‘I don’t mind,’ I said hastily. ‘Or not too much, apart from not seeing you every day.’
‘You should be in the KSF,’ continued Raine. ‘I mean, you know more about ship systems and combat and everything than I do. More than the other officers, too, come to think about it. Even our captain.’
She didn’t mention that was because most of the veterans had been killed when Prince Atalin swept through the system. There was also a hidden question, which Raine was hinting at. We’d kind of moved on from being all about unspoken modes of communication into some actual verbal stuff. Raine had begun to want to know more about me and my past.
I hesitated for a moment, then I told her a little bit of the truth.
‘I . . . ah . . . I was trained as a Naval officer, pretty intensively. I left to become a trader.’
‘I knew it!’ exclaimed Raine, jumping on top of me. ‘You should tell Mother! We can get you on Firestarter for sure.’
‘Raine . . . I left the . . . Five Worlds Navy . . . because I didn’t want to be a Naval officer. That’s still true.’
It was true. If—when—I got back to the Empire, I was going to leave the Navy if it was at all possible. Surely there would be another suitable cover for me as an Adjuster. Imperial Survey, maybe. I quite liked the idea of going exploring.
‘But we need you!’ protested Raine. ‘We need everyone.’
‘The Confederation fleet will arrive before the pirates,’ I reassured her. ‘Everyone says so.’
‘That’s because we want to believe it,’ said Raine. ‘It doesn’t mean it’s true.’
‘If the pirates do come through before the Confederation . . .’ I said slowly, ‘I’ll do whatever I can to help.’
Raine smiled and hugged me tight. I put my arm around her, hating that I wasn’t telling her the truth, because if it was at all possible, I would be gone long before either the Confederation or the pirates arrived.
Later, while Raine slept, I wondered if I could take her with me. But as I watched her, I knew that this couldn’t happen. Raine could only be my courtesan back in the Empire, and Haddad would quite rightly insist she be mind-programmed for obedience. She would die in the Empire, or be as good as dead, since the Raine I knew would no longer exist. I could not do that to her.
Even worse to my mind, if she was not mind-programmed, she would not want to be with Prince Khemri. I had to acknowledge that the Empire had done too much harm to her people, and as a Prince, I was the Empire. Or so it would seem to Raine.
I thought about that quite a lot, because while I wanted to be a Prince again, I did not want to lay claim to everything the Empire did. But it was an insoluble problem, for the two could not be separated. Prince and Empire. Empire and Prince. I was what they had made me.
The next morning Raine was called back on duty, with her ship about to launch. The KSF had cut short everyone’s leave, but there were no official announcements for the reason behind this, and no reliable rumour, either.
It was yet another measure of how far I had departed from the normal behaviour of a Prince that I made Raine take Ekkie for herself, with some sleight of hand covering a quick Psitek injunction to the suit to let itself be worn by her. Ekkie was by far the best vacuum suit I’d seen anywhere in Kharalcha, and I should have kept it for myself. But as I had now demonstrated twice, first in the capsule and then with the silver box I’d thought was a flower-trap, I was more concerned for her safety than my own.
Raine left with Ekkie. I forced down the feeling that I was somehow being broken in half—my Imperial self tearing away from some other identity that was emerging—and went to do my leak detecting and patching, and then to my fishing spot.
I queried the rescue beast’s growth with Psitek and was startled by its reply. I’d thought it needed another few days, but it was fully operational, reporting that it had caught additional fish on its own to complete its growth.
I waded into the lake, letting the cool water lap against my knees, and then my waist. The rescue beast came up next to me, still submerged so it could not be seen.
I started to reach my hand out to it but stopped. This was now the point of decision, come upon me unexpectedly, ahead of time.
I didn’t know what to do. This was my first step back toward the Empire, back to being Prince Khemri. If I went into the lake now and found, as I hoped, a ship, my former life would be within my grasp once more.
But it would also be the first step away from Raine. The step that could not be taken back. Did I really want to leave Raine and return to the Empire?
‘I love her,’ I whispered, trying the words out on my tongue. I had not yet said them to Raine, and now that I wanted to, it was too late.
Or was it?
I took a step back, the water coiling around my knees, settling back into its equilibrium.
Who did I really want to be? Khem, who had found the universe to be a far more varied and marvellous place than he had ever supposed? Or Prince Khemri, who I suddenly saw clearly was a cog in a vast machine? A massively overprivileged cog, to be sure, but those privileges disguised the fact that we Princes were not free. Not free to be anything other than what the Empire desired us to be.
I stood there for what felt like a very long time but was probably only seconds, torn between my past and my possible futures.
I pushed a foot back, the water swirling, and began to turn for the shore, beginning a decision that I was still not entirely sure would be my final choice.
As I turned, the artificial sky of the ring flashed from blue to a sunset red, accompanied by the sound of a long-drawn-out electronic scream followed by three short blasts, repeated over and over again.
I knew what it meant. It was the signal for all KSF to report to battle stations and civilians to Evacuation Drop Points. Not that there was much chance of getting a hundred and fifty thousand Hab dwellers down to the planet in time, but I supposed they had to try.
There was only one possible reason for the alarm. The wormhole must have reopened earlier than expected.
The pirate fleet was coming through.
20
FOR A FEW seconds I was frozen by that alarm. All my thoughts were now with Raine. Her ship would be flung out to try to stop the pirates, along with the few others that had been at least partially refitted over the last four months. A forlorn hope, the too young and the too old, in ancient, undergunned ships. They wouldn’t stand a chance. . .
‘Khem! Khem Gryphon!’
Startled, I looked around. A man and a woman were coming through the trees. Both wore green-and-black security shipsuits and carried synaptic scramblers at the ready.
I guess I’d been under closer surveillance than I’d thought.
‘Stay still and raise your hands!’
My mind changed again. I wasn’t going to hang around as a prisoner. If I stayed free, and there was a ship under this lake, I might even be able to do something useful. For Raine, if not the ungrateful Kharalchans.
I waved to the security agents and dived into the lake. The rescue beast, as per its training, dived underneath me and rose up so I was on its back. I let my breath go in a cloud of bubbles and closed my mouth over the breathing tube. Then, following a sharp Psitek command, the rescue beast took me down, down through the bright upper waters into the dark depths of the lake that led to the inner reservoir.
Unless the agents had artificial gills, they wouldn’t be following me anytime soon, and I would be really, really surprised if the Kharalchans still had that tek. If I was lucky, they wouldn’t even have seen the rescue beast and would be scouring the edges of the lake, waiting for me to reemerge somewhere along the shoreline.
There was a rigid, water-permeable membrane between the lake and the reservoir to keep fish and presumably swimmers out of the drinking water, but I knew there had to be some other access point. As the rescue beast had a sonar imager that I could tap into, it didn’t take long to find an interestingly broad airlock, much larger than
any technical access required. It was locked, but I bypassed the security with a direct Psitek command that opened both doors.
It was completely dark inside the reservoir, and not for the first time I missed my augmented eyes. But the beast had its sonar, and using that, I began a search routine, building up an image of the reservoir interior.
I was most interested in the outer wall, because this was also the outer wall of the Dolphin ring. If the reservoir narrowed at any point and this wall got thicker than its usual five metres or so, it would be a giveaway that something was hidden there.
But when I found it, it wasn’t in the outer wall. It was right out in front of me, in the very middle of the reservoir, sitting on the floor as brazen as anything. I supposed it could be mistaken for some sort of huge filter system, but I recognised the round dish shape immediately.
It was a Khorkrek-class Mektek-Bitek hybrid slingship, a design only three or four hundred years old. Which, if it was fully fitted out, not only had a Mektek wormhole drive and Mektek and Bitek interplanetary drives, but also carried a Kragor singleship, which could be launched at very high acceleration via its ‘slingshot’, a weaponised extension of Imperial gravity control that could be used to pick up and throw space junk as well as launch fighter craft.
It was exactly the kind of ship I’d always wanted for myself, in those daydreaming years in my candidate temple. It was highly automated, so I could fly it alone, at least for a while. It was precisely the sort of ship a Prince would hide away as a fast personal escape vessel that also had its own very nasty kick if it came to fighting.
I rode the rescue beast to where the hatch would be, even though nothing showed up on the sonar, laid my hand on the smooth metal hull, and sent my command.
:Report status immediately Prince Khemri >assuming command:
I almost forgot to breathe from the tube as I waited for a reply. It wasn’t immediate, and I felt a vibration through the hull before I sensed the Psitek response, but at last it came.
:Welcome Prince Khemri > to Khorkrek 1118. Status is alert from rest, rising, all systems going to full operation:
The hatch beneath me opened, and a cascade of water carried me and the rescue beast inside.
:Hold outer door open:
I held my breath and instructed the rescue beast to swim back and out into the lake, where it could survive and perhaps even prove useful to the Kharalchans. Plus it would distract the security duo and their inevitable reinforcements who would be looking for me.
The second the rescue beast was away, I told the ship to shut the outer door and pressurise. This took less than two minutes, but it felt a lot longer. Once again I’d forgotten that without augmentation, even a simple thing like holding my breath deep underwater was a considerable challenge.
Spluttering a little, I left the airlock and entered the ship. It had a Mektek hull, but that wasn’t apparent, because the last Prince who had commanded it had obviously had very particular ideas for starship interior decoration. The floors were of some kind of pseudo-marble, veined with gold, and the walls panelled in Bitek reproduction chestnut, with a deep-yellow sheen that would never need polishing. The hatches and doors, though actually Imperial Mektek armour, were also clad in Bitek fireproof timbers, so the whole ship interior looked and felt like a house of antiquity from ancient Earth. There was even a spiral staircase up to the bridge, though as I ascended, I picked up a Psitek overlay showing controls to retract the stair, and it would become a drop shaft.
I liked it. Whoever had decorated this ship had experienced a lot of the same kind of Psitek bios as I had. It even could have been modelled on one of the ships from an episode of The Achievements of Prince Garikm.
I entered the bridge through a double door of studded bronze and green leather that swung open noiselessly on my approach. Inside, a fireplace lit itself and a huge scarlet leather armchair rotated to face me. I sat down in it and felt the presence of the ship’s Bitek intelligence, eagerly awaiting my attention.
:I am in command:
There was an odd delay before the ship answered.
:Psitek confirmation. Bitek confirmation anomalous. Request code phrase:
I felt a sudden apprehension. In this body I didn’t have the correct Bitek signature, and I certainly didn’t know any code phrases relevant to this ship.
:I am an Adjuster operating in nonaugmented physicality.
Allow command on interim basis until connection to Imperial Mind possible for confirmation:
I sent that with some vehemence, putting all my mental strength behind it. Hopefully this would help convince it. Or it might know about Adjusters, with some secret instructions hidden away in its intelligence base.
There was another delay. I could almost feel the Bitek brain deep inside the ship thinking this through.
:Acknowledged. Temporary command confirmed. Relay to Imperial Mind not possible. Priest complement incomplete.
No priests in stasis:
I let out a small sigh of relief and relaxed back in the big chair. It was interesting that the ship had stasis chambers. Few Imperial ships of this size had the facility to store personnel in cold sleep until they were needed. The technology did have its drawbacks, with a loss rate of some one in ten revivals, but it saved on life-support consumption and you could stack a lot of personnel into a small space.
:Report stasis complement:
:In stasis fourteen mekbi servitors model Kergekh-Alish; ten mekbi troopers model Gilgakhr revised II; six mekbi small-access drones model Leeish; three mind-programmed humans class courtesan, gender male; three mind-programmed humans class courtesan, gender female.
Seventeen empty stasis pods, fully functional. Four empty stasis pods, compromised:
That was interesting. I’d definitely found a Prince’s personal escape ship, given the servitors and courtesans. It also begged the question of why Prince Xaojhek hadn’t taken this ship when he’d left almost three hundred years ago. I’d asked Raine and her parents about the sudden Imperial departure, in as roundabout a way as possible, but they hadn’t shed any light on the matter, and as I couldn’t look into the Hab’s knowledge base without Alice wondering about my choice of information retrieval, I’d not pursued it. All I could find from general sources was that the immediate period after the Prince bugged out had been very problematic, with few surviving records and no clear indication of what had happened.
So I thought I might as well ask the ship.
:Was Prince Xaojhek your former commander?:
:Yes. Prince Xaojhek >:
:Report last confirmed status of Prince Xaojhek and how long ago:
:In transit for system Jeghre aboard INS Lorghra. Time elapsed since report 262 years, four months, three days, six hours, and forty-five min—:
:Report rank and service Prince Xaojhek:
:Planetary Governor, Kharalcha Four, Imperial Government:
:Was Prince Xaojhek recalled by a superior Prince or by the Imperial Core?:
:No information:
:Do you know why Prince Xaojhek left the system and did not return?:
:No information: I decided to let the past go, and concentrate on the present.
:How long until systems are operational for launch and manoeuvre?:
:One hour thirty-three minutes fifteen seconds . . . fourteen sec—:
:Show available scan data for system:
:Null-Space scan single pass done eighty-two per cent confidence continuous scan not yet operational projecting now:
I looked at the wall and then at the ceiling but couldn’t see anything. Nor was there a direct Psitek neural feed.
:Uh, where is the scan projection?:
:The fireplace. Prince Xaojhek liked to see data presentations in the fire:
Unusual, but each to his own, I guessed. I started to turn to look at the fireplace. The chair, equipped for biofeedback, swivelled around. Sure enough, there, framed by actual flames, was a holographi
c representation of the system, in great but tiny detail that I couldn’t see without augmented eyes. Impatiently, I reached out and pulled the holo out of the fire and then, using the standard swipe-and-pinch technique, enlarged and scrolled it until I could see what I wanted to see.
Sixteen ships had come out of the wormhole, in four formations of four, showing considerable military precision. They were boosting toward Kharalcha Four at five G’s, indicating that they had gravity control and so were not beaten-up old hulks. They were on an interception trajectory that would meet the five considerably slower outbound ships of the KSF in about forty hours. One of those KSF ships was the Firestarter, and on board was Commtech Lieutenant Raine Gryphon.
I highlighted the pirate fleet.
:Get me all data on these ships and estimated interception time at full combat acceleration . . . uh . . . do you have an operational singleship aboard?:
:One Kragor III-class singleship is being crash-prepped from stand-down. Permission to revive mekbi servitors to accelerate preparation?:
:Permission granted. Ah, revive the mekbi troopers and the drones as well:
:And MP-human courtesans?:
:No . . . keep them on ice:
I looked at the holo again. I was out of practice for ship command, and I knew my brain just wasn’t working as quickly as it used to. I was also a bit distracted by the water dripping off my nose.
:Uh, report combat capabilities and send a servitor with a towel:
:Servitor revival in fourteen minutes. Weapon bays one to six topside no weapons in place. Weapon bays twelve to eighteen downside no weapons in place. Weapon bays seven to ten operational, in place Lixgur Standard Fourteen Mektek missile load Bitek penetrator kinetic sliver:
The ship droned on in my head, basically telling me that half its weapons had been removed, but we still packed enough missiles and two reality-stripping beam weapons to cause someone a lot of trouble, and the singleship was almost fully armed and would have a complete combat load in a few hours.
But I wasn’t giving it all my attention. I was looking first at the KSF fleet, and in particular the ship I thought was the Firestarter, and thinking about Raine. However things turned out, I would never see her again. That little orange ship icon was my last connection to her. I stared at it and wiped my nose again, and then my eyes for good measure, because some of the water had dripped into the corners and was making my sight blur.