House of the Wolf (Book Three of the Phoenix Legacy) (17 page)

Galen nodded. “This is kidnapping in style, anyway.”

“But it’s still kidnapping,” Eliseer said angrily. “This woman, she must’ve given some hint—”

“Nothing. She said she’d be back soon to check on you.”

“Father!” Renay motioned to him, eyes fixed on the screen. “Galen, they’re showing the sequence on the Estate again. Father, hurry.”

Eliseer wasn’t yet capable of hurrying, but he managed the few meters without blacking out. The image on the screen made no sense, either; not at first. A night scene, artificial light fragmenting it, making it harder to read. An aerial view of buildings; immense, billowing clouds of smoke, firecars like airborne fountains dancing among riven ruins.

The Estate. His own Estate.

“Holy God, that’s the family wing!”

Renay only nodded without looking at him. “That
was
the family wing. They’re searching for us in the rubble, Father. For our bodies.” He paused as the images on the screen changed. “Good. They’re giving us a recap and update.”

For ten minutes, Eliseer stood transfixed, watching the screen, listening to the garbled, incomplete reports read in a consistent tone of bewildered panic. Confleet bases and arsenals, IP ports, Selasid Mercfleet hangars, Robek Trafficon centers and Transystems terminals, Confleet and Conpol com- and compcenters, House warehouses, even three Eliseer smelters—bombed, strafed, crippled. The reports poured out from Castor, Pollux, Perseus, Dionysus, Pan, from every city on every inhabited planet in the Centauri System.

The name of this disaster was war.

And if the ’casters seemed incredulous of almost everything they reported, there was no doubt about the source of this incomprehensible attack.

The Society of the Phoenix.

A fleet estimated at anywhere from a thousand to three thousand ships had been unleashed on the Centauri System, and every vessel bore the name and symbol of the Phoenix.

And he had always regarded the Phoenix as simply another pirate clan, possibly with radical political leanings. But this was no pirate raid; it was a war, and a stunning revelation.

Apparently this war was limited to the Centauri System. He grasped at that as hungrily as the ’casters. Help was on the way. Confleet was sending a full thousand-ship wing from the Solar System. Again and again, the ’casters insisted that reinforcements would arrive within four hours.

Renay said coolly, “It seems the Concord has underestimated the Phoenix all these years.”

Eliseer was amazed and proud of his son’s calm, and it served as a reminder to put his own thoughts in order.

“So we have, and I assume we’re prisoners of the Phoenix. Or hostages. I wonder what they hope to gain from that. Or any of this, for that matter.”

A warning chime from the door precluded any reply Renay might have made. They all turned, waiting silently as it opened.

The first to enter was a face-screened man carrying a gun with an unusually wide muzzle. He didn’t speak, but stepped aside for the woman, also face-screened, who followed.

Renay said, “Father, this is the doctor. With friend.”

Eliseer studied her. Tall and slender, dressed in a standard slacsuit. The ’screen didn’t hide the silver hair coiled in a thick braid at the crown of her head. She and the guard both bowed respectfully, but apparently she was the spokesman here; the man remained silent.

“My lord, Sers. . . . I’m sorry I can’t give you my name. The gun my ‘friend’ is carrying, by the way, is armed with stun darts. They aren’t lethal, but I must warn you, they’ll stop you in your tracks in five seconds.”

Eliseer moved casually toward the couch, separating himself from the twins. The guard, he noted, shifted position to keep all of them in range.

“I appreciate the warning, Doctor. Now I would appreciate an explanation.”

“Of what, my lord? Your abduction?” There was no antagonism in her tone, rather a hint of sympathetic amusement.

“I see you don’t balk at calling it by its true name.”

“No, but if I said you’re in protective custody, that would also be true. I assume you’ve been told about—”

“The war going on—” He waved a hand in an indeterminate motion at the windowless walls. “—out there. I’ve seen a sampling of it on the newscasts.”

“Then you understand the situation. You’ve also seen what happened at your Estate?”

“Yes, I’ve seen it,” he said, his tone more cutting than he intended. The woman unnerved him, perhaps because she displayed no hint of the maliciousness or arrogance he expected.

“I’m sure, my lord, you realize that if you and your sons hadn’t been
abducted
, you’d undoubtedly be dead. That’s why you’re here.”

“Well, Doctor, please don’t think we’re ungrateful, but I can’t believe that’s the only reason we’re here. And why go to the trouble of . . . putting us in protective custody if you intended to bomb my Estate?”

“Because we didn’t
intend
to bomb your Estate. We only recognized that in war, errors are possible. It might interest you to know that we also abducted Lord Drakonis and his family, as well as Lady Falda and her children. Lord Hamid, fortunately, is safe in Concordia.”

“Fortunately?” He took a step toward her. “What about my wife and daughters? Are they also
safe
in Paykeen?”

“To my knowledge, yes, my lord. We’ll set up an interconn so you can speak with them as soon as possible.”

“And relay your demands to the Directorate, I suppose?”

“No. You may relay the assurance that you and your sons will be released as soon as it’s safe to do so.”

“Safe? For whom?”

“For you, my lord.”

The woman was maddening. Eliseer glanced over at his sons, both listening attentively, carefully expressionless.

“It doesn’t make
sense
.”

Eliseer was vaguely surprised that he’d spoken aloud the thought that haunted him since he awakened.

“I know, my lord,” the woman replied, “and I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.” Then her head turned toward the twins. “And now, Ser Renay, Ser Galen, I must ask you to go into the next room for a short while.”

“Why?” Eliseer demanded, instantly suspicious.

“Only because I have someone with me who wishes a private audience with you, my lord. Nothing more sinister will come between you and your sons than a closed door. If it were our purpose to harm you, or if we had a nefarious purpose in separating you, we’d have done so before you regained consciousness.”

Eliseer sighed, reluctantly admitting the logic in that.

“Who asks a private audience of me
here
?”

“I’m not free to tell you, but she asked me to give you a message. ‘The long months of secret waiting are over.’ ”

Adrien.

It could only be Adrien. Eliseer didn’t realize how apparent his shock was until Renay started toward him.

“Father? What is it?”

After a moment, he had himself in rein again. “Renay, you and Galen go into the next room.”

“What? But we can’t—”

“Please.”

The brothers exchanged glances; twin’s glances, Eliseer called them, then reaching a silent accord, they retreated into the adjoining room.

Galen paused at the door. “We checked our ’coms and yours,Father. They’re all working.”

Eliseer smiled at that. “Thank you, but I don’t think you need to worry. Not about this, at any rate.”

When the door closed behind Galen, Eliseer turned to see the guard opening the outside door.

She was face-screened when she entered, but Eliseer knew he’d have recognized her even without the message as a cue. He looked down at her hands. She was wearing the ruby and sapphire betrothal ring; wearing it on her left hand.

He waited, motionless, hardly aware of the departure of the doctor and the silent guard.

Finally, he whispered, “Adrien . . .”

The face-screen went off, but still Eliseer was incapable of movement, and she seemed equally constrained.

“Father? Oh, Father . . .”

Then she ran to him in a rush of tears and laughter, and he held her in his arms, laughing and crying with her.

The countdown clock read zero +03:00: 13:00 TST.

Ussher frowned at the coffee Isaks had brought him; it was cold. He put it down by the vidicom, then tilted his chair back to read a new series of figures appearing on the progress screen.

Those figures meant aircar, ’train, and pedway traffic in all those cities had been brought to a virtual standstill. He smiled, his gaze shifting to the vidicom. He didn’t have to leave to his imagination the incredible snarls of traffic and the resulting confusion and panic. The bewildered newscasters were telling the story in words and pictures. They also told another story that he found equally satisfying.

The Hamid Estate in Leda had suffered serious damage from propulsion bomb strikes. Not as serious as the Eliseer Estate, but official concern was being voiced for the survival of Lady Falda and Lord Hamid’s heirs. There were no reports of damage to the Drakonis Estate in Danae, and he couldn’t ask about that. Garris had been too suspicious of the Eliseer strikes. Fortunately, he was occupied at the GroundComm console now; he had missed the Hamid Estate reports.

Isaks said quietly, “Sir, the first casualties will be coming through the lock in a few minutes.”

“Casualties?” For a moment, Ussher was distracted. He looked at Isaks and saw that he was intent on his earspeaker. “Oh. Put me on the ADCon frequency.”

Some of the voices in his ear were echoes of those only meters away on the Approach and Docking Control board. He rose and went to the windowall. The crowd around the deck had dispersed, called to their duties. Towcars and crews waited near the lock tunnel, some of the ’cars equipped with pressure winches and cutting lasers. Across the hollowly empty vault, red-tunicked medsquads waited by the corridor entrance with ten loaders, two piled with emergency medical equipment, the others filled with empty stretchers.

He looked away, toward the lock tunnel, listening to the voices in his ear. Nine Falcons and two Corvets; damage and casualty assessments; order of arrival decided on the basis of proximity and extent of damage.

“ADCon—Pri-One override! This is Major Dylon,
Eliad
.”

“PNX ADCon on line,
Eliad
.”

“Hull damaged. Emergency bulkheads going. We’re one minute from locks. For the God’s sake, keep them clear!”

“Locks clear,
Eliad
, and open. Subtugs deployed on—” A burst of static; a dim voice buried in it. Ussher looked around at the techs on the ADCon board. He couldn’t be sure which was the source of the strained voice.

“
Eliad
? Major Dylon, come in!
Eliad
!”

Silence. Then another voice.

“ADCon, this is Subtug Squad 3. Corvet
Eliad
on visual. She . . . she’s disintegrating. Pressure implosion. We’ll try to—to get any survivors into our pressure chambers.”

Survivors
. Ussher turned, staring blindly out into the hangar. Survivors in two hundred meters of water?

Someone came into the comcenter, and in the few seconds the door was open, he heard a whoosh like a muffled explosion, then a prolonged shriek. The first sound was the opening of the lock gates, the second he only understood when a ship lurched out of the tunnel. Corvet
Ranger
, listing so far to one side, her steering vanes were dragging, burning a line of sparks on the floor. Tow crews and medsquads swarmed toward her, the latter boarding even as she was dragged into the hangar, out of the way of the next ship emerging from the lock.
Ranger’s
side was a wreck of crumpled, fused metal; sea water gushed from tom holes between the struts.

“. . . Dr. Cabot in the infirmary to expect thirty-three injured. Fatalities estimated at twelve.”

Ussher’s hand jerked up to his headset to switch it off. He looked around the comcenter distractedly, finally fixing on the progress screen.

Confleet arsenals hit; facility damage estimates. Yes, he’d been waiting for those figures.

That was every Confleet arsenal in Centauri. He took a deep breath. A few casualties were unavoidable. Victory has its price.

“Your signal’s clear, Jan. Right.”

Ussher frowned, attracted first by Garris’s stentorian tones, then by the familiar form of address. That was First Commander Barret he was speaking to.

“What? No, our reports from Danae and all the Inner Planets bases say that sector should be clear.”

Garris was unhappy; more than that, alarmed. Ussher caught Isaks’s eye and with a hand signal directed him to put him on line with Garris and Barret.

Barret’s voice came through first. “. . . check with our Inner Planets agents. Cornel Demerin came out of SS into an attack wedge of Confleet Falcons. Twenty-two of them.”

“Jan, it had to be an accident; pure chance. There’s no way Confleet would have any of our emergence coordinates.”

“I know, Emeric. Confleet probably deployed extra ships in that sector specifically to guard the power plants. I would in their place. Demerin pulled out of the engagement with minor damage and no casualties, but I’m afraid we can count on extra steel around the Dionysus and Pan plants, too, so that scraps the power plant op. Tell TacComm that Demerin and his unit will shift to the Pan Obsat op, and I’ll—”