Rebel Ice (32 page)

"No," Hasal said, his voice oddly gentle. "No one can say that." "It is forbidden…" one of the older men began to say, but glares from the others silenced him. Resa touched her face. "You could fight with us when you could not see this. I am asking only that you

fight with us again, and save our general."

"No," Hasal said. "The Raktar left orders. If the assault on the skim city failed, the remaining troops were to remain on-planet." Resa felt like wrenching the bolt out of Aktwar and driving it through Hasal's heart. "The assault hasn't

failed yet. Edin." The Raktar's commander stepped forward. "Your crossbow." She held out her hand. He placed it in her hands, and she checked it to make sure a bolt was loaded before she leveled it at the woman crouched over Aktwar's body. "Get up, Sogayi."

The Raktar's second stiffened. "What are you doing?" Sogayi lifted her tearstained face. "You kill my son, and now you would kill me?" "I will if I am right. How long have you been feeding information to the Tos', Sogayi?" Resa demanded.

"Since Navn joined the rebellion? Before?" Jarn put a hand on Resa's forearm. "Resa, wait." "No." Resa sighted the bolt. "How did you get word to the Toskald?" "There have been enough killings this day," Hasal said, his voice harsh. He turned to the men. "Remove

the boy's body. I will alert the troops."

Jarn shot a bolt into the ice in front of Hasal's boots, preventing him from taking another step. The circle around them widened. "No, you will not." "Stop interfering, you idiot female," Hasal shouted. "While you play with that weapon, our general is dying." "Dying?" Sogayi gave Resa a look of loathing. "No. He is already dead." She leaped to her feet and tried to run, but Jarn and Resa had her on the ground before she went a

hundred yards. Ice chips flew as the three tumbled over and over.

Resa landed on top and put her blade to Sogayi's throat. "How could you do this? You are Iisleg. These are your people." "My people." Sogayi spit in her face. "My people made me a whore."

Resa jerked the woman to her feet and turned her to face Aktwar's body. "You killed your own son,

"My son." Sogayi wrenched free and staggered forward, reaching for the body. "I was sent as tithe to Skjonn. It was better than being camp filth forever, wasn't it? The old rasakt told me that the windlords would be kind. That they would pamper me like a pet."

"Is there anyone else here from Iiskar Navn?" Resa asked. A hunter stepped forward. "I was born to Navn." "Does she speak the truth?" The man nodded. "She was one of the camp whores. She was sent to Skjonn as tithe. The Kangal sent

her back as unacceptable." "How long was she in the skim city?" Hasal asked the hunter. "A year." Silence settled over the circle. "This is the day when all the pretense ends." Sogayi looked past them at the ice. "I was sent by my

mother to old Navn, who made me a whore. It was he who sent me to the Kangal. My mother persuaded him to do it. She said it would be better than being made skela for what I had done."

"What was your crime?" Resa asked. "I fought back when a man beat me for not pleasing him." Sogayi's smile turned ironic. "I did not like it as much as my mother."

"And for this, you betrayed us?" Jarn demanded.

"I didn't," Sogayi said. "I Only betrayed Navn. I helped kill the old one. And the young one. And now our son." Resa's eyes narrowed. "That is the same thing—" "They have my first child, my daughter. Her name is Poma." Sogayi looked up at the dark blur of Skjonn

floating high overhead. "The Kangal told me I would do this or he would kill her. So I said I would. I let him put me in one of his machines. It put things in my flesh. Things that told him everything my ears heard, and told my ears what he wanted. I asked Navn about the general. I gave Aktwar the story. I did everything he asked."

Jarn ran a scanner over the woman. "Transponder implants." Resa wanted nothing more than to kill Sogayi, but that would not save Teulon. "What will happen now?" "The Kangal will do something terrible to him. He is very creative. It will take a long time. Perhaps he will

do it in front of his new League allies." Sogayi gave Resa a strange look. "He wants you, too. I was to have you captured the next time you went on the ice."

Resa frowned. "Why me?" "The League has come for you. You belong to them. That is all I know." The Iisleg woman's voice grew dull. "I don't care what you do to me. You have killed my son, but I have saved the life of my daughter.

"No." Jarn grabbed Sogayi by the front of the robe. "There is another life you will save."

The
Sunlace
was on full battle alert as it transitioned into normal space, and turned on a direct heading for planet Akkabarr. On board the Jorenian vessel, every member of HouseClan Torin was preparing for a large-scale assault on the ice world.

"Captain Torin."

Xonea Torin stopped in the corridor and turned to see his Senior Healer hopping out of the medical bay. "Healer Squilyp, there is—"

"—no time left to debate the matter, I know." The Omorr caught up with him. "Our sojourn teams are ready to report to the launch bay on your orders. Medical has prepared to receive mass casualties, as have the Senior Healers on the other ships in the fleet. We have replenished all depleted supplies and tripled our replacement organ stocks."

Xonea relaxed a degree. "I am grateful for your attention to detail."

"It is nothing." Squilyp nodded toward the corridor ahead of them. "May I walk with you to Command?"

The Jorenian captain and the Omorr healer had never considered each other friends, but since Squilyp had taken over as Senior Healer they had come to rely on each other's opinion. Xonea found the Omorr's mind meticulous and efficient, while Squilyp appreciated the Jorenian's uncompromising integrity. They also respected each other's responsibilities, diverse as they were.

"Reever has found her, but he cannot leave the planet," Squilyp said. "The League has most of the Seventh Fleet surrounding Akkabarr. They will not let us take them without a fight."

Xonea stopped to approve a requisition from one of the engineers. When the man strode off, he said, "I know it will not be an easy retrieval."

"Not when the Faction is probably at this moment sending every raider they have within range to attack this world," Squilyp said.

"We will reach Akkabarr before the beasts do." Xonea stopped and faced the Omorr. "I know what you mean to say, Senior Healer. But Cherijo is more than this House. She is a member of the Ruling Council of Joren."

"Captain, if she verifies that the League were at fault for the Jado Massacre—"

"The child is too young." Xonea's expression turned to stone. "Thus we will avenge the Jado as the council has ruled."

No HouseClan on Joren had ever been exterminated before the Jado. The unprecedented slaughter had provoked the Ruling Council to make a horrific decision. If it was ever determined that the Jado had been deliberately butchered, Joren would defend its dead by hunting down every League officer present at the time of the massacre: some forty thousand souls from hundreds of different worlds.

The League had been notified of the council's decision, and returned one of their own. If Joren ever sought such retribution, the League would consider it as an act of war.

"Other worlds will join Joren." Squilyp's voice went lifeless. "Whole systems will be destroyed. Billions

will die. Captain, this is not about honor anymore." "No, not when saving a single life may cost so many." Xonea shook his head. "Sometimes when I cannot

sleep, I wonder how many millions of future lives ceased to exist when the Jado were exterminated. We will never know." "Teulon Jado wanted peace. He died for it." Squilyp rubbed a hand over his face. "Can the child shield

the League?"

Xonea's voice grew tight. "Children cannot defend, so they cannot shield. It must be a member of HouseClan Jado, of majority age. They all died on the
CloudWalk
." "You are sure." , "Think you I have not checked a thousand times?" Xonea shouted. Immediately he made a gesture of

regret. "Your pardon, Senior Healer. I am warrior-trained, and yet I never thought to face something like

this. It makes me feel a coward. It makes me feel trapped." "What I ask you now is not a declaration of a threat or an intention, only a hypothetical inquiry," Squilyp said. "If someone killed Cherijo Torin before she verified what happened to the Jado, what would be the result?"

Xonea cursed. "You cannot ask me—" "Captain," Squilyp said very gently. "Please answer my inquiry." "That person would be declared ClanKill." Xonea displayed his claws. "I would hunt that person down,

and eviscerate that person before the entire HouseClan." "That would put an end of it. There would be no war between Joren and the League." "Yes." The words came reluctantly, but Xonea was clear. "That would put an end to it. I do not wish to

divert your path, Senior Healer." "Thank you, Captain. I will not give you any reason to do so." The Omorr turned and hopped away.

Chapter Nineteen

"Raktar of the rebel army," General Gohliya said as he walked in front of the man chained to the wall of the interrogation room. "I had not thought I would meet you alive. Especially not when I discovered who you were before you disrupted our lives, aroused the Iisleg, and tried to take over our world."

Teulon watched him through the damp, knotted curtain of hair veiling his eyes and said nothing.

The old man cocked his head. "It was two years ago, but I am certain that I threw you off that platform myself." He waited for a response before he continued. "Well, slave, you have certainly taken your revenge on your masters. Half my troops are dead; my fleet is virtually crippled. I will yet have my A younger man entered the room and spoke in hushed tones to Gohliya, who nodded and sent him back out.

"A pity you did not achieve a complete victory," the general said. "It would have made you a hero to the League, who despise us for being slavers like their other enemies, the lizards. Still, only one can win in any conflict, and this time, it was not you."

Teulon knew of two ways he could kill himself while hanging in the chains, but was not sure how quickly the general might try to prevent it. He would attempt it only if they resorted to drugs.

The general sat at the interrogator's console and toyed with the ornate cuff of his sleeve. At his hand were controls that could inflict ten thousand varieties of pain. "I would give you a soldier's death if I could, but our ruler has decided differently. You will be displayed during his banquet tonight, while he and his new League friends celebrate the Toskald victory. Then you will spend a very uncomfortable month learning just how our beloved ruler obtains his real pleasures." Gohliya looked up. "Unless you would like to tell me what your men did with the contents of the armory trenches?"

Teulon thought of the five reserve battalion commanders, each of whom had specific orders. If the Raktar was captured or killed, each would take command of the third phase. Only one of the five had to be successful. The Toskald did not know that the rebel Raktar had stopped being necessary from the moment the trenches were breached.

"Your men will only waste the weapons," Gohliya said, sitting back in the chair. "Most of them have no idea what a disrupter rifle is, much less how to use one."

The general lapsed into a longer silence, staring at Teulon, waiting for some sign. As the empty room became a vacuum, Teulon turned his thoughts inward. The Kangal's promised execution would call on the last of his reserves, but he would embrace the stars with the dignity and silence that his ClanFather had.

"Very well." Gohliya stood. "We are going down to take over the surface. It will only be a matter of time." He walked to the door panel.

"I jumped," Teulon said.

Gohliya glanced back. "What did you say?"

"At the platform, two years ago. You did not throw me off. I jumped."

The general smiled a little. "Yes. I believe you did. A pity you landed where you did." He inclined his head and left the room.

"You did not look to see where I landed," Teulon murmured. "That is the pity."

Resa did not want to take Sogayi with them to Skjonn, but there was no one else who knew the Toskald city as well as she. She also claimed to know a place to dock and a way into the palace.

"Transport won't let you dock without authorization," Hasal had warned them after agreeing to use Sogayi's knowledge to retrieve the Raktar from Skjonn. "Even if you destroy the ship's transponder, they'll scan it for ID. They'll know it was lost on the planet, and they'll open fire."

"If she's lying," Resa murmured later, as she and Jarn walked up the ramp into the cabin of the patrol ship, "we're all going to die with the Raktar."

"I don't trust her any more than you do," Jarn said as she selected seats close to the helm and sat down. She gathered her dark hair in her hands and began swiftly braiding it. "But if she does not keep her bargain, we have our secondary plan." She glanced at the pilot, then at Resa. "I checked him twice. He can see well enough."

"How is it you always know what I think?" Resa asked, turning the palm blade over in her hand.

"We're both Terran. Too suspicious for our own good." Jarn secured her braid, covering her head with the soft, shimmering hood of her cloak before shrugging into her harness. "Also, your thoughts show on your face."

"Yours do not." Resa clipped her harness into place as the patrol ship's engines engaged. "It is as if you always wear two masks, Jarn."

"She will need both today." Daneeb came out of the lower cargo hold and sat down on the other side of Resa. "I hope this will be brief. The beasts are not happy, especially that silent one." She looked toward the helm. "No one has yet explained to me why we permit this ensleg to pilot the ship."

Resa gazed over at Reever again. She could not club him in the head if he did not behave himself this time. "He is the only pilot at camp who has flown the kvinka before now."

"He is partially battle-blind now, and he crashed the last ship he piloted when he could see perfectly well," Daneeb pointed out. "Could we have not sent to another camp for someone
else
?"