L Modesitt - Empress of Eternity

Complete by 1540. All green so far.

Was there a wistfulness behind her pulse? Time required to run initial protocol?

One point five hours. After that…????

Interrogative possible modifications?

Sufficient 2 for the eventualities foreseen to date.

Neither mentioned that there were always more eventualities, or that the most optimistic prognosis could only bear a low probability of success. None of that included the increasing climatic chaos that swirled around them and the station. Or the cracks and stresses in the Ruche Commonality, cracks that TechOversight was trying to patch with improved techniques and systems, and that fundamentalists like RucheFirst were trying to exploit in order to turn society toward a lower-tech, lower-environmental footprint…at least until the sand buried everything.

In the dim light of dawn admitted by the wall-windows, Duhyle finished pulling on a duty techsuit. He glanced at his consort. She wore one of the ice-blue singlesuits, rather than a uniform security singlesuit.

"You?ll call when breakfast is ready?" she asked.

"It?ll be a bit. Preparing for ten takes longer."

"You?ll manage. You always do. It?s one of your graces." She smiled, and for a brief moment, gold flickered at the tips of her short-cut hair and across her eyebrows. "I?ll be in the lab."

"Working on…whatever you?re going to call it? The fermionic entanglement and ghost diffraction imager? The FEGDI?"

Helkyria laughed. "That sounds like an Aesyr curse or some killed-animal pie. We?ll have to think of something better…if it works at all. Oh…I?d like you to depower everything you can after breakfast."

"The FEGDI?s a power-glutton?"

"More than I?d calculated. That?s something else I?ll have to track because it?s not showing up as excess heat, either."

"Inadvertent battery or capacitor effect?"

"I hope not. All I?d need is a discharge in the wrong place or at the wrong time…or some sort of magnetic effect." She frowned. "I don?t think so. My scanning monitors would have registered an energy buildup." She turned and walked across the top of the ramp to the laboratory on the other side.

Duhyle followed her to the ramp, then turned downward. That there were no internal doors in the entire station hadn?t bothered him when there had just been the two of them, but now…? He shook his head. He?d get used to that as well.

While Helkyria started work in her laboratory, Duhyle continued down to the area he had made the kitchen. There he began to assemble a breakfast for ten. Doreat-one of the male techs-entered the kitchen area as Duhyle was whisking the eggs for omelets. Scrambling eggs would have been the easiest, but for him scrambled eggs were always a last resort. He hated to do anything as a last resort.

"Can I help?" asked the other tech.

"You could grate the cheese and slice the shrooms." Duhyle moved to making the drop-biscuit batter.

Half an hour later breakfast was ready, with two large pots of tea and crystalline mugs at each place. Everyone except Helkyria was seated around the two tables that Duhyle had linked together. He could hear her boots on the stone ramp. The other techs stiffened.

"At ease," offered Helkyria dryly. As she settled herself at the head of the table, she looked somberly at Subcaptain Symra.

"Ser?"

Helkyria sipped from the crystalline mug before replying. "There?s a heavy cargo-sailer headed inbound for the canal. Vestalte doesn?t have any records on the vessel, and the profile only matches the Skadira or the Gullveig."

"The giant cargo-carriers?" asked Duhyle. "They?d be hard to miss."

"There?s only one problem. The Gullveig has been verified as in the Great Eastern Sea, bound for Muspelhome, and the Skadira was reported as vanished five years ago, ostensibly lost in a storm in the Jainoran Ocean."

"Then she?s reappeared under Aesyr control," suggested Symra. "What other possibility is there?"

"I?ve contacted SpecOps headquarters. There aren?t any patrol vessels within half a day?s travel, not any with weapons sufficient to deal with that large a ship. They?re sending a company from Saarland by airship, but they still won?t get here until early afternoon. SatCom estimates the Skadira will be off the point by noon local."

"How many airships?"

"Two."

"They won?t be bringing that much in the way of heavy weapons, then. They?re only rated for a half-company without support."

"That?s what?s available in the time frame we?re looking at. Security still has three companies on containment duty around Scefing. Just a coincidence, of course." Helkyria?s voice held the faintest trace of irony.

Duhyle glimpsed the faintest flicker of green across her eyebrows, but no one else did. He could see that.

"Can?t SatCom take out the ship?" asked Symra.

"Not until she demonstrates hostile intent, and the Aesyr will have an attack planned with that in mind. They?ll expect to lose the vessel, but by then everyone will be clear. They?ll jam all comm with a facsimile CME and visual with a pseudo fog. We may know that the sailer is filled with Aesyr beserkers, but it would be just like them to fill it with holidayers, create what SatCom interprets as an attack, and sacrifice innocents. Both the Aesyr and SecCon understand that. If we sank a pleasure ship because it might contain Aesyr "irregulars,? just how long before an immediate plebiscite overturned government and we had emergency security decrees everywhere while Baeldura the Beloved implemented Operation Green house?"

Several of the techs winced.

"We?ll discuss how to proceed after breakfast." Helkyria smiled politely at the subcaptain, took another swallow of her tea, and then a bite of the omelet. "Very good, Kavn."

"Thank you."

"It is indeed," added Symra.

Duhyle detected a trace of darkness glooming from the tips of the subcaptain?s hair, but he nodded politely and addressed his own platter.

With the help of the other two male techs, Duhyle had the kitchen cleaned and powered down in less than a quarter hour after everyone had eaten. The two officers had departed for Helkyria?s laboratory and makeshift comm center.

The techs hurried outside, presumably for drills or recon. Duhyle decided to check all the energy-using applications in the larger main-floor chamber first. He might overhear something of interest, although Helkyria would tell him later. That assumed she had time.

He began in the corner away from the ramps. He disconnected the holojector, since the standby function did drain power, albeit a minute amount. Next came the emergency lighting pack, which he had to switch off and then disconnect, since power interruption actually turned on the light. From there, he picked up some of what drifted from the laboratory.

"…cargo-sailer that size could carry three companies and weapons support…Even with the company from Saarland…can?t expect to hold them off…"

"…for a research installation?" replied Helkyria.

"…is not normal research, Commander…"

Helkyria laughed.

"…be difficult to defend…certain you can?t block the entrances?"

"…always opened to any human…don?t see why that would change…but they?ll have trouble entering except in twos…"

"…two entries makes it harder…"

Especially if the attackers used an energy beam through one entry at the back of any defenders on the other side, mused Duhyle. They?d have to get the bulky equipment up the western cliffs or up the sheer wall of the canal, but the cargo-sailer was big enough to carry a ratchet-climber or the equivalent. Still, if the defenders put their backs against the wall beside each entry…Then, too, the upper-level "windows" would open, if briefly, and that would allow defensive fire from points that couldn?t be stormed.