Slave Empire - The Crystal Ship (9 page)

The Draycons,
however, seemed to have had enough. Norvar’s loss was a grave blow
to the Gorder Bonn Priesthood, weakening their standing. Now they
would have to sort out their pecking order all over again. One
thing was certain, neither he, nor the Draycons would ever
underestimate the Shrike again. His suicidal tactics, although
successful, could never be emulated by captains who cherished their
lives, and to admit that the Shrike’s men had more courage than his
was galling. At least the man was finally dead.

Normally a
space battle remained a stalemate for hours, sometimes days, during
which time reinforcements were called and the whole thing got
bigger and messier. Ships were too well protected by their stress
shields, and could hurl laser and energy bolts at each other
endlessly with no effect. There were chinks in the armour, however.
A stress shield had weak points that could be penetrated with a
well-aimed shot. Only by hitting either the Net link hook or a
stress shield generator could a ship gain the upper hand.

The way the
Shrike’s cruisers had overcome Norvar so quickly and efficiently
had been a revelation, but they had done it at great cost to
themselves. So the tactic, while useful, was not without its
drawbacks. He wondered if Rayne had calmed down yet. He had a lot
of questions for her. Mostly, he was exceeding curious about the
yellow liquid she had been drenched in when he found her.

Marcon
straightened, his hand pressed to the sensor pad in front of him.
His skin paled to a sickly grey, his eyes wide. Tallyn had never
seen the unflappable lieutenant look so alarmed.

“
What is it?”

“
Sir.” Marcon blinked and turned to his commander. “A report
from Atlan, sir. They detected a spacial anomaly, and sent a ship
to investigate it. They report... a vast ship has appeared, larger
than anything we know of. It’s made of crystal.”

Tallyn’s blood
turned cold. “The Envoy?”

“
Yes, sir. They think so. It’s heading for Atlan, moving
slowly, and they’re mobilising a strike force to intercept it. They
request our return urgently, with the Golden Child.”

Tallyn gripped
the edge of the console to steady himself, fighting an urge to run
to the hospital and find Rayne. The Golden Child. Her importance
loomed enormously, and he longed to have her by his side, where he
could bask in the assurance of her presence. The prophecy was about
to come true, and the magnitude of the moment stunned him. He
gathered his scattered wits.

“
Set course for Atlan. Tell the others to follow. I’ll go and
tell Rayne.”

In the
hospital, doctors tended to the men who had returned from Norvar.
Rows of beds were occupied by injured men in an artificial sleep,
their wounds, visible through the clear regeneration jelly, already
showing pink areas of regrown skin. The redolence of jelly and
antiseptic permeated the huge room. Nurses trotted past on errands
and doctors stalked by with the injured air of a healer on a
battlefront.

Rayne sat on a
bed, staring into space, clad in a clean pale grey suit. Her hair
was damp from a shower, and she sipped from a half-empty bottle of
water.

“
Rayne?”

Her eyes
flicked up to him, filled with anger.

“
Are you all right?” he asked.

“
No.”

Tallyn sat
beside her. “We’re on our way back to Atlan.” He hesitated, not
knowing how to word his momentous news. “The Envoy has
appeared.”

She looked
away, a frown puckering her brow and raw fear shining in her eyes.
When she looked at him again, a bitter smile twisted her lips. “He
has great timing.”

“
You must prepare yourself. Put aside your anger for the
moment.”

“
Prepare myself?” She gave a mirthless laugh. “For what? I
don’t even know what I’m supposed to do.”

“
It will come to you, when you confront the Crystal
Ship.”

“
How do you know that? Even Endrix doesn’t know that. How do
you know I won’t need the help of my guardian? The one you just
murdered.”

“
I didn’t kill him, I swear. Maybe he isn’t dead. There was no
time to find out. Surely his ship, if it’s so intelligent, would
have transferred him out?”

Rayne gasped
and closed her eyes, a faint smile curving her mouth as if she had
just remembered something vitally important that brought her
extreme comfort. “Did any of his ships explode?”

“
No. We were in close proximity; such an explosion would have
shaken us badly, maybe even overloaded the shields.”

She opened
eyes that glimmered. “Then he’s alive.”

“
How do you know?”

She studied
him as if unsure of whether or not she should tell him, but
apparently she failed to see what harm it could do. “If he dies,
his ship self-destructs. So will Shadowen, if I die.”

“
I see.” Tallyn tried to hide his disappointment. “What
happened to you? Why were you so wet when I found you?”

“
The Draycons put a mariner in my cell, but I was able to undo
the effects of its poison.”

“
Did the Shrike know this?”

She shrugged.
“Shadowen probably told him.”

“
So that’s why he was in such a hurry. How did he know where
you were?”

“
Shadowen. He can track me through the bio link. That’s how he
knew I’d been abducted in the first place. He followed Norvar when
she left Mansure.” She took a long swig from the bottle. “It was
the Shrike who led you to me, wasn’t it?”

Tallyn nodded.
“If you’d still had the beacon -”

“
But I didn’t, and he saved me. You were just on hand when he
freed me, otherwise Scimarin would have transferred us
out.”

“
That’s something else I don’t understand. Three of his
cruisers synchronised their energy shells with Norvar’s. Why didn’t
he just transfer you out then?”

“
I don’t know,” Rayne said. “I’ll ask Shadowen.” She closed
her eyes while she communed via her implant, then opened them. “I
was in a random waveform field. No one could transfer me out until
I’d been released from the cell. Shadowen detected the field’s
effect on my bio link, something he calls ‘fuzz’, and told the
Shrike I couldn’t be transferred.”

“
I see. This ship of yours seems full of
surprises.”

“
A good thing, too. Of course, he would have found out when he
tried to transfer me. It just saved him the time and effort. And
Shadowen isn’t my ship, he’s just on loan. Now that the Envoy’s
here, I’ll be giving him back soon.”

“
You seem very calm,” he commented.

“
It hasn’t sunk in yet. It probably won’t until I see the
damned thing, then I’ll most likely want to run.” She put down the
bottle and stood up. “I’d like to return to my ship now, and find
out how the Shrike is.”

She held up a
hand when he frowned. “No matter what he’s done, he’s saved my life
more than once, so I owe him. The very least I can do is show some
concern. Also, I might need his help again, with the Envoy, so I’d
like to know when he’s going to be well enough.”

“
You can communicate with your ship from here.”

“
I enjoy my privacy. Right now, I’d like to be on my ship. Is
that a problem?”

Tallyn sighed
as he rose to his feet. “No. Not really.”

“
I’ll need to be on my ship when we encounter the Envoy,
anyway.”

“
But you will follow us to Atlan?”

She smiled.
“I’ll be there before you.”

Chapter Five

Rayne stared
blindly at Shadowen’s screens, reliving the last few seconds on the
Draycon ship. The intensity of her anguish had startled her. How
could she feel so much for a man whose face she had never seen? Why
had he risked his life to save her?

She addressed
the ship. “Shadowen, can you find out how the Shrike is?”

“
Of course.”

Several
moments passed, and then Shadowen said, “The Shrike is undergoing
surgery at Dermoin, his nearest outpost. His condition is serious,
and he is unconscious.”

“
Does he have healers on Dermoin?”

“
No, but he has competent doctors and surgeons.”

“
I could heal him.”

“
You would not be allowed to see him.”

“
Why not?” she asked, surprised.

“
You would be considered a security risk.”

She snorted.
“Of course. But he’s going to be okay?”

“
His prognosis is good.”

“
Can you find out what’s happening at Atlan?”

“
I tap the Atlanteans’ communications as a matter of course.
They’re sending warships to intercept the crystalline entity that
appeared close to the planet a short while ago.”

Rayne raked a
hand through her damp hair. Endrix had said the Crystal Ship could
not be destroyed in space. She sighed. “How long before we reach
Atlan?”

“
Seven and a half hours.”

Vidan gazed at
the Shrike, trying to remember how many times he had stood at his
bedside after a dangerous confrontation, battle or semi-suicidal
mission had left him wounded. For as long as he had been Tarke’s
second-in-command, the man with no face had risked his life with
frightening regularity, despite his importance to the millions of
people who relied on him to save and shelter them. This was not the
first time he had led his ships into battle to save slaves, but
never before had it been only one. The harsh rasp of Tarke’s
breathing was reassuring, and Vidan scanned the holographic
readouts of the various machines that monitored him. Blood seeped
from the edge of the mask, pooling on the pillow. The readouts
showed a strong heartbeat, laboured breathing and dangerously low
blood pressure. A bag of blood replacement fluid was hooked up to a
needle in his arm. The hospital had become a hive of activity since
his arrival, and orderlies, nurses and medics rushed around on
urgent errands.

Dermion’s top
trauma surgeon, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline named
Grayal, peeled off Tarke’s space armour and blood-soaked shirt,
revealing a black-edged wound. A second doctor cut away the
Shrike’s trousers and probed the shrapnel wounds in his hips and
thighs. Nurses clustered behind them, awaiting orders, their
expressions tense.

Grayal shot a
concerned glance at the blood that oozed onto the pillow. The
resilient, flexible and almost indestructible plycon material of
the mask and skullcap was undamaged. Vidan wondered if Graval would
suggest removing it, but few were keen to undergo the mind-wipe
afterwards to remove the memory of Tarke’s face. Vidan knew how
unpleasant it was, from experience. Unless Tarke stopped breathing,
the mask would remain in place.

Grayal
positioned a surgical robot over the injury and took up his post at
its controls. The web of old scars on Tarke’s chest gleamed in the
harsh lights. An alarm sounded, and the second doctor glanced at
the holograms.

“
He’s regaining consciousness. Prepare the sleep
inducer.”

A medic moved
a saucer-shaped instrument over Tarke’s head, but Vidan held up a
hand to prevent her switching it on. The Shrike’s wheezing breath
caught, and he tensed. He turned his head towards Vidan, who leant
closer.

“
The girl?”

“
The Atlanteans took her. She’s safe.”

Vidan nodded
to the medic, who turned on the sleep inducer, and Tarke relaxed.
Vidan hovered while the surgeons closed the wound.

Rayne sipped a cup of Atlantean coffee, called
najad
, and stared at the
stars beyond the energy shell’s crawling fire. After five hours of
induced sleep, she had eaten and enquired about Tarke’s health
again. He was out of surgery and asleep, apparently. She had sent a
message telling the Atlanteans not to attack the Envoy, but Endrix
had not responded to her calls, making her wonder if he would show
up. Her stomach was a tight knot, threatening to squirt the
najad
she had just
swallowed back up her throat. Shadowen interrupted her thoughts,
making her jump.

“
I am decelerating towards Atlan. I will stop close to the
alien ship.”

“
Not too close.”

“
There are many ships in the vicinity.”

“
What are they doing?” she asked.

“
Not much. The alien ship is moving towards the planet, but at
this range I cannot scan it in any detail. It is almost the size of
a moon, and causing some strange distortions in the spacial
fabric.”

Rayne wished
she knew what lay ahead, so she could prepare. How was she supposed
to fight this monster, and with what? She tensed as a flicker of
prickles passed across her mind, like a sweep of pins in her brain.
The strange sensation was unsettling, and she checked the
holograms. Whatever it was, Shadowen was apparently unable to
detect it.

As she
relaxed, Rayne became aware of a strange tickling sensation at the
back of her skull. Someone, or something, was trying to read her
mind. She raised the weak mental shields she had tried so hard to
cultivate, but the sensation increased, becoming a faint hiss of
alien thoughts. Her alarm grew as she experienced a flash of
telepathic sight; a seething chamber filled with a rosy glow,
snakes of Net power, or something like it, sliding down dark
walls.