Wrath of Axia (The Arcadian Jihad) (23 page)

“It’ll change tomorrow, Berg,” Rusal said. “We dare not allow ourselves to stand still, that way can only lead to defeat. If the enemy fails to attack tomorrow, we have to go after them. We managed to salvage a number of their damaged armored vehicles. The workshops and shipyards are working against the clock to get them repaired by tomorrow. Our force should double in strength, so we’ll be able to field almost three hundred vehicles.”

“Against how many, Admiral?” Smetana asked. Rusal didn’t reply, as he didn’t need to. They knew that the thousand ASFVs that hit them this morning were only a fraction of the enemy army ranged against them. Blas didn’t hear either of them. He stood like a statue. In just a few seconds, the new, regal and even more elegant Saffron had totally enchanted him.

She smiled at him across the room with her deep-blue eyes slightly raised at the corners. He suddenly realized that they were asking him a question.

“Uh, what was that again?”

“I asked for your suggestions for tomorrow, Mr. Blas.”

He had to pull himself together. “I think it’s time for a gamble, Admiral. The enemy has put everything they have into this frontal attack on the city and spaceport. I say keep a strong defensive force on the walls. We can put a line of ASFVs in front of the walls too, and use them as assault guns. That’ll stop them getting near enough to do too much damage again. In the meantime, I would suggest that Berg’s mobile force leaves the city by…”

“Leave the city! Are you mad, Constantine?” Berg shouted. “My men are needed here in case the attack breaks through the walls!”

“I think we can keep them far enough away from the walls to prevent that happening. I’m suggesting your mobile force leaves the city to attack to the west and try to take the whole of the west side of the planet. There are more manufacturing plants, towns and cities with populations we can recruit. We could roll up the planet from the other side. With any luck you’d be able to come around and hit the enemy from the rear.”

“You mean for us to take the whole planet?”

“No, but enough of it to take the rest of it out of the equation.”

“And if the Tricon armies surround the town once half of our forces have left?” Rusal asked.

“Then we’ll have to fight twice as hard,” he grinned.

“I will go with the attack,” Tell said. “I believe the people will listen to me, and I can offer them hope. It was once said, ‘learn from yesterday, live for today, and hope for tomorrow’. I believe the people will do all of those things. I’ll get you your people, Admiral.”

“Very well. But Berg, guard him well.”

Blas looked back at Saffron. She still had the attention of almost every man on the bridge. His eyes wandered over her. She was wearing a stunning gown, floor length, cut in a classical fashion. Her hair was styled simply but on her it looked wonderful, like that of a Goddess. He realized that she was speaking to him, had he lost his mind? She’d bewitched him. What would Evelyn think? Evelyn, why did you have to follow me on that last attack?

“I asked if we could make it dinner when you come to see me this evening.”

“Dinner?”

“Yes, dinner, it would be pleasant.”

“Seven o’clock?”

She smiled. “That’s wonderful. I’ll see you then.”

She went to join Nightingale who was standing next to the comms console. Blas’ mind wandered back to Evelyn. What in space could this mysterious message be? The message that she’d kept for him until after her death. He made a determined effort to concentrate on the course of the battle. Rusal was talking about the fleet.

 
“I’ve put the shipyards on notice that we have to have more ships, so they’re working flat out. With any luck we’ll have the first ships inside of two weeks and by using everything they have, including ships under repair and new vessels, we’ll be spacebound in a month.”

“And if we don’t have a month?”Berg Smetana asked.

“President Tell is confident that time is on our side. Discontent is growing as the message circulates throughout the Systems. The word is that the navy is unhappy about attacking us here on Isolde until the truth of the Presidency is resolved.”

“So we’re relying on a bunch of mutineers to win for us, Admiral?”

“Until our fleet is ready, yes.”

The meeting broke up shortly after, everyone conscious that tomorrow could see them launching an attack that could be the beginning of their journey to Axis Nova, or the end.

She opened the door as soon as he knocked. She stood facing Constantine with her chin slightly raised and an impish look on her face. She’d just come out of the shower, her thick black hair, not quite dry yet, hung damply about her ears. She wore no makeup; she didn’t need it. She was wearing a floor-length silk dressing gown in dark red, trimmed in a rich cream and split up the sides. Blas couldn’t detect anything underneath it, nothing but her. The dressing gown appeared to be part of her, molded to her shoulders, her breasts and her hips. Her eyes sparkled mischievously. The sweet fragrance of her perfume reached him and he felt himself lost in the innocent perfection of her. She smiled and said, “Constantine, you’re early.”

“I can always go back.”

She moved out of the way, swung the door wide and leaned against it with her head to one side. “No,” she said, “I think not, I’d like you to stay.”

He went past her, into the unfamiliar room they’d assigned to her. Even in such a short time she’d made it her own, had put a tiny, rare Brant oil painting on the wall. The room was neat, cozy and very, very feminine.

“Very elegant,” he said, nodding his head. “The painting is truly exquisite.”

“I wanted you to see it as it’s very special to me.”

“Why is that?”

“Evelyn gave it to me, when I was her pupil.”

Evelyn again, his stomach lurched as he thought of the terrible loss, the irreplaceable loss.

She closed the door behind him and came very close, staring up at his face for several seconds, then said, “I know what she meant to you, but she meant a great deal to me as well. A great deal.”

She had set the table with woven silk placemats and elegant silverware, Arcadian china and thin, fragile wine glasses.

“If you’d like to clean up, you can use that,” she said, pointing to the bathroom.

He smiled inwardly as he’d already cleaned up, but he felt like a shabby, clumsy oaf in her neat, immaculate domain. He went and washed again. When he returned, she was pouring Hesperian wine into the glasses. She signaled for him to sit and went to a trolley containing food kept hot in containers. He recognized the trolley.

“It’s from the Magellan,” she saw his glance. “I went to the galley and they let me prepare the food there. In this place there’s very little worth eating.”

She raised her wine glass towards him. “Health.”

He returned the toast. The glasses touched with a gentle ring. She leaned forward and stared at him again, her deep, piercing blue eyes looking directly through his own eyes, right into his soul. After a few seconds she broke the glance and served the food.

“How did you persuade the Magellan’s chef to let you invade his galley? Mind control?”

She laughed and the laugh became a smile and stayed on her lips. “Not at all, just a little feminine charm.”

She had that, and to spare, he thought. She was so different to Evelyn, and yet they were so alike. The food was fantastic, and he could hardly believe how good it really was. She was a girl of many talents.

Thinking of Evelyn brought him back to the reason that he was here.

“Saffron, tell me about this message from Evelyn. What did she want me to do?”

The girl stopped all movement. It was obvious she was thinking about how to frame her answer. Why was it so difficult for her to just say it to him?

“What do you know of Orphex?”

“Orphex? Nothing at all, I guess. The women have the power of mind control, and they can understand what others are thinking. They’re all,” he paused, embarrassed. “Well, they’re all beautiful, like you and Evelyn. Nightingale, too.”

“That’s it, that’s all you know?”

He nodded. “Sorry, should I know more?”

“Perhaps, and perhaps not. One of the abilities we learn to possess is the power to attune an individual’s mind to the mind of another Orphexian. There are many reasons for doing this. For example, if one of our people is sent on a mission to gather intelligence, another can be attuned with them, so that if anything happens to the first, the second can step in and take over. It also means that there are two minds working at a single task, which tends to get results in a very short time.”

Blas was intrigued. “Can you give me a practical example of this?”

She nodded. “This is confidential, yes? I can rely on you not to say anything to anyone?”

“Of course.”

“Nightingale and I have been working together to come up with some of the solutions to help Admiral Rusal win the battle and gain control of the planet. We persuaded him to make better and more efficient use of the shipyards and armaments factories. He’d been so busy running the battle that he’d overlooked the obvious, that we needed to begin working for the final victory now, not later.”

“You used mind control on the Admiral?” Blas flared up, angry that they could have deceived such a great man. But she grinned.

“Of course not, why would we do that? We have never used mind control on our allies, why would we? Except when it was essential for the safety of the person concerned. No, we worked it out between us and Nightingale just mentioned to the Admiral what we thought. He agreed it was the right plan and he adopted it. There was nothing secretive. It’s just that the combined power of two minds worked it out, rather like two computer processors working in tandem.”

“I apologize,” Blas said, feeling his face redden. The last thing he wanted was to upset this elegant, regal girl. He wanted this evening to go on forever, to listen to her tinkling, gentle voice, to smell her tantalizing fragrance.

“No apology is necessary. You see, Constantine Blas, I am in love with you. Deeply in love.”

He felt his thoughts whirling. “You’re teasing me, Saffron. You hardly know me. Besides, I only ever had one love, and that was Evelyn. I will never love anyone else.”

“Constantine Blas, I know you as much as Evelyn ever knew you,” she said. There was warmth and sadness in her voice. “On Orphex, it is not uncommon for two women to be attached to one man. Don’t ask me how it works, but it’s just part of our culture. I was in love with Evelyn too, not a physical love, but a love of her as a person, her mind, everything that she was and stood for. It was only natural that our minds were attuned. It happened almost without our making a conscious decision. On those occasions when she visited me I always knew what she was thinking.”

“I think I should go,” he said. He felt angry, embarrassed and awkward. Evelyn was dead for only just over a week, and now her best friend was coming on to him!

“You don’t understand, Constantine. This meeting is not my doing. It is Evelyn’s.”

“She wanted us to meet? Even so soon after her death?”

“That is the second part of the message. It is this. The Orphexian attunement means that Evelyn lives on in me. I am Evelyn, and she was me. Her overwhelming wish is that you and I be together, so that she can live on in me.”

His thoughts were swirling, like the winds in a tornado. Ever fiber of his being, told him to stay true to Evelyn, to her memory. And yet, he sensed the truth of what she told him. He knew he was hearing the words of his beloved Evelyn as much as those of Saffron. She came to him and he held her. They held each other. For each had lost the person they loved most in the world. They stood for minutes, then an hour, just holding each other, feeling the closeness to the person that had brought them together. He was still torn between emotions, loyalty, love, and desire. Was this person really Evelyn, at least in mind? She seemed to sense his thoughts.

“Constantine, I understand how you must feel. Can you not accept me, as part of Evelyn, as an offering from her?”

He shook his head. “I cannot, Saffron, it’s too soon. I loved her so much.”

“Very well. But please, stay with me for tonight. We can just hold each other and remember her. Perhaps later it will be different.”

He left before dawn to get ready for the coming days’ battle. Saffron was still asleep. Even with her hair disarrayed she looked more beautiful than ever. He felt a pang of guilt at rejecting her, but he pushed the thought to the back of his mind. He’d worry about that another time. He showered and put on his clothes. He wore a uniform now, a naval uniform but it had been modified. The gray cloth normally had a yellow stripe running around the jacket, but the tailors had worked through the night to replace it with red and blue stripes, the new colors of the nascent rebel military. They would wear colors they were proud of and follow the red and blue standard into battle. He reported to the bunker. Rusal and Smetana were already present, as were Tell and Max Biermann. Berg and Max were dressed in brown and green civilian clothes. They both smiled at his new uniform.