A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (11 page)

Rinharte immediately broke into a run. She made for the ladder leading up the forward bulkhead to the upper deck. Taking the steps two at a time, she clambered upwards. Boots sounded behind her.

Ever since the clone had awakened less than one week ago, she had been dreading something similar occurring. She had insisted on guards outside the cabins containing the sarcophagi. Stumbling onto the landing, she turned and ducked through the hatch onto the upper deck.

And came to an immediate halt.

Approaching along the gangway were three figures in blue coveralls. They were not crew. Rinharte knew every rated and petty officer aboard
Tempest
. These three were identical—a young man of round features and brown hair cut short in an old-fashioned style. One carried a boarding-axe… and Rinharte knew with a falling heart that one of her marines lay dead or injured on the deck above.

“Excuse me.” Kordelasz shouldered past her, drawing his sword as he did so. Rinharte put her hand to her own hilt. She glanced back over her shoulder, saw Alus filling the hatch. He squeezed through and pulled out his boarding-axe. She stepped to one side to allow him to pass. Maganda remained on the landing, peering through at Kordelasz and Alus as they approached the clones.

Maganda abruptly looked up the ladder to the quarter-deck and her hand stole to her sword. She unsheathed it in a smooth motion. The sound of booted feet descending the ladder reached Rinharte. She swore under her breath.

Leaving Kordelasz and Alus to deal with the three clones in the gangway, Rinharte stepped out onto the landing to join the midshipman. Looking up, she saw a further pair of clones coming down from the quarter-deck landing. She yanked out her blade and waited.

When the clones’ booted feet were at the same height as her head, she stabbed. The point of her sword took one in the ankle. He screeched and his leg buckled. She jabbed him a second time, in the torso, as he tumbled forwards. Maganda was busy doing the same to the other clone. She pinked him in the thigh, then in the chest. The first clone landed heavily at Rinharte’s feet. He was dead. Taking care not to stab herself, she bent over and man-handled the body across the landing to the head of the ladder. He tumbled down the stairs.

The remaining clone was made of sterner stuff. Ignoring his wounds, he stumbled against Maganda and caught her in a hug. Her arms were trapped at her sides. She writhed and struggled, but could not free herself.

Rinharte moved to help. She tried to pull the clone from the midshipman but he would not shift. Her own sword hampered her attempt to get a good grip. So she lifted it high and brought the pommel down on the back of the clone’s neck.
Hard
. He immediately fell limp. Maganda unwrapped his arms and pushed him away.

“No!” Rinharte cried. She reached out—

The unconscious clone fell back against the railing. Over-balancing, he tipped over. And hung there. Rinharte winced as the corpse slowly drifted away from the landing, floating serenely sixty feet above the wooden decking.

“Damn it,” she muttered. “We need one to question.”

She turned back to look through the hatch onto the upper-deck. In time to see Alus bury his axe in the head of a clone. It sliced through the man’s brow, between his eyes, bisected his nose and lodged in his lower jaw. As the boat-sergeant worried his axe-blade free, the two halves of the man’s head began to separate. Rinharte shuddered and looked away.

The other two clones in the gangway lay at Kordelasz’s feet. The marine-captain gazed down at them, blood dripping from his sword, an expression of martial glee on his face. He spun about. “This way, man,” he said quickly. “There’ll be more above.”

He broke into a run, heading for the ladder at the far end of the gangway.

“He has a point,” Rinharte remarked, more to herself than to Midshipman Maganda. There were twenty—no,
nineteen
—clones aboard
Tempest
. She turned and began to ascend the ladder. Maganda immediately followed her.

From the quarter-deck landing, Rinharte peered forward through the hatch. She saw a pair of marines struggling with twice their number of clones. The marines had not managed to pull out their weapons and were striking out with fists and boots. The clones seemed not to notice the damage inflicted upon them. Doors along the gangway slid open and more bodies appeared. Rinharte spotted Kordelasz and Alus at the far end of the gangway. They went to the marines’ rescue, the marine-captain’s blade flashing and clones falling about him. Alus gave great meaty swings of his boarding-axe, severing arms, legs, burying its blade in heads and chests. Yet clones continued to appear.

The doors nearest the hatch onto the troop-deck slid open. Two clones emerged from each. They turned and gazed blankly at Rinharte and Maganda. Moving slowly at first, but increasing their pace, they approached the hatch.

“Marine-Corporal! Get your men up to the quarter-deck. The clones have broken out!”

Rinharte glanced at Maganda and nodded in approval: the midshipman was calling for help using the ship’s pipe by the hatch. It might well be too late. Rinharte took position before the open hatch, feet apart, elbows out, sword held ready with point high. At least they could only come at her one at a time through the hatchway.

The first walked straight at her. He made no move to dodge or protect himself. She stabbed him in the eye. He toppled soundlessly backwards, hands up. What in heavens, she wondered, drove them on? They displayed no intelligence, no recognition of likely injury or death. And yet… The other clone, the one who had woken himself; he had seemed very much alive and aware. These could almost be automatons.

Maganda took Rinharte’s side, flashing her captain a nervous grin as she did so. The girl was holding up well. Rinharte had told Kordelasz many weeks ago that “Romi would suit”, and the young woman had not failed her yet. Despite her reputation aboard
Vengeful
. That had been lies and untruths, most probably dreamt up by Lieutenant Gogos. Rinharte still had plans for the midshipman, although she had so far failed to make much headway with them.

Two clones tried to squeeze through the hatch at the same time. They succeeded only in wedging themselves tight. Their hands reached out to grab Rinharte and Maganda. Rinharte leant forward and casually pushed the point of her sword into the breast of one. Maganda stabbed the other in the hand. He shrugged off the wound and continued to grasp for the midshipman. She stabbed him in the neck.

For a moment, the two clones hung in the hatch, unable to fall. Inexorably, they began to slide down. They tumbled backwards. The remaining clone trod on their corpses, staggering at the unsure footing.

Booted feet echoed up the ladder. Rinharte glanced down, saw figures in green racing up towards her. Marines.

“Come,” she told Maganda. “The bridge.”

She stepped through the hatch, made to stab the clone, changed her mind… And punched him between the eyes with the pommel of her sword. He went limp and fell to the decking. “We need one to question,” she explained as she stepped over the bodies littering the route forward.

The only access to the forecastle, where the bridge and signal house were situated, was via a ladder near the prow, at the other end of the quarter-deck gangway. Which was currently blocked by struggling figures. Rinharte hurried forward. Reaching the knot of battling clones and marines, she sought a route past. She hastily shoved her sword into its scabbard. A clone with his back to her kicked and punched at a marine. She grabbed his shoulders, lifted him bodily and swung him around. The blade of a sword speared him through the neck, erupting just below one ear and spraying blood across another clone. Maganda yanked back her sword, gave a mutter of disgust and then smiled brightly at her captain.

Another clone blocked their way. Rinharte grabbed the front of his coveralls, hauled him in close and punched him in the face. She shook her hand. It hurt, almost as if she had shattered her knuckles. The clone shook his head, and grinned redly through the blood pouring from his nostrils. She put a hand to the side of his head. And swung to the left with a fierce twist of her torso. His head impacted the bulkhead with sickening thud. She dropped him, leaving a bloody smear, and turned—

In time to receive a blow to the temple. Stunned, she stumbled backwards, tripping over the clone she had knocked out. The clone before her jumped forward, swinging his fists. Another punch caught her below the eye. She yelped at the pain and sprawled backwards. As she lay there, a figure in white coveralls and blue jacket hurdled her: Midshipman Maganda.

The young woman did not much resemble a fighter. Willowy and svelte, she seemed more clerical than martial. With an incoherent cry, she bowled into the clone, one knee high. The knee-cap caught him in the solar plexus. A fist smashed into his mouth. He went over backwards beneath the onslaught. Landing booted feet on his thighs, Maganda delivered a kick to the side of the clone’s head.

Rinharte accepted a hand up from her acting executive officer, and reflected briefly how little she knew about the midshipman. She put fingertips to her injured cheek and winced.

“Romi!”

Rinharte recognised the yell as Kordelasz’s; she turned… to see Maganda pirouette urgently away from an axe swung by a clone. The blade swished down, the midshipman moved out from beneath it… Not far enough. The axe caught her on the forearm. But the angle was too flat, and both arm and blade moving. Still it cut deep. Red well up through rent blue cloth. Maganda cried out and fell back.

Rinharte stepped forward, grabbed the clone’s hand wrapped about the axe’s shaft. She pulled him forward, brought an elbow round and struck him on the head. She was in the act of bringing a knee up when a pair of hands grabbed the clone by his ears and rudely jerked him backwards. Across a raised knee. With a muffled crack, his back broke. He rolled and dropped to the floor. The marine responsible nodded respectfully at Rinharte, then turned back to the fray.

The gangway was sufficiently clear to pass the melee. Rinharte and Maganda—the latter cradling her wounded arm—ran for the ladder and scrambled up to the forecastle.

Two clones were busy struggling to open the hatch into bridge, and did not notice the arrival of Rinharte and Maganda. One flicked the open switch repeatedly, to no effect, while the other scrabbled with bloody fingers at the hatch’s edge. There was, decided Rinharte as she moved forward, nothing intelligent in their actions. Almost animal, in fact. She drew her sword and spiked the one at the switch through the back of the neck. Maganda followed suit on the other. The pair dropped, loose-limbed, without a sound.

Rinharte opened a circuit on the caster by the hatch. “You can open up,” she ordered. “The clones are seen to.”

Turning to Maganda, she instructed, “Get yourself to the sick-berth, Romi. Have someone see to your wound.”

The midshipman turned to go.

“And Romi?”

Maganda turned back.

“Well done,” Rinharte said. “I’ll see you get a promotion to mate for your actions today.”

The young woman grinned. She raised a hand but stopped in mid-salute, wincing. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Behind Rinharte, the hatch to the bridge clunked loudly and began to swing open.

Rinharte leaned forward, hands flat on the table-top, arms straight. “How many did we manage to save?” she asked.

Marine-Captain Kordelasz looked down sheepishly. “Er, none, ma’am. Every single one dead.”

She stared at him. “I,” she said slowly, “know of at least two I took care only to stun.”

Maganda, bandaged arm in a sling, nodded. She had been there.

“When we came to clear up the bodies, none were still breathing,” Kordelasz explained. “One or two showed no wounds.” He gazed up at his captain. “Speaking of which… That’s a nice bruise you have there, ma’am.”

She put a hand to the darkened flesh on her cheek and winced. There was some slight swelling, but a surgeon’s mate had told her it would last no more than a day or two. The multi-hued bruise would remain longer. “It’s trivial,” Rinharte told Kordelasz. “Romi took a much more serious wound.”

The marine-captain directed a sunny smile at the midshipman.

“What were our casualties?” Rinharte asked.

Kordelasz sobered. “The two marines on duty on the quarter-deck were found dead. No other fatalities.” He paused, smiled once again at Maganda. “Or—other than Romi—wounds, for that matter. I’d say we got off lightly, but there wasn’t much to them, to tell the truth. They fought with no skill or intelligence.”

“I thought that too.” Rinharte frowned. “They couldn’t have been more different to the one who escaped when we were at Linna.”

“Do we know what woke them?” Maganda asked.

“No. We know just as much as we did before. But…” Rinharte smiled grimly. “Now that the sarcophagi are empty, we can dismantle one to understand its workings. Get a mechanician and an artificer on it.”

The midshipman nodded in acknowledgement.

“Tell them to take the thing to pieces and to follow every hose and pipe wherever it may lead.”

“To the armoury,” said Kordelasz matter-of-factly.

Rinharte shook her head. “No. You’re wrong there, Garrin. I’ve no evidence why I think so, but I believe the clones were woken remotely —”

“We’re in the toposphere,” scoffed Kordelasz. “No ship can communicate here.”

“Casimir can,” replied Rinharte.

Kordelasz closed his mouth. Maganda sat up straighter.

She asked, “Ma’am?”

Slowly, Rinharte settled in her seat and leaned back. “Surely you’ve heard the tales, Romi? No? Well… How to put this? Casimir Ormuz, the young lord who leads us, can access a place he calls the ‘nomosphere’. In there, he has at its fingertips all the information in the Empire. No one understands the how and why of it, least of all Casimir. But it is a talent he shares with the Serpent. He has, in fact, met the Serpent there.” A thought occurred to her. “Perhaps the nomosphere is how the clones are woken? Some signal sent from there?”

“It makes as much sense as any other explanation,” conceded Kordelasz.