Storm Fleet Read online

  Yajain looked at the uniform patch in her hand. It bore the seal of the Imperial Dilinian Fleet’s medical corps.

  Applying had been easy, with her qualifications and the desperation for personnel. She closed her hand on the patch, then went to find Dara.

  The fleet prepared for transit to Toraxas Cluster over the next seventy hours at Lambri Hub. Yajain spent most of that time helping Dara and the rest of their team unload gear at the docks. Once they unloaded all of the equipment, the other team members began to book passage back to the other end of the cluster for transit home while Yajain pocketed her new medical corps patch and walked into the settlement.

  She left the docks to spend her free time in the central chamber of the pillar where Lambri’s core, naturally generating its arc field, emerged partially from the rock. The settlement filled much of the central cavern with shops and businesses.

  The cylindrical core shifted brightness levels from light to dark to light again over regular twenty-four hours periods, and like those in all other pillars, they provided the basis for standard time.

  She ordered tea at a little cafe overlooking the slope the core. Her personal communicator beeped as she sipped her tea. She slid the screen out and answered the call.

  Captain Kebrim Ettasil of the Solnakite was on the other end of the line. She’d spoken with him about staying on with the crew just after being accepted as a medic.

  “Doctor Aksari, we’re taking on another passenger for the transit to Toraxas.”

  She frowned.

  “Who is it?”

  “An imperial agent. His name is Boskem. He seems to think he should have your cabin space.”

  Yajain closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  “I can be back in half an hour. Can we hash this out then?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks, captain, for letting me know.”

  “No problem.”

  Yajain finished her tea and made her way back through the settlement on foot. A few hundred meters from the center she hailed an arc mover to take her to the docks.

  She paid the mover’s pilot as they approached, and then dropped out of the cab and descended on her lifts to the moorings of Solnakite. Ratings scurried over the ship’s concave steel hull and swept back wings.

  Captain Ettasil was giving orders from a standing terminal near the ship. Yajain flew down to the ship’s level. Ettasil gave her a tired look.

  “Good that you’re here.”

  “Captain, can I see this agent?”

  “He’s in the ship. I already gave him the cabin Dara left, but he says he needs both.”

  “What for? He’s one man.”

  Ettasil mopped his brow with a handkerchief.

  “One cabin for himself, one cabin for specialist equipment.”

  Yajain raised her eyebrows.

  “Do you know what that equipment is?”

  Ettasil sighed. “I haven’t asked yet.”

  “Thank you, captain.” She turned toward the ship, scowling. “I’ll talk to him.”

  Yajain flew toward the ship before Ettasil could say anything more. She climbed the forward loading ramp.

  Wind from the open dock pestered her bare ankles and short sleeves where ship-clothes would protect. Despite the insulation of the pillar, things grew cold quickly when the solna was on the far side.

  She entered the ranger through a side hatch, then activated her arc lifts, and flew to the top deck of the ship. She found the passage outside her cabin mostly blocked by a single large crate.

  A dark-skinned rating stood before the plastic box. Yajain recognized her from the Solnakite’s crew on the survey mission, Rating Jalee Avencia, a sturdy little woman.

  Small saroi feelers curled, almost invisible, from her brows. Her gaze was on the reading pad in her hands. Yajain approached.

  “Doctor, hello. I-”

  “Where’s the imperial agent?” Yajain asked.

  “He’s in cabin eleven.” Jalee frowned. “He had me take your effects down to cabin six.”

  Yajain started past Jalee.

  “Please, he’s not in a good mood.”

  “Do you think I am?” But still, Yajain paused by the crate. She turned to Jalee. “Do you know his rank?”

  Jalee opened her mouth to speak, but another voice answered Yajain first.

  “Tinar Boskem. Of our Empress’s humble Finders.” A powerfully built man in black stepped into the gap between the crate and the corridor wall. “Doctor Aksari,” he said. “What seems to be the matter?”

  Yajain knocked her knuckles against the side of the crate.

  “Are you certain this is essential baggage?”

  Boskem’s eyebrows rose slightly.

  “Is that anger I hear in your voice, doctor? Perhaps you do not appreciate my presence aboard this ship, or at least, half of you doesn’t. After the result of the last war, I suspect any Ditari would be bitter.”

  The slight against her Ditari heritage hung in the air between Yajain and Boskem.

  “Your information seems inaccurate, finder.”

  “How is that?”

  “You seem to have forgotten the war has been over for ten years.”

  “I took it into account.” Boskem smirked. “Look to your hands, doctor. They’re shaking.”

  He was right, but Yajain didn’t care.

  “Funny. I’d think you could do better than that.”

  “It’s not like you see in popular captures. In reality, an agent doesn’t often have time to compose rejoinders. Now, move aside Doctor Askari. Or would you prefer I call you DiAksa? That is your father’s name, is it not?”

  Yajain’s eyes narrowed. She carefully removed her hand from the crate and stepped to one side.

  Boskem smiled at her and then walked past without looking at Jalee or Yajain again.

  “See to the crate, rating.”

  Jalee saluted his retreating back.

  “Yes, sir.” She made a rude gesture that went as unseen as her salute.

  Boskem activated his arc lifts and vanished into a passage to the lower decks. Yajain turned to Jalee. The rating gave her a wry look.

  Yajain frowned.

  “He still thinks this is all about genetics.”

  Jalee pocketed her reading pad.

  “Dilinia won the war. But some people think it wasn’t enough.”

  “I know that well.” The memory of a nuinn girl raising a metal rod over her head returned to Yajain. She blotted the memory from her mind and closed her eyes.

  “Don’t we all,” Jalee said. “Don’t forget, my people lost too.”

  Yajain nodded. “Thanks,” she said. “I’d better go check my new quarters.”

  Yajain’s new quarters halved the space of the officer’s cabins above. A byga-silk and synthetic hammock hung between tight walls beside a locker door with a mirror on it. Yajain’s scripting pad sat beside her father’s vare blade, sheathed atop a travel case atop her footlocker. No chair and no desk and no room for either. Yajain sighed.

  She packed her travel case under the hammock, then changed into her ship clothes. She checked the boxy order terminal on the door. The screen switched to an emblem of the Imperial Fleet, a trident with four wings on its handle. Orders scrolled in pale letters over a black field.

  All crew members of Castenlock and rangers Solnakite, Ebonwing, and Ruane’s Blade, prepare for immediate departure to Toraxas Cluster. Non-essential personnel are to remain in quarters for linear transit.

  It was dated from just half an hour ago and bore a signature of approval from Captain Firio Gattri. At least Firio appeared to still have some authority over the relief fleet.

  Yajain shifted her travel case to the floor. She sat down on her footlocker, legs pulled tight to her chest. She wondered what kind of transportation Mosam took out to the furthest clusters…Not now, she thought. She had to be ready to help people more tha
n she wished to catch Mosam.

  She climbed to her feet and took a uniform suit from the footlocker. It was red and white, the main colors of the Imperial Fleet. On the collar, the emblem of the medical relief corps, the same as the patch she had been given, was stamped. Yajain put on the uniform.

  She opened the door and stepped into the passage of the ship’s lower middle deck. The doors of the other cabins were all sealed but a light shone in the watchroom near the central ladders between decks. Yajain walked to it and peered through the open door.

  Inside at a circular table, sat a young nuinn woman with black hair in the same uniform as Yajain. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. Despite that, she wore the violet badge of a fleet surgeon on her chest.

  She glanced at Yajain from her reading pad.

  “Hello, doctor.”

  “Medic.” Yajain nodded to the girl. “Are you assigned to this ship as well?”

  “I arrived during the last dark cycle. But just because I’m assigned here, don’t expect us to be friends.”

  Yajain folded her arms.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. What’s your name?”

  “You can call me Medical Officer Narayme. And you must be the half-Ditari doctor I’ve been hearing so much about.” The girl stuck out her lip petulantly. “I can’t believe we’re going to be working together.”

  “We’ll probably have to,” Yajain said, “But don’t let me ruin your bad attitude.”

  She turned and started back into the passage. The abuse her father’s heritage earned her always stung. Apparently, the new medical officer didn’t feel like seeking common ground, and Yajain was too tired to put any time into thinking more about it.

  She returned to her cabin and settled into the hammock. She braced it with additional lines to keep it from swinging around in transit. The departure sirens sounded just minutes later. Yajain picked up her scripting pad and settled in for hours of acceleration.

  Linear transit technology ties settlements together over vast distances. Transit drives based on synthetic cores for power allows mist ships to accelerate up to incredible speeds starting from within a pillar’s arc field. After clearing the pillar’s arc, particle burning ship-based arc fields keep acceleration constant for most of the distance of the journey. Only the few corridors where no pillars intervene for many thousands of kilometers make possible routes for transit because maneuvering at such speeds had yet to prove possible.

  Within the ship, Yajain stopped reading the treatise she had opened on her reading pad. She didn’t feel the need for comfort reading much anymore but today had been rough between the downsized quarters and her belligerent new coworker. The history of linear transit served to remind her people took these routes all the time. To think she volunteered for this. But for Lin, she would bear with it.

  The ship rocked slightly. The linear part of linear transit meant that the ship only traveled in a straight line, but headwinds sometimes affected that course. Yajain’s hammock swung slowly back and forth. She curled up her legs under her and set down the pads.

  Gradually the raging headwind soothed her through the rocking hammock. Yajain has almost fallen asleep when the sudden loud hum of the ship’s retros powering up cast her into complete wakefulness. Her eyes flew open. They’d arrive in Toraxas, near Rakati Pillar in a few hours. Linear transit sometimes took more time, but down a short corridor like this one, ships spent over half the distance decelerating.

  Yajain set her head against the pillows in the hammock. She would do her best to keep the fleet moving. She would find Mosam Coe. And yet she couldn’t imagine what she would say to him when she saw him again. She pressed one of the hammock’s thin pillows over her ears and tried to sleep.

  Solnakite decelerated from transit. Wailing warning sirens woke Yajain. She twisted and nearly fell out of her hammock. Normally the end of transit quieted down. She climbed down from the hanging bed and pulled on her uniform. The sirens went on wailing.

  She stepped out into the hall. Officer Narayme, the black-haired girl from the watchroom, stood in the doorway of the cabin across the way. She glared at Yajain.

  “What’s going on?”

  Yajain slipped back inside her cabin and then activated her orders terminal.

  All personnel to battle stations. Rakati Hub has requested our immediate assistance.

  She frowned. Rakati was the pillar opposite the corridor from Lambri, so it must be close.

  Her breath quickened as she reread the orders. Yajain put on a white mist suit over her dry uniform, and stepped out into the hallway, carrying her face mask under one arm. Battle stations as a medic meant being aboard the tumbler in case they needed to deploy for rescue operations. She activated her arc lifts and flew up a deck. A group of ratings swam past her the opposite way.

  The tumbler in the launch bay was already powering up with a hum when Yajain arrived. She disabled her arc lifts and then walked up the ramp to the tumbler’s cabin. Two of the newly assigned cablers in combat armor and hoods stood at the ready inside. Both were tall. One was wiry and lean, the other bulky with muscle. Both wore their transparent masks. Yajain nodded to them. The lean one gave her a jittery smile. The big one ignored her, his face stern.

  The girl from before, Medical Officer Narayme, caught up as Yajain checked the two medkits inside the tumbler. The nuinn girl slammed into a seat in the middle of a row. The stern and big cabler turned to the cockpit.

  “Duty Officer Harish, get us moving.”

  “This is everyone?” Narayme asked.

  Yajain sat down and fastened her belts.

  The wiry cabler took a seat between Narayme and the door. The big one positioned himself near the ramp beside Yajain. The tumbler’s humming engines grew louder.

  Finder Boskem rounded a corner and jogged up the ramp in a black poncho. He wheezed as he took his seat next to Narayme.

  “Open the bay doors,” he said into a receiver as the corner of his mouth.

  The tumbler’s ramp sealed with a hiss. Solnakite’s bay opened and they dropped out of the larger vessel. The tumbler’s thrusters powered with a roar and kick, and drove them toward Rakati Hub.

  Finder Boskem sat back, eyes closed and breathing deep. He wore a liquid-coil pistol holstered at his side. Yajain stared at the weapon. “What’s the situation, Finder?”

  “A rebel fleet struck at Rakati Settlement an hour ago,” Boskem said. “There must have been spies in Ija’s administration.”

  “Ija,” Yajain murmured.

  According to an earlier briefing, the Great Mind that governed Toraxas Cluster managed most of the local defense forces.

  Boskem nodded.

  “Apparently the independent government doesn’t command the same loyalty as our Empress.”

  “We’re approaching the landing zone,” Harish called from the cockpit. “Looks like there’s an enemy ship still on station, judging by the chatter.”

  Medical Officer Narayme’s eyes flashed, nervous. The huge cabler beside Yajain grunted.

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  Yajain gripped her seat as they accelerated toward Rakati Hub’s hanging ring of terraces.

  Flames licked dry air from piles of rubble and twisted metal. Rakati Hub’s charred terrace smelled of seared air. Yajain followed the wiry cabler, Banedd Loattun by a line of wreckage, pockmarked with burn marks. With lifts inactive and no cold to fight, her uniform only weighed her down in this sizzling artificial wasteland.

  The terrace extended beyond the edge of the natural pillar, supported by enormous metal struts both above and below the broad ring. A pair of nearly spherical arc fighters glided over the distant rubble, but Yajain saw no signs of any fighting at the moment. The damage already dealt made the point seem moot. One strut had been scarred by beam weapons. Some parts fused while others fell off completely.

  Behind Yajain, Finder Boskem spoke into his commlink in a low voice. “No sign of a
ttackers on this side. Stand by, identifying movement.”

  She scanned for signs of life. Screams came from near a burning watchtower close to the terrace’s outer edge, audible to Yajain only through the hunter’s ears she wore on her collar. Yajain pressed a finger to her palm to activate her lifts.

  “Do you hear that?” she said. “Someone’s over there. I’m going to respond.”

  Yajain crouched and prepared to swim into the air. Boskem clapped his hand on her arm.

  “Stay low. There could be enemies out there.”

  She glanced at him, a grimace forming at his touch. She nodded.

  Boskem released her arm.

  “Take Cabler Loattun with you. Radio if there’s trouble.”

  The wiry young cabler turned and looked past Yajain to Boskem.

  “Yes, sir.” His arc lifts activated.

  He and Yajain swam low over the terrace, darting between wreckage and broken light posts.

  The tower stood at the far end of a field of tall plant stalks. Yajain didn’t recognize the crops at a glance, but their dense rows provided good cover. She and Loattun shot down parallel rows, each half a meter above the terrace’s soil. The tower’s top cracked. The burned shell of a turret was all that remained at the peak.

  Yajain and Loattun reached the wall and landed beside it, crouching low. Any youth in Dilinia could have performed the same maneuver by the age of fifteen. Yajain pressed one palm against the wall. Her glove came away streaked with soot.

  Another scream came from the tower’s far side. Yajain winced and switched off the hunter’s ears.

  “Keep watch,” she said. “I’ll check this out.”

  He raised the sleek black liquid-coil rifle in its shoulder sling and scanned the area through its scope. Yajain circled the tower on foot. Her steps sounded dull on the pavement, and her heartbeat felt loud in her ears.

  She clutched the medical kit tight as the empty mist of the corridor appeared before her. An infinite fall, billowing with white clouds awaited five meters from where she stood.