Conventions of War (74 page)

She drew the map, but it was up to Martinez to follow it. Pride demanded that, at least.

She received few messages once communication with Zanshaa was restored. The news programs from the capital consisted in large part of executions. She didn't watch them—she'd seen quite enough of that—but took note of the names.

With the peace, the information possessed by the enemy prisoners was no longer of any value, and batches of them were being flung from the High City every day. All the members of the government, both Naxids and others, officers of the security services, and the members of the ration authority whose lives Sula had spared so the planet would not starve. Now they were all condemned, their lives forfeit, their fortunes confiscated, their clans decimated.

Good,
Sula thought.

The tiny revenant of Chenforce flew into Zanshaa's system, braked, fell into orbit around Zanshaa. Between the ships and the blue and white planet curved a vast section of the broken accelerator ring, a section so huge that it was impossible to tell from close up that it was a mere fragment of what had once been the greatest monument of interstellar civilization. The ring's smooth flank was studded with antennae, receiver dishes, and vast solar arrays.

In time, fragments of the broken ring would be nudged down to a lower orbit, reconnected to the elevator tethers, then stitched back together. Several large asteroids would be sacrificed to provide enough mass to replace the segments that had been vaporized in the antimatter explosions that had separated the ring sections.

For the moment, though, the ring was still a wreck. Tugs nudged the two warships to bays in the Fleet docks, where they would remain for months, perhaps years, awaiting their overhaul. The ring wasn't spinning, so there was no gravity, and the crew floated weightless as soon as they released their webbing.

There was no accommodation for officers or crew on the ring. Not only was there no gravity, but the vast empty tube had not yet been pumped full of air. A series of atmosphere shuttles approached the warships and hovered a short distance away while lifelines were rigged. The crew formed in their divisions, donned vac suits, and moved in small groups into the main cargo airlock, where they crawled hand over hand along the lifelines till they reached their shuttles. Their baggage came after them on lines.

Sula waited in the airlock atrium to wish them all goodbye. She stood before the doors, wearing her vac suit but without her helmet, and shook the hand of each of the crew as they passed.

It was harder than she'd expected. Building the secret army and seizing the High City had been her greatest accomplishment, but it had never been her ambition, and she had never trained for such a task. The covert war and the battle for the High City had been a frantic improvisation, and though she was proud of her decisions, it had been too much like a plunge into unknown territory for her to feel comfortable with the memory.

Her training and hopes, however, had always been aimed at the command of a warship, and
Confidence
was her first. The frigate was small and unlovely, and her quarters a metal-walled box, but she had grown to love this deadly waspish instrument of her will. She had won many victories in its close confines, and not all of them were against Naxids.

The officers and their servants were the last off the ship, and had a shuttle of their own. Sula nerved herself to put on the hated helmet, and managed to contain her terror long enough to slap the faceplate closed and step into the airlock. Seeing the huge blue loom of the planet to one side and the great dazzle of stars on the other calmed her, gave her a sense of scale and helped her forget the confines of the shoe box she wore on her head.

After the transfer, they had to wait on their acceleration couches for the officers from
Illustrious,
who took a longer time because they had more crew to transfer. Sula hated every second she was confined in the helmet, and was grateful for more than one reason as she recognized Martinez floating aboard. Even in a vac suit, those long arms and shortish legs were unmistakable.

Everyone webbed in, and the chemical engines ignited. The shuttle trailed fire across half the world before making a series of braking S-turns before Zanshaa City, after which it dropped to a landing at Wi-hun. Sula gazed out the ports and watched the sky turn from black to viridian green.

She was happy to wrench off her helmet as the shuttle taxied to its hard stand. When the big doors opened, they let in a blast of summer heat and the most wonderful air she had ever tasted. It smelled mostly of the volatile chemicals of the shuttle exhaust, but behind the reek she could savor greenery and summer flowers. The air aboard
Confidence
had been filtered and scrubbed, but still, over time there was a buildup of sweat and dead skin and hair, spilled food and lubricating oil and metal polish, and it produced a deadening musty odor.

In contrast, fresh air was wonderful. It was glorious. It was better than the finest wine.

Sula followed Michi and Martinez out of the shuttle. The docking tubes at the terminal building were incompatible with the doorways of Fleet vehicles, so the officers descended on a metal stairway that had been run out on the back of a small truck. She felt sweat pop on her forehead from the reflected heat of the pavement. Macnamara and Spence helped her out of her vac suit and stowed it in its container.

Final salutes were made, final good-byes spoken. She said her farewells to Haz, Giove, Ikuhara, Macnamara, and Spence. Some of the lieutenants piled into rented transport that had driven out to meet them, and the rest followed the enlisted on a walk across green grass to the train station.

For herself and Martinez, Michi had rented a pair of vast slate-colored Victory limousines, the same model that Casimir had painted eleven shades of apricot. Michi had offered Sula a ride as well, and she had accepted.

Alikhan, Jukes, and Michi's servants piled the luggage into the second vehicle. Sula, who had brought only the minimum number of uniforms and a pair of rifles, had neglected to acquire statues, figurines, and works of art, and possessed no porcelain blazoned with the Sula crest, no hand-cut crystal, no bed linen, no foam pillows cut to the shape of her head and neck. She simply asked Alikhan to put her vac suit into the baggage compartment of the first car along with her trunk and her rifle cases, and went to join Michi and Martinez in the passenger compartment.

A polite young Lai-own stepped into her path. He held a crisp creamy envelope in one hand, an envelope sealed with a ribbon and a blotch of wax, and a datapad in the other.

“Beg pardon, Lady Sula,” he said. “If you will sign that you have received this?”

She signed the title “Sula” and ducked into the car. The inside of the limousine featured cut crystal vases filled with fresh flowers. The seats were maroon leather and very soft. Michi was dragging a bottle of champagne out of a bucket of ice, and Martinez helped her open it.

Sula opened the envelope, read the contents, and began to laugh.

“What is it?” Michi asked.

“Blitsharts!” Sula cried. “It's another deposition!”

Michi stared at her blankly. Martinez grinned.

“It's how we first met,” he said.

Sula and Martinez explained to Michi how they had encountered one another on a mission to rescue the famed yachtsman Captain Blitsharts and his equally famous dog Orange. It was the first time they had worked together, the first time they had experienced the near unity of thought and action that sometimes seemed to make them a part of some higher being.

“Except that once I got to him, Blitsharts turned out to be a corpse!” Sula said.

A Fleet Court of Inquiry had ruled the Blitsharts death accidental, but the insurance company was appealing in civilian court, claiming evidence of suicide, and now a new round of depositions was scheduled.

Michi smiled indulgently as Martinez and Sula relived the past. When the torrent of memory had ceased, Michi undid the top button of her tunic, licked spilled liquid from her fingers, and raised her glass.

“I'd like to make a toast,” she said.

“Wait a minute,” said Sula. She found a glass of sparkling water in the little refrigerator, opened it and poured it into a champagne glass.

“To a campaign well fought,” Michi said.

Sula rang her glass against the others. “And to our next,” she said.

Michi raised her eyebrows at this, but drank in silence.

The limousine left the second vehicle still loading and pulled away. Sula saw that saplings had been planted to replace the trees on the verge of the airfield, those the Naxids had cut to give their guards a proper field of fire.

The Terran driver took the Axtattle Parkway into the city. She had never seen the Axtattle from this point of view, and she looked for the building where she and Action Team 491 had laid their first disastrous ambush against the Naxids. She found the place easily enough. The facade of the building was still pocked by the thousands of bullets the Naxids had fired in response.

“What are you looking for?” Martinez asked.

She told them, described the disastrous ambush and their frantic escape. Other sights visible from the elevated highway triggered additional memories, and she described the Bogo Boys' ambush of the Naxid flying squads, her visit to the illegal hospital set up for the victims of the Remba bombing, the way she'd visited a Judge of Interrogation in her Green Park home and threatened her into releasing an imprisoned comrade.

She looked at Martinez as she finished this anecdote, and saw a deep, appreciative awareness kindle in his eyes.

It seems she'd impressed him.

Well, she thought.
That
was good.

“Will you be seeing old members of your army while you're on planet?” Michi asked.

“Yes,” she said, “absolutely. Though I'm starting with a courtesy call on the lord governor tomorrow, to assure him I'm not here to overthrow him. After that I'm just going to be living quietly for a few days, get over the trip and the time change.”

Another few details added to the map, to let Martinez know that she had no activities planned for the next few days and might be available for a rendezvous.

She'd already sent messages to Julien and Patel, and they were planning a raucous Bogo Boys reunion in four days' time. She'd visit Sidney when she could, and invite Fer Tuga, the Axtattle sniper, to pay her a visit. She'd also send greetings to Sergius Bakshi, though she wouldn't see him unless invited.

She wondered what Martinez would think of the more raffish element among her friends. She wondered what they would think of Martinez.

She was looking forward to finding out.

The Axtattle Parkway broke into several avenues as it approached the High City, and the driver chose a route that swept around the north flank of the cliff face and up the switchback road. The ruins of the Naxid bunkers at the base of the acropolis had been cleared, and the unsightly gun turrets at the Gates of the Exalted had been removed.

“Where shall we take you, Lady Sula?” Michi asked.

“Oh. I'm not staying on the High City. I've got a place on the Petty Mount.”

Michi looked at her in surprise.

“I'll take the car back down, if I may,” Sula said. “But I still have to deliver the data foils, and while I was here I thought I'd look around the High City, see what they've done with it.”

“Certainly. Take the car if you like.”

Parts of the High City still looked as if a battle had been fought there, and the empty cave where the New Destiny had stood had not yet been filled. But all of the parks and many of the palaces were bright with summer flowers, and dozens of new businesses had opened, none of them aimed entirely at the Naxid trade.

The limousine drew up to the Commandery, and Daimong guards snapped to the salute as they stepped out. The officers paid their ritual visit to the Fleet Records Office, where they deposited the data foils that contained their logs and the official records of their commands, and then returned to the car.

A few minutes later the Victory pulled up before the Chen Palace, where Martinez would be staying as Michi's guest, a temporary—Sula hoped—prisoner of his in-laws. The doors rolled in silence into the roof. Martinez stepped onto the sidewalk, and bent to take Michi's hand and help her out of the vehicle. Sula stepped out the other side, into the street.

“My lord!”

Sula looked up at the sound of the new voice, and saw a handsome, assured man of middle years walking forward from the Chen Palace front door. He wore the wine-red tunic of the lords convocate and was leading a party forward to meet the newcomers at the curb. Most of the party were servants, to carry the luggage.

But Sula paid no attention either to Lord Chen and the servants. She looked instead at the tall beautiful black-haired woman who walked by her father's side, her path a graceful glide despite the infant she carried in her arms.

Sudden bitterness stung her throat. Apparently the Chens had planned a little romantic surprise, not letting their son-in-law know that his wife and child had come to Zanshaa to meet him.

Of course
the Fleet Control Board would return to Zanshaa as soon as it was safe—ahead of the Convocation, who had farther to travel.
Of course
the members would bring their families.
Of course
the new mother would want to show her husband their new child. It was foolish of her not to have anticipated it.

A domestic ambush. And from the secret little smile that Sula saw on Michi Chen's face, it was clear the squadcom had been a part of the plot.

Sula's eyes flashed to Martinez, who stood in complete astonishment, his big hands by his sides.

Terza Chen neared, her eyes glittering with profound, triumphant pleasure. Sula had never seen emotion so close to the surface of her face.

Sula could see Martinez only in profile, and she watched the rapid play of feeling that crossed his face, the shock and surprise, the dawning comprehension followed by the frantic sense that he had been trapped.