Skolian Empire: The Radiant Seas Part 47

"We've got it!" a voice exulted.

So, Tahota thought. She felt as if she had just finished a marathon race. She looked at the chronometer psicon in her mind.

In the third second of the sixth hour of the eighth day in the tenth month of year 372 ASC on the Imperial Calendar, the Traders inverted the Third Lock, capturing a prize that had eluded their grasp for almost four centuries.

In the fourth second, the backlash from the inverting Lock hit Onyx Station-and set off instabilities in the out-of-phase fields of 7.32 billion Klein bottles.

Tahota raised her hand to salute the volunteers watching her from throughout Onyx. "G.o.ds' blessings to you all," she said.

In the fifth second, 7.32 billion Klein fields on every s.p.a.ce station collapsed-and dumped 700 billion kilograms of antimatter plasma into real s.p.a.ce.

In one majestic sweep, every habitat at Onyx detonated. Plasma exploded, spewing out radiation, gamma rays, and brutal showers of high-energy reactions. Gargantuan chunks of debris hurtled in every direction. On the scale of a universe that knew supernovas, quasars, and black holes, the result was a splutter of energy.

In human terms, it had no precedent.

Expressed in terms of matter to energy conversion, the combined explosions produced a million trillion trillion joules of energy, greater than the output of a hot yellow star, more powerful than 100 trillion nuclear bombs. The waves of destruction swamped New Metropoli in a great, raging maelstrom of fury.

So Onyx died-and in doing so, it also obliterated two million ESComm s.h.i.+ps.

28.

Eldrin sat bolt upright in the dark. He jumped out of bed and pulled on his robe as he strode out of the bedroom. He heard Taquinil's door snap open, then heard his son run into the darkened living room. They left the house together, racing through the soft night of Valley. They had both felt the cry for help.

The trip on the magrail seemed to take forever. By the time they reached the Orbiter's hull, Eldrin was so tense he couldn't stop clenching his fists. They ran through the hull corridors, their bare feet slapping the ground. Neither he nor Taquinil had taken time to put on shoes. Taquinil was wearing his black pants and black sweater, having fallen asleep at his web console, and Eldrin wore only sleep trousers under his robe.

No one was posted outside the Solitude Room. They ran inside-and found Dehya screaming in silence.

A fragile figure in a blue sleep s.h.i.+ft, she clutched the arms of the control chair, her body rigid. With horror, Eldrin realized he could see through her. He also saw a translucent web spread through s.p.a.ce all around them, as if she had pulled psibers.p.a.ce out of itself and overlaid it on the universe they inhabited.

She kept screaming, but he heard no sound. He was at her side in two steps. As he closed his fingers around her hand and felt its solidity, relief poured over him. But when he tensed to pull her out of the chair, Taquinil grabbed his arm.

"We don't know what will happen if we yank her out of it," his son said. "It could rip apart her mind."

Dismayed, Eldrin let go of his wife. She stared through him, from some other place, with no sign of recognition. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Can you help her?" he asked Taquinil.

"I think so." But Taquinil's fear saturated the air. He touched a panel on the arm of the chair, another, and another. One by one the glittering lights on both the chair and the console faded into darkness.

As Taquinil worked, Dehya became more solid. She focused on Eldrin, and he was sure she saw him now. When he touched her cheek, he felt her tears.

"Dehya?" he asked. "Are you here?"

She tried to speak, but her voice drifted like leaves blown by a far wind, over a remote plain, too distant to hear.

Taquinil came to stand in front of her, moving his lips so she could read them. "Mother? Can you understand me?"

Her lips moved. Yes.

"Can Father unfasten you from the chair?"

She formed more words. Yes. Hurry. Her body rippled as if it were the surface of a lake disturbed by a falling rock.

Eldrin turned to his son. "Are you sure I should do this?" What if he erred and caused his wife to dissolve into some other universe?

"I can't do it," Taquinil said. "My mind is too much like hers. In psibers.p.a.ce we're too close together."

The prospect of losing them both shouldered its unwelcome way into Eldrin's thoughts. "You mean you could fall into wherever she is?"

Taquinil nodded. "Just standing this close to her, I feel my mind trying to dissociate."

Taking a deep breath, Eldrin leaned over Dehya and reached behind her neck. The psiphon p.r.o.ng felt smooth in his fingers as he tugged it out of her socket. He unplugged the p.r.o.ngs in her wrists next, then put his hand behind her waist and pulled out the one in her spine. Going down on one knee, he removed the plugs in her ankles. When he disconnected the last one, ripples swept over her body as if she were resetting.

Dehya fell forward, out of the chair. Eldrin caught her and sat back on the floor with a jolt, wedged between the chair and console. She felt real, the softness of her hair, the tickle of her breath on his skin. He cradled her in his arms and she hung onto him, her head against his chest. Dressed in only a flimsy sleep s.h.i.+ft, with her childlike face, she seemed painfully vulnerable to him, ready to break at the least touch.

Taquinil knelt next to them. "Mother?"

Her thought came like the gurgling of a distant muddy brook. Dryniiiiiiii ... heeeeeelp ...

Eldrin held her closer. Tell me how.

Dissoooooooolving ...

He surrounded her mind with his, trying to hold her close in the web as well as in his arms. Come back.

Aiiii ... cold, she thought. I'm so cold.

Eldrin peeled off his robe and wrapped it around her, then enfolded her in his arms again. Dehya, come back!

Ah. She heaved in a ragged breath, holding him tight around the waist.

Dehya?

"They've gone," she whispered, her voice like dust in the wind. "The warriors of light."

A relief almost unbearable in its intensity poured over him. "The warriors of light?"

"Onyx," she said.

"You were there?"

"They have the Third Lock."

"Who?"

"ESComm."

Taquinil stiffened. "Mother, are you sure?"

"Yes. We must warn Soz." She was starting to shake as a reaction set in from whatever had happened. "ESComm put someone into the Lock and tried to link to the Orbiter. I stopped them."

Eldrin suddenly felt cold. "If they add a fourth person to the Triad, the power surge will kill all four of you."

"Only if they use a Key. They didn't. Just a telop." Dehya shuddered. "It killed him instantly."

Eldrin blanched. It was an ugly way to die. "Dehya, you can't go back in the web."

"They have the Orbiter's location," she whispered. "We have to warn Tikal. We have to hide the Orbiter."

Eldrin hung onto her, rocking back and forth, looking at Taquinil over her head, knowing they all shared the same thought. The Locks were inextricably connected through the web. If ESComm had a fix on the Orbiter through the Third Lock, nothing could hide them.

Soz sat in a control chair above the bridge on Roca's Pride. Her guards wanted her on Asteroid, the hollowed-out planetoid that served as a stand-off base for the invasion. But she was needed more here; where she could hold together their corner of the web. She felt as if she were running on an edge, keeping her equilibrium only through speed, that if she paused, she would fall into the raging seas on either side.

The cruiser rumbled in her mind. Entering Platinum Sector One.

Soz exhaled. This was it. Accelerating their timetable to outrun the web collapse had fragmented some of the Radiance Fleet, but they kept most of it intact. Whatever happened now, they had no way to turn back.

Major Coalson's voice burst over the comm. "We've been detected. A squadron of Solos-all right, here it is. A fleet of ESComm s.h.i.+ps is dropping into real s.p.a.ce. About 500 thousand s.h.i.+ps, stats in file D5m."

"Got it," Soz said.

ESComm signal on channel 6, Admiral Barzun thought.

Ready, Soz thought.

A Highton voice came over the comm in her ear. "Roca's Pride, this is Colonel Jaibriol Izarson aboard the Rapier."

Soz's entire body went rigid. Jaibriol. Even though she knew the name was common among Traders, the sound of it still sent her adrenaline roaring.

"You have violated Eubian territory," Izarson said. "This sector is under ESComm protection and interdicted to ISC s.h.i.+ps. Surrender and prepare for boarding."

Soz knew how her fleet looked, a paltry force of 50 thousand ISC s.h.i.+ps trying to sneak through Platinum Sector. "Colonel Izarson, this is Roca's Pride. We don't acknowledge your interdiction."

"Surrender now and you will be escorted to one of our bases," Izarson said. "If you refuse, we will have no choice but to respond with force."

"You are holding a member of the Ruby Dynasty in violation of the Halstaad Code of War," Soz said. In truth, nothing in the Code actually forbade ESComm from taking Althor prisoner. Torturing him violated it with a vengeance, but she had no proof they were doing it. "Release him to us and we'll leave."

Imperator Skolia. That came from Garr, her ISC psiberweb wizard. Our links to the s.h.i.+ps in Klein s.p.a.ce are slipping.

Slipping? Soz thought. Be more precise.

It's because of the collapsing web. We can't keep our Klein s.p.a.ce links stable.

Izarson spoke over her comm. "Roca's Pride, be reasonable. You're outnumbered ten to one. Surrender and we won't fire. You have one minute."

"Where is the rest of your force?" Soz asked. "I thought Platinum Sector had over a million s.h.i.+ps."

"Admiral Barzun, you have fifty-five seconds," Izarson said.

Barzun sent Soz a dry thought. Their intelligence leaves much to be desired, if they think you are me.

Despite his amus.e.m.e.nt, Soz felt his tension. Izarson had made the logical a.s.sumption. ESComm had no reason to think the Imperator would be on the flags.h.i.+p of an invasion fleet. To Garr, she thought, How long before we lose the links?

Garr thought, I can give you 1.03 minutes on the Klein bottles. Any longer and our links to the s.h.i.+ps may become too diffuse to recover.

"I've picked up another ESComm force," Major Coalson said. "Coming out of Platinum Sector Five."

"Got it," Soz said. It didn't surprise her that ESComm had to reach all the way to Sector Five for reinforcements, given how many s.h.i.+ps had gone to Onyx. Any report from Onyx Platform? She asked Garr.

Nothing, he thought. But those web links are all down.

Prepare to open the Klein bottles, Soz thought. She submerged into a VR simulation and arrowed through s.p.a.ce with the Radiance Fleet, a cord of s.h.i.+ps spread out over billions of kilometers and traveling at half the speed of light. The ESComm s.h.i.+ps showed as distant specks in a cylindrical formation around Radiance.

"Barzun, you have forty-five seconds," Izarson said. "Do you really intend to engage a battle you can't win?"

Even though she knew her telop communications went at almost light speed, it still surprised Soz that only ten seconds had pa.s.sed. Barzun, can you distract him? she asked. To Garr she thought, Open the Klein bottles.

Barzun spoke on an inters.h.i.+p channel. "Colonel Izarson, this is Rear Admiral Chad Barzun. We demand the release of Althor Valdoria."

"You have forty seconds," Izarson said. Then he added, "If you're Barzun, who was I talking to before?"

Klein bottles collapsed, Garr thought.

s.p.a.ce rippled.

The effect spread along the Radiance Fleet. As the ripples intensified, Soz tensed. They had no way to be sure what would happen now. There had only been time for preliminary tests. On a small scale, matching phases in Klein s.p.a.ce solved the instability problem. On this large a scale, who knew? When the hidden s.h.i.+ps entered real s.p.a.ce, the Radiance Fleet might well vanquish itself with no help at all from ESComm, disappearing in a cascade of destruction caused by ma.s.sive Klein field collapse.

The ripples swept through s.p.a.ce, first swamping the Radiance s.h.i.+ps and then extending to encompa.s.s even the ESComm s.h.i.+ps. A chronometer in the lower corner of Soz's mindscape showed the countdown to Izarson's deadline. Thirty seconds.

Garr, how are the Klein fields holding up? she thought.

We've instabilities in about 8%. His thought came in the blur of fast-mode, all symbols and numbers.

Soz directed her thought into the general Radiance web. Those of you with instabilities, abandon craft.

The damaged craft fell back, accompanied by recovery s.h.i.+ps that would pick crews up out of s.p.a.ce. Only about 10 percent of the s.h.i.+ps in the fleet carried humans, the rest being crewed by EIs. The recovery partner of one s.h.i.+p was itself damaged but switched smoothly to its backup.

The distortion in s.p.a.ce continued to increase, making it difficult to see any s.h.i.+ps, let alone the reinforcements. Twenty seconds remained to Izarson's deadline.