Prisoner of Conscience

Acknowledgments

My protagonist was raised according to a strict standard of filial piety that includes reverence for his ancestors. I’m not Dolgorukij, but it rubs off. Therefore, taking up a bundle of lighted incense sticks, I clasp my hands before me and face north to bow to my ancestors, who will always have guest-place in my house.

Devra Langsam was my great-grandmother. Joanna Cantor and Lori Chapek-Carleton were my great-aunts. Ellen Blair and Bev Clark were my earliest confidants. I had too many godmothers to count: I can only bow.

To Maggie Nowakowska: for all the extra loads of laundry, sinks full of dishes, plumbers and electricians intercepted, bills written, cars washed, and errands run while I was holed up in a dark room writing, I dedicate this book; with my gratitude for her support in years past, and my hope for her continued companionship in many years yet to come.

Chapter One

Fanner Rigs hugged the visioner at his station, fascinated and horrified at once at the sight of the enemy fleet that faced them. The enormity of the task was overwhelming: how could they hope to challenge the Doxtap Fleet, in all the pride of the Jurisdiction’s might?

The Bench had left no choice for them.

They had to try.

Eild was their home-world, and the orbiting artillery platforms that defended it had to be protected from destruction by those mighty warships if Eild was to have any hope of remaining free.

“Our target.” It was his brother’s voice on inter-ship, Marder’s voice. On this little courier they almost didn’t need the inter-ship to hear each other — the ship was tiny, built for speed and maneuverability, both of which were crucial to its intended task. They had to get past their target’s own defenses, its Wolnadis, after all.

And the Wolnadi fighters were visible even now, clearing the maintenance atmosphere and coming toward them at frightening speed.

“Jurisdiction Fleet Ship
Scylla
,”
Sonnu’s clear calm voice confirmed. It was useful to remember that Sonnu was there. Fanner had often fantasized about marrying with Sonnu, if he could catch her eye for long enough to make his case with her. This was his chance to show her his true mettle.

And still it was a desperate enterprise.

They all knew that.

His party had the most desperate part of it, for while the others in the attack on
Scylla
were to draw the Wolnadis off toward the carapace hull — the topmost shell of the warship — his party was to feint for the carapace, and slip at the last minute through the atmosphere barrier into
Scylla
’s maintenance atmosphere, beneath the ship.

They had the schematic firmly fixed in mind.

If they could only be quick and nimble enough about it, agile and canny enough about it, slip through the startled defenses of the maintenance atmosphere —
Scylla
could not fire upon itself, for fear of damage to the ship —

To fail meant death.

To succeed meant death as well, because if they won through to the main battle guns they could destroy
Scylla
, and everybody on it. Including them.

He would never marry with Sonnu now, but if he could be part of the freedom of port Eild it would not even matter.

“Initiate tactical plan,”
Marder said; and Fanner engaged the overthrust boosters on the courier, and sent it leaping forward.

Toward
Scylla
, and their death.

If they could only take
Scylla
with them it was worth it.

###

Snatching a breath as best he could in the close quarters of
Scylla
’s maintenance corridors, Joslire Curran steeled himself for the next desperate sprint. He couldn’t stop for long enough to catch his breath. He couldn’t afford to. There were Nurail sappers in the corridors, they’d breached the maintenance hull and gotten in through the maintenance atmosphere and if Joslire and his team couldn’t stop them in time —

Kaydence Psimas came up on Joslire’s left and nudged Joslire’s shoulder with his elbow, wordlessly. Joslire nodded toward the access to the recirculation systems, and Kaydence grinned and went, dropping to a roll halfway across the corridor as he was fired on. Joslire checked the crossfire zone with a swift movement of his head: no blood on the deck. So maybe Kaydence was unharmed.

The Nurail would know where to watch for them now, though, and there was nothing they could do but get across as quickly as they could. The Nurail sappers had only left one man to try to slow them down. The rest of the party would be three corridors away by now.

The only thing that stood between
Scylla
and destruction was the fact that men who knew the ship’s architecture from living there could navigate more quickly than anyone else.

Kaydence fired back down the corridor at the Nurail who had pinned them there, as much to remind his fellows that he was waiting as to encourage the Nurail to go away. Erish Muat went across, stumbling on the decking and sliding to safety, Kaydence covering him with a shot. They couldn’t afford to use full charge on board ship for fear of starting a fire. The enemy didn’t care.

Toska Bederico brought up the rear, but there was no fire at all from the Nurail, so maybe Kaydence had shot him down. It didn’t really matter. All that mattered was getting through to the main battle guns before the Nurail sappers could get there.

The main battle guns — lateral cannons forward, in this case — could not be turned back toward
Scylla
’s interior. But they could be spiked. And the resulting explosion would destroy everything within a standard orbital.

Down the cross-corridors now to food-stores three. The sappers were taking the main access corridor, but the back wall of food-stores forward abutted a waste-chute that could be vented into armory two levels above. The sappers wouldn’t be able to use the lifts. The lifts had been shut down by Engineering as soon as they’d realized that the crew of the small Nurail scout ship that had cleared the maintenance atmosphere had shot its way in to the maintenance corridors.

It would take the Nurail time to break into the access hatch beside the lift nexus and squeeze through the narrow laddered way. Maybe it would take the sappers enough time for Joslire’s team to get through to the cannons before the Nurail did.

Shoot out the secures on food-stores forward door four, struggle through the half-opened door into the room. Joslire took refuge with Erish and Kaydence behind a shelf full of soup concentrate cartons. Toska piled up a hasty barricade of flour boxes to crouch behind and fired pointblank at the back wall.

There’d been no time to clear the shelves. Shattered bits of storage containers flew like a sandstorm in the little room as Toska fired. Joslire grabbed a chip of something that imbedded itself firmly in the storage shelves behind them: dried sindal, for the mess’s approximation of meat roast. Too bad. He had been hoping for a bite of dried fruit.

Toska was through the wall. Joslire joined Kaydence in clearing away the rubble till they could get at the smoking gap and through. If the Engineer fired the conversion furnaces to hasten the ship’s progress, they were done for. The vacuum that the huge furnace would create would pull them into the engines, and they would become propulsion — not protection — for
Scylla
.

Joslire put the thought out of his mind. If they didn’t stop these Nurail sappers,
Scylla
wouldn’t go anywhere, ever again, except perhaps out in a three-sixty orb in fragments not exceeding seven eighties in size and five eighties in weight.

The waste-chute hadn’t been cleaned for a while. The handholds were full of debris and particulate matter. There were three sets of handholds spaced out around the tubular waste-chute, and Joslire scooped and swept out each of them as he went, mindful of Kaydence waiting beneath him to follow him up the waste-chute.

It was easier going here than the mech-access at the lift nexus would be for the Nurail sappers, and they could only get one person up the mech-access at a time, while three could fit at once in the waste-chute.

The time it took to move up eighth by eighth was still maddening.

What would they find when they got there?

Toska popped the chute while Erish climbed up to hang opposite the opening, nursing his injured arm. When had Erish been injured? It didn’t matter. They couldn’t stop to think about it. They had to go on.

They were in corridor five, Kaydence running for the end of the corridor while Joslire was still helping Erish through from the waste-chute. Sprinting after Kaydence and Toska, Joslire heard the voices, but Kaydence’s voice was closer —

“We’re behind. They’re in third forward!”

They’d come too late. The enemy had already cleared the lift nexus. The voices they heard were Nurail sappers on the way to Cannon Three.

They ran.

Corridor three wasn’t a straight shot through; none of the corridors ran more than a few eighths without turning. There was a Nurail at the first turn waiting for them, and the round she fired stopped Erish in his tracks before Joslire’s return shot separated the top half of her body from her legs.

The shower of gore and bits of flesh made it hard to keep their footing. But they had to catch up with the sappers before the sappers could get to the guns. There had only been eight Nurail to begin with, and they were down to three now — two once Kaydence killed the one waiting behind the next turn, taking him by surprise.

Two.

They didn’t have time to take the turn carefully, whether or not waiting Death should stand behind the next wall. They had to stop the sappers. There were only two turnings left.

One turning.

No turnings.

They could see the sappers ahead of them in the corridor now, and the still-open door into Cannon Three’s loading chamber further on. Joslire checked his weapon’s charge one last time at a full run, steadied it as best he could — and fired. He didn’t have much hope of aim, not running all out as he was.

He didn’t need much aim.

It was a lucky shot, he got the furthest Nurail, and he fell against the wall to clear the field of fire for Kaydence and Toska behind him. Kaydence bolted past like a man in pursuit of his destiny, screaming, firing as he went — one shot, two shots going wild against the bulkhead at the far end of the corridor. The Nurail wasn’t looking back, and from what Joslire could see the Nurail was gaining on the open door —

At last the door started to close, the engineers beyond overriding the system safes that prevented the load-doors from closing when the cannon was active. Closing the door wouldn’t stop the sapper. But it would slow the sapper down.

Kaydence threw himself to his knees in a smooth skid and fired as the last of the Nurail sappers, turning, started to slide his body through the fast-closing door.

Joslire couldn’t see at first what had happened. The Nurail he’d shot was beginning to stir, raising a weapon, which was trained on the back of Kaydence’s head. Joslire had to shoot the man, and make sure he stayed shot this time, before he had any business trying to see through the mess of dust and smoke at the far end of the corridor.

It was quiet in the corridor now, no sound but for the subtle rain of pulverized metallic debris settling out of the air to the decking.

Picking himself up carefully, Joslire staggered over to where Kaydence sat slumped on his heels in the middle of the corridor. It was critically stupid to sit there like that. They’d be too easy a target to miss if there were any sappers left to shoot at them.

“Make the hit, Kay?”

His throat was rough and strained from running too hard, too fast, for too long. Manning the Wolnadi fighters was nothing like this. On the Wolnadis at least you sat down while you either chased down or ran from your enemy. Just their luck to have been on Ship’s Security duty when the
Scylla
joined the Doxtap Fleet to help reduce the artillery platforms at Eild.

“Hard to say,”
Kaydence replied, hopelessly, staring at the ceiling with his head well back on his broad solid shoulders. “But we’ll know in a bit. The ship will blow up. Or it won’t. Then we’ll know.”

There was no help for it but to go and see, then.

Joslire limped forward — funny, he was bleeding, when had that happened? — toward the door at the end of the corridor, half-open, dimly visible now through the clearing dust. There was the door. There was the body on its belly facing toward the door, limp and ungraceful in abandonment — but what about beyond?

Stepping over the prone body of his enemy, Joslire Curran leaned into the doorway to find out.

The cannon.

He couldn’t see the cannon for the face or Erling Miroah, standing in the doorway with a clearing-lever in his hand. As if you could stop a Nurail sapper with a clearing-lever. As if anything could stop a Nurail sapper within sight of his goal; these people were demented. And their insanity made them all but superhuman in what they had proved capable of doing . . .

“The cannon?” Joslire rasped.

Erling wasn’t moving, calling back over his shoulder into the room beyond.

“No, it’s Curran from Security. Send damage control. Send a med-team.”

Why?

“The cannon,”
Joslire insisted, beginning to get annoyed. Why wouldn’t they answer his question?

Erling moved to one side, working at the controls for the door. Joslire saw the cannon at the same instant that he realized why Erling hadn’t bothered to answer his question. If the cannon had been hit, they wouldn’t be here for him to ask. That was why. It must have seemed too obvious to Erling.

Joslire sat down between the bulkhead and the body of the Nurail sapper. It had been a fine effort. First Officer was going to have things to say about the fact that sappers had breached the maintenance hull in the first place. Kaydence came reeling drunkenly across the littered decking to sit down heavily at Joslire’s side; together they watched Toska help Erish come up to join them. Erish’s face was wet with tears of pain — or perhaps simply rage, and sheer frustration. Erish hated to be left out of the shooting. It was just Erish’s bad luck to have been shot, but since he was walking it hadn’t been too bad.

Joslire closed his eyes, exhausted.

Too much excitement.

At least things were quiet now.

He could hear ship’s braid as if at a considerable remove, the Engineer dispatching damage control teams, First Officer reporting status to the Captain. He could hear ship’s ventilators struggling to process all the chipped bulkhead and metal dust they’d just blown into suspension.

He could hear Kaydence’s shaky breathing beside him, Toska catching his breath, Erish grunting softly with reluctant pain. He didn’t hear the med-team coming up, even though they had probably been running. Well. Maybe he had had a short nap, then.

“Joslire, what’s your status, here?”

“Sitting by, team leader.” He couldn’t rightly say “standing” by, could he? “It’s Erish to go first. He’s had the worst of it, I think.”