Angelmass

CHAPTER 42

"The moment has come, Commodore," Telthorst said, his eyes steady on Lleshi's face, his voice just a few stages too loud. "If you're going to launch a fighter screen to protect the Komitadji, you need to do it now."

"Thank you, Mr. Telthorst," Lleshi said, striving to keep the disgust out of his voice. As far as Lleshi was concerned, the decision had been made several hours ago. Telthorst's question was nothing but a pathetically obvious challenge, an attempt to make points with the command crew for his upcoming power bid. Who among them, after all, could possibly argue against anything that would help ensure the Komitadji's safety?

But Lleshi wasn't going to play Telthorst's game. Not yet. Military procedure, as well as simple basic battle ethics, dictated that he first give Seraph the option of surrender. "Open a broad-spectrum comm blanket to the planet," he ordered.

The comm officer nodded briskly. "Channel open, Commodore."

"This is Commodore Vars Lleshi of the Pax warship Komitadji," he stated firmly, as if the Empyreals hadn't already figured that out. "I declare the Seraph system to be returned to the jurisdiction of Earth and the Pax. I call on you to withdraw your military forces to the surface and prepare to turn over the civilian government and infrastructure to my command."

He paused, but the only response was silence. "If you do not comply, my orders are to take control of this system by whatever means necessary, using whatever force is required," he went on.

Telthorst's eyebrows twitched at the word orders, but the Adjutor said nothing. "You have ten minutes to respond. After that, I will take whatever action I deem appropriate."

He tapped off his microphone switch. "Mark ten minutes," he ordered.

"Yes, sir."

"Very noble," Telthorst murmured. "You don't really expect them to just give up, do you?"

"You had better hope they do," Lleshi warned. "If they decide to fight, you're going to have a much smaller collection of plunder to present your fellow poachers at the cathedra."

Telthorst's eyes flashed. "How dare you refer to the Adjutors that way?" he demanded. "And while we're at it, how dare you pretend you had orders to come here? This was nothing more than a blatant attempt on your part to steal some glory for yourself. Here, in the midst of—"

"Komitadji, this is High Senator Arkin Forsythe of Lorelei," a deep, measured voice boomed from a dozen command deck speakers. "What are your terms of surrender?"

"Unconditional, of course," Telthorst called before Lleshi could answer. "You will immediately remove your warships—"

"This is Commodore Lleshi, High Senator," Lleshi cut him off. "You misunderstand our purpose here. This is not so much a surrender as it is merely a return of wayward colonies to the Pax family."

"A fine distinction, some would say," the High Senator commented.

"Perhaps," Lleshi said. "However, that is the reality of the situation. Upon your acceptance, you will immediately gain the same rights and privileges as any world and people of the Pax."

"And the same duties, I presume?"

"No rights exist without corresponding responsibilities," Lleshi reminded him.

"No, of course not," Forsythe said. "I would like the opportunity to discuss the details before we make a final decision."

"What decision is there to make?" Telthorst put in contemptuously. "Your forces are outnumbered, outgunned—"

Lleshi snapped his fingers at the comm officer and gestured, and Telthorst's microphone was abruptly clicked off. "Commodore—"

Lleshi cut him off with a single glare. "My apologies, High Senator," he said. "I am quite willing to discuss these matters with you. An unarmed shuttle with yourself, a pilot, and no more than two others aboard will be permitted to approach. A fighter escort will guide you to the proper docking bay."

"And then?"

Lleshi smiled tightly. "However our discussion goes, and whatever your decision, you and your party will be permitted to return unharmed to Seraph before any action is initiated on our part. You have my word on that."

There was just the briefest pause. "Very well, Commodore. I'll be there within the hour."

"I'll look forward to our meeting, High Senator," Lleshi said. "Komitadji out."

He gestured to the comm officer, and the microphone went dead. "I trust you realize what a fool you're being," Telthorst bit out, his face flushed with anger. "He knows what the rights and responsibilities are—we laid it all out for them months ago, before they closed their systems to us.

All he's doing is stalling, giving themselves more time to prepare."

"To prepare what?" Lleshi countered. "They have nothing down there that has a hope of standing up to us."

"Maybe they expect reinforcements," Telthorst said acidly. "Or didn't it occur to you that there are four more systems worth of Empyreal warships out there?"

Lleshi shook his head. "There will be no reinforcements. By now they know we're here, or at least suspect it, and each system is scrambling to prepare its own defenses. No one has enough ships or soldiers to spare for the others."

Telthorst folded his arms across his chest. "So you're just going to let this High Senator manipulate you into holding off your attack?"

"I'm going to try to set his mind at ease about the future of his world," Lleshi corrected. "If you don't like it, you don't have to sit in on the discussion."

"Oh, I'll be there," Telthorst promised softly. "I wouldn't miss it for the world. Any world."

They had been sitting beside each other for about twenty minutes, each deeply involved in their own reading, when Chandris finally finished her particular manual and came up for air.

The gamma clicks had become noisier. Much noisier.

Moving stealthily, trying not to break Kosta's concentration, she slipped out of her chair and crossed to the ranging section of the control board. On the monitor, Angelmass seemed brighter and angrier than ever, but that could still be just an optical illusion. Seating herself at the board, she keyed for some numbers.

It wasn't an illusion. Angelmass was indeed getting closer.

Dangerously close.

Swallowing hard, forcing trembling fingers to function, she keyed for a review and projection. Two hours total, Kosta had estimated, before they would be ready to throw Angelmass out of the system.

Call it another hour and forty minutes on the clock, then. The question was, did they have that one hundred minutes left?

The computer projection was quick, precise, and unambiguous. They did not, in fact, have a hundred minutes.

They had exactly seventy.

She ran the numbers again, and again. But each time the projection came up the same. Long before they were ready to make their move, it would be all over.

She looked over her shoulder at the back of Kosta's head, leaning toward the reading display with oblivious intensity. He could have run once she and Hanan had sprung him from Forsythe's office.

He could have vanished into the Shikari City underground, or gone off into some wilderness area, and waited for his Pax friends to arrive in force, as they surely would eventually.

Instead, he'd risked everything to come out here. Risked his life to try to help the people of Seraph.

How was she going to tell him that that sacrifice had been for nothing?

Abruptly, as if sensing her thoughts or at least her absence from beside him, Kosta's head jerked up.

"Chandris?" he called over the gamma noise.

"Back here," she called.

He swiveled around in his chair... and she could tell from the look on his face that he already knew.

"Angelmass?"

"Closing fast," she said. "Computer calls it an hour and forty minutes until impact. But thirty minutes before that happens the radiation will fry us even through Central's shielding."

His lip twitched. "You're sure?"

"I've run the numbers three times," she said. "We've got seventy minutes, exactly. How far are you on your reading?"

"Not far enough," he said grimly. "I've got at least another half hour to go, and it looks more and more like the programing will take a solid hour after that. Even with two of us working on it."

"Then it's over," Chandris said gently, or as gently as she could when she had to practically shout the words. "Come on, let's get back to the Gazelle."

"No."

She sighed, getting to her feet and crossing to him. "Jereko, it's over."

"No it's not," he repeated flatly, his eyes flicking around the room. "We can do it. We have to do it.

We just need to buy ourselves some more time."

"How?" Chandris demanded. "This isn't the Gazelle, where we can outrun the thing if we can find the right direction. This is a space station. It hasn't got any drive engines."

"Then we have to find a way to slow Angelmass down," Kosta said slowly. "Decoy it, maybe..."

He trailed off, an odd light suddenly in his eyes. "I hope you're not thinking what I think you're thinking," Chandris warned, her stomach suddenly tight. There was something about that look that reminded her of Hanan and Ornina, hell-bent on being noble and self-sacrificing, no matter what the cost.

And if that cost included the Gazelle... "May I point out that the Gazelle's our only ticket out of here?" she said carefully.

"I know," he said, swiveling back to his board. "Is there any spare fuel aboard? Like for shuttles and hunterships that have run short?"

"I can check," Chandris said, sitting down beside him again and pulling up a floorplan and inventory list. "Jereko..."

"I know," Kosta said, leaning close to look at the schematic. "Trust me."

"And if you're wrong?"

His breath was warm against her cheek. "I'll try to have enough time to apologize."

The shuttle had been prepped, the pilot chosen and briefed; and Forsythe was looking over all the information the Empyrean had on Pax law and government when the word came that the Seraph huntership net had been shut down.

"What do you mean, shut down?" Forsythe demanded, frowning. "I left specific orders that it be left open."

"They say the command came from Central," Pirbazari said, his voice studiously neutral. It was a tone he'd used a lot in the past hour, Forsythe had noted with a growing uneasiness. "With Angelmass about twenty-one light-minutes away, that means the signal was transmitted within twenty minutes of their arrival at the net. Figure in maneuvering, docking, and debarkation time, and it looks like shutting down the Seraph net was the second thing they did once they got onto the station."

"The second thing?"

"Yes," Pirbazari said. "Shutting down Central's own net was number one. Seraph Control says the telemetry for that came through a few minutes before their own net closed down."

Forsythe forced himself to meet the other's gaze. "You still think I've made a deal with Kosta, don't you?" he said quietly. "Fine. Then tell me this: what does shutting down the net here gain him?"

"I don't know," Pirbazari said evenly. "But then, I don't know what going up there in the first place gains him. All I know is that the Komitadji destroyed one of Seraph system's main nets on the way in; and now Kosta has shut down two more. Coincidence?"

"He's been hanging around Angelmass and the Institute for months," Forsythe pointed out. "Surely he knows by now that the huntership system is binary linked. Those nets make no difference to traffic in or out of the system."

"One would think he'd know that," Pirbazari acknowledged. "But maybe he's a slow learner." His right eyebrow twitched. "Or maybe there's something else going on that I don't know about."

"If there is, I don't know about it either," Forsythe said, feeling sweat breaking out on his forehead.

Pirbazari was, as best he could tell, about half a micron from breaking his self-imposed silence and announcing the whole story over the EmDef HQ loudspeaker system.

The only things that might be holding him back were a lack of proof and whatever residual loyalty he still might have for the man he'd worked with for so long. And neither of those were going to last forever.

"High Senator?" General Roshmanov called from the doorway. "Your shuttle is ready."

Pirbazari waved in acknowledgement. "That's it. Let's get to it."

Forsythe braced himself. Possibly not even through the next thirty seconds, he amended. "You're not going, Zar," he said.

Pirbazari had been looking down as he fastened his jacket. Now, slowly, he looked up. "What?"

"You're former military," Forsythe reminded him. "You know too much about EmDef procedures, personnel, and tactics. If Lleshi reneges on his promise, we can't afford for you to be in their hands."

"What about you?" Pirbazari demanded. "An Empyreal High Senator?"

"I know a little about military expenditures and far too much about council etiquette," Forsythe said with a grimace. "Nothing that's going to help with their war effort."

"But this isn't just a war effort," Pirbazari countered. "This world-swallowing technique of theirs is as much political as it is military. And you're the local expert on political matters."

Forsythe sighed. "What do you want me to say? Someone has to go."

Pirbazari's shoulders hunched fractionally. "So you're going alone?"

"I'm not that brave," Forsythe said. "No, I'm taking Ronyon."

"Ronyon," Pirbazari repeated, giving him that look again. "Interesting choice. I don't think we can expect to get sympathy votes from the Pax."

Forsythe stared at him, an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Is that why you think he's still with me?" he asked. "For sympathy?"

"I didn't used to think so," Pirbazari said. "But then, I once thought I knew you, too. Now—" His eyes dropped to the angel pendant around Forsythe's neck. "I don't know what to think anymore."

"Then just trust me," Forsythe urged.

"I always have trusted you," Pirbazari said. "I've always believed that you wanted the best for the Empyreal people."

He glanced at Forsythe's chest again. "Now, I'm not so sure."

"That is all I want, Zar," Forsythe said, his throat aching. With the Empyrean threatening to come crashing down around them all, he suddenly realized that the friendship and loyalty of his people was all he had left. All, perhaps, that any of them had left. "It truly is. Give me this one last chance.

Please."

Pirbazari took a deep breath. "I suppose I don't really have any choice, do I? Okay, High Senator.

Just... good luck."

Forsythe touched his arm. "I'll be back soon." He started to turn away.

"High Senator?"

Forsythe turned back. "Yes?"

"When you return," Pirbazari said softly, "we are going to have a long talk about this. A long talk."

Forsythe nodded. "Indeed."

Triggering his call stick to summon Ronyon, he turned away again and headed to where General Roshmanov stood waiting for him, his back unnaturally stiff.

No, Ronyon wasn't going to be along for any sympathy his presence might be able to squeeze out of the ice-rimmed hearts of the Pax conquerors. But if there were to be any miracles of concession or compassion coming out of this confrontation, it would be Ronyon who held the key.

Pirbazari didn't understand that, of course. But then, Forsythe could hardly explain to him that Ronyon was the one carrying the angel.

Or perhaps an explanation wouldn't have been necessary. Perhaps Pirbazari already knew.

And as he followed General Roshmanov out under the hot afternoon sun toward the waiting shuttle, he wished darkly that he, the Empyrean, and the universe had never heard of angels.

"You're sure?" Telthorst demanded in that tone that always seem to imply he suspected someone of lying to him.

"Yes, sir," the sensor officer replied, his tone that of someone too far down the chain of command to take offense. "The telemetry was tight-beam, but we were close enough to intercept an edge of it.

And of course, the power readings and noise leakage themselves confirm the net is down."

Telthorst swiveled his glare around to Lleshi. "Did you know an Empyreal ship had gone out to Angelmass?" he demanded. "Because I certainly was not told."

"We observed a ship being catapulted approximately forty-five minutes ago," Lleshi told him evenly. "I didn't consider it worth bringing to your attention."

Telthorst's eyes bored into Lleshi's. "Perhaps you've forgotten how things are supposed to happen aboard this ship, Commodore," he said. "As the Adjutor aboard the Komitadji, I'm to be informed of everything that could have an impact on our mission. Everything. You will then let me decide whether it's worth noting or not."

Lleshi inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment, trying to read past the fury in Telthorst's face.

Why in space was the Adjutor reacting so violently to what was in reality a very minor situation?

Yes, the nets had been shut down; but with the intercepted signal in hand, Crypto Group could surely turn either net back on anytime they wanted.

Unless Telthorst knew something Lleshi didn't. Something about Angelmass? Or about the ship that had headed that way forty-five minutes ago? He had access to private comm channels; could he have made some private deal with the Empyreals?

Or was this display of official outrage merely the first public salvo in his bid for command of the Komitadji?

"See that you remember," Telthorst said stiffly. "Now. You will tell me what exactly is going on."

Lleshi frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Don't play coy with me," Telthorst warned. "A mysterious ship you didn't think worth mentioning; and now access to Angelmass has suddenly been shut off?"

Lleshi's eyes flicked to Campbell, caught the other's equally puzzled look. "I'm sorry, Adjutor, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

For a long minute Telthorst just stared at him. Then, his lips twitched in an ironic smile. "Very well, Commodore," he said. "You want to play it close? Fine. Perhaps our guests will be more willing to talk when they arrive."

He stood up. "I'll be waiting in the conference room. You will inform me when the High Senator's shuttle has docked."

"You'll be the first to know," Lleshi assured him.

Telthorst nodded curtly and, without another word, stalked to the lift platform and left the balcony.

Lleshi looked across at Campbell. "What do you suppose that was all about?"

Campbell shook his head. "The man's crazy as a crane," he declared. "What does he think, that you've made some private deal with the Empyreals?"

"Certainly sounds like it," Lleshi agreed. "Should add a certain extra degree of spice to the negotiations, wouldn't you say?"

"We'll find out soon enough." Campbell nodded toward the display. "The High Senator's shuttle is on its way."