The Thrones of Kronos (80 page)

“Next asteroid impact in one minute,” Lysanter said.

Lokri glanced at one of the subordinate screens, which
displayed the Suneater. There was no sign of damage from the first strike. The
scientist had said the terrible light in the bay had been a fraction of the
energy of the impact. Most had been radiated outward, fortunately, or they all
would have been vaporized.

Vi’ya’s chin came up, her fingers hesitating over her
console. Lokri felt a strange flutter in his mind, like the one he’d felt when
Montrose heard music on the station.

“Ivard!” she exclaimed, then shook her head. “I still can’t . . .” She stopped, cocked her head, then hammered quickly at her console. The
ship slewed around, headed back toward the Suneater at full acceleration.

“Vi’ya!” Brandon whipped around. “What are you doing? I
can’t block Anaris’s corvette on this course!”

Another missile strike. This time red lights sprang to life
on DC, and Lokri joined Lar in trying to cope with the damage.

“Now!” Vi’ya shouted, and abruptly the air on the bridge
turned to syrup: it felt like something enormous was sitting down on the ship.
On the screens the Suneater vanished into the center of a red smear of light,
while the aft screen displayed actinic brightness as the stars slammed
together. There was no sign of the two corvettes.

Vi’ya tabbed the comm. “Montrose, report.”

“Eya’a are hibernating, both women are stable.”

“Jaim?”

“He’ll live. Insists on coming forward. Mild concussion and
a heavy burn. The neosteryl will take care of the first.”

“I’ll be fine,” came Jaim’s voice, weak but determined.
“What was that pressure?”

Vi’ya laughed. “That’s how the Suneater deals with
asteroids,” she said. “It bounced them, and every ship in the energy sink as
well. We’ll be at radius in a few minutes, ship time, and rendezvous with the
Grozniy
as soon after that as we can
shed some of our velocity. Jaim, if you can get down to the engine room and
help the Marines there, we’ll need the highest tac-level you can give us.”

She turned to Brandon. “And then I’ll deal with Hreem.”

o0o

In the few moments here and there that she could spare
from the battle, High Admiral Ng stared at the main screen as if by force of
will she could elucidate what was going on at the Suneater. The blip from the
Marines confirming their loss of control, shortly after she’d loosed the
asteroids, had relieved her agony of regret to some extent; then, two hours
ago, came that incredible howl from the hyperwave as the first asteroid
fragment struck, and the agony of ignorance increased.

The hyperwave was still working, but had anything living
survived the impact? The only signals on it were from the
Fist of Dol’jhar
and its Rifter fleet, and the
Grozniy’s
jamming.

She’d waited until only minutes before the EM from the
impact would reach radius, then brought the
Grozniy
in close, the sooner to intercept any signals from the fleeing ships.

Not that we can do
anything to help, no matter what we hear.
Even if any ships managed to
escape, and took the shortest path out, it would be more than two days before
they reached radius.

She looked up as Captain Krajno slid into his pod and
silently linked his console to hers, taking on some of the tactical load. He
gave her a brief smile.

She gasped as the screen lit to reveal the red giant,
swollen huge as the shock wave from the core collapse blasted its substance
into space. Behind that light raced million-degree plasma barely slower—how
could anyone escape? She tabbed her comm and queried Phisot in Astronomy.

“The velocity readings we’re getting indicate the shock wave
will hit the black hole in about four hours,” was his response. “We’re refining
the measurements right now. Of course, it will hit the Suneater at the same
time.”

Which means that in
four hours the Rifter weapons will be utterly unstoppable.

“Asteroid impact,” Lieutenant Wychyrski sang out.

But no one on the bridge needed her report. The Suneater
flared to blinding brightness, then subsided just as quickly. It appeared
undamaged.

A ship burst from the landing bay, followed by two more.

“
Telvarna
and two
Dol’jharian corvettes.”

They watched helplessly the events of almost two hours past
as the two corvettes harried the Rifter vessel, slowly closing in despite the
smaller ship’s greater maneuverability.

“Sluggish,” said Rom-Sanchez. “Probably overloaded.”

Then the
Telvarna
reversed course, back toward the Suneater.

“What the hell?”

Rom-Sanchez’ voice choked off in embarrassment, but Ng
didn’t blame him. The three ships had simply vanished without a flicker, while
on the main screen a bright ring of bluish light expanded with incredible velocity
from a point centered on the singularity. Steaks of light radiated out behind
it; the
Grozniy
’s shield flared.

“Dust impacts at point-nine-nine cee,” reported Damage
Control. “Shields holding.”

For several minutes the
Grozniy
rode out an unprecedented dust storm, as though the ship were on a Realtime
Run. Ng summoned Sebastian Omilov to the bridge, but he had barely arrived when
the Siglnt console beeped loudly.

“Skip pulse!” Wychyrski shouted. “Tac-level eight,
one-point-five light-seconds at 3 mark 7, heading 93 mark 13 relative.” She
paused, then continued, moderating her voice.

“Emergence pulse, same heading. Skip pulse, ditto. ID . . .
Telvarna
.”

“That’s impossible,” Ng said, her heart thudding.

“I think,” Omilov said slowly, “that we’ve just seen how the
Suneater deals with incoming objects. Analogous to an immense Tesla Shield,
perhaps?”

Ng nodded slowly. Except that the red giant was
unaffected—what kind of force could so discriminate? She shook off the thought.
Time enough for explanations later. The Rifter ship was decelerating at maximum
tac level; the
Grozniy
could help.
“Navigation, match course and speed. Weapons, prepare ruptors for tractor
duty.”

o0o

The bridge jolted, and Lokri watched his commlights
flicker, then ripple back to green.

“Tractor engaged,” Lar called out. “They’ve got us.”

Lokri scanned his data display and added, “They’re all ready
for us—including refuel. Should be a fast turnaround.”

Vi’ya nodded, her face stony. She glanced across the bridge
at Brandon, who had been in constant contact as soon as the
Telvarna
had slowed enough to allow
real-time communications with the battlecruiser, then said to Lokri, “Go help
Montrose. I want all those refugees gone before the Kelly come in to retrieve
Portus-Dartinus-Atos.”

Lokri slaved his console to hers, glad to have an excuse to
leave the bridge. Not that there had been any overt problem—or even covert, he
thought as he threaded his way through the refugees sitting on the deck plates
along the short corridor.

It had been a short, simple exchange. As soon as they
discovered the
Grozniy
, Vi’ya had
ordered a rendezvous so they could off-load their passengers. Then Brandon had
turned around to study her. “You know I can send half the Navy after Hreem.”

All she said was, “I will go after Hreem.”

There was no argument, no anger, just a short pause during
which no one besides the two seemed to breathe, then Brandon said, “Sedry and
Tatriman are not going to be able to help. You’ll need volunteers in the engine
room and as backup for DC.”

Vi’ya had agreed, and from then on there was a ceaseless
flow of activity: Brandon spoke to his Marines, chose a squad from among the
volunteers, and made a quick round of the refugees while Vi’ya navigated
through the dirty system to match up with the
Grozniy
, then returned when they were in comm range.

Now Lokri made his way to the dispensary, where he found Montrose
busy with a chaos of wounded, stunned people. The place looked like a
slaughterhouse, blood smeared everywhere, but Montrose dealt with the chaos
with manic efficiency as the silent Bori medtechs he’d rooted from the crowd carried
out his orders.

Lokri was about to turn away, but Montrose saw him and
motioned him in. They squeezed by a crowd of patiently waiting Bori and a
couple of wounded grays who seemed to be in shock, moved into one of the
cubicles, and the door shut. Lokri blinked in the sudden silence as he looked
down at Sedry, who was deeply asleep. “She going to recover?”

“Soon’s I flush the brainsuck toxins from her system. That,
and she gets some sleep. She and Tat both.”

“They staying or going?”

“Both want to stay, whatever happens. Now, tell me what
happened on the bridge.”

Lokri said, “He goes. She stays.”

Montrose gave a nod of satisfaction. “As it should be.
They’ll each do what they see as their duty—and if no one interferes, they’ll
permit one another to do it. Luckily the nicks are too afraid of her to
interfere.”

“Nicks.” Suddenly the long run, the endless tension and lack
of sleep, the pain of Ivard’s remaining behind and Marim’s desertion, caught up
with Lokri, making him giddy. Yet another ironic nexus in his life: he’d
discovered love in time for it to be taken away. He had been able to see it in
others, but not comprehend how two disparate individuals could find the common
ground to make it work.

Yet there it was, the evidence that it could happen.
There are no precedents for Brandon and
Vi’ya—or for any of us. Which means whatever we do will set precedents.
“We’re
nicks again, you and I, if we want to be,” he said. “But if we don’t want to
be, are we still Rifters? Will we go back to jacking?”

Montrose snorted as he punched at a little console. The
monneplat connected with the dispensary hummed, and a glass appeared. “First
Hreem,” Montrose said, handing Lokri the glass. “And if we’re still alive,
we’ll have plenty of leisure to consider our future careers. Drink that.”

A shudder and a low booming indicated the ship had landed in
the bay. Lokri drank off the elixir, then rushed out to help organize the
exodus of refugees.

Not that much was required; the Marines had taken charge.
The dazed people, mostly Bori, didn’t seem to care whether they were escapees
or prisoners. Their treatment so far was already so vast an improvement over
life on the Suneater that they were beyond question.

Brandon and Vi’ya left the bridge together, walking side by
side. Then she stopped at the hatchway and he trod down the ramp alone, still
barefoot, wearing Lokri’s old pants and his grimy undershirt, but somehow he
retained all his dignity as the Marine honor guard initiated the ritual of
welcome.

Lokri had paused to watch. He jumped when Vi’ya thumped him
on the shoulder with her fist. “We have work to do,” she said.

o0o

Just before the Columbiad began easing from the bay, the
Panarch stepped onto the bridge. Ng thought about his long journey the length
of the cruiser, and how a surprising percentage of her otherwise disciplined
crew apparently found work along his path in order to see him with their own
eyes and be reassured he had indeed survived.

Ng watched him nod a greeting to the bridge crew. His face
was marked with battle grime and exhaustion, but his presence infused everyone
with new energy.

He stepped up beside Ng, who saluted. In silence they
watched the
Telvarna
slide the rest
of the way out of the bay, then accelerate away from the battlecruiser. It
vanished in a red skip pulse as a twitter from the navigation console announced
an incoming course relayed from the Rifter vessel.

“How does she know where Hreem is?” Ng asked as the
Grozniy
’s fiveskip took the huge ship
out of fourspace, following the Columbiad. “For that matter, how did she find the
Grozniy
so quickly?”

The Panarch’s mouth quirked. “The music of the spheres,” he
said. “She always was a good listener.”

o0o

“. . . 
when
the morning stars sang together . . .”
Ivard almost turned to look, so
vivid had been the impression of Eloatri’s voice, but it was only a memory, one
of many flooding him as the song of power flowed through him and out of his
hands. She had read to him out of that strange book, during his convalescence
on the
Telvarna
after Desrien, and
later, and the language of the book was itself a kind of song that wove itself
into the measures that thundered out with urgent joy in that strange simulacrum
of New Glastonbury that surrounded him here on the borders of the Dreamtime.

“Can you bind the
chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion?”

No human eyes had seen those stars for two millennia, but
Ivard laughed aloud, for behind him, like a mountain whose grandeur lies heavy
on one’s mind even in the dark of a moonless night when not even a silhouette
betrays its massive presence, rose up a Power in increasing strength, who could
do just that. Was that the reason for the passing of the Ur, that they dared to
imprison a god to power their empire among the stars?

Ivard sang, adding his voice to the thousand voices of the
organ, feeling it alive under his hands and feet, gathering the colors and
shapes around him into a glorious synthesis that that encompassed the human
violence around the Suneater, an echo of the stellar violence that had been
unleashed to free the Presence.

But that still lay ahead, and until then he would play, and
weave into the song success and vengeance for those he loved.

o0o

As Juvaszt watched the shuttle carrying Hreem and the
other Rifter arrow toward the
Flower of
Lith
, he became aware that the strange music that had begun as an
undercurrent to the hyperwave transmissions was increasing in volume. He could
see the effect on his bridge crew. Already tense from the filth the Panarchists
had thrown at them, they seemed unsettled. He said sharply, “Damp that.”