Inherit the Stars (33 page)

“The Vim still exist, then?” Kivita said.

Zhhl's head opened in three puckered mouths. Each made a gurgling, then a droning, noise. “Cradle after
Cradle was seeded to offset the Sarrhdtuu. Your minds, your thoughts, your voices honed to control us. We will be slaves to the Vim no longer.”

Navon grumbled. Cheseia held on to Zhara, her russet eyes filled with tension.

“Slaves? But . . . but there's a Sarrhdtuu colony three thousand light years away! The Vim didn't attack it. You destroyed Meh Sat, Khaasis, and other worlds. You destroyed entire stars! You've used the Inheritors to terrorize the Cetturo Arm. You . . . you even had my mother executed. Goddamn you. What about that?” Tears dimmed Kivita's vision.

Zhhl's mouths puckered into one. “The Juxj Star shows you the past, Child of Narbas. That colony was a Vim beneficiary before our freedom. The Vim hated us for our emancipation, and hid their knowledge in rocks and crystals. They contained us in deep space with light and sound. They trapped us with thoughts from lesser creatures. No longer. Cradles will either serve us or be eliminated. Arcuri chose correctly; thus the Inheritors still live.”

“You were right about us, Kivita,” Navon breathed. “May the Solars preserve us, you were right.”

Shekelor frowned. “You have her, Zhhl. Where is Byelor?”

Kivita stepped toward Zhhl. “Then why send the Vim a message, huh? I've seen how you tried to force other Savants to serve you. To use the Juxj Star.” She wiped her eyes with trembling fingers. The burning in her temples grew.

“You will open their Portal. You will transmit the reply Terredyn Narbas refused to, but you will cut out the Vim's heart, as they created you to do to us.” Zhhl rose on all twelve coils.

Kivita glowered up at Zhhl. “I won't—”

“Produce the Juxj Star!” Zhhl's voice shook the entire chamber, and Kivita stumbled to her knees. Even Shekelor backed away.

“Is this all you want? To force us to be like you?” Kivita pointed at the tubes.

“We ruled until the Vim penetrated us with you parasites and made us slaves,” Zhhl replied with mucus-dripped words. “You can never be like us. Your biomass adds to our vessels. Nothing more.”

Shekelor's frown deepened as he maneuvered behind the Ascali twins. “What of my son? Where is his holding tube? It is not where I saw it last time!”

“Byelor is safe, Shekelor Thal. Remain content.” Zhhl's eyes formed into one giant purple ocular organ.

“Show me!” Shekelor yelled.

Two Sarrhdtuu warriors dripped from the ceiling and flanked Shekelor.

“First the Juxj Star,” Zhhl said.

Kivita touched the bulge on her left hip; nothing else mattered now. She hoped Sar would escape and live to appreciate what she'd attempted in her final moments. She thought of her father, her mother. Separated by centuries and light years, both had given her what she needed for this single act.

Cheseia and Zhara nodded in encouragement.

Peace fell over Navon's countenance. “Use the gem, as only you can.”

Kivita smiled at him though a tear ran down her cheek. “Damn. Some queen I turned out to be.”

“I would have followed no other,” Navon said.

Zhhl's coils opened her envirosuit and yanked out
the Juxj Star. It glowed a fierce red. More whispers and musical notes dug into her thoughts. As Kivita stood and resealed her suit, the whispers in her mind became screams. Her knees slammed into the platform as a million psyches touched her own.

“Open the Vim Portal!” Zhhl shouted in a voice so large it seemed to envelope the entire cosmos.

•   •   •

Sar aimed both pistols at the corner, while Bredine pulled him behind her. The declining gravity made him float several feet off the floor, with Bredine climbing one-handed along girders, his belt looped into hers. Seul clomped along in her magnetized polyboots, still clutching her chest. Murmurs floated to Sar's cold ears as surviving Inheritors waited just out of pistol shot.

The temperature on
Luccan's Wish
had dropped in a manner of seconds after
Fanged Pauper
flew away. All of them had sealed their helmet vents and activated oxygen supplies; Bredine had salvaged an Aldaakian helmet. Debris from the Aldaakian cruiser floated past the airlock, along with dozens of albino bodies in gray-blue uniforms.

“Kael? Please answer me.” Seul's voice cracked with emotion. “Kael?”

As Bredine neared the airlock, Sar acted on impulse.

“I'll stop shooting if you do,” Sar called out. “Might as well freeze with dignity. Then we'll all be the same. No Inheritor; no Thede.”

Rhii and Basheev hid behind a bolted supply crate on his left, staring at him as if he were mad.

A male voice laughed with harsh heaves. “I'm still an Inheritor even after death. The Vim has prepared a
place for me in the Core. You'll float in the void for eternity, you piece of shit. We're wise to the poison you Thedes spread.”

“Hope you're wise to a bullet, too,” Sar murmured.

Bredine pulled him right up against the transparent airlock. “Redryll? Leave them be.
Frevyx
avoiding space trash. Hmm.”

Sar jerked around as his customized trawler weaved between pieces of Aldaakian hull. Small chunks and bodies still connected with it, spinning into space from the ship's movement. Corpses banged against the airlock, their white-within-blue stares accusing Sar of some unnamed trespass.

Seul closed her eyes and turned away from the scene. “Kael, please . . . ? This is Jaah, requesting pickup.”

“Kivita is still sending,” Bredine said.

The hum of magnetizing airlocks echoed in the cold bay as the soldiers around the corner shuffled and murmured.
Frevyx
waited mere feet away, promising hope and freedom.

“Stars burning red, Sar, they will pick us off!” Basheev cried. “Hand me a gun!”

Bredine tossed Rhii one of her pistols. The weapon floated end over end in the low-G. Basheev snatched it as Rhii pulled him back behind the crate.

“Kael?” Seul mashed buttons on her arm panel.

Despite his wounds and anxiety over Kivita, Sar kept the pistols steady. Killing his enemies no longer fed his vengeance; killing them meant his friends might live a little longer. With death so near, the simple rationale of survival provided strange comfort.

“Keep me straight,” Sar said.

The airlock whooshed open. Eight Inheritors floated
around the corner, pistols raised. Sar squeezed both triggers again and again. Basheev also fired. Shots struck the airlock around Sar. One grazed Bredine's right hand, and she drifted off toward Seul. Two Inheritors floated, heads hanging down.

Light flooded the airlock bay, forcing the Inheritors to cover their eyes. Firing ceased.

“Captain Jaah?” a male Aldaakian voice came over Sar's helmet speakers.

“Kael!” Seul cried out.

An Aldaakian assault shuttle hovered near the airlock adjacent to the one
Frevyx
had just magnetized with. Bright lamps along its nose dimmed. Its airlock already stood open, with two Shock Troopers aiming beam rifles just inside.

“Seul, we'll cover you if you help us,” Sar called into his mic.

A shot cracked the airlock behind him.

“I'm with you.” Seul hurried toward the second airlock. Two shots whizzed near her, and one scraped her left shoulder. Three shots slammed inside the Aldaakian shuttle.

Sar emptied his left pistol. An Inheritor screamed, holding his shattered abdomen.

“Kivita . . .” Bredine staggered and bumped into the airlock. The chamber's remaining atmosphere screeched through the cracks in it.

Hands grabbed the back of Sar's ruined envirosuit and pulled him and Bredine into
Frevyx
's airlock. Jandeel smiled down at him, then took Bredine's other pistol and covered the others.

Sar kept firing while Jandeel pushed Rhii and Basheev through the airlock hatch. Two more Inheritors
jerked and floated back from the impacts. A Thede man aboard
Frevyx
cried out as a shot tore through his left side; then his corpse blocked the airlock. Three more shots burst through the man's chest.

All lights in the airlock bay went out as Sar shoved aside the floating dead man and yanked Rhii and Basheev inside. Jandeel pulled Bredine aboard, then slammed the lever while shots struck
Frevyx
's closing airlock hatch.

Jandeel rushed into the bridge as several Thedes helped Sar and the others to the bench. Sar blinked, studying their faces. Humans, Ascali, a couple of Aldaakians. Some he knew; some he didn't. At least three dozen stood in the airlock chamber, with more in the rest of the ship. They murmured thanks, shook his hand, kissed his cheeks.

“Lots of cargo here, Jandeel,” Sar called, as Rhii bandaged his leg with blue medical tape. Gasping, he leaned against the bulkhead.
Frevyx
throbbed with engine thrust.

“I managed to save fifty-eight altogether, from Airlocks Three, Five, and Six,” Jandeel called back from the bridge. “I have most of our datacores, too.”

Sar patted Rhii's shoulder and limped into the bridge. “They took Kiv and Navon. Cheseia, too.”

Jandeel pushed on the manuals. “
Fanged Pauper
blasted from Airlock Eight and flew toward the Sarrhdtuu ship.
Arcuri's Glory
has pulled back from the planet.”

“Sarrhdtuu ship?” Cold sweat ran down Sar's neck.

Jandeel just looked at him, his lips set in a grim line.

“Navon would want us to leave him, but to hell if I will,” Sar said. “Fly toward that Sarrhdtuu bucket.”

“We must save these people, the datacores! We are all that remains of the Thedes.” Jandeel's voice quavered. “Even though Kivita is . . . We have no choice.”

“Let me have the helm. Going to try something.” Sar grunted. “A queen? She'll never stop reminding me of it.”

Jandeel stalled the engine and eased himself into the seat. “Neither will I. They blasted apart that Aldaakian cruiser, so what can we do?”

“We have to try something. I won't give up Kiv just because they have more guns than we do. Tell everybody back there to hang on.” Sar unsnapped his helmet and pushed the manuals forward.

“Sar, this is Jaah,” Seul said over the console speaker. “Do you suppose three assault shuttles are enough to take on that Inheritor battleship?”

Jandeel gaped.

Sar smirked. “It'll have to be.”

Frevyx
sped toward the Sarrhdtuu battleship.

Seul slumped back into her seat as they flew away from the Thede ship. That ruffian Shekelor had sliced through both cryoports above her breasts. Though her polyarmor's inner liner had prevented her from bleeding to death, Seul still gasped and ached. Her fellow Troopers regarded her with hollow stares.

“Kael, power up the beamers. Deactivate gravity, and route all power to the engines. I don't know what Sar has planned, but we'll support him as best we—”

Kael wasn't moving. He didn't blink.

“Kael?” Cold terror dug into her heart. “Kael!”

A black, pulp-filled hole smoked in Kael's left side.

Seul jerked back, unable to breathe. The Inheritor soldiers had landed a few shots inside. . . .

“Captain Jaah?” the navigator said. The other Troopers on board watched her with solemn stares.

The coldness enveloped her heart, freezing the hopes and dreams she'd had. The future she'd wanted with Kael, finding her daughter, becoming a family—all gone.

Moisture leaked down her cheeks as she caressed Kael's chin. So handsome. Had he known she loved him? Damn everything to the void, had he? Why hadn't
she spent more time with him, touched him more, told him of her feelings?

“Captain?”

Cryoports screeching open and closed, Seul rounded on the navigator. “What?”

They all continued staring at her. So what if she was crying? To the void with protocol and emotional inhibitors! For Aldaakian Shock Troopers, tears displayed weakness, lack of self-control, and a dozen other negative things. Not anymore. These tears were for Kael.

“Captain, what are your orders?” the navigator said. “
Aldaar
is gone. Commander Vuul is dead. You are our only commanding officer.”

Seul grunted. Commander of what? What could they possibly do now? Three little shuttles? All her fellow Troopers, Vuul, Qaan . . . Kael. All dead for nothing. The savage fighting on the Thede ship, and—

The image of the dead Aldaakian boy floating on the Thede vessel entered her thoughts. Her jaw tightened, and then her cryoports clicked once and relaxed. The ache of her wounds became a dull throb at the back of her consciousness.

“We are all that stands between our enemies and our people in Aldaakian Space.” Seul grimaced, her chest cryoports jamming shut. “We'll not survive. But we can avenge
Aldaar
and our fallen comrades. I told Sar Redryll we'd help him. Aldaakians keep their word.”

“Captain Jaah, a strong signal is emitting from the Sarrhdtuu ship,” the navigator said.

Seul thought of Kivita, and what the Sarrhdtuu must be doing to her. The sight of
Frevyx
, though, emboldened her. One trawler against a Sarrhdtuu vessel? Her people had always been outnumbered, but never broken.

“What is your name?” Seul asked the navigator. No more formal, impersonal military interaction. She wanted to know who would be dying with her.

“Taak, Captain.”

“How well can you pilot this craft?”

Taak sat up straighter in her chair. “As well as you require, Captain Jaah.”

“Captain, look,” one Trooper said.

Outside the cockpit viewport, the huge Vim derelict had broken into six parts. Before their eyes, each shard flew away of its own volition, until all six formed a circle dozens of miles across.

Hope thawed Seul's chilled heart; then anger scorched it. Purpose tempered it into the hardest iron.

“Taak, alert the other surviving shuttles. We're making an attack run on that Inheritor battleship. I have fire control.” She glared out the viewport. By the Vim, they would not kill her easily.

•   •   •

Frevyx
veered toward the Sarrhdtuu battleship as warning lights blinked on the console. Sar ignored them and pushed the manuals again, then eased them to starboard.
Frevyx
dove and flew parallel with the battleship's graceful, curved hull. Voices in the chambers behind the bridge rose in anger and fright.

“Keep them calm, Jandeel!” Sar called over his shoulder. A gravity flux gave his stomach a slight tussle, while
Frevyx
flew a few yards above the other ship's hull. As long as he remained so close,
Arcuri's Glory
wouldn't dare fire on him.

Luccan's Wish
, its orbit degrading, glowed red from reentry.

Jandeel entered the bridge and clutched a bulkhead
handle. “Some have gotten sick, but all are fine.” He looked out the viewport and jumped. “Sar, have you gone insane? If the Sarrhdtuu were to make a light jump right now, it would dislocate our hull and rip us apart!”

“Want to scare them even more back there? Dunaar won't shoot at us, for now,” Sar replied. On the scanner, three blips closed with
Arcuri's Glory
: Seul and the surviving Aldaakians.

“But what for? Sar, you are risking us all. How does this help Kivita?”

“Get Bredine up here.” Sar turned the manuals.
Frevyx
rose over a mound in the craft's hull, then dipped along one of its crescent wings.

Jandeel left and returned with the bony Savant. Bredine's hand and arm had been bandaged, and her eyes had stopped darting everywhere.

“Bredine, is Kiv still sending?” Sar pulled
Frevyx
up and began the same path he'd just flown over the Sarrhdtuu vessel.

“Hmm. Redryll, Redryll. Kivita is . . . building? Yes. Building, not sending.” Bredine sat beside him and pulled Jandeel close. “Hold me? But not like Redryll. Hmm.”

Jandeel sighed and steadied her. “What is she building?”

Outside the viewport, the Vim derelict had split into six parts and formed a huge circle. The wreck's constituent parts shimmered with blue light.

“By the Solars,” Jandeel whispered.

Bredine absently ran fingers through Jandeel's hair. “No. By Kivita Narbas.”

In all his salvaging years, Sar had never heard, nor dreamt, of such a sight. The six parts winked in sequence
with each other like tiny blue stars. Despite his worry over Kivita and pain at witnessing the Thedes' destruction, an old wonder crept into his heart.

Perhaps the Vim had arrived after all.

Whispers burst over the console speaker, then rose into shrieks. Passengers behind the bridge groaned and shouted, until Sar slammed the mute button.

“The Vim send!” Bredine cried. “Kivita keeps building!”

Sar gripped her hand. “Can you communicate with her? Maybe send your . . . thoughts, or whatever, to her?”

Jandeel's eyes widened in understanding. “
Frevyx
's transmitter. Sar, focus it on the band channel Bredine says Kivita is on. Then have her send something back. Let her know we are out here and want to help.”

Sar slid the transmitter terminal out to Bredine. “Do it.”

•   •   •

Kivita gritted her teeth against the raw signal slamming into her mind. Her lungs labored to breathe, and her heart thudded with effort.

Two Sarrhdtuu warriors lifted Kivita from the platform as it floated around
Juxj
's interior. The ship's humming grew in volume, filling her ears and vibrating her bones.

Shekelor clasped Cheseia's arm while Zhara glanced about. Navon stared at Kivita, a renewed urgency in his eyes.

“Now you will see, Child of Narbas.” Zhhl's coils clamped onto the platform's edges, and the platform rose. The Juxj Star orbited her like it had when she'd first found it on Vstrunn.

The platform neared an octagonal ceiling where
glowing green terminals shone from twenty feet up. Fleshlike stalks carted large jelly capsules into wall slots. A faint gray mist hung in the air, and greenish fog roiled around their ankles.

One stalk slithered onto the platform and stopped near Kivita's feet. Its end opened up and shone a flickering light upward. Dunaar's holographic form materialized in the light.

“Greetings, my child. You have led us on a grand journey to this sacred system. Do you know that I shall build monuments to what will take place here? The destruction of the Thede leadership, the defeat of albino infidels, and you, Kivita Vondir. Your holy mission is at last fulfilled.” Even through the hologram, she made out sweat running down Dunaar's chin.

“Go to hell,” she replied.

Dunaar clutched a stone scepter in both hands. “Blaspheme while you still can, you filthy spacer slut. Once you have opened this Vim Portal, Zhhl will turn you over to me. Your talents must be passed on to the next generation of Inheritors. We will breed until I have one hundred Savants just like you, my child. Only they will not spread lies. They will spread the holy truth.”

“Yeah? I hope these jelly-filled shit cans do turn me over to you, because then I'll—”

A coil cuffed her across the shoulders.

“You will focus now,” Zhhl said. “You will unlock the sequence in the Portal.”

Triangular terminals jutted from the wall, alight with yellow characters and symbols. Eight holograms projected onto the ceiling, displaying
Juxj
's hangar, the tube chamber, and objects outside the craft. The Vim derelict had split and formed a circle, while
Frevyx
flew around
the Sarrhdtuu starship. Three Aldaakian shuttles arced across the hull of
Arcuri's Glory
.

The Juxj Star stopped orbiting Kivita and hovered before her face. Its red glow bathed the platform in crimson hues. Two warriors tightened their coils on her arms. Zhhl's single eye split into two and stared at her with antediluvian maliciousness.

Still trembling, Kivita closed her eyes and tried to redirect the overbearing signal into the Juxj Star. She had nothing else to do with it, other than absorb it.

The data stream invading her mind stopped.

Kivita opened her eyes. A wave of consciousness spread from her brain, passing through
Juxj
's hull and into the void outside. Every nerve in her body tingled; every hair on her head quivered.

All six parts of the Vim ship blinked blue once, then went dark. Kivita felt rather than saw it. The fabric of space and time wrinkled within the circle. Stars blurred. The gas giant stopped rotating. The other vessels outside
Juxj
hovered in midflight. Navon, Cheseia, and the others stood like statues on the platform. Only Kivita could move.

Only she could see.

The Portal flickered open, and a second data stream eased into Kivita's neural pathways. She hugged herself and sighed as a comforting warmth spread through her body. All aches and bruises vanished; doubts and fears were extinguished like torches in a Susuron lagoon.

A thousand voices combined into one and spoke in her thoughts.

You have achieved what we had hoped. You have assembled the tools we left behind so you could find us. Yet you bring enemies.

The vista through the Portal took her breath and numbed her mind.

Dozens of yellow main-sequence stars made her squint. An undamaged, eight-mile-long Vim ship with a shimmering panel array waited. Six smaller, oblong craft flanked it. A planet with white clouds, blue seas, and green continents shone like a jewel on black velvet.

“Frevyx,” she whispered.

“My children, we have found them at last!” Dunaar's hologram cried.

A violet beam shot out from
Juxj
. One of the small oblong vessels burst into shrapnel and dust.

The warm feelings terminated with Kivita's scream. Thousands of minds shrieked at being destroyed, then died away. Reality blinked back into her consciousness as the other vessels around
Juxj
moved again. Everyone on the platform wobbled and gasped.

Zhhl's coils slapped the platform. “Engage.”

“What?” Dunaar asked in a distraught voice.

Juxj
moved toward the Portal and a second violet beam scorched the larger Vim ship's hull.

“No!” Kivita shouted. “You're destroying life! You're—”

The two warriors almost pulled her arms out of their sockets. Pain darkened her vision, muted her scream.

“I want my son, Zhhl. Now.” Shekelor morphed through the platform and appeared right before Zhhl.

Kivita's eyes fluttered back open as two more Sarrhdtuu warriors dropped onto the platform, drew curved blades, and stalked toward Shekelor.

“He has contributed to this pair of Sentries,” Zhhl said in a booming voice. “Be content.”

“Zhhl, what are you doing? I demand to know! I will take action—” The hologram of Dunaar snapped off.

Juxj
drew near the Portal, as did
Arcuri's Glory
.

“Where is Byelor? I have given you everything, even my own body! Where is he?” Shekelor shook with rage.

One of the Sarrhdtuu warriors flipped open its carapace armor. A thin pale human male was clamped to the creature's flesh. Tubes filled with green and yellow liquids joined human and Sarrhdtuu in symbiotic perversity.

For an instant, Kivita's eyes met Shekelor's. Though she despised him and all he'd done, sympathy and anger forced a word from her lips.

“Sygma!”

Stretching his coils, Shekelor ripped away the medical tape from the Ascalis' mouths, then the flexi around their wrists. Cheseia and Zhara both sang a high-pitched note, rising in volume and clarity. Within a second it expanded beyond human hearing.

Both warriors released Kivita and stumbled. Zhhl's coils balled up, its translucent veins clogging with green liquid. The warrior coupled with Byelor stumbled off the platform.

Throughout
Juxj
, hundreds of Sarrhdtuu warriors morphed from the walls and floor.

Shekelor grabbed a beam rifle from one of his pirates and fired, burning one warrior to green globules. Another warrior dashed aside three pirates with its coils. The sound of snapping bones and armor echoed in the chamber. Kivita and Navon ducked behind a triangular terminal as Shekelor fired again. A Sarrhdtuu flopped down, half its head sliced away. Dark jelly bubbled into the air and seeped into the platform.