.
With Halstrom's fingers, I opened the intercom.
"Preest! Are you done yet?" My words sounded strange in Halstrom's voice.
"Nearly, she says." Mathuin answered. A pause. "Try it now."
Nothing.
"Correction." Mathuin added. "Try it now."
Primary control had just been restored. I hit a series of controls and raised the shields.
Not all ignited. Thekla's attack had already vaporised some shield nodes and power feeds, and those that did come on were weak. Still, the vibration from the bombardment abated slightly.
I tried to probe Halstrom's beaten mind, to work out what he would do.
The shields, like most of the ship's systems, derived their power from the ship's primary reactor, which drove the real-space drives. But the fire in the real-space chambers had cut that back by about seventy-five per cent, taking the Hinterlight's motive power away with it. Instead, I woke up the secondary reactor, whose only function was to power the currently deactivated warp drive. I transferred that power into the primaries and immediately boosted their shields by forty per cent. It was unorthodox practice, risky too, but an old and very workable Fleet captain's trick, courtesy of Halstrom's experience.
I became aware of Nayl as he came up beside me.
"Halstrom?" he asked.
"No, it's me," I said.
"Ah. Thought so. Guessing that was you who suckered Skoh outside too?"
"Yes."
Nayl nodded. "Thanks for that."
I was working too hard for decent conversation. Despite the boosted shields, large parts of the starboard flank, the focus of Thekla's onslaught, were still vulnerable, lacking as they did any remaining shields to reinforce. The Oktober Country would still kill us in short order, unless...
Another little trick from Halstrom's mind. With what little motive power I could squeeze from the damaged real-space drive, I got the ship moving and turning. We slid through coruscating flame walls of the solar storm, turning hard to port. Thekla's ship spurred after us, still firing its fusion batteries.
"Can you... fly this thing?" Nayl asked.
"No. But Halstrom can." Turning her hard, I was presenting the Hinterlight's undamaged port side - and active shields - to Thekla's ruinous guns. Of course, with very much less motive thrust than the Oktober Country, it was going to be near-impossible keeping it there. Already, Thekla was steering out under us to come around at our wounded quarters again.
"Harlon... see what weapons we have left," I said.
He crossed to the fire control station and started to fumble with the unfamiliar function controls. I kept the turn tight, rolling the ship to keep the full shields pointing at Thekla's dogged attack.
"Frig all," Nayl said at last. "Most of it's shot out. Forget lasers, fusion beamers. I've got one missile battery under the prow that's still live."
"Arm it and target it on the Oktober Country's bridge," I said. It was getting hard to maintain control over Halstrom. He was fading fast. I could feel perspiration dripping off his brow as he struggled to stay conscious.
"They'll be shielded." Nayl scoffed. "Especially around the bridge section."
"I know, Harlon."
"They've been whaling on us for a good ten minutes. W
e're junked. They're still at optimum. We're not going to achieve anything firing at their bridge except wasting our last missiles."
"I know. Please do as I ask."
"Very well..." he shrugged.
Halstrom was slipping away. I made one last effort to turn the ship and then stepped out of his mind. Released, he fell back in the chair. Non-corporeal, I looked at the displays. We'd turned hard, but in another sixty seconds, the Oktober Country would pull clear and resume firing on our damaged sections.
"Armed and targeted." Nayl reported.
+Harlon, when you hear me give the word, fire. No questions.+
He nodded.
I left the bridge.
Through plating, through insulation layers, through inner and outer hull sections, through raised shields, into open space.
Firetide swelled around me, as far as my mind could see. An ocean expanse of flame and seething discharge, crackling and shimmering. Behind me, the wounded bulk of the Hinterlight, sagging and wallowing in the storm. Ahead, the great, dark shape of the predatory Oktober Country, roaming in for the kill, weapon banks flaring and spitting.
It was a gigantic sprint trader, ornate and exquisite, one of the most ancient human ships I had ever seen. I could smell its great age, the dusty odours of its long, rigorous life, the musky, spiced auras of the far flung places it had visited, the xenos perfumes of its more ungodly voyages.
I could taste the steely resolve of its ruthless master.
I swept on, through the cavorting radiance of the storm and went in, through its shields, its hull...
Thekla stood on a raised platform, studying his actuality sphere. Target runes were clustering around the graphic of the Hinterlight. He was a tall man, regal, in a selpic blue coat furnished with gold braid and a silk cravat. His face was an organic tracery of inlaid circuitry. MIU linkage cables tracked out from the base of his skull, from under the powdered wig he wore, and connected his mind to the sprint trader's systems. His hands were augmetic. He was shouting orders to his bridge crew.
There were thirteen of them, arranged around the edge of his platform, operating polished brass stations. Helm, sub-helm, system-control, vox-and-com, navigation supervisor, ordnance officer, defence officer...
Defence officer. I plunged into the man's mind.
+Now, Harlon. Now.+
"The Hinterlight has launched missiles, master!" the ordnance officer called out beside me.
I heard Thekla laugh. "One last effort, eh? Rather too little, too late, I think."
The defence officer was fighting me. He struggled and contorted.
"Lefabre? What the frig's the matter with you, man? You're twitching around like an idiot!"
I was hurt, weak. The man's mind was strong. At this range, and through the turmoil of the storm, my abilities were desperately limited, especially without the boosting relay of a wraithstone marker.
But I would not let him go. Frantically, I blew out his neural system, and forced his twitching hands onto the brass levers of his station.
And cut the Oktober Country's shields.
In the last millisecond of his life, Thekla realised what was happening and screamed out a name.
My name, in fact.
Eight missiles, in tight formation, screamed in silently out of the storm and vaporised the Oktober Country's bridge, taking everyone with it.
SIX
"Ready for this?" Kys asked.
"Yes, I am. Quite ready." Ravenor replied. His voice still sounded odd, anguished almost. There had been no time to repair his chair's damaged voxponder.
The hatch opened. Ravenor slid forward into the bare cell, flanked by Kys and Carl Thonius.
Feaver Skoh shivered and looked up at the trio. He had been stripped naked, and chained to the wall.
"You," he murmured. They could smell his fear. He had been expecting this.
"We are going to have a conversation," Ravenor said. "How pleasant it becomes is up to you."
Skoh shrugged. "I've got nothing left," he said. "Ask what you want, inquisitor."
"Where do the flects come from?"
"The Mergent Worlds," he said simply.
"The Mergent Worlds are out of bounds. Forbidden, interdicted by the Fleet." Kys said. "How can that be?"
Skoh looked at her. "Rogue traders go many places that are forbidden," he said. "The very best can get wherever they want. If the return is good enough."
"The best?" Thonius asked. "Like your friend Thekla, you mean?"
"Thekla, and the others."
"A consortium?" Ravenor said. Skoh shrugged again.
"Thekla... and Akunin?"
He nodded. "Akunin, Vygold, Marebos, Foucault, Strykson, Braeden. Those are the ones I know."
"What is contract thirteen?" Thonius asked.
Skoh blinked, amazed.
"I heard you and Mamzel Madsen talking." Thonius explained.
"And it was in Duboe's mind." Ravenor added.
"That frigging idiot. All right. It's... it's the reason the flect thing began in the first place. Contract thirteen is an off-books arrangement between the rogue consortium and the Ministry of Subsector Trade. The terms of the contract are simple. The traders go to the Mergent Worlds and recover tech salvage."
"What do you mean by 'tech salvage'?" Kys said.
"Whatever they can find. Spica Maximal is the target of choice. Hive cities, population centres, whatever, all just resurfaced from the warp storm. They're loaded with stuff. Hive towers of the Administratum, full of codifiers, cogitation banks, out-use terminals. That's what the Ministry wants. The consortium hauls it back, holds filled to bursting, and delivers it to Petropolis. In return, the Ministry pays. Pays pretty well. And also supplies the consortium with times, dates and codes to help them get around the fleet interdiction blockade."
"Why does the Ministry want the tech?" Thonius asked.
Skoh shook his head. "I don't know." He winced as Ravenor squeezed his mind with a psi-tweak. "Really, I don't! I'm just a game agent. I ride with Thekla."
"Make that... rode with Thekla." Kys smiled.
"Whatever. I relied on him for a lift out to the rip-worlds. More often than not he was going that way because he was on a contract run. I got to see what he did. I was there. But I don't know why. Tech... tech stuff is valuable, right? Isn't that why?"
"Perhaps," Ravenor said.
"What about the flects?" Kys said.
"They were there. Everywhere. I mean, on a place like Spica Maximal, they were all over the ground, far as the eye could see. When we found out what they did, we brought them back with us. The Ministry paid good for the contract cargoes, but it got that a trader in the consortium could double, triple his earnings running flects on the side. That's... that's where I got into it. The side action." Skoh looked down, as if he was ashamed. That seemed unlikely. Just caught.
"The Ministry didn't object to the flect trade?" Thonius asked.
"At first. But they tolerated it. Everyone was happy."
"Until my team opened it up, through Duboe and yourself," Ravenor said.
Skoh nodded. "Yeah. That's why we got into this. You had to be silenced."
"Because my interest in the flect trade had put me close to something much bigger?"
"Yes."
"And the parties involved couldn't very well move against an inquisitor on a world like Eustis Majoris. Not without blowing everything. So they decide to lure me out to Lucky Space, dropping hints and clues to keep me interested. And out here... I could be disposed of, and no one would know better."
"That was the plan," said Skoh.
"Madsen's plan?" Kys asked.
"Madsen's plan." Skoh agreed. "But Kinsky made it work by thinking ahead of you. Duboe, Siskind... whatever it took. Planting clues, shielding other memories. Drawing you on."
A sudden chill wrapped the cell. Frost crackled up the metal walls.
"One last thing..." said Ravenor.
"Oh!" gasped Skoh. "Shit, please..." br />
I slammed into his unhappy mind, turned away his surface thoughts and buried my mind in his memories. From the first scent of the synapses, I knew everything he had told us had been the truth. But I went back. Further.
Spica Maximal. Mergent World. Lately resurfaced, dead, from the horrors of the warp storm, like lost ships dredged up, dripping and rotten, from an ocean depth. I was Feaver Skoh, crunching down a blasted slope with others of Thekla's landing party.
Before me, a vast wasteland of jet cinders and blackened material, twisted, bulbous, shattered, crusted. The sky was domed and full of rushing, splintered cloud. A sun, red as a blood-shot eye, was rising in the firmament. There were buildings ahead of me, towers and spires and cyclopean citadels, all ruined, all made of solidified night. A burned city. A murdered hive. I walked down the vast towers, and saw their countless windows, row upon row, tier upon tier, deadlights like eye sockets, giving back no reflection, stained by unimaginable ages spent in consuming darkness. The crazed black soil under my feet was covered in a myriad shards of broken glass. Imperfectly, like a deranged mosaic, they reflected back Skoh's image.
For a moment I shivered. I was back in Bergossian's dream, the dream that had nearly dragged me to my doom in the deadlofts of Petropolis.
But this was no dream. It was Skoh's memory of Spica Maximal. Bergossian, poor lunatic Bergossian, had seen it in his visions.
The visions of the flects.
They were under my feet. The endless, shattered pieces of glass blown out from the numberless windows of the great hive. Each one charged with power from the long ages they had lingered, submerged in the warp. Each shard was loaded with a reflection of something.
And some things were too terrible to look upon.
This was what Skoh and the other freebooters had collected and dealt. Broken glass from the ruins of a warp-engulfed hive.
I withdrew from his memory. Skoh slumped back, gasping.
"That is all." I told him.
"I... I have one question. About my brother. Who killed him?"
"He was shot by my warrior Zeph Mathuin during combat," I said. "But Mathuin serves me, so the actual answer to your question is... I did."