The Final Key: Part Two of Triad (11 page)

"Decon doesn't recognize my Lyshriol meds." She tensed as a thought came to her. "It better not get rid of them."

"It won't. We forwarded the specifications here. It will just take longer for it to verify their status."

You may keep them,
her node informed her.
Without them, your urine will turn green on Lyshriol.

Thank you,
Soz thought dryly.
I needed to know that.

Decon meds are now friendly with your Lyshriol meds.

Good.

"Decon complete," a voice said. "Permission to board."

"Acknowledged," Tapperhaven said.

A portal opened across the sphere, and they squeezed into a tube with glowing white walls. Blue Luminex rails ran along its sides, "above" Soz's head and "below" her feet, though without gravity she had no real sense of up and down. A mag-car waited on the side of the tunnel, its entrance at right angles to her body. She reoriented and followed Tapperhaven inside. After they strapped into seats, the door clanged shut.

The car raced through the tunnel like a projectile hurtling down the bore of a gun. Soz thought maybe she had spent too much time studying, if she saw even magcars in terms of artillery.

They traveled the length of the ship, ten kilometers, to the hemisphere that capped the end of the cylinder. She and Tapperhaven disembarked and cycled through another airlock. They floated into the hemisphere, an area more than half a kilometer across—the bridge of Roca's Pride.

Robot arms crusted with mechanical paraphernalia shifted aside as they squeezed through the jungle of equipment surrounding the airlock. As per regulations, Soz went first, which meant she would hit any obstructions, nuisances, or dangers ahead of her CO. It was great policy for higher-ranked officers, but annoying or even deadly for the minions.

No matter what her civilian titles, when it came to ISC, she was at the bottom of the hierarchy.

The bridge was essentially a hollow shell. Its rotation could provide pseudo-gravity, if desired. Unlike habitats designed for beauty rather than efficiency, here they used all available space. Robot arms and independent units moved within the hemisphere in every direction. The center was more open, but the inner hull bristled with equipment, glinting silver and black. The officers' stations looked as small as metal studs from here, half a kilometer away, but they had to be full-sized consoles. Sparks of light flickered everywhere from screens, holos, and panels.

Holding a grip by the airlock, Soz peered at the command chair in the center of the bridge, curious to see her new CO. The chair formed the terminus of a mobile robot arm. Right now it faced forward, giving a sense of the captain looking in the direction of the cruiser's travel. It also meant Soz couldn't see who sat there. She wasn't the only one sent here to learn; Kurj expected all his top commanders to be familiar with more than one branch of ISC. During this training run, an officer from the Pharaoh's Army would be in command, coming up to speed on naval procedures. Although spacecraft differed in the various branches of ISC, the Imperial Fleet and Pharaoh's Army both utilized Firestorm battle cruisers, which meant an officer who had commanded one for the army could in theory do so for the navy as well.

Kurj hadn't yet chosen who to send when Soz left Diesha. The chair rotated to the side, revealing her new CO—

Ah, hell. It was Devon Majda.

Soz knew she shouldn't have been surprised it was a Majda. Their House had long supplied top officers to ISC. Jazida Majda, Devon's aunt, commanded the Pharaoh's Army and served as Kurj's second-in-command at ISC. Jazida wasn't the Matriarch of the House of Majda; that tide had gone to her niece, Corey Majda, who commanded the orbital defense system at Lyshriol. However, Corey had an older sister.

Devon.

Brigadier General Devon Majda had once been the Matriarch of her House, a queen in her own right. The Assembly

had betrothed her to Soz's brother, Vyrl, when he was fourteen. Or almost betrothed. Vyrl had run off and married his childhood sweetheart. It caused an interstellar crisis, given the grave insult done by the Ruby Dynasty to the most powerful noble House. Soz had been twelve at the time, a wayward adolescent. She could have told them the betrothal was a bad idea, if anyone had asked her. Vyrl would have been miserable married to a Majda warrior queen; he just wanted to farm and dance and have babies with his sweet-natured wife.

Then Devon had shocked everyone by abdicating her throne so she could marry the man she really loved, a commoner her own age, a clerk in the Assembly. Personally, Soz found it delightful that they had all broken so many rules. Given how upset everyone else had been, though, she kept her amusement to herself.

Unfortunately, Devon Majda now commanded Roca's Pride.

Just her luck to serve under the brigadier general her teenage brother had jilted. She couldn't see much from here except that the general was a tall woman with short, dark hair, which Soz already knew.

With no warning, the holoscreens in the hull came on, the entire hemisphere activating at once. Suddenly Soz was floating in space, surrounded by a spectacular vista of stars. Her hold on the grip tightened convulsively. It took a moment for her pulse to settle and her mind to reinterpret the scene. She wasn't in airless space; the screens were showing what was outside the ship.

"Whoa," Soz said.

Tapperhaven was holding onto a grip at Soz's side, surveying the bridge. "Impressive, yes?"

"Oh, yes." Consoles that had been "above" when she entered the bridge were now to the side. "We're moving, too."

"General Majda is rotating the bridge."

"Ultra," Soz said.

Tapperhaven blinked. "Ultra?"

"Radiant, ma'am," Soz explained. "Jagged to the max. Supernova sizzled." The toughened Secondary actually smiled. "Does that

translate into a language your aging, decrepit instructor knowsT'

"It's amazing, ma'am." The bridge was turning separately from the main cruiser, and Soz's hand-grip was on the cylinder cap. So the bridge turned around her. She knew most captains spun it for a portion of each shift, to give the crew a break from microgravity, but knowing that and seeing it happen were two different things. The equipment on the hull rotated with the bridge; the robot arms, cables, and mechbots needed rudimentary intelligence to readjust their relative positions as they moved about. Far above her, a man was walking across the hull upside down relative to Soz.

Tapperhaven nodded to Soz, giving her leave to proceed. With a shove, Soz pushed away from her hand-grip, flying toward a cable. She misjudged her force and rammed into it, smacking her nose. Swearing, she managed to grab the cable before she bounced away. Tapperhaven sailed past and caught the line farther down its length. Soz glared, but fortunately her instructor didn't see. So much for Soz leading the way. She followed Tapperhaven, pulling herself hand over hand along the line, skimming along. Soz had caught her hair in a regulation knot at her neck, but one curl had worked free and bedeviled her face, bouncing across her nose. Although some officers cut their hair, she liked knowing she could let hers go free when she was off duty.

The cable stretched beside the robot arm, along the rotation axis of the hemisphere, leaving Soz and Tapperhaven in microgravity. As Soz propelled herself forward, she trailed her hand across the ridged conduits in the arm. Tapperhaven was speaking into the coram of her wrist gauntiet, probably to Devon. The general looked back at them from her command chair at the end of the arm. Starlight lit her face, those high cheekbones and straight nose, chiseled and aristocratic, a true Majda. Her eyes slanted upward, as black as space.

Soz slowed to a stop when she and Tapperhaven reached the chair. The Secondary saluted General Majda. "Request permission to come onboard, ma'am."

"Permission granted, Secondary Tapperhaven." Devon glanced at Soz, her face impassive.

"Request permission to come aboard, Captain," Soz said.

She thought it odd to request permission for what they had already done, but Imperial Fleet protocol dictated they weren't onboard the ship until the captain said so.

Devon nodded to her. "Granted, Cadet Valdoria." She glanced at Tapperhaven. "You can go see the Exec. She'll check you both in."

"Aye, aye, ma'am," Tapperhaven said. It intrigued Soz to hear her instructor respond to Devon much as Soz responded to Tapperhaven, except here they used Fleet protocols.

After the general dismissed them, Soz and Tapperhaven turned to leave. Then Devon said, "Cadet Valdoria, stay a moment."

"Yes, ma'am," Soz said. They were all shielding their minds, but Tapperhaven's pause made Soz suspect she hadn't expected this. Tapperhaven couldn't say anything, though. She gave Soz a warning glance, undoubtedly cautioning her to behave. Then she headed to the airlock, leaving Soz alone with Brigadier General Devon Majda.

"At ease, Cadet," Devon said. She was like the ship, exuding an aura of contained power.

Soz endeavored to look at ease. "Aye, aye, ma'am." It felt strange for a J-Force cadet to give a naval response to an army officer, but what the hell.

"How have you been?" Devon asked.

That caught Soz off guard. "Uh, well, ma'am." She couldn't tell the truth, that she was exhausted from demerit duty.

"How is your family?"

Was Devon asking about Vyrl? Maybe she wanted to know about Althor or Soz's father, or even Soz's brother Shannon, who had killed the Aristo that tortured their father. Then again, given Devon's high rank and the fact that her sister Corey commanded the Lyshriol ODS, Devon probably knew more about them than Soz did herself.

"We're getting along," Soz said. She was worried about Shannon, but she couldn't say that to her CO. , "I'm sorry about Althor. His courage will be remembered."

Soz felt a hollowness within herself. She would rather have Althor alive than remember bis courage. "Thank you, ma'am."

Devon spoke carefully. "And Vyrl?" She pronounced his

name Vahrielle, with a proper Iotic accent. Soz always drawled Verie like all the other farmers in Dalvador. Although Devon's expression remained neutral, her fingers tightened on the arm of her chair.

"He's fine," Soz said. "He has four children."

Devon didn't look surprised. "His psychological profile suggested he would want such. It's one reason I offered for him."

Well, that was romantic. But Soz supposed worse methods of matchmaking existed than using psychological profiles. When the Assembly had decided the Majda Matriarch should marry a Ruby prince, they had sent a dossier on Devon to Soz's parents and dossiers about the Valdoria princes to Devon. It didn't surprise Soz that Devon had chosen Vyrl; he was the most domestically inclined of her brothers, ideal for an aristocratic matriarch. Soz had to admit he could be channing when he wasn't annoying. And even she could see he was gorgeous.

An alarming thought came to Soz: what did her dossier say? Gods forbid. She doubted "domestic" was even on the horizon. She wanted an arranged marriage about as much as she wanted a case of Prolarian heat-hives, but she was almost lonely enough to consider it. If the Assembly arranged matters, she could quit worrying about her nonexistent love life.

Devon smiled with unexpected warmth. "Your moods cross your face like clouds over the sun."

Soz flushed. "My apologies, ma'am."

Devon laughed softly. "Relax, Soz."

It wasn't possible. She was nervous, exhilarated, and as tight as a coil, hanging in space, surrounded by stars and nebulae. She motioned to the bridge around them, holding herself in place with one hand. "I don't think I could ever relax with a view like this. It's glorious."

"Aye, that it is." Devon's dark eyes reflected the starlight "Learn it well. Someday you will inherit this."

Gazing at the panorama of interstellar space, Soz wondered if she would ever be ready for the role demanded of her by the serendipity of genetics.

Submerged in a trance, Shannon lost his identity to the night. For this timeless moment, he wasn't a Ruby Dynasty prince, sixth son of the Dalvador Bard, heir to an interstellar empire. He was a Blue Dale Archer, no more, no less, lost in the moment, his mind floating.

Blue on blue, leather on stone, down and around, down and around. Shannon descended the tower in a trance, his boots padding on each step, muffled, down and around. At the bottom, he walked out into the castle where he had lived all of his life, his footsteps keeping pace with his thoughts: