Skolian Empire: The Radiant Seas Part 56

But the chaos still endangered them. An ESComm infantry unit was jogging only a few hundred meters to their right. A bomblet exploded on their left, flinging them to the ground. Althor scrambled to his feet, reaching for Cirrus, but she was already up and running again. The palace rose before them, stark with fires, clouds of smoke roiling about its ragged spears. A Jag arrowed out of the night and exploded the palace roof below it in a burst of debris.

Cirrus ran with him until they reached the wreckage of a garden. Then she sprinted at right angles to their route.

"Cirrus, wait!" He went after her, straining to reach her mind. He picked up a wash of deep, deep fear and beneath that an even more intense emotion, a protective sense as deep and as wide as a sea.

Althor caught up with her and threw both his arms around her waist, jolting her to a stop. "We can't go that way!" He had to shout to be heard above the explosions and sirens. "We need to find the emperor's wing."

"NO!" With an unexpected ferocity she raked her gold-tipped fingernails along his arm. Stunned, Althor loosened his hold. She tore away from him and took off for a cl.u.s.ter of small houses, most of them in smoking ruins.

Althor went after her, devouring distance with his legs. She ran to the smoldering remains of a house, slammed open its door, and disappeared inside.

He found her kneeling in a scorched corner of the one-room dwelling, tears pouring down her face as she cradled a charred sweater in her arms. She rocked back and forth, crying, while outside explosions showered the area, some distant, others too close.

Althor knelt next to her. He spoke more softly now, able to make himself heard with the walls shutting out the worst noise. "What is it?"

"My baby." She showed him the sweater. "This was his favorite." Tears rolled down her face. "My baby is dead."

Althor took the sweater. "You have a son?" The garment didn't look like it belonged to a baby. "Eleven? Twelve?"

"Ten." She drew in an ragged breath. "He needed me and I wasn't here. Now he's gone."

He folded her hands around the sweater. "This doesn't look like anyone was wearing it. Probably it was lying here when the house burned."

A desperate hope flickered on her face. "But where is he?"

"Who has been taking care of him?"

"Empress Viquara."

Althor knew the empress would never care for a slave, "What about a nursemaid?"

Her face brightened. "Azzi!"

Dropping the sweater, she jumped up and ran past him. Althor caught up with her outside, and they crossed a ravaged garden to a house with its roof caved in. Inside, a table had cracked in two when part of the roof hit it, and a bed in one corner creaked under piled debris, straining with the load, ready to collapse.

Cirrus froze. Althor felt her mind reach out, searching, untrained, but with the natural instinct of a Kyle parent for a Kyle child.

A choked sob from the corner, followed by a boy's voice speaking in Highton. "Mama!"

"Kai!" As Cirrus ran to the corner, the sound of scrabbling came from under the bed. A tousled head of yellow hair appeared, followed by the rest of a small boy with blue eyes. Cirrus pulled him to his feet and they clung together, the boy crying, "Mamamamama," while Cirrus said, "It's all right," over and over.

Althor went to them and spoke gently. "We have to go. If we stay we'll be recaptured." These had to be quarters of the emperor's favored providers. He doubted Jaibriol Qox kept slaves; these would have belonged to his father.

Cirrus and Kai looked up at him with an unsettling trust. How was he going to get them out of this mess without being recaptured, blown up, blasted by lasers, or otherwise killed?

"Did you used to live here?" he asked Cirrus. When she nodded, he said, "Do you know the way to the emperor's suite?"

"Yes." She wouldn't look at him. "I was there. Often."

Althor touched her arm, offering comfort, though he wondered if she would ever consider touch a form of comfort after the life she had lived. "Can you take us there?"

"I think so."

She led him to a path that wound through the remains of the slave quarters. Kai couldn't keep up with their long-legged gait as they ran, so Althor carried him on his back. The boy was an easy load, but Althor worried what would happen if he needed enhanced speed. Although he had cleaned and bandaged his arm, it was in bad shape, with damage to his hydraulics as well as his natural tissues. He couldn't carry both Kai and Cirrus.

Cirrus took him to a discreet entrance at the palace. An instant after they entered the foyer, lasers shot across the doorway. Althor felt he should have realized the danger, but if he had ever known ISC intelligence on the Qox palace, that information was gone now. That the laser fired after they pa.s.sed could mean the system recognized Cirrus and Kai and didn't identify him as an intruder until too late. Then he realized it should recognize him, given that he was the empress's provider. Perhaps Cirrus had triggered the lasers, since she no longer lived here. Or else it had been a mistake caused by damage to the palace defenses.

Cirrus motioned to a stairway. "That goes to his suite."

Althor extended his empathic senses. He caught traces of psions, but nothing strong enough to be Qox ...

Then he hit it: a brilliant glowing star among embers. It wasn't Jaibriol Qox; this nova he knew far better.

Soz.

For one horrific instant, when the laser cut the night with its harsh flash, Soz thought someone had shot Jaibriol on the balcony. Then she saw him crouched down, holding a woman in his arms.

Two of the Abaj Jagernauts ran into the stairwell to the balcony, but before Soz could follow, a unit of ESComm Razers jogged around a corner of the building. She dropped behind a fallen statue and fired, sniping Razers. They blanketed the area with rifle fire, the wrong tactic against ISC commandos, wasting ammunition while the hidden Jagernauts picked them off. But for every Razer they stopped, more came from behind, and more, enough to overcome even her crack d-team.

The two Abaj suddenly reappeared, striding out the doorway-with a prisoner. They held him by the arms the same way waroids held captives, forcing him to run with them. Soz had one instant to see his stunned, beloved face. Then she shouted a thought into the d-team psiberlink: Retreat to the shuttle!

They raced through the burning palace. The Razers pursued, well organized despite the depletion of their ranks, but unable to keep pace with the enhanced Jagernauts. ISC weapons fire continued to harry the palace, providing cover for the d-team.

As they ran, Soz both rejoiced and mourned. They had found Jaibrol but not Althor.

By the time they reached the lawns, they had left the Razers far behind. With luck and speed the d-team would reach the shuttle in time. They ran through the dark, up the hill to the s.h.i.+p, crossing the lawns in blurs, faster than any normal human could follow. One of the Abaj had lifted Jaibriol into his arms and was carrying him.

They sailed across a security line, legs stretched out long and graceful. Spikes shot up like avenging specters, but they missed the flying Jagernauts. They continued their mad race, and the crest of the hill came into view, including the bushes that hid the shuttle. Relief touched Soz. They were almost there- Soshoni?

Soz froze, and was almost knocked over by a Jagernaut who barely managed to avoid her. The call echoed in her mind. Soshoni. A name only Jaibriol and her family called her.

She swung around to the palace. Althor!

Where are you? he asked.

She sent him an image of their location and the tactical map, magnifying her signal through the d-team link. She felt his confusion: he no longer knew how to read the map.

She input a command into the link. Get the emperor to the s.h.i.+p. If I'm not there when you're ready to go, leave anyway. Then she ran back down the slope.

Althor sent her an image of the slope below. We're following you. But we have Razers after us.

I've got a fix. Make a 30 turn from your current direction. Soz kept going, letting her node choose her way, as it calculated the least-time intersection of her path with Althor's.

She saw figures on the hill below, a waroid pulling a woman. Then she realized it was Althor carrying a boy on his back, jogging in a zigzag path with the woman struggling to keep up. He apparently couldn't carry both companions, which meant he had to go at the woman's speed or leave her behind.

Soz ran out to them and Althor thrust the boy at her. As she put the child on her back, Althor hefted the startled woman into his arms. Soz had no chance to greet the brother she hadn't seen in seventeen years; she and Althor took off like pulse projectiles, covering ground in tendon-ripping strides that strained even their augmented systems. The boy clung to Soz, his hands clutched in her hair, while her internal biomech sent out every signal it could come up with to confuse their pursuers.

They were within a few hundred meters of the shuttle when Soz's map showed a flood of Razers pouring up the slope. She kept running, but a sinking sense came over her even before her node gave warning. She and Althor weren't close enough to the shuttle. It was a good target for the missile launchers the Razers carried. If it didn't leave now, it would be destroyed.

GO! she shouted into the team link. Get Qox out of here. Contact my father about him!

The shuttle engines rumbled into life, but its air lock stayed open, two Abaj silhouetted in its oval of light.

GO, d.a.m.n it! Soz shouted. She and Althor were meters from the s.h.i.+p, but it was within range of the Razers' weapons and they surely saw it by now.

A missile shrieked above them- Quasis jump, the shuttle thought.

For an instant Soz thought the world had stopped. Then she realized some insane member of her team had thrown the shuttle into quasis as the missile exploded, catching her and Althor in the field as well. It was madness. Quasis had never been meant for ground combat. Conditions changed too fast. With the momentum she and Althor had now, they would hurtle through the air like a rigid bodies while they were in quasis-and when they came out, the altered forces of their environment could tear them apart.

Soz stumbled, her entire body clenching in pain. Althor let go of the woman, shoving her to one side to keep from crus.h.i.+ng her as he fell. Soz lost her hold on the boy and barely managed to swing him at the mother. "Run!" she shouted. "Get in the s.h.i.+p!"

Another missile screamed over them- Quasis jump.

Soz fell forward, slamming into the ground as Althor struggled to his feet. Another missile- Quasis jump.

Soz lurched to her feet and staggered to the open hatch. Hands reached out- Quasis jump.

-and pulled her inside. The Abaj lost their grip on the heavier Althor- Quasis jump.

-both Abaj grabbed him again- Quasis jump.

-and heaved him inside. As they slammed the hatch, Soz sprawled across the deck- Quasis jump.

-thrusters fired- Quasis jump.

The s.h.i.+p nearby lost cohesion, trying to hold fixed the molecular wavefunction of its billowing exhaust. The billows became a rigid cloud, but the s.h.i.+p had to keep going up, caught in quasis. Then the quasis failed and the s.h.i.+p faltered in its takeoff. The thrust kicked back in and they leapt at the sky again, the s.h.i.+p's structure groaning under the strain of so many counterforces. Acceleration flattened Soz on the deck and she heard the boy gasp.

Escape velocity achieved, the pilot thought.

Still pressed to the deck, Soz thought, Go to phase three.

The s.h.i.+p's computer said, "Detonation primed," in the same instant that Jinn Opdaughter, their weapons expert, thought, Explosives on decoy are set.

Make it work, Soz thought. This is our only chance.

Preparing to enter Klein s.p.a.ce, the shuttle pilot thought.

Releasing decoy, the computer warned.

Klein field activated, the pilot thought.

Nausea grabbed Soz as the s.h.i.+p twisted into Klein s.p.a.ce-and in normal s.p.a.ce a decoy "shuttle" exploded in a blast of energy, hurtling slagged debris through s.p.a.ce. To the thousands of people monitoring their flight, it looked as if the shuttle had just blown up.

The Klein-enhanced rumble of the engines increased as they gained speed. Soz couldn't focus her thoughts, water pouring through a tube, rus.h.i.+ng under pressure, quasis jump after quasis jump as the shuttle accelerated ...

Inversion twisted them into superluminal s.p.a.ce in the same instant they twisted out of Klein s.p.a.ce. Soz almost threw up, but she managed to hold it. Then they were free and hurtling through s.p.a.ce.

Taking a deep breath, Soz reoriented herself as she floated up from the deck in free fall. The boy's grip on her head before had pulled down her hair, and now it swirled around her in sweeps of black, red, and gold. She heard the boy cry and the woman murmur to him in Highton. The woman had to be a provider; she emanated Kyle strength, but with no training on how to hide her fear. Then Althor's mind flowed around her, rumbling with power, rea.s.suring and protective.

The d-team was eerily quiet, securing themselves and their gear in silence, with none of the relieved chatter that usually followed a successful mission. Soz knew why. None of them knew why they had faked their destruction or what she intended for the captured emperor. Everyone was waiting to see what came next.

Across the cabin, a medical bunk had unfolded and Althor was sitting on it, holding himself in place by a grip. Soz saw why the bunk had responded to his condition; blood was running down his arm from a torn bandage, bruises and welts covered his torso, and cuts scored his hand.

The woman floated next to him, her hand on his shoulder and her other arm around the boy. Soz didn't know what to make of her. She had the face of a girl, but her sweater-dress did nothing to hide her womanly build. Either her skin had been altered to match Althor's or else she wore gold makeup. Her diamond collar and cuffs threw out prismatic sparkles and her eyes were a blue too vivid to be natural.

Althor watched Soz from across the bustle of the cabin, as the Jagemauts stowed their gear. My greetings, Soshoni, he thought.

She sent him a mental grin. Here I thought I was rescuing you from a dire fate and instead I find you in the arms of a gorgeous woman.

He smiled. It's good to see you. Then his gaze s.h.i.+fted and she followed it.

The Abaj had Jaibriol in a corner where two bulkheads met. They held him by the arms and kept themselves in place by hanging onto grips in the hull. So they floated with the emperor between them, waiting, like everyone else was waiting, to see what would happen when the two potentates came face-to-face. Only once before had such a meeting happened, and both rulers had died for it.

No one yet knew whether ISC or ESComm had won the war. At this moment, no one in the shuttle cared. Soz felt the question that burned in all their minds: when she and Jaibriol spoke, how would the centuries of conflict finally be given voice?

Soz floated to him, closer, and closer, until she was a meter away. She discovered she felt an overwhelming sense of disbelief. Only now did she realize just how much she had doubted she would live to see him again.

"Let him go," she said.

The Abaj hesitated and she felt their conviction that they had misunderstood. So she said it again. "Let him go."

She waited, watching them, until finally they released Jaibriol. As he grabbed a handhold and pulled himself closer to her, every Jagernaut in the shuttle reached for a weapon. She and Jaibriol ignored them, caught in a dance they had begun eighteen years ago on Delos, the planet of sanctuary.

They floated to each other, nudging against bulkheads to control their movement. When they met, she put her arms around his neck and he embraced her, pulling her to him. They kissed each other then, slowly rotating in the air until they b.u.mped up against another bulkhead.

"Saints almighty," someone whispered.

After a long, long moment, Soz and Jaibriol separated. She cupped his cheek with one palm. "My greetings, Husband."

He watched her with the gentle expression she knew so well. For the first time in two years he spoke to her. "My greetings, Wife."

So they came together, their union having survived through the miracle of their love.

34.

Seth Rockworth stood in the entrance hall of his house, watching the youth before him. At seventeen, tall and broad in the shoulders, with a natural grace and quiet reserve, Jai Qox Skolia had stopped being a boy and become a man.

Seth knew Jai considered himself nothing special. Although the boy did well in school, his problems adapting to life away from Prism had masked the full extent of his intellect. But Seth saw. Jai had inherited both the Selei a.n.a.lytic brilliance and the Qox political ac.u.men. He mixed his mother's military genius with his father's abiding gentleness. He had the steel-edged strength of his Ruby and Qox heritages, tempered with the love he had known as a child. But he was more than the sum of Skolia and Qox. Rather than the failing remnant of an inbred bloodline, he was a genetic cornucopia, hale and hearty in mind and body.