And then a force-lance barrel smacked right under his chin. The sharp smell of sweat stung his nose as, just behind him, Dylan Hunt said, “Right. Well done. It’s now time to send them back to their cage. Unless you want to join your little yellow-haired friends.”
Torbal made a lurch toward his comlink, but the force lance tightened.
“Nice and easy,” Dylan warned.
Torbal waved a dismissal.
The henchmen hesitated, then retreated, leaving the arena empty save fallen Nietzscheans, most of whom were either unconscious or dead, the dead Seraphim, and Otomo.
“Now the force field.”
“But—we’ve never—”
“Your…audience,” Dylan stated with distaste, “will never know, if we just move along. And that’s what we’re doing right now. Just you and me and my friends, out of this damn arena. One slip, and you’re the first through the door into the hell.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Rommie, who tabbed into the comlink.
Up in the command center, Vandat clasped his hands. “I do not believe it. The High Guard captain—”
Blossoms on the Wind, who had docked, said over the link, “I’m on my way up. Have them proceed to the detention level—”
At that moment the main communications screen flickered and they stared up in amazement at a big man with a hard, lined face, dressed in severe black, his pale silver hair pulled up into a samurai knot.
“It’s the Nietzschean Alpha,” Reflections of the Sun buzzed in dismay.
Vandat’s hands pressed together.
In her chambers, Alphyra Kodos rose, moved to her nanobot cleaning screen and stepped through so she would be fresh, then she put a finger to her hair and admired her single strand of pearls threaded through the complicated curls, twisting her head this way and that, as Tokugawa’s voice reverberated through the screen:
“You will surrender the body of my son and the rest of his men. You will send them accompanied by Alphyra Kodos, to our ships. Or I will blow up your Drift. Now.”
And he cut the connection.
In her chamber, Alphyra smiled.
Torbal’s lab technicians, watching on the lab screens, began scurrying around, throwing things into containers, and fighting to be first to the lifts to the bay where the Nietzscheans had docked.
Rommie said to Dylan over Torbal’s golden head, “Tokugawa Odin-Thor is demanding the body of his son, and Alphyra Kodos.”
Dylan nodded. “Then we take these people straight to the Nietzschean ships.”
Reflections of the Sun damped the communication and turned to Vandat. “They used the link Alphyra Kodos set up so they could watch the arena, and tapped into general corns. Everyone can hear.”
Vandat sighed. “What does the High Guard captain say?”
Reflections of the Sun tabbed the link open again. “Ensign Rommie…” He outlined the situation rapidly, which Rommie relayed to Dylan.
“Release Director Kodos,” Dylan said, his voice hoarse. “We cannot defend this Drift any better than you people can.”
Rommie relayed the message.
Up in the command center, the Than turned to Vandat.
The Perseid sensed everyone waiting for his word. He sustained a deep, sickening wrench of guilt: he never should have given Alphyra Kodos freedom. Because what she’d used it for would now be taken away and used against the world.
“Release her,” he said.
The door opened, and Blossoms on the Wind entered. “Security reports incipient panic all over the Drift.”
Reflections of the Sun keened. “Where?”
“Main concourses—”
Reflections of the Sun turned to his comlink, speaking to his team: “Show the Nietzschean threat—they are hearing it anyway—but get the pickups showing Kodos and her people leaving. Come back to the High Guard captain’s progress.”
Vandat nodded; they had studied human crowd movements as well as other species. Show humans a leader, and that leader Doing Something, and they would stand still, wait, talk, watch the same crisis over and over as long as in between there was some notion of progress, of someone, somewhere, in command.
Well then, let them think Dylan Hunt was in command.
“Keep the vid pickups on the High Guard captain.”
Blossoms on the Wind nodded, spoke into her link: “Pilots, return to your vessels: we will give Kodos an honor escort, ready to defend if we must.”
Reflections of the Sun spoke to his tech teams. “… monitor teams at all major concourses, using crowd-control methods Green and Silver….”
All over the main concourses of the Drift, screens alternated between showing the Nietzscheans and the retreating humans; beings watched, commented, asked one another questions that no one listened to, but mostly did not move.
In her chamber Alphyra Kodos waited for the door to be opened.
Down in the arena, while the spectators screamed, roared, and cheered, henchminions loaded the dead and wounded Nietzscheans onto flatbeds, and sent them down the supply lifts toward the dock; the vid pickups along the route showed their progress, cheered on by rollicking crowds.
Four people only did not watch or wait.
Delta had shut out the world, her fingers moving fast over her console.
Behind her, Trance nodded to Harper and Cyn. “Let’s get you to your ship.”
Cyn opened her eyes, drew in an unsteady breath. “Oh yes.”
THIRTY-FOUR
New nobility is but the act of power; ancient nobility is the act of time.
—FRANCIS BACON, 1625, C.E.
PRIVATE COLLECTION OF TOKUGAWA ODIN-THOR
The Bushido was first commissioned just before the Long Night. Thus its first action was to serve a part in the destruction of the Commonwealth that had fostered its design and construction, paid for the equipping of its weapons, and the training of its crew.
The secret training had been carried out by the Nietzscheans themselves.
Seven battles since that time, during which it changed hands four times. The Drago-Kazovs retook it twice.
Three of those battles were against the Magog, one against the Restorians, and the rest between Prides. During the time it had served as flagship for the Odin-Thor Pride, it had seen bloody warfare all along its inner corridors five, now six, times.
All of those were family fights.
Pimiko, alone in her cabin on strict orders not to be disturbed, watched her father issue his ultimatum, and then cut the connection.
Her first reaction was to shrug and turn away. She was in a vile mood. Minamoto had dared to taunt her after her failure—that and he’d launched his counterattack with her still in the target zone.
That had been deliberate, a gesture of contempt; the unspoken rules of sibling competition had been clear enough. He’d hold his Bushi back until she’d either succeeded or failed. He hadn’t even waited for her to communicate, and what if she had succeeded, what if she’d had the bones of the Ancestor onboard?
What if she hadn’t gotten clear?
No one to answer any of that, and if she were to ask, the question would weaken her in everyone’s eyes. And just how many of them were laughing at her right now?
She stayed in her cabin, prowling around, trying to regain self-control. But she kept thinking about Tyr Anasazi’s proximity…and what if she’d kissed him…what if she’d said this, or answered that…
Hell.
So Minamoto had to be back by now, but at least he hadn’t succeeded either, or there would be general quarters and celebrations, ancient Japanese style. Instead, their father issuing that short communication—
She crossed her arms, tabbed the general comlink open. Nothing.
Odd. Come to think of it, very odd.
She hesitated at her door, then threw her hair back, stood up straight, and palmed her weapon. If anyone laughed, no matter who, she’d shoot them down as they stood and walk over the smoking body.
Having dec
ided that, she emerged, and her heightened senses immediately whiffed the faint tang of blood, despite the scrubbers on max.
Scrubbers on max.
Frowning, she bolted for the lift. When she emerged on the corridor outside the Command Deck, she stopped, staring at the scorch marks, the blood splatters being cleaned by kludges under the tightly controlled orders of her father’s security men.
She looked up past them, to see, lounging in the open doors to the Command Deck, her little brother Ashikaga. He was wearing, of all things, a raw-silk Japanese kimono, one embroidered with wheat stalks.
She opened her mouth to ask if the sounds of fighting had woken him from his nap, or more likely a drunken stupor, but despite the lazy pose there was that tightness to his jaw, the wide, manic glaze to his eyes that meant he’d been a part of whatever had happened.
“Moto?” she guessed.
Kaga waved a hand. “A little impatient to inherit, it seems. Despite, or maybe because of, his failure to take the Andromeda Ascendant. Come in. Join the fun.”
The fighting, it was clear, had been the worst on the Command Deck. Pimiko looked around, and Ashikaga watched her assess. No one, except perhaps Magog, and they were barely sentient beasts, fought as viciously as Nietzscheans against one another.
Had she known about Moto’s plans? Kaga faded back, and watched her face when she saw Moto kneeling, bleeding copiously, before their father.
Rommel stood just behind the Seii Taishogun, a weapon trained on Minamoto, avidly watching. Too avidly, perhaps, Kaga mused. Pimiko’s jaw dropped in shock, followed by a flicker of laughter. Ah, so Moto and the First Daughter had not come back from their shared failed mission on good terms, then.
The Alpha held only his katana. “You do not deserve an honorable death,” he said, and flung the katana onto his console.
Minamoto bowed farther down, despite the wounded arm, placed his fists far apart on the deck, and touched his head to the deck. “Kill me, Father.”
“No. You have a choice. Either seppuku with your own knife, or else you will serve down in the kludge caves, at anyone’s pleasure.” The Alpha turned his back, and Ashikaga, watching with narrowed eyes, saw no pain there, just disgust. He was waiting for something…but whatever it was, Minamoto’s judgment was already forgotten. “I want this Command Deck clean. No signs of strife. The woman Alphyra Kodos will be here in minutes with her data cache.”
He looked around and the kludges scurried to their cleaning, all of them working so fast Ashikaga felt a flare of humor. But he sensed that now was not the time to speak.
Pimiko sauntered forward, ignoring her brother, who still knelt on the floor as if the judgment would change. Aha, so she’d expected trouble from him. She was definitely no part of his surprise plot.
Pimiko said, “What about the Andromeda Ascendant, Father?”
The Seii Taishogun opened his hand toward the viewscreen that showed the Drift, and a graceful golden shape kilometers beyond it. “If,” he said, “you have any ideas. Feel free to implement them.”
She wanted to blast Tyr Anasazi out of the sky if she could not have him…but that would not do to say. He had the bones of the Ancestor safe, he must remain unmolested. For now.
She would just have to plan for the next encounter.
Trance sensed trouble before they emerged from the lift. Both Harper and Cyn were walking like ancient beings, as if it took all their energy just to stay upright. They seemed almost blind; they did not, at first, smell the cooling scorches from enormous (ship-sized) firepower, or see the huge rends in the outer fabric of the Drift docking hangar.
Trance saw it, and was already connecting to Rommie on her comlink when Cyn stopped, staring, her face draining of all color.
“Where do we go now?” Harper asked, looking around the destroyed hangar, with its Than security and maintenance forces scurrying all over. His face changed, and he ran his hands up his face to spike his hair up. “No. Tell me we have somewhere to go.”
“Rommie,” Trance squeaked.
Cyn looked around, her face expressive not just of shock but betrayal. It didn’t matter that Otomo Odin-Thor’s forces had selected random targets, that the Than had hurriedly agreed to let them land. She knew only that her ship was gone.
And so was her life.
She slipped soundlessly to the deck. Harper, staring at her with lips parted, lasted about three breaths more, but then hope fled the spirit, leaving an overtaxed body to cope without the wherewithal to cope. He fainted as well.
“Rommie,” Trance breathed.
Dylan Hunt was aware of the vid pickups showing his progress. He kept a tight control on Torbal; he would release the man at the last moment, once the security forces were there.
Over in the VIP portions of the Drift, Alphyra Kodos saw her doors open.
She nodded regally at the silent Than guards at either side. She began the walk down to her new future.
In the little art chamber, Delta Kodos worked rapidly, her bees—all except one—streaming, unnoticed, back to their endless dance in the Drift fountains.
Dylan reached the hangar where the Nietzschean slip-fighters waited, guarded by a backup team that showed no emotion whatsoever when the motorized pallets arrived with their fallen comrades. As they busied themselves loading and unloading, Rommie, who had been updating Dylan, said, “The Earth pilot’s ship was one of those targeted, forty levels down, a kilometer that way.”
“Can we still save Harper and Cynda Shendo?”
Rommie said, after a pause, “Trance thinks so. If we act fast.”
Dylan said, “The Andromeda must stay out as long as the Nietzscheans are in system. Tyr is to bring in the Maru. You will take Trance’s orders in the medical bay, and have that antidote ready as soon as the Maru docks.”
Rommie was relaying the orders when the lift doors opposite opened, and there stood Alphyra Kodos, alone, her glistening gown fluttering around her like silken moth wings.
Everyone fell silent: watching security forces, spectators, even the Nietzscheans who held the waiting slip-fighters, curious at this breach of their own rules.
She took her time, smiling in all directions. Walking deliberately slowly, so that the unpleasant sight of bodies and wounded were stowed away before she even approached the first slip-fighter.
As she walked she studied the faces of the sheep around her. Fools. But the biggest fool of all—ah.
She changed direction, just slightly, until she neared the tall High Guard captain, who was still wearing that ridiculous white costume, all bloodstained and full of holes. Curious, how he lost no jot of his dignity, despite the costume, despite his iron grip on poor Torbal, bleating and clawing ineffectually at the force-lance pressed against his neck.
Vandat appeared in the lift-tube a moment later, robes flowing, followed by Reflections of the Sun and Blossoms on the Wind. They rushed forward, the waiting crowd making a lane.
Alphyra ignored them, and smiled up into Dylan Hunt’s waiting gaze.
She said, “I could have made you an emperor.”
She waited, and felt a brief spurt of surprise when he did not answer.
Goaded, she added, “Now you will have to fight the emperor that I go to make.”
And she saw his eyes rake down her gown, but she was not fool enough to carry the precious flexi in view. Her hands were free, her gown loose, and no one could see a lifetime’s worth of data—many lifetimes, of many people, living and dead. Far, far more dead. For knowledge, and power. All hers.
She smiled, the pearls in her hair shimmering, one of them slightly less opaque than all the rest, but that could be the shadows in her coiled hair.
Step, step, she was past.
“Here,” Hunt said, releasing Torbal, who staggered forward. Moments later the lab techs also emerged from where they had been hiding. They all began a rush toward the Nietzschean slip-fighters.
Alphyra waggled a hand gracefully. “I don’t want them.”
And the Nietzscheans raised their weapons.
Torbal stumbled to a stop, nearly run into by his frightened lab techs.
Torbal gasped. “But—Alphyra! You promised—the data—the experiments—”
“I have what matters,” she said, smiling over her shoulder, and to the Nietzschean guards as she passed up the ramp into the lead ship, “Do what you want with them.”
The Nietzscheans aimed their weapons.
The Than security team raised theirs.
No one, yet, had discharged a weapon, but Torbal stood, alone, looking in despair from the woman vanishing at the top of the ramp to the closing in security team.
“Back,” Blossoms on the Wind warned, and the security forces not busy rounding up Alphyra’s former staff waved the spectators away, out of the blast zone.
The Nietzscheans, on an unseen signal, withdrew into their ships.
Even the mudfeet knew that the Nietzscheans would not wait politely for people to be behind the lines; as ramps hissed closed and locks engaged and engines whined up into readiness, the hangar emptied, spectators hastening into the lifts, talking, not listening, many using their chits to key into the concourse newsscreens; the security forces quietly removing the loudly protesting Torbal and the lab techs.
Vandat and the two directors were left with the High Guard captain and his tattered, battered warriors, all crowded into the executive lift.
Vandat looked into that narrowed gaze, and knew that uncomfortable questions were coming. Well, that was just. Meanwhile, he would save the alliance if he could: they were by no means out of danger yet.
“Unless the Nietzscheans do something unexpected,” he said, “we shall assume we can, at long last, rest, recover. And then meet to discuss our tabled negotiations.”
“Very well,” Dylan Hunt said. He added wryly, “Shall we try again on the refreshment quarters?”
“The ships are on the way,” Rommel reported.
Tokugawa Odin-Thor nodded once, then shut off communication with the Command Deck. He did not need details: the Drift, not surprisingly, had relinquished the woman. She was on her way here, with the genetic coding that would, presumably, give the Pride generations of advantage over other Nietzscheans. The game would go on.