Fearful Symmetry (The Robert Fenaday and Shasti Rainhell Chronicle Book 2) Read online

  “Now just a moment,” Telisan, who had no intention of taking either, said, “I think this is too dangerous for you as well.”

  “More dangerous than the hospital ship Solace over Conchirri?” Arpen asked sweetly.

  “Or the Empress Aran in a fleet action?” Sharla demanded, with more heat.

  “This will be more like Enshar I think,” Telisan said. “In any event, Arpen, it is far too dangerous to take you.”

  “I told you when we pledged that I was not willing to live within narrower horizons,” Arpen replied. “I meant that. I’m the first Denla female to travel offworld, the first to become a surgeon, certainly the first in combat. Just because I love you both and want to be married does not mean I am willing to be less than I am. If you go, Telisan, I am going as well.”

  “As am I,” Sharla stated.

  Telisan tried one last tack. “Arpen, whatever will we say to your mother?”

  “We’ll tell her when we get back,” Arpen replied.

  It occurred to him that a human husband-to-be might have one advantage, not being outnumbered. He turned to the door and opened it. “Ensign Horowitz, the three of us will be returning with you. We will leave as soon as we pack and take care of some affairs. ”

  Horowitz nodded. “My orders say you’re the boss, sir.”

  “I’m glad someone thinks so,” Telisan sighed.

  Chapter Six

  Hours later the Denlenn triad boarded Cheetah, and the small vessel lifted off. Arpen and Sharla went into special liquid filled chambers under sedation, to protect them from the savage acceleration of the courier. Telisan, citing his reserve commission, rode in the padded observer’s seat on the bridge. As Cheetah raced toward Denla’s orbiting military mass-driver to boost to a higher percentage of light speed, he began to wonder about the wisdom of his choice. Fighter pilot that he was, Telisan was used to quick, hard burns. But the scout was accelerating hard and steadily. The constant drag of acceleration began to make his face hurt after a few hours.

  Cheetah’s artificial singularity drive usually canceled the many gravities of thrust, but at this level of acceleration, gravity forces began to overcome the effect. Her crew had to endure as best they could.

  Ensign Horowitz noticed his discomfort. “Quite a ride, sir.”

  Telisan turned his head slowly. “No worse than turning and burning in a Spacefire with a Conchirri on your tail. We didn’t have singularity drives for AG in the fighters.”

  “True, but you fighter jocks didn’t pull it for hours,” Horowitz grinned, gravity making it sardonic. “Cheetah has the same artificial gravity as your Sidhe, but we’re exceeding the tolerances of the singularity by two percent. As we say in the scout service, ‘everybody eats our dust.’”

  For as long as you last, Telisan thought. Courier crews usually rotate out after a year. The wear and tear on the body adds up. This time it can’t be helped. Time is fleeting. At least there will be no thrust once we hit hyperspace. Telisan settled back in his flight seat and tried to relax.

  *****

  Fifty light-years lay between Denla and New Eire, but hyperspace was thin, with favorable currents. Cheetah entered New Eire system only two weeks after Fenaday’s meeting with Mandela. The courier braked brutally coming into the system. As she neared the orbit of New Eire, she slowed to a tolerable gee for her passengers and hove into shuttle distance of the Sidhe. Telisan got his first sight of the blood-red, winged hull of the ten-thousand ton, four-hundred-meter-long frigate. She lay nestled up against a gray Confederation repair and supply ship, connected by umbilicals and gangways. Shipwrights and artisans crawled over the frigate. Even from Cheetah, he could see the actinic lights of welders. Sidhe was being militarized again with a full war load, the best Mandela could give them. It was appallingly familiar.

  Ensign Horowitz offered many apologies about the lack of comfort on the Cheetah, mostly to Arpen. Now he insisted on flying the Denleni over to the Sidhe himself. The trip in the tiny cutter was flawless, something a trained pilot like Telisan could appreciate. Still, he had hoped to handle the controls himself.

  “Sidhe this is Cheetah cutter,” Horowitz said, “on approach vector Alpha for your midship shuttle bay.”

  “Sidhe acknowledging,” replied an unfamiliar voice. “Proceed to land.” Ahead of them, battle-doors opened. They landed smoothly on the gray, metal deck as the doors cycled closed behind them.

  “Thank you, Mr. Horowitz,” Telisan said as they disembarked the shuttle.

  “Yes,” Arpen added, “an excellent flight.”

  Horowitz beamed a smile at her. “Thank you, ma’am. I have to return immediately. Cheetah isn’t going to remain idle. We are off to Olympia to announce Sidhe’s visit. Good luck to you all.”

  The Denlenn trio exited the cramped hatchway into a cavernous bay containing the familiar shapes of Dakota shuttles. As Telisan walked down the shuttle ramp, he looked for the names. One was Pooka, the command shuttle. The other was a newer model; its name was rendered in standard and in Enshari: Belwin Duna. Denlenn did not express emotion by tears, yet for a second Telisan fought off the equivalent as memories of his dead mentor surfaced. He nodded to himself in satisfaction. The familiar acrid tang of ozone and lubricant bit at his sensitive nose as he stepped out the hatch. Telisan smiled. He did not realize until that moment how much he missed the ship.

  “Telisan,” called an excited voice. He turned to see Robert Fenaday running up to the shuttle. They gripped arms in Denlenn fashion, then pounded each other on the back like humans. Despite his excitement, Fenaday looked as if he had not slept much in the last few days.

  “Thank God you’re here,” Fenaday said, “even if you are mad to come.”

  “More than you know,” Telisan replied ruefully. “May I introduce you to my fiancées, Sharla and Arpen.”

  Fenaday looked up at the shuttle hatchway, obviously startled. The other two Denlenns stood there. He recovered almost instantly, walking up to greet them. “Ladies,” he said, bowing very low. “This is an unexpected honor. I had hoped to receive you properly, at my home.”

  “Please do not worry, Captain,” Arpen said, “both Sharla and I were naval personnel during the War. We are used to shipboard life. I’m sure our quarters will be quite satisfactory.”

  “Uh,” Fenaday said, “Umm.”

  “We expect to work for our passage,” Sharla added, with a devilish smile. “I’m a Grade One-Alpha computer technician, rank of Chief Petty Officer. I served on the Main Battle Carrier Empress Aran during the Battle of the Rings.”

  “I am trained as a neurosurgeon with a specialty in cybernetics,” Arpen said. “I held the rank of captain and served on a hospital ship.”

  “She was decorated too,” Sharla said.

  “Sharla,” Arpen protested.

  Fenaday looked at Telisan. “My friend, this is too much to ask of you. Not only to drag you in to danger, but your loved ones? No.”

  “You need me,” Telisan stated. “I am your friend and I am Shasti’s. Even if you had not called me, I would have come once I knew. I own my place on this ship.”

  “Yes, yes,” Fenaday said looking pained, “never doubt that. I just can’t see you risking so much.”

  “This is our matter, Captain,” Arpen reproved, “and we have resolved it.”

  After a moment, Fenaday smiled at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then it is settled,” she said, seeing his smile and raising it by a mega-watt.

  Telisan looked at Fenaday. “You lasted all of five seconds against her.”

  “I have a feeling that might be a record,” the human replied.

  “It is,” Sharla assured.

  Fenaday and Telisan looked at each other and laughed.

  “Mr. Dobera,” Fenaday called. The Frokossi quartermaster came over, his big gem-like eyes blinking slowly, independent of each other. Dobera had never left Sidhe; the Frokossi princeling had nowhere to go. A death sentence awaited him on his homeworld, wher
e he was deposed royalty.

  “See the ladies and their luggage to Mr. Telisan’s quarters,” ordered Fenaday.

  Dobera nodded. The iridescent scales of the lizard-like being shifted color in the harsh light. “Good to see you again, Commander,” he said in a breathy, whistling voice. Telisan nodded a polite reply. Dobera’s opaline eyes focused on the lady’s luggage as he pulled out a pocket com to call for stevedores. Once royalty—always royalty.

  “Sharla, when you are settled, please report to the bridge,” Fenaday said. “I need a lead systems tech. Arpen, if you would be so kind as to report to the sickbay, we have medical personnel inbound. You could get a leg up on inventory and prep.”

  “Yes, Captain,” they replied simultaneously, snapping off crisp military salutes as old habits reestablished themselves.

  “As for you, my friend,” he said, turning to Telisan, “there is no rest for the wicked. We’re eight hours from launch. I have two hundred navy techs running around prepping the ship. There’s a lot to do. The shuttle with Mandela’s troops is due just before launch.”

  “Then let us get to it,” Telisan said.

  *****

  The Intruder shuttle came into dock smoothly. Within seconds, pressure doors closed and atmosphere began to fill the shuttle bay. On the bridge, Fenaday did not wait. “Mr. Perez, stand by for initial burn in sixty seconds.” At least, he thought, it gets us moving. “Mr. Wardell, you have the conn. I’m going to greet our new arrivals. Telisan, come with me.”

  The turbovator deposited them at the shuttle bay in the center of the Sidhe’s delta-winged hull. In less than a minute, they were walking across the metal plates and tie downs toward the flat-black Intruder. Sidhe’s two Wildcat fighters were attached outboard of the starship’s wings for rapid launch, leaving room in the bay for the big Intruder. Small, crab assault robots covered its belly, ready for an atmospheric drop. Now they popped off like fleas, marching to a formation by the prow. One machine, different from the rest, caught Fenaday’s eye, a saucer-shaped disk two meters wide: an airbot.

  From the back ramp, a reinforced platoon of Air Space Assault Team troops spilled out. Unconsciously mimicking the robots, they formed up on the deck. Side hatches opened and more figures emerged. Humanform Combat Robots, the deadliest of the machines designed for the Conchirri war.

  An unwelcome silhouette, tall, spare and angular, followed the HCRs out. Kyle Mmok, Mandela’s watchdog. The robot controller orchestrated the movements of the company of crab robots, airbot and HCRs by subvocalized commands transmitted through machinery in his body. Most of Mmok’s body had been cybernetically replaced. Unlike most of the maimed who received such transplants, Mmok made no attempt to make his cosmetically pleasing. The effect was half man, half machine and all intended, right down to the glassy obsidian square replacing his left eye.

  When Fenaday last saw Mmok, he lay comatose after their final battle on Enshar, “shorted” out by an electrical discharge from a Shellycoat. Until Mandela had told him otherwise, Fenaday thought Mmok had died after being taken on the Marine troop carrier Io.

  Mmok spotted Fenaday. His one good eye narrowed and his normal grim expression turned sardonic. He walked toward them, trailed by six black-uniformed HCRs, distinguished only by different colored sashes.

  “Fenaday,” he said curtly. “Reporting aboard.”

  Fenaday nodded, equally cool. “Mmok, I see you’re not dead.”

  “Not hardly. Disappointed?”

  “No,” Fenaday replied, almost surprising himself with the truth of it, “I’m glad you made it. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  “Mandela sent me,” Mmok said, stressing the word sent. “He wants his team back and the mission finished.”

  “Understand this clearly, Mister,” Fenaday said, “you’re on my ship. I have complete command this trip out. You work for me. The mission objective is to get the survivors. Pard is secondary.”

  “You’re just after Rainhell’s ass,” Mmok said contemptuously. “I thought with all your money, you wouldn’t be so hard up for a new girlfriend.”

  Telisan started forward, and Fenaday seized his arm. Fenaday moved past Telisan until he stood nose to nose with Mmok. Rage raced through him at Mmok’s disrespectful mention of Shasti. Fenaday knew the cyborg was pushing his emotional buttons, trying to anger him. I’ll teach him to be careful what he wishes for, he thought.

  “Okay, you son of a bitch,” Fenaday said, keeping his voice level and cold. “You want it rough. I’ll give it to you rough. Effective immediately, you address me as Captain. We are going to get Shasti and the team back. You better be prepared to do whatever it takes to do that. If I say frog, you eat flies. You don’t and I have a warrant from Mandela to kill anyone I need to, in order to get the mission accomplished. You cross me on this flight and you’re going to be the first casualty.

  “If you can’t deal with that, take your goddamn robots and get into the Pooka. We’ll launch you in ten minutes. You can explain to Mandela how you managed to screw up this mission and get kicked off my ship so quickly.”

  Mmok glared at him, nostrils flared.

  “Answer me, Mmok. Do it now. Be prepared to live or die by it.”

  Long seconds ticked by as they glared at each other. Finally Mmok choked out, “Agreed.”

  “Agreed, Captain,” Fenaday hissed, holding onto his temper by his fingernails.

  “Agreed, Captain,” Mmok said, equally strained.

  Taking a page from his old friend Belwin Duna, Telisan looked past the two antagonists and spoke to the slender, feminine-looking robot with the vivid blue sash on its uniform. “Hello, Cobalt. Good to see you are still operational.”

  “Operating nominally,” replied the robot in flat, metallic tones. It was the sole survivor of the original four-unit contingent of HCRs used on Enshar. “Presence of command personnel Telisan and Fenaday noted and logged.”

  “It means hello,” Fenaday said, appreciating the de-escalation. “I see they issued you new robots and more of them.”

  Mmok also seemed to appreciate the distraction. “Allow me to introduce the new members of my team. Cobalt you know. This is Indigo, Azure, Cerulean, Midnight and Sapphire. I am the first controller to manage a sextet of HCRs,” he said with evident pride, gesturing to the machines.

  They looked like slim girls, an impression given chiefly by the monafilament hair they used both for cooling and antennae. Each bowed as he introduced it. A Mmok touch, hinting faintly of both apology and mockery.

  Mmok looked over at Fenaday with a chilly smile. “I’m entering my ‘blue period.’”

  “Of course you are,” Fenaday returned, equally droll.

  “Come along, Mmok,” Telisan said, seeking to separate the two. “You know the way to your old quarters. Dobera will get you fixed up.” The Denlenn waved at the spindly Frokossi quartermaster, who came over to take Mmok and his machines in tow.

  More pleasant reunions awaited Fenaday. Rask, Dr. Shizuyo Mourner and Dr. Yamata came over to greet him. He saw other familiar faces, many he could put names to, among the Confederate personnel. Fenaday had asked for as many Enshar veterans as could be found and persuaded to come. Most of the ASATs were new to him. Casualties in that force had not been light.

  Shizuyo Mourner greeted him first. “Well, if it isn’t Mr. ‘I can’t keep my ass out of trouble.’” A tiny woman of mixed English and Japanese ancestry, Mourner was an exceptional surgeon and an expert on the Enshari. What hold Mandela had on her, Fenaday had no idea, but here she was. He was glad to see her quick, predatory face.

  “I gather you’ve been briefed,” he said cautiously. For security’s sake most of the crew did not know the real purpose of the mission. He suspected all of Mandela’s operatives were fully informed.

  “Yes, of course,” she said, as if the idea that anyone would keep her in the dark was patently absurd. Yamata, who actually was from Japan, smiled and nodded. He seldom spoke. Mourner apparently talked en
ough for both of them.

  Lt. Rask commanded the ASATs. He was a blue-skinned, goblin-like Morok, for all that he’d been born on Mars. The Morok strode over and shook hands, human fashion. Shorter than Fenaday, powerfully built, he wore the usual black hair of his species cropped short in a military haircut. The eyes that looked out at Fenaday were red with yellow sclera.

  “Congratulations on the new brass on your collar, not to mention the decorations,” Fenaday said, pointing.

  “It’s just more worries and headache,” Rask grimaced, his pronounced canines evident. “Life was easier when I was enlisted and Dan did the worrying. Still, it’s good to be sailing with you again, skipper.”

  “I’m pleased to have all of you,” Fenaday said. “This could get dicey.”

  “Do you ever do anything that isn’t dicey?” Mourner asked. Yamata looked nervous at her familiarity with Fenaday.

  The Irishman just laughed in response. “Doctor, if I live through this, I am never leaving home again, except to ride my horse or visit the winery. I promise.”

  “What’s our status?” Rask asked.

  “We did an initial burn as soon as your landing jacks were down. We’re on our way to the main accelerator. From there it’s maximum speed to the earliest point we can use the stardrive. Hyperspace is thin between New Eire and Olympia, so the transit will be quick for the distance. Then we enter the system heading for Olympia’s orbit after a hard braking approach to the gas giant. We should be there in fifteen days.”

  “Over a month and half since contact was lost,” Mourner shook her head.

  “Yes,” Fenaday said, turning grim. The passage of time was a goad, urging him to desperate efforts to launch. It had occurred to him, after his meeting with Mandela, that the spymaster must have been in New Eire system, awaiting word of the mission. He probably had already dreamt up the present scheme. What else explained the presence of a naval tender and the ease with which Mandela had gathered many of the Enshar veterans?

  “I’ve been less successful at gathering the old crew than has Mandela,” Fenaday said, trying to take his mind off Shasti’s fate. “Many went on to comfortable postings and didn’t want to risk another adventure. I found Li and Morgan from the LEAF troops broke in the offport. Carlos Perez and Dobera never left Sidhe; they served under her sailing master these last few months. I never gave up my captaincy, but Sidhe needed a commander when I was not aboard.