Ruler of Naught (69 page)

o0o

The roar of the sequenced missile strikes on his ship
drowned the tinny shout of Juvaszt’s communicator as his transtube accelerated
toward the bridge three kilometers away. In his mind’s eye he could see vividly
the multiple strikes at the same spot, each detonation cumulatively weakening
the shields until only bare metal stood in the way of a million-degree plasma moving
at a quarter-cee.

Another concussion wave caught up with them. The module
shuddered and squealed as it hit the sides of the transtube, throwing them to
the deck, then reaccelerated. Juvaszt climbed to his feet and spat out a tooth.
He shook his communicator experimentally, but the impact with his mouth had
crushed it. He looked around, but the junior officers with him had comms that
couldn’t access his command channel—a standard precaution against mutiny.

Then Anaris’s Bori secretary stumbled forward and pressed a
communicator into his hand. Juvaszt noticed three more communicators dangling
from the Bori’s belt as he snarled at the man reflexively, irritated by the
useless gesture. But then he recognized the voice of his second squawking from
it.

“... Juvaszt! Are you able to respond?”

It was tuned to the command channel! He turned a speculative
glance from the Bori to Anaris, surprising an expression of irony of a sort
he’d never seen from the Avatar.

“Juvaszt here. Report.” His tongue probed at the hole in his
gum.

“Two destroyers in fractional-cee attack, sir,” so-Kyvernat
Chodalin responded. “No ID. Tactical skip executed, ruptors on-line,
skipmissile charging... ”

“Cancel that, you... ” Juvaszt bit down on the next word
before it emerged, chagrined at his loss of control. “Cancel that. Neither we
nor the Panarchists can afford to use skipmissiles. Arthelion is unshielded.
The Avatar is in the Mandala. Damage?”

“Aft second bay not reporting, minor damage to forward
ruptor one.”

Then the damage wasn’t severe, except for the bay. “And the
prisoners?”

“Safe, on their way to the brig.”

Now, as the surprise of the attack dissipated, Juvaszt began
to speculate.
What are the Panarchists up to?
Without skipmissiles they
could do no more than sting the
Fist of Dol’jhar
, although, he admitted
ruefully, their first sting had been a telling one.

The module began to decelerate. Juvaszt discovered Anaris
regarding him coolly. The conditional heir appeared completely in control, in
contrast to his Bori attendant, whose fear-paled brow was oozing oily sweat.

The module halted; the doors jerked open. Juvaszt smelled
the tang of heat as he caught a glimpse of seared metal on the outside of the
module—a fraction of a second longer and they would have been vaporized. He ran
down the short corridor onto the bridge, followed by Anaris and the others.

His second jumped out of the command pod and saluted as he
approached. “Kyvernat Juvaszt,
Satansclaw
reports an attack by two
frigates that has driven them away from their assigned position, enabling a Panarchist
destroyer to discharge a wave of small vessels that they could not stop. These
are now burning down into the atmosphere.” He looked grim. “Their signatures
match that of Panarchist Marine lances; their courses appear to intersect the
Mandala.”

“Weapons!” Juvaszt shouted as he threw himself into his pod.
“Ready missiles for atmospheric entry, ship-to-ship. Target lances and fire
upon emergence.” He wiped his lips and swallowed; his mouth ached and his
speech was becoming less intelligible.

Forced away.
A glance at a secondary screen revealed
that
Satansclaw
had instantly skipped away from the planet when the
attack commenced. He’d deal with Anderic later.

Juvaszt looked up at the plot screen that echoed graphically
Chodalin’s report. A targeting diamond appeared in response to his input.
“Navigation, take us in, two skips, maximum safe angle.” They would have to
skip out and then back in to go around the planet in the least time, and the
larger the angle formed by the two legs of their route, the closer they would
be to radius each time. But the Avatar was in the Mandala.

Juvaszt had a sudden, vivid image of the deadly,
needle-shaped lances closing in on the palace, disgorging their cargo of
battle-armored Marines. He had no illusions about their efficacy: trained in a
tradition of small-squad, independent action, they would slice through the
rigidly hierarchical Tarkans like monothread through flesh.

“Nonsense,” Anaris snapped as the fiveskip burped in the
first skip. Juvaszt turned, startled, as his mind threw up a brief image of the
spectral hands of Urtigen hovering over the conditional heir’s head at the
ghost-laying ceremony; but Anaris was looking at the viewscreen.
Favored of
the ancestors, yes, but surely not Chorei. He cannot hear my thoughts.

Anaris glanced down at him, still with that expression of
irony. “The Panarchists wouldn’t waste their time attacking the Mandala. It
makes neither tactical nor strategic sense. It must be a ruse.”

The fiveskip burped again.

“They are striking at the Avatar, who has usurped their
ruler and claimed his palace,” said Juvaszt, turning back to the viewscreen.
Now he was irritated. This was his ship, he was responsible to the Avatar, not
to the heir.
No, conditional heir.

On the viewscreen the green spears of laser-boosted missiles
leapt away; coins of light blossomed above the night side of Arthelion as they
found their targets.

“Sensors, scan those explosions.”

“They don’t think that way,” said Anaris.

“Spectrum indicates organic debris consonant with human
remains,” reported the sensors officer after a moment.

Anaris said nothing more, and Juvaszt decided not to follow
up on his advantage. The sensor report said it well enough.

“Communications, get me
Satansclaw
,
Kali
and
Mojyndaro
.
Then contact the Mandala and request an audience of the Avatar.” Better that he
call down—even thought he couldn’t really spare the time—than have the Avatar
call him demanding an explanation.

In the meantime, the
Fist
could handle destroyers
forbidden their best weapon, and with two frigates supporting it even a Rifter destroyer,
especially one equipped with a logos, should be able to fight its way back to
orbit to deal with further lance attacks. He’d like more, but he needed the rest
of his Rifters to locate the Panarchist forces.
At least I know they had to
be clumped within a few light-seconds to start with, with their lightspeed-limited
communications.
That would make it easier.

He ordered the three Rifter ships to take up position
antipodal to
Fist of Dol’jhar
, noting that
Satansclaw
claimed
damage to one of the attackers. Perhaps Barrodagh had been right, then, about
the logos.
Even a stopped heart holds blood.

Juvaszt tabbed his console, summoning a medic to give him
something to cut down on the flow of saliva and blood from the empty tooth
socket so he could speak clearly. He motioned his tactical officer over as he resumed
giving orders, with a priority on identifying his attackers so he knew whom he
was fighting. He had no doubt they had very little time before the next attack.

o0o

Anaris felt the old familiar rage mount up behind his eyes,
but he rigidly controlled himself, letting nothing of it show. The report from
the sensors had been a blow, shaking his certainty that the lances were a feint.
Would the Panarchists throw away lives like that? Then he remembered the looks
on the faces of the men and women around the Panarch in the hangar bay during
the missile attack, and the Arkadic Marines he’d known while a hostage. That
was the wrong question. Would they spend lives like that?

The fear of defeat seized him in spite of his stance on the
bridge of a ship armed with the unstoppable power of the Suneater. The
Panarchists would pay whatever price was asked of them, if they thought the
prize worth it.
So what is the prize?
One thing he was sure of: it was
not the Mandala. The fact that the other Dol’jharians around him saw the
Mandala as the logical goal of the Navy’s attack merely confirmed the
deception.
They knew we’d believe it.

He listened to Juvaszt snapping out orders, the consonants
of his speech mushy from the missing tooth, impressed with the man’s command of
himself and the situation; but all the while his mind worried at the question
of their enemy’s real purpose.

Then so-Erechnat Terresk-jhi turned around from the
communications console, a mixture of fear and awe on her face that told Anaris
immediately what her next words would be.

“Kyvernat Juvaszt, the Avatar will speak to you,” she said,
confirming Anaris’s conjecture.

Juvaszt motioned her to open the channel, and a window
swelled on the main viewscreen, revealing Eusabian’s face and shoulders. The
image was slightly rough; Anaris could see Terresk-jhi tapping at her console,
but it didn’t help. He guessed that the useless chatter and images loading down
the hyperwave from their Rifter allies were stressing the discrimination and
decoding circuits.

Anaris did not recognize the room Eusabian was in, but from
the furnishings guessed it was one of the Panarch’s private chambers in the Palace
Minor. He noted the smile of excitement, almost satisfaction, in his father’s
face; a glance at Morrighon made it clear that the Bori saw it as well.

“Kyvernat Juvaszt. Your report.”

As Juvaszt gave Eusabian a précis of the attack and his
assessment of its goals, Anaris saw in Eusabian’s reactions the same
culture-blind assumptions as in Juvaszt.
He studied them for twenty years,
but he still thinks of them as weak versions of Dol’jharians. There must be
some way to use this blindness, but how?

Then, in full view of the bridge, the Avatar handed Anaris
the lever he needed.

“Bring the Panarch to the bridge and show him to the
attackers—hold the sword of their oath against their own throats.”

You fool! They live and die by symbolism; it is the
foundation of their culture and their lives. Do you think they swear their oath
to nothing but a living man?

As Anaris exulted silently at this incredible mistake, the
Avatar turned his way.

“Anaris ji-rahal,” he said, using again the conditional
form, “I lay my paliach in your hands for now. Return my enemy to me, or kill
him.”

Anaris bowed deeply. “As my father commands, so it is done.”
He heard an intake of breath from Juvaszt as he straightened up. He had claimed
the kinship without the conditional form, a response both respectful and
defiant.

On the screen Eusabian regarded him with that
uncharacteristic quirk of humor, then the image vanished.

“
Satansclaw, Kali
, and
Mojendaro
reporting in
position and engaged with three enemy frigates,” said Communications.

Anaris stepped forward. “Kyvernat, you must obey my father,
but I tell you now, it will not work.”

Juvaszt’s dark eyes were steady and considering. “You are
right,” he said at length. “I must obey the Avatar.” The faintest of stresses
on the title was the only indication of his disbelief.

Anaris stepped back. That was enough for now.

o0o

Stygrid ban-Armenhaut sat stiffly in his command pod on the
bridge of the
Flammarion
, glowering at the viewscreen.

“Ready for the skip to first coordinates, Captain,” came the
voice of Bar-Himelion at the navigation console. “Ten light-minutes out for
long-ranging.”

Armenhaut blinked. “Engage.”

The fiveskip hummed then ceased. The screen cleared, and
Siglnt reported acquisition of their target.

“Signature ID’d.
Ghostmaker
, frigate.”

Armenhaut’s tactical officer began tapping at his console,
analyzing the movements of their quarry, and looking for a pattern that would
enable them to emerge with enough precision to put a narrow beam through its
engines, rather than relying on the broader, deadlier stroke of the
Flammarion’s
ruptors. Acidly, Armenaut’s noted again how little Lieutenant Commander
Rajaonarive hesitated over the new Tenno.

Armenhaut bit his thumb moodily. Ng’s assumption of the rank
of commodore, fully within the Standing Orders as it was, still rankled; being
under her command was even worse because it gave form to the worry that with
the Aerenarch dead, his career might truly have reached its zenith.

The silent activity on the bridge stretched out to minutes.
Armenhaut had no doubt that the bridge of the
Grozniy
was full of
chatter. He sniffed. What could you expect of a jumped-up Polloi?
She
cultivates that image of hers, of promotion through pure merit, but I’d like to
see where she’d be without the Nesselryns behind her
. He still remembered
his encounter with the long arm of her patron family, just after their
graduation from the Academy.

Politics is the continuation of war by other means.
That had been a favorite epigraph of the Aerenarch. Merit could take you only
so far, Ng would find someday... did Ng think she could have refused the order
to investigate reports of Adamantine activity at Sigil III, had she been
stationed at Arthelion? Her comment still clawed at his pride.

Armenhaut shifted in his pod, grateful when Lieutenant
Commander Rajaonarive’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “We’ve got a pattern,
sir,” said the tactical officer. He snorted. “He’s using the Omega tactical
algorithms, with the destroyer optimization sets. Telos knows what good he
thinks that’ll do in a frigate.”

Commander Gormen leaned toward Armenhaut. “Some noderunner
got lazy.”

Armenhaut grimaced. He really didn’t care about some
nameless Rifter computer tech right now.