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

  “The Tok brothers are back. Both turned up on New Eire, living the high life. They balked at the idea of the voyage until I broke security and told them that Shasti was in trouble on Olympia. There’s been no holding them after that. Shasti saved both their lives in some fight on Morokat long before she joined the Sidhe. They’ve worked around the clock to get the ship ready, raging at anyone and anything slowing the process.

  “Moshe Karass is back too. That fills out the old officer roster,” Fenaday said. “He also knows.”

  Fenaday knew that Moshe Karass had never forgotten how Fenaday hired him as Sidhe’s chief pilot when no one else would. More, Fenaday had believed in him as a good flyer, not the incompetent his former company’s lawyers made him out to be. Even though Karass had cleared his record with the funds from Enshar, he’d appeared on the ship the morning after Mandela’s visit, working tirelessly on the shuttles since then.

  Even with all the returns, Fenaday thought, Mandela’s people will again outnumber mine. As usual, the spymaster was far ahead and gaining ground. Despite Mourner’s and Rask’s friendliness and their shared time under fire, they were Mandela’s and could not be trusted. Thank God Telisan’s come, even bringing help.

  Rask looked at Fenaday. “I’m sure she’s alive, skipper. Dan’s there to look after her. I don’t think there’s much around that can kill her anyway.”

  “Yeah,” Fenaday said. But what there is that can, lives on Olympia, he thought.

  Rask sighed. “They shouldn’t have left without us, skipper. It could only lead to trouble. I told Dan that.”

  Fenaday nodded, tight-lipped. He put a hand on Rask’s shoulder. “Let’s remedy that mistake.”

  Sidhe headed for the New Eire accelerator. All over the ship, the various detachments began the difficult process of shaking down into a crew. There would be little time before they reached Olympia. Activity continued at a furious rate. People began to settle in their slots.

  *****

  The sickbay surprised Arpen. Sidhe was a rebuilt prize-ship from the Conchirri War. Before the Enshar Expedition the frigate had run on a shoestring budget. Arpen feared the worst, but the facilities proved excellent. Fenaday had always shipped a doctor, even in the bad old days when the doctors were of questionable character. Sickbay had also been overhauled by Dr. Mourner during the Enshar expedition and added to since the Shamrock Line restarted. Now Dr. Mourner reappeared with a medical team worthy of a heavy cruiser. The implications were chilling.

  The first day went by in a blur. They sorted out duties, shifts and unloaded the tons of supplies left by the crew of the tender. Arpen rarely saw Sharla and Telisan. They were occupied on the bridge readying the ship for jump.

  “Dr. Arpen,” called a voice. She turned to see Shizuyo Mourner at the door to the small office. A tall, gaunt figure stood behind her, a human male in his thirties, half his face covered in cyber-prosthetics. She knew him to be Kyle Mmok, robot controller and Mandela’s watchdog.

  “Yes,” Arpen said, “please come in.”

  “Thank you. I would like to introduce you to a patient, Mr. Mmok. He’s having a number of interface difficulties. His visual interface is causing him particular physical pain. Since you are a specialist...”

  “And since she’d like to get rid of me anyway,” Mmok added dryly.

  “Not at all,” Mourner said, with her best professional manner. The strain between them was quite visible despite this.

  “I would be delighted to work with you, Mr. Mmok,” Arpen said.

  “You mean on me,” replied the half-cyborg, bitterness evident in his tone.

  Arpen smiled. “Captain Fournier said the same thing to me when I met him on the Solace.”

  Mmok looked at her intently, “The Solace? At Conchir?”

  “Yes,” Arpen said, “during the Battle of the Rings. I met Captain Fournier after the first day of the assault.”

  “Yeah, Henri was with the 101st Robot Assault Force in the initial LZ. It was a bad landing,” Mmok said.

  “Dr. Arpen was on the Solace,” Mourner said, “when it was hit by a Conchirri fighter. She was awarded the Silver Star for her actions in rescuing patients from a decompressing compartment.”

  “So,” Mmok said with a grudging respect, “you got a medal.”

  Arpen looked into Mmok’s one human eye. “What I got were seven lives saved before the emergency seals gave way. I wasn’t about to have all my fine work blown up by lousy Xenos.”

  Mmok laughed a short bark. Mourner gave Mmok a curious look, as if she had never heard him laugh before.

  “We settled their account though, didn’t we?” Mmok said.

  “Paid in full,” Arpen said, giving the standard response of combat troops from the War.

  Shizuyo Mourner, who had some reservations about the Confederacy’s genocidal extermination of the Xenophobes, looked a bit askance at Arpen. It did not bother Arpen. She had seen the enemy and their works first hand. They valued no life, even their own. She had no use for such creatures.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Mourner said.

  Arpen gestured to Mmok to come in and sit on the table. As he moved into the room, she immediately assessed him as a three-quarter cyborg, two legs, one arm.

  She began running preliminary tests on him and called up his history on the computer screen. “I see that you were in the initial complement of cybernetic replacements. Is that where you met Captain Fournier?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Fournier recruited what was left of me after the Red Star campaign. I’d been a tanker with the 42nd.”

  “That explains some of this old code I’m seeing in your CPU. Why didn’t you have any upgrades? ”

  Mmok shrugged. “Been busy, always on some assignment. Don’t like being fooled with anyway. I had enough of that when I got mostly killed the first time.”

  “But that has changed now,” Arpen said. “Was it the injury on Enshar?”

  “You know?” asked Mmok.

  “I’m engaged to Telisan,” Arpen said. “He told me of carrying you out after the fight at the pit.”

  “I thought the other Denla female was engaged to him,” Mmok said.

  “We both are, and Sharla is a demi-female, incidentally. Denlenn have three genders. She’d be embarrassed at being referred to as female.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Mmok said. “I guess I owe your fiancé. He’s OK. Hell of a combat record at eighty-three kills.”

  “Captain Fenaday was glad to have him back, enough so to put up with getting us as well.”

  “Fenaday,” Mmok spat. “Damn pirate, that’s all he is.”

  Arpen glanced at him while adjusting a control. “You do not like our captain?”

  Mmok twisted a lip into a sneer. “Mr. Silver Spoon?”

  Arpen looked at him, confused.

  “Fenaday is from a first landing family,” Mmok explained, “on one of the ethnic enclaves separatists set up when they ran out on Earth. First in on the planet. They rape everything in sight, set themselves up as aristocrats, and lord it over everyone. I’ve seen it all over the Confederacy from Lakota to Retief. He’s always had more money than he knew what to do with.

  “You’ll notice he didn’t serve in the War—till after he lost something. I’m sure he would have been out there helping us earlier, except he had his foot caught in all that money.”

  “My fiancé says he fought well for the Confederacy after he joined,” Arpen said with a faint hint of reproof.

  “He’s got guts enough,” Mmok granted, “but he’s in things for himself and his own reasons.”

  Arpen completed an adjustment, uploading a program into Mmok’s CPU. “Let us see how this works.”

  “Hey,” Mmok said, pleased. “That’s better. The burning in my visual cortex just let up.”

  “Partially or completely?” asked Arpen.

  “I don’t feel it at all.”

  “Mr. Mmok,” Arpen said, “I think that there are a significant number
of improvements that I can make in your interfaces. I do not want to try them all at once. Even small changes in a cybernetic interface can be disorienting. Cybernetic integration is one of my subspecialties. Can you make time to see me, once a day, so we may phase these in?”

  “OK,” Mmok said, almost shyly. “What time?”

  “Say, end of first watch,” Arpen said, navy-style.

  Mmok stood up. “Aye, aye skipper.” He threw a sloppy salute and walked out of the office. A careful observer might have noted a lighter mood with the cyborg. Arpen was such an observer. Her empathic instincts had already opened up more of Mmok than he would have been happy realizing. Her diagnosis for Mmok was a common one in her experience with cyborgs. Depression, isolation, and the emotional problems from the mutilation troubled Mmok far more than the interface difficulties, significant though those were. Her prescription was friendship and contact. What a human doctor would have to struggle with was second nature to Arpen. Befriending Mmok was an instinctual response. It was how a Denla healer worked.

  *****

  On the bridge of the Sidhe, Robert Fenaday called battle stations. The klaxon slammed out its demand. Crew raced to stations. Fighter pilots hopped in the small cars that ran them and their launch crews out through tunnels to the fighter stations in the Sidhe’s wings. Missile ports opened as warheads slid onto launch rails. Laser turrets began to search for computer-generated targets. Chain guns, firing a mixture of explosive and depleted uranium ammunition, came on line.

  Fenaday tried to contain his frustration. “Damn it, Wardell, where is that main gun?” Fenaday’s board still showed red on the ship’s main weapon, the mass driver running the length of her hull.

  Wardell cursed and leaned into his speaker, “Mass Driver Control, where is your green light?”

  Telisan rushed to the station. “Mass Driver Control, you have the second level safety lock still engaged. This is a Conchirri weapon with Confed fire control; it has double safeties because of the interface.”

  “Mass Driver Control, roger that,” came the sheepish reply. “Safeties off, main gun up.”

  “Main gun, locked,” Wardell said. The old former Navy gunner’s face was a picture of exasperation.

  “Fire,” Fenaday said.

  “A hit,” Sharla called. She was running the computer simulation from the other side as the imaginary enemy. “I’m in range and returning fire. Be afraid, puny humans.”

  “Enemy 5CM mass driver has struck the tail, significant structural damage,” Lt. Hafel said, relaying simulated damage control calls.

  “Missiles inbound,” Wardell added. “Counter missiles have stopped five. One inbound, chain guns have it. Missile destroyed.”

  “Main gun, recycled,” Telisan said.

  “Fire main gun and follow with a spread of missiles. Come hard to port and open the range.”

  “Damn,” Sharla swore, retargeting her weapons. “Your main gun got one of my lasers and a ball gun. A missile is coming in through the hole. You got me.”

  “Wonderful,” Fenaday said. “What a pity we were just hit by a Conchirri escort, which we should have blown up from well outside their range. We are now non-atmospheric due to damage.”

  “We need more work,” Telisan shook his head, “a lot more.”

  Wardell stood up. “Permission to go kick some ass in Mass Driver Control.”

  “Affirmative,” Fenaday said. “Secure from General Quarters. We don’t have time for another simulation. We are coming up on the accelerator. That will be tricky enough maneuvering, so I’ll take the helm myself on that approach. I don’t lack confidence in you, Mr. Graglia,” he said, addressing the young Navy officer who had come in on Mmok’s shuttle, “but your last helm slot was on a battlecruiser. Sidhe is a lot friskier.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Graglia said. He wore the rank of senior lieutenant. Mandela had hijacked him in transit to a carrier group for Fenaday’s flight crew. Despite his impressive flight record, Fenaday didn’t want him taking the unfamiliar Conchirri vessel down the throat of a mass accelerator at their current speed.

  “When we come out the other side,” Telisan said, “I want to re-run the exercise. Only this time with an enemy light cruiser.”

  Fenaday spared his friend a grin. “Ambitious, huh.”

  “Hoo-rah,” replied the Denlenn. They both laughed.

  “The station is calling sir,” Hafel said. “We are entering the control area for the accelerator.”

  Fenaday slid into the helmsman’s slot and checked his instruments. “Put him through to my station.” He made slight adjustments on course and speed. Fenaday knew Sidhe as a man knew his own hands. Each ship possessed its own peculiarities. Sidhe would pick up a harmonic vibration at exactly two hundred km per sec. This could transmit to the controls under certain circumstances. In the close approach to the three thousand-meter aperture of the accelerator, the vibration could mean disaster. Fenaday kicked Sidhe’s speed over the harmonic and recalculated the approach, humming, “Oh Danny Boy,” as they lined up.

  “This is New Eire Accelerator Station Control to Sidhe. Are you prepared for Accelerator Pattern Entry?”

  “This is Captain Fenaday. I have the helm and am in preliminary line up.”

  Fenaday and the Accelerator began exchanging numbers, fine-tuning the vessel’s heading. With his military transit pass, he could determine how far he wanted to push the vessel’s entry speed.

  “Ah, sir,” Graglia said, “you are fifty KPS over the recommended entry speed.”

  “Yes, Mr. Graglia,” Fenaday replied, “I am. Is that all right with you, or would you like to distract me some more?”

  Graglia found Telisan at his elbow, looking daggers at him. “No sir. Sorry, sir.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Graglia,” Fenaday added, “if I screw this up, you’ll never even know it. Mr. Telisan, sound the collision alert and secure for high-speed maneuvers.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The klaxon sounded a tattoo. All space-tight compartments sealed. The ship readied for the acceleration.

  Sidhe plunged into the electromagnetic net of the accelerator. Caressed by Saint Elmo’s fire, her crimson hull raced toward the immense skeletal tunnel. The mass accelerator drew the ship into its embrace and, in a flash, flung her ahead at .90C, heading for the edge of New Eire’s solar system, where field densities would drop to allowable levels for the stardrive to engage.

  *****

  In his office in the expanded Denshi compound, overlooking the foothills of the Eska Range, Antebei, Head of Section Seven, Internal Security, fumed in silence. None dared enter the office of the mercurial but brilliant Fourth-Generation Engineered. Word of the botched operation and Pard’s displeasure with him raced like wildfire around the compound- half fortress, half office-complex. Antebei, so advanced he was considered by some as the first of the Fifth-Generation, had been bested by a mere Third-Generation female. Pard’s old bed toy, Rainhell, had escaped him. His rival, that pedestrian genetic effort, Vaughn, now had the assignment.

  Failure might upset his meteoritic rise in Denshi, already opposed by many of the Obsolete who feared his youth and ability. Antebei’s rise was unprecedented, but so was he. His strength and endurance exceeded that of anyone created to date. He was the optimum balance of power and speed. Antebei ground his teeth in frustration; he must not allow it to happen. Somehow he must win back Pard’s favor and soon. Already the old guard favored Vaughn, plodding Vaughn, for his traditional approach and attitude. Genius could not be so confined. Still, without Pard’s favor, Antebei’s own partisans would defect to Vaughn. For now though, all he could do was wait for some mistake by Rainhell or Vaughn to deliver either of them into his hands. Frustration built in him, interfering with his concentration.

  He pressed a button slowly, reluctantly as if under some compulsion. His secretary, Paula Kallian, entered, eyes downcast, looking as if she wished she dared bolt. But she did not dare. Paula was not Engineered; they did not fill such m
enial positions. She was not even Selected but came from the lowest class, the Unsanctioned. Her genetics were far too poor for the position she held. Few Olympians would find her attractive, with her imperfectly formed body. She was short, with breasts too large for symmetry. Her lack of perfection both repelled and aroused Antebei. What others saw as charity to the less gifted was to him a secret perversion.

  *****

  Paula knew what the summons meant, another down payment on a position and wealth she could not otherwise hold in Olympia’s increasingly stratified society. Antebei’s beautiful face, modeled on that of Michelangelo’s creation, was cold and foreboding. She came up to the desk. Before she could speak he seized her, throwing her down on the desktop. His mouth found hers. His hands grasped her large breasts ungently. Let it be quick this time, she prayed. Against Pard’s favorite she had no other recourse.

  Chapter Seven

  Leda Jenner, as she had every day for four weeks, checked the street for a full five minutes before turning onto the block of their safe house. It was mid-morning and Olympia’s primary hung in a brilliant cerulean sky, decorated with wisps of cirrus clouds. Sunlight reflected off the blues and whites of the buildings, making Leda glad for her sunglasses. She could see a tiny trace of the ice ring, visible in daylight when the sun struck it at the right angle. She took it for a good omen and started down the block, pushing a small frictionless cart loaded with groceries and those medical supplies she could buy without drawing attention. Fortune had put a market only a few blocks away.

  Jenner zipped the light jacket that covered her auto-pistol. Mornings remained cool, so it did not look strange. Their apartment building, like most in this industrial area, dated from the original settlement of the capital. It sat back from the broad streets and their noisy commercial traffic.