Shadowline - Starfishers Triology - Book 1

Fifty-Three: 3032 AD

Mouse crouched over his father for a long time, holding Storm's hand, fighting back tears. Someone came and rested gentle fingers on his shoulder. He looked up. Pollyanna had come over, using a laserifle as a crutch.

"He's dead," Mouse said. Disbelief distorted his face. "My father is dead."

"They're all dead. Everybody's dead but us." Her voice was as dull as his.

He rose slowly, mumbling, "Everybody. Helmut and Thurston. And Lucifer. And everybody." The magnitude of it slowly sank in. His father and two brothers. His father's friend. And all the people and family who had died already...

"I'll kill them," he whispered Then, screaming, "All of them!" He started smashing consoles with his rifle. But it was a delicate weapon. Soon he held nothing but a shard.

"We've got things to do, Mouse," Pollyanna reminded, indicating the corpses and wreckage. Her voice held no real interest. She was in such a state that getting on with the job was the only glue holding her together.

"I suppose." The dull voice again. "Will you be all right while I hunt up some of our people?"

"Who's left to hurt me?"

Mouse shrugged. "Yes. Who's left?"

He went hunting Legionnaires, using business like a sword with which he could fend off the madness clawing at his mind "All of them," he kept muttering. "Someday. Every Dee. Every Sangaree."

Withdrawing from Twilight took a day. Too many people, including Hawksblood and the brothers Dee, could not make it to the Ehrhardt under their own power. And the dome had to be patched, and someone had to be found who would take charge in Twilight, someone whose loathing for Sangaree was insurance that Michael would have nowhere to run, insurance that Twilight would not come under the worldwide sanctions being threatened by her Blackworld sister cities. Mouse found his candidate after a long search. Most Twilighters wanted shut of any identification with the seat of power. They seemed afraid the Sangaree disease was contagious.

Time to leave arrived. And a new problem raised its Scylla-like head.

"Polly," Mouse said, "I don't know if we're going to make it back "

"What? Why not?"

"I'm the only pilot left, and I'm not rated on anything like the Ehrhardt."

"Call for somebody to come up here."

"Can't waste time waiting for somebody to come overland. I'll just give it my best go myself."

"Don't be stupid."

"It can't be that much harder than piloting Cassius's corvette. I managed that fine."

"With him there to help if you got in any trouble."

"Yeah." He truly believed he could handle the cruiser. And he was determined to try. "Strap in, lady."

"Mouse... "

"Then get out and walk."

She grinned. "You're as stubborn as your father."

He grinned back. "I'm his son."

His liftoff was a little rocky.

"Gah!" Pollyanna grunted, nearly throwing up.

"We're off!"

"That was the part that had me worried. Anybody can come down. It's just how fast you're going when you get there... "

"A man does what he has to," Mouse told her.

For a few hours the pain and hatred did not touch him. The cruiser demanded all his sweat and guts and concentration.

He managed to get the Ehrhardt to and down on Edgeward's landing field without any irreparable damage.

Getting down required some careful maneuvering. A bank of ships had arrived during their absence. They were the battered bones of the Legion's once-powerful little fleet. They had brought Hakes Ceislak in from Helga's World. They were still off-loading the commando battalion.

Mouse had not informed anyone that he was returning, but the word was out by the time he entered Edgeward. Blake was waiting for him.

"Where's Colonel Storm?" Blake asked. His face was drawn. He feared the worst.

"My father was killed in action against Sangaree... " Mouse stopped to look inside himself. Somehow, for the outside world, he was removing himself from his feelings. He was reporting it as if it had happened to a stranger.

"And Albin Korando?"

"Killed in action, Mr. Blake. I'm sorry."

"No. That's terrible. I'd hoped... What about Colonel Darksword?"

"Dead, sir. If you don't see someone with me, he's dead. The cruiser is full of bodies. It was rough up there."

"Your brother Thurston, too?"

Mouse nodded.

"Who's going to take charge? Colonel Walters is cut off in the Shadowline... "

"I speak for the Legion, Mr. Blake. We have a new commander. Nothing else changes. If you'll excuse me?"

Blake struggled to roll along with Mouse. "What happened?" There was an almost whining, pleading note in his voice. The Shadowline War was tearing him to pieces.

For a moment Mouse could sense the man's feelings. Blake was thinking, What have I wrought? What have I unleashed? What did I do that reduced Blackworld to this state?

Mouse shut everything out. He strode toward City Hall, unconsciously imitating the walk of Gneaus Julius Storm. Knifing through his pain was a driving need to demonstrate his competence, to show everyone that he could step into his father's role.

Heads turned when he entered the war room. He checked the boards. Dee now held the Whitlandsund. Cassius's marker had reached the shade station. The unit markers were dense there. Only a handful lay more than five hundred kilometers west of the station. Those were all small units meant to aid the Twilighters in their withdrawal from the Shadowline's end.

The situation was in balance, in tension. Cassius was ready to jump off. It was discussion time.

"Get Colonel Walters on the scrambled clear trunk," Mouse ordered.

The man responsible, who seemed on the edge of exhaustion, gave him a brief who-in-the-hell-are-you? look before turning to his equipment.

Cassius came on quickly.

"Masato, Colonel."

"Mouse. How are you?" Then Walters got a better look at his face. "What happened?"

"Father's dead. And Helmut. And Thurston and Lucifer. Both younger Dees. And Richard Hawksblood. They murdered him and his staff."

Cassius frowned.

"All beyond-the-resurrection."

Cassius's features grew taut, grim.

"Cassius, we're the only ones left."

"It's ending, then. But first there's Michael Dee. And his Sangaree."

"Dee is trapped. We cleaned out Twilight. He can't go back."

"He doesn't know? Don't let him find out."

"Ceislak's here now. I'm taking over at this end. I can squeeze him... "

"Keep Ceislak at Edgeward. Protect the city. Don't let Dee hold it hostage. And get your ships off the ground. Don't give Dee any way out. Make him stand and fight. But let me take care of that part. I'll make the wasting of the Legion useful."

Mouse had never seen Cassius's face so expressive. His grief and hatred were primal.

"As you wish. I'll make my dispositions right away."

"Did your father... say anything?"

"Not much. He did it on purpose, Cassius. To give me a chance to get the Dees from behind. He left a letter. He wrote it before he went up. I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I have a feeling he knew he wasn't coming back."

"Let me know what he had to say. Soon. We'll be jumping off in a few hours."

"Right."

Blake, with his wife's help, arrived. The head of the Corporation seemed to have shrunk into a tiny old cripple. Before he could begin condolences that would only aggravate, despite their sincerity. Mouse told him, "It'll be over soon, Mr. Blake. We'll start clearing the Whitlandsund in a few hours. I'll be holding Ceislak's battalion in reserve in case Dee turns on Edgeward."

Blake started to say something. Grace touched his hand lightly.

"Pollyanna's in the hospital, Mr. Blake. I expect she'd appreciate a friendly face. I think her heart has been hurt worse than her body. She lost Lucifer and Korando both, and she was very fond of my father." He turned away from Blake. "Ceislak. I want a screen of pickets around the crater. I want all the listening devices out there doublechecked. If Dee turns on us, we'll need all the warning we can get. Donnerman. Where's Donnerman? Donnerman, I want your ships off planet as soon as possible. Gentlemen, I'll be in my father's apartment if I'm needed." He pushed out of the war room and went to Storm's quarters.

Geri and Freki whined pathetically. They rushed into the hall, ran back and forth anxiously, searching for their master. Finally, they turned on him with sorrowful eyes.

"He won't be coming back," Mouse whispered. "I'm sorry."

They seemed to understand. The whining grew louder. One let out what sounded like a low moan.

Mouse looked at the ravenshrikes. They had retreated into their little nest, into a tight, intertwined tangle from which they refused to be drawn. They knew. He tried coaxing them with canned meat from the store of delicacies his father had kept. They would not open their devil eyes.

He sighed, looked for the letter.

It lay on his father's desk, page after page of hasty scrawl beneath a plain sheet bearing nothing but the name Masato. Storm's Bible and clarinet weighted them down. The Bible lay open at Ecclesiastes, the clarinet book-marking.

"I should've guessed when he didn't take them with him," he whispered.

The letter, though addressed to him, sounded like an ecclesiastical missive from Gneaus Storm. It began: "Today I hazard the Plain of Armageddon, the blood-drenched field of Ragnarok, to play my part in a destined Gotterdamerung... "

Mouse read it three times before he returned to the war room, the Sirian warhounds tagging his heels apathetically. Their tails were between their legs and their noses were down, and they made strange snuffling sounds in their throats, but they stayed with him.

A whisper ran around the room. Technicians turned to watch his entrance. The Legionnaires took the behavior of the dogs as somehow symbolic, as a seal on the transfer of the mantle of power.

"Cassius," Mouse said, "he knew he was going to die. He planned it. So there wouldn't be any reason for the rest of us to coddle Michael Dee anymore. It was the only way he could keep from breaking his word."

Cassius's laugh was both harsh and sad. "He always found a way to slide around that promise. Too bad he couldn't find it in him to go back on it." Walters's mad humor faded. "Don't let Michael find out. That's got to be our most important secret." Walters's face became dreadful, something inhuman, something demigodly. Something archetypal. "It's time to jump off. Take care, Mouse." He switched off before Mouse could question him as to his intentions.

What is he going to do? Mouse wondered. He knew Cassius. It would be something unusual, something nobody would expect. Quite possibly something impossible... He settled into the chair his father had been wont to occupy. His gaze seldom strayed from the situation boards.

At times one or another of the technicians would glance his way and shudder. A slim, oriental youth of small stature filled the Colonel's chair, yet... Yet there was an aura about him, as if a ghost sat in the chair with him. The body of Gneaus Julius Storm had perished, but the spirit lived on in his youngest son.