Skolian Empire: The Radiant Seas Part 55

Halted.

As the kylatine decreased, her awareness spread into the palace, searching. She found other psions, probably providers, but no trace of Jaibriol or Althor.

Imperator Skolia, I'm picking up a pulse cannon. That came from Jinn Opdaughter, a weapons expert as well as a parachuter with the Blackstars. She highlighted the cannon's position on the map. If we split up, my people can take it out.

Go, Soz thought.

Jinn and her subunit of nine Jagernauts crossed the patio like shadows.

Still monitoring the area, Soz detected an ESComm unit moving in from the south. Evade, she thought.

Her ten Jagernauts melted off the patio, headed for a preset destination. They easily found the crystal doors that opened onto a dining hall within the palace. Inside, diamond chandeliers and lacquered vases gleamed in the dark.

Caser? Soz asked. What's in there?

Lasers, he answered. Keyed to brain waves. If ours deviate from the right signature, we're fried.

Can we use decoys to map the lasers?

Won't work, Caser thought. They track on their target.

Brain waves vary, Soz thought. The detectors can't be too specific, or they would kill people they're meant to protect.

True, Caser thought. But they're specific enough to know we don't belong.

Imperator Skolia? That came from Cy Merzon, one of the younger Jagernauts. May I make a suggestion?

Go ahead, Soz thought.

Have our nanomeds damp our mental processes while our nodes broadcast signals. It might mask our brains, make us look like machines. Cy paused. I volunteer to try it.

Soz considered the idea. All right. Go. Good luck.

Cy stood still while the dampers did their work. Her face blanked and she walked into the palace with the hydraulic-driven grace of a machine. As she crossed the dining room, the rest of the d-team waited, tense and silent. When she reached the far side of the room, a silent cheer went through the psiberlink.

Caser, is she safe over there? Soz asked.

As far as I can tell, yes, he answered.

Good. Everyone go. Soz set up the commands for her node to take her across the room after damping her neural processes ...

She came to on the other side of the dining room, right in front of Cy. The Jagernaut grinned and saluted her. Soz smiled, then turned to watch the rest of the team. Most were over now. Caser stepped into the safe area, and then only Secondary Matolinique was crossing the dining room.

Soz didn't know if Matolinique's node miscalculated or if the room's defense node finally registered what was going on. Whatever the reason, lasers suddenly crisscrossed the room, intersecting at Matolinique's body.

The Jagernaut died instantly. Not only was Soz connected to Matolinique through the d-team psiberlink, but she also had her Kyle senses at full expansion. She almost screamed with the backlash. Several of her team stumbled back and another moaned, not an audible sound, but in the psiberlink.

Soz swallowed, knowing time to mourn would have to come later. She hated that they had to leave the body.

From the dining room they entered a white diamond corridor, with ceiling lamps made from carnelian, ruby, and onyx. They jogged down the sparkling hall, surrounded by its deceptive beauty as they penetrated the palace.

Eight waroids ran with Jaibriol and Viquara through the tunnels below the palace, headed for the underground magrail that would take them to safety. Viquara glanced at her son. No emotion showed on his face and he refused to look at her.

At least he had stopped fighting his two guards, armored waroids who so far outma.s.sed and outmaneuvered him that his resistance had been absurd. They ran on either side of him now, each gripping one of his upper arms, forcing him to run between them. Neither had hesitated when the dowager empress and Quaelen ordered them to escort Jaibriol to safety. That Jaibriol had resisted with uncharacteristic violence made no difference; he was their emperor and it was their duty to protect him-even if he didn't want it.

Viquara wondered if Quaelen had reached a magrail yet. They had split up to decrease the chance that all three of them would be killed or captured. If all went well, they would meet at Safeguard, a buried ESComm base high in the mountains.

They were a mere hundred meters from the rail station when the explosion hit. Viquara wasn't sure if a bomb or beam drilled into the ground, but the result was the same. The blast threw them back and part of the tunnel imploded, showering the area with debris. Had the corridor not been designed to withstand such attacks, all of it would have collapsed and buried them.

As it was, the debris claimed four waroids, leaving only Jaibriol's guards and two more. Even as Viquara scrambled to her feet, another explosion vibrated the walls. The mobile waroids tried to contact the buried soldiers, but a fast check by their linked communication systems showed the others hadn't survived.

When yet another blast shook the area, they took off, running back the way they had come. Viquara silently cursed the web breakdown that had delayed warning of the ISC approach. But would it have mattered? The advantage of an intact web might well have gone to ISC rather than Glory.

The waroid on her right grabbed her arm and swung her into a cross tunnel. She recognized it: this way led to another rail station, an alternate escape route. They came around a corner-and skidded to a stop. The tunnel ahead had collapsed, debris still falling from the ceiling.

They whirled around and retraced their steps. Jaibriol kept the grueling pace, forced to it by the waroids, but Viquara was beginning to lag. The waroid on her left suddenly put his arm around her waist and lifted her against his side, carrying her with her feet half a meter off the ground. Disconcerted, she put her arms around his "neck" and hung on. She saw lights flas.h.i.+ng on his face screen and knew he was trying to contact palace operations.

An explosion came from behind, throwing them forward. As Viquara hit the floor, she felt weight press down on her. But the waroid held himself up enough to keep from crus.h.i.+ng her, as debris thundered down all around them.

The thunder lessened and then stopped. Viquara struggled out from under the metal giant. He had locked his armor to make his arms remain straight, creating a protective shelter that stayed up despite the chunks of debris piled on him. But the explosion had claimed its price. A panel on his wrist gauntlet flashed: Inactive. Dead.

She set her hand on his armored shoulder. "Thank you." Had he not sheltered her, she too would be dead.

Jaibriol was pulling himself out from under an arch formed by his two bodyguards. She didn't see the fourth guard, but a gauntleted hand extended out from under a ma.s.s of rubble. The inactive symbol glowed dully on the armor of all three waroids. Even armored fortresses couldn't survive tons of casecrete.

Jaibriol stared at the guards with a stunned mixture of grat.i.tude and hatred. Then he climbed to his feet and limped along the hall. Viquara took a laser carbine from a fallen guard and followed him.

They stumbled through the clogged tunnel, clambering over mounds of debris. When she caught up with Jaibriol, she said, "We must get you to safety."

"Why?" He pushed his hand through his hair, loosing a shower of casecrete dust. "What is it you want from me?"

"To live, my son."

Bitterly he said, "All my life you made me beg for your love with your silences and distance. Now you want me safe and well. Why? Because without me you lose the throne?"

His undisguised emotion and blunt words unsettled her. No innuendo for Jaibriol; he broke every rule. What did she feel? He was a slave. Yet he was also the emperor. Most and least, Highton and slave, son and not-son.

"I don't know," she admitted. "It is wrong for me to treat you like a Highton, as if you were human."

He stared at her, disbelief and anger warring with grief on his face. "Do you know how it feels to hear your own mother say that? But I forget. You aren't my mother, not in the true Highton sense." Pain edged his voice. "None of that matters, though, does it? You are the only mother I have now."

Viquara felt as if she were breaking inside. "You weaken me."

"The worst of it is that I do love you." He spoke as if the words were broken gla.s.s, each scarring him as it came out. "G.o.ds know why. Now that I know what a true family is, you would think I would no longer care. But the feelings you have as a child-they never leave."

True family. True family. Like a dragon, Viquara's anger raised its head. "She's come for you, hasn't she?"

"Who?"

"Imperator Skolia."

"She's come to avenge her brother."

"No, she hasn't." The anger breathed into her heart, burning with its pain. "She's come for you. The father of her children."

"She's not my mistress. I told you that under every truth serum you and Quaelen pumped into me."

She gave a bitter laugh. "I never saw even when it stared me right in the face. We asked the wrong question. You married her. You married that contaminated provider. The Skolian Imperator is also Empress of Eube."

In a dull voice Jaibriol said, "Tell me you hate me, Mother. Tell me the truth. Then I can stop caring."

"I can't."

"Can't what? Tell me the truth?"

She swallowed. "Can't tell you I hate you. G.o.ds forgive me, but I can't." Her universe was disintegrating. Imperator as Empress. The abomination was beyond her capacity to endure.

They finally found an intact staircase. As they climbed it, Viquara heard sounds of battle and tightened her hand around the laser. But all she could feel was the abiding horror of knowing that her position, her throne, her son, her power-all had been taken by an Imperator Empress.

The stairs exited at ground level, in the ruins of a garden that looked like a giant animal had torn it to pieces. The lamps were shattered, but fires lit the area, as well as spotlights from aircraft overhead, Jags and Solos trying to engage each other without destroying the palace. An explosion shattered a nearby statue, spraying chunks into the air, and the roar of battle surrounded them.

Viquara pointed to a nearby wing, the one that housed the emperor's private suite. She had no doubt it was more than coincidence that it remained in such good condition. They ran to a stairwell in it and climbed until they came out on a balcony. To their right, night-shrouded hills rolled away to the woods; to their left, wings of the palace smoldered or roared in flame, interspersed with blasted gardens. In front of them, a quadrangle separated them from another wing.

Jaibriol froze, staring across the quad. A bomblet hit a nearby roof and sprayed out shattered tiles, showering them with dust and debris.

"This is madness." Viquara drew him back, against the wall, under an overhang. They couldn't go down the stairs now; she had caught sight of ISC soldiers below. "I hope Kryx made it to Safeguard."

"I doubt it." Jaibriol continued to stare at the wing across from them. "The ISC strikes are too thorough."

"Why are you looking at over there?"

"I thought it might be safer."

She slapped the wall behind them. "This is the safest. The wing with your suite." Clenching her fist, she added, "Apparently your wife gave orders to take you alive."

He motioned at the other wing. "She's in there."

"The Imperator would never come down on-planet."

"She's here." Jaibriol increased his Kyle concentration, focusing it outward. Perfect, lush empathic wealth emanated from him, stronger and purer than anything Viquara had ever felt. She reeled from it, too stunned to react as he walked forward.

Explosions rumbled and a pillar in the quad toppled in a great crash, roiling dust and debris into the air. Jaibriol went to the edge of the balcony and stood there, gripping the rail, his hair flying in the dusty wind, his face caught in the spotlight of a flier, then cast in shadow again.

Recovering herself, Viquara went over to him. She had to shout to be heard above the explosions and aircraft. "You have to come back! You're a target out here."

He was still staring across the quad. When a dark-haired woman ran out of a doorway there on the ground level, Jaibriol shouted, "Up here!"

The woman looked up, her face obscured by swirling dust. Then she took off, running in a zigzag course around the perimeter of the quad. Jaibriol climbed up on the rail, preparing to jump to the ground one story below. Viquara had no doubt then as to the ident.i.ty of the woman coming toward them.

The roof behind Viquara exploded, spraying her and Jaibriol with debris. In the quad, the running woman shouted. Viquara didn't need to hear the words to know she had ordered someone to stop shooting. Commandos were crossing the quad, darting for the cover of fallen pillars and piles of debris, Jagernauts invading her palace. Viquara ignored them, her focus narrowing to the thief who had stolen everything that mattered in her universe, including her Highton detachment. She backed away from Jaibriol, out of his reach.

Then the Empress of Eube raised her laser carbine and sighted on the Imperator of Skolia.

"Not my son," she whispered.

"NO!" Jaibriol jumped back onto the balcony and lunged at her. Viquara danced out of his reach, then turned back to the quad, trying to find Sauscony Valdoria again.

But it wasn't the Imperator she saw. On a balcony level with theirs, in the wing of the palace across the quad, a tall man was raising an EM pulse rifle, a Highton whose form and face she knew well.

Kryx Quaelen.

At first Viquara thought he was aiming at her. Then she understood; as would any Highton, Quaelen would kill his emperor rather than let him suffer the ultimate humiliation of ISC capture. At least that would be Qualen's excuse. She knew his true reason: he feared exposure. If Jaibriol escaped to his Imperator wife, he could make public devastating truths that would wreak a far greater havoc than the whirling chaos around them.

Viquara saw Quaelen sight on Jaibriol. She knew Jaibriol's death would end her anguish. No more agonizing over her slave son. No more Imperator Empress. No proof of it existed beyond Jaibriol. In one shot, Quaelen would put the universe right again.

In one shot, Quaelen would kill her son.

Raising her carbine, Viquara stepped into the line of sight between Jaibriol and the Trade Minister. She and Quaelen fired in the same instant.

Even as she felt the projectiles stab deep into her body, she saw the laser flash envelope Kryx. Dying, he reached his hand out to her, as if he could bridge the chasm that separated them, though whether to embrace or strike her, she would never know.

Viquara was falling. Someone caught her and eased her to the ground. She saw Jaibriol's face above her, saw the tears on his cheeks. Behind him in the sky, the waning crescent of the Diamond Moon shone through the whirling dust of battle. A fading portion of her mind knew it was impossible, that a moon in that phase could never be overhead late at night. Next to it shone another impossibility, the waxing gibbous disk of the Unnamed Moon shedding unadorned light down from the heavens.

Softly she whispered, "It seems ... I do love you, my son."

Then blackness enveloped her and her universe became forever, eternally silent.

33.

A bomb exploded only meters from Althor's flier as he skimmed above the lawns around the palace. At least, they had once been lawns, many acres of lush green waves. Now blast holes pockmarked the terrain. He had taken the flier so low to the ground, it was almost sliding instead of flying. He didn't dare turn on the lights for fear of drawing attention, but it made the flying even more difficult.

He had tried raising the ISC forces on the planet and even the s.h.i.+ps in orbit. The comm barely had the range to reach even the palace, but by now he was willing to try anything. Cirrus sat rigid in her seat, dressed in a thigh-length sweater she had found in the flier's locker.

An explosion came too close to the flier, and the shock wave tossed it forward like a giant throwing a toy. Its nose rammed the ground and plowed a furrow for a good twenty meters before it jolted to a stop. Cirrus hunched up in her seat, covering her head with her arms.

"It's all right," Althor said. When she looked up, he added, "It's another kilometer to the palace. We can make it in less than two minutes." Then he realized Cirrus could never keep up if he went that fast. "Run the best you can. I'll stay with you."

She nodded, silent, concentrating all her attention on what had to be, for her, events extraordinary to the point of disbelief. They clambered out of the wrecked flier and took off across the lawns. Spotlights swung over them, came back, held, and then went on. Althor suspected it was because of the slave restraints and civilian clothes they wore. ISC would want only military personnel, not civilians.