Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [184]
A sharp female voice spoke from behind them. “We did not invite you into this launching bay.”
Sullivan turned immediately, knowing they’d been caught. Tabitha flushed with embarrassment. “We...we didn’t know.”
Sullivan said, “Sorry. We weren’t told of any restrictions. My engineer here was simply curious about some of your technology.”
Yazra’h stood there, looking intimidating with a crystal dagger at her waist. Sullivan was certain that the Mage-Imperator’s daughter could easily dispatch them both, if she so chose.
Oddly out of place, an angelic little girl stood by her side, looking delicate, but not fragile. The girl had a strange cast to her features; her short gold hair was bound in feathery little strands. Her face looked soft and innocent, but the eyes held a bold intelligence far beyond her apparent years. The girl’s manner was strikingly odd and off-center.
Sullivan stepped forward with a grin, thinking of his own sweet granddaughters. “And who is this? My name is Sullivan Gold. I—”
“You do not need to know her name.” Yazra’h put a protective hand on the girl’s shoulder. “We have an inspection to perform. Please return to your quarters.”
“Maybe we can help with your inspection,” Tabitha said, as if trying to make amends for their faux pas. “I’m a qualified engineer. I’d be eager to share my knowledge with—”
“That will not be necessary. Round up your human survivors and bring them to the gathering chamber. The septar has decided to send one of our warliners back to Mijistra, carrying you and the surviving Ildiran skyminers. The other six ships will remain at Qronha 3 to complete our mission.” Dismissing them, she guided the strange girl over toward the armored sphere.
Sullivan stared after her. “But what are you going to do at Qronha 3?”
Yazra’h slowly looked at him, then at Tabitha, tight-lipped. “Please go to the gathering chamber and arrange your personnel.”
Sullivan finally took his engineer’s wrist and pulled her out of the bay. Walking beside him down the warliner’s corridors, Tabitha was deep in thought. “I wish I knew what it is the Ildirans don’t want us to see.”
Chapter 91—OSIRA’H
Although she had been bred and trained for this, events swept up on Osira’h like a foaming wall of angry water bursting from behind a dam. Despite her reservations, she quickly became consumed with her own circumstances. The die was cast, and she would finish what she had been trained to do.
While Yazra’h finalized all the details and dealt with the human and Ildiran refugees, Osira’h meditated to sharpen her mental abilities and prepare for her destiny. If she performed her task successfully, there would be no further Ildiran victims in this war. But if she failed, she herself would become the next casualty. Then all of the secrets would die with her.
One of the warliners turned about with the rescued skyminers and headed back to Ildira. The six remaining vessels would be sufficient to deliver Osira’h’s encounter chamber into the deep clouds. The number of Solar Navy battleships did not matter: Everything now depended on one little girl alone.
At last, after Yazra’h said a quiet and touching farewell, Osira’h was ready to go.
Gauzy chemical clouds enfolded her as she sat inside the crystalline bubble, now entirely cut off from the warliners and the reassuring company of her sister.
At Qronha 3, the ships had found dissipating signs of smoke, the remnants of the one-sided battle. By now, the wreckage of the human and Ildiran complexes had plunged deep to the equilibrium limits, and the hydrogues had returned to their lair. Osira’h would have to go find them.
Reinforced with the toughest polymers and alloy frameworks, her chamber had no engines, no weapons—those things would be irrelevant when she finally met the hydrogues. Orbiting so high above Qronha 3, the warliners could never retrieve her now. If she did not succeed in her mission, the loss of her life would be the least of all the