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vi. the mageworlds: eraasi; eraasi port
warhammer: hyperspace transit to the inner net

EBENRA D’CAER.

Dream, and remember: Ebenra D’

Beka dropped back into realtime with a shudder, the transition as abrupt as the crossover to stasis had been.

Loud clicking noises sounded in her ears. Nyls and Ignac’ unlatching the plastic cover, that would be.

Her eyes were open and staring at the dark; she closed the right eye, allowing the left to stay open underneath the one-way optical plastic of the eye patch. A moment later the cover came off the box completely, but all she could see through the eye patch’s red haze was a stretch of ceiling.

“No, I’ll take it.”

The words came in a distorted metallic whisper, picked up by a comm link hidden in the base of the stasis box and relayed by the tiny speaker close to her left ear. Nevertheless, Beka recognized Ebenra D’Caer’s voice.

Soon now, she thought. We have some unfinished business, you and I.

Her crossed arms hid more than the rough edges of Jessan’s makeup job: the long, double-edged knife lay naked in her grip, its handle tight in her fist, its blade extending backward underneath her right forearm. When the moment came, she would be ready. Maybe there would even be time to ask D’Caer a few questions first. That would make Jessan happy, if they could get some word on what D’Caer was doing on this side of the Net, and why the Magelords had bothered to keep him alive and happy after they’d taken him out of his asteroid prison.

The seal around the top of the casket broke open with a sigh, and a sleeved arm reached into her field of vision to swing the crystal lid aside. She couldn’t see Jessan anywhere, or LeSoit either. But in the next moment D’Caer himself loomed close above her, leaning over the box, his face dyed red by the plastic filter through which she watched him.

“So here you are,” D’Caer said. “I’ll bugger you dead, you bastard, for what you did on Pleyver and Darvell. But first—”

He bent closer. She held her breath, so that no rise and fall of her chest would betray her before it was time.

Where the hell are Nyls and Ignac’? One of them should have dropped the son of a bitch by now. If something went wrong while I was out . . . 

“Let’s see what you’re hiding under that eye patch,” D’Caer said, and reached to pry up the piece of crimson plastic.

 . . . then it’s up to me.

The hand came down on her face, darkening her view—Ebenra D’Caer was standing as close now as he ever would. She punched her dagger hand out and upward.

The blade hit something soft, and a gush of hot liquid spattered across her nose and mouth. She didn’t stop moving. Throwing her arm over the side of the box, she pulled and rolled her way out, scrambling over the high side to land heavily on the floor.

She glanced down. Her right hand and the knife she held in it were both covered with blood. And her vision was clear—the eye patch was gone, ripped off by D’Caer’s fingers.

So D’Caer knows that Tarnekep Portree has two good eyes. She laughed under her breath, a ragged, crazy sound. One way or the other, it isn’t going to matter very long.

She hadn’t stopped moving after she landed, first dropping the dagger and drawing her blaster from its holster, then rolling out from behind the cover of the stasis box on its pallet jack. Now she came to her feet in the smooth movement the Professor had taught her, finishing in a combat crouch with both hands supporting her blaster.

A single raking glance showed her that she was in a large office far above the streets of Eraasi Port. The walls were mostly window, with only the evening sky visible outside. The floor beneath her feet was covered in a lush black carpet, and in its center stood Ebenra D’Caer, both hands clutched to his throat, his breath coming in whistling gasps.

She realized that her half-blind stroke with the dagger had nicked D’Caer’s windpipe. A wound like that would make it hard for him to answer questions.

It doesn’t matter. He hasn’t got anything to say that I’d cry hot tears over missing.

“Hello, Ebenra,” she said, and relaxed her position to stand with the blaster held loosely in one hand. “Remember me? When I was Tarnekep Portree running cargo through the Net, you tried to have me killed.”

D’Caer’s eyes were wide and dark, but he hadn’t given up fighting. She saw how he was edging toward the massive desk that filled most of the room behind him. If he could get to the comm panel, he might even manage to summon help in time to keep himself alive.

Can’t have that, she thought, and shot him in the knee.

D’Caer collapsed sideways against the desk. His right hand left his neck to grasp his leg where the blaster beam had seared a pathway through muscle and bone alike. A thin spurt of blood leapt in an arc from his neck.

Nicked an artery, too. Fast, but not fast enough.

“When I was the Princess of Sapne, you tried to rape me.”

She took a step closer and shot him in the arm. His hand fell from its grip on his leg. More blood followed it away.

Another two steps and she was standing over him, looking down as he bled on the deep carpet. He stared back at her, his eyes pain-dark but alive and hating. Incredibly, he was still trying to rise, scrabbling with his left hand for a fingerhold amid the welter of buttons and controls built into the top of the enormous desk.

“And when I was just plain Beka Rosselin-Metadi,” she said, “you killed my mother.”

She lifted her blaster, set its muzzle carefully against Ebenra D’Caer’s forehead, and pressed the firing stud. Then she held the blaster steady while the skin and flesh of his face burned down to the skull beneath.

She was still standing there when Jessan and LeSoit finally broke through the door behind her.

“It’s finished,” she said without turning around. “Get whatever you want out of his private files, and let’s go home.”


Warhammer lifted from Eraasi without the formality of receiving departure clearance. The clearance had been requested in the proper form and denied without explanation; Eraasi Inspace Control squawked angrily when the denial was ignored, but no other retribution manifested itself on the way to orbit.

Beka leaned back in the pilot’s seat. She was still wearing the clean shirt and trousers in which she had walked out of D’Caer’s offices and onto the streets of Eraasi Port; the fresh clothing had come into the building with her, hidden inside the metal base of the stasis box.

“This whole thing,” she said to Jessan, “has been so easy it’s almost indecent.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Jessan with feeling. “You weren’t stuck on the other side of that damned door, trying to break through a deadbolt lock and a solid metal core panel with only a pair of blasters.”

She chuckled. “You needn’t have worried. I would have opened the door for you if you’d knocked.” Her hands moved over the ’Hammer’s controls, rotating the ship into position for a straight run to the jump point. “Still no trouble from the surface. I wonder if Eraasi Security will have a warrant out for me by the time we hit the Inner Net?”

“Hard to tell,” said Jessan. “Depends on whether they’re mad at us because of the mess we left in D’Caer’s office, or mad at us because we forgot to pay somebody the right bribes. It doesn’t matter, really. We can send your father a ‘mission accomplished’ signal as soon as we drop out of hyper.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Beka said. She clicked open the comm link to the common room. “Hey, Ignac’—it looks like we’re going to get away clean on this one after all. Where do you want us to drop you off?”

“Back on Mandeyn,” came the prompt reply over the link. “Or Suivi Point, if Mandeyn’s too far out of your way. I think I’ve worn out my welcome on this side of the Net.”

“Suivi it is,” Beka said. She turned back to the control panel. “Navicomp data is in,” she murmured, more for the benefit of the log recordings than to Jessan. “Coordinates are locked. Ready. Commence run-to-jump at this time.”

She fed power to the panel, pushed the throttles forward, and guided Warhammer along its trajectory. When the hyperspace engines had kicked in and the stars had blazed and died outside the viewscreen, she watched the readouts for a few minutes to make sure that everything was functioning properly, then switched on the autopilot.

“Autopilot engaged,” she said, to Jessan this time, and unfastened her safety webbing. “Let’s go see how Ignac’ is doing.”

Back in the ’Hammer’s common room, LeSoit had already unstrapped and gone to work, with the comp screen down from its bulkhead niche and a mug of cha’a on the table at his elbow. He looked up at Beka and Jessan came in.

“You were right about grabbing the boss’s personal files,” he said. “There’s stuff here that I didn’t even guess about.”

Beka got a mug of cha’a from the galley nook and came back over to the table. “Any word on why the Magelords wanted D’Caer back in the first place?”

“He was coordinating imports,” LeSoit said. “And not just the odd bit of luxury goods, either. Take a look at this.”

He highlighted several lines on the screen. Beka leaned closer, looked, and whistled.

“Essential parts for hyperspace engines,” she said. “And resonating chambers for starship-size energy weapons.” She glanced over at Jessan. “The Mageworlds are rearming.”

Jessan moved closer and bent to read the screen over LeSoit’s shoulder. “How long this has been going on?”

“No idea,” said LeSoit with a shrug.

Jessan raised an eyebrow. “And here I thought you worked for the man.”

“I was his bodyguard, not his accountant.”

Beka sighed. Good thing I only have to put up with this as far as Mandeyn. At least they’re not on the verge of killing each other anymore.

“Where’s all the stuff coming from, anyway?” she asked, then peered again at the screen and answered her own question. “Ophel and Suivi Point via Darvell—no surprises there.”

“Well, here’s one for you,” said LeSoit. He brought up a different page. “Another source of spare parts and materiel is the Republic itself. And somebody in the Space Force is coordinating and supplying.”

“Space Force,” said Jessan. “Hell. How high up?”

“High,” LeSoit said. “Very high. We’re talking sector commander or above.”

“Name?”

LeSoit shook his head. “Sorry. Not in this file.”

“Hell,” Jessan said again.

“It’s not our worry,” Beka said. “We’ll pass the bad news along to Dadda and let him deal with it.” She gave Jessan a challenging glance. “Or don’t you think that he can?”

“I have every confidence in the General,” he assured her. “But treason in the Space Force . . . I never expected that.”

“Idealist,” said Beka.

“Everybody’s character has its little flaws. So what are we going to do about our cargo?”

“That load of medicinal herbs from Raamet?” Beka asked. “I’ll probably sell them myself for whatever I can get, and send the shipper a bank draft. It’s not delivery to Ninglin, but it’s the best that I can do.”

“And more than most would bother with,” Jessan conceded. “How long before we drop out of hyper?”

“No time soon,” Beka said. “Scheduled arrival at the Inner Net is in three hundred forty-four hours. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to go stand under the shower sonics until they shake the smell of D’Caer’s office off me, and then I’m going to catch up on my sleep. Riding in stasis is interesting, but I wouldn’t exactly call it restful.”

“Have a good time,” Jessan said. “Don’t use up all the vibrations. And don’t worry about us. We’ll amuse ourselves out here somehow.” The Khesatan looked at LeSoit speculatively. “You wouldn’t happen to play cards, would you?”

“Odd that you should ask.” LeSoit reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out an unopened deck imprinted with a stylized flower and the legend “Painted Lily Lounge—Embrig—Mandeyn.”

“Those are a long way from home,” said Jessan, sliding into a chair across the table. “But then, who am I to talk?”

LeSoit broke the seal on the deck with his thumbnail, pulled the cards out of the box, and began to shuffle. “I’ve been saving them for luck.”


Warhammer’s hyperspace transit to the Inner Net was largely uneventful. Once Beka and Jessan had finished going through the stolen data files and compiling them into a report for her father, there wasn’t much left to do except sleep, eat, and—in Jessan’s case—play game after game of double tammani with Ignac’ LeSoit.

The two of them were still at it when Beka passed through the ’Hammer’s common room on the last ship’s-morning of the transit. She had her long hair tied back in Tarnekep Portree’s beribboned queue, and for the first time since leaving D’Caer’s office she wore the Mandeynan’s ruffled finery and scarlet eye patch.

“Places, everyone,” she said to the card players when they looked up. “We should hit the Inner Net and get pulled out of hyper in about ten minutes.”

She continued on through to the cockpit and strapped into the pilot’s chair. A moment later Jessan appeared. He slid into the copilot’s seat and put on the earphone link to the communications panel.

“Anything new this time?” he asked after they’d finished running through the checklist for dropout.

Beka shook her head. “Not really. We wait for them to hail us, and then we request a direct link to the Commanding General. They’ll probably try to give us the runaround instead; have you got any code words you can whisper into their shell-like ears to get us through?”

“You don’t have to worry about that part,” said Jessan. “It’s covered.”

“Good,” Beka said. “Then we’re all set.”

She watched the chronometer. “Getting pulled out—now!”

The orange No Jump light on the panel came up as soon as the ’Hammer’s hyperspace engines felt the artificial flux of the Net—generated by the matrix of Net Stations in emulation of the natural fields that surrounded worlds like Pleyver. Beka pulled off the hyperdrive and set in the realspace engines.

The stars reappeared, but not in the pristine silence of a regular drop from hyper. The control panel flared into a blaze of red lights, readouts scrolled up monitor screens, and the strident outcry of an alarm buzzer split the air.

“Damn—somebody’s radiating fire control out there!” Beka hit the switch that brought Warhammer’s shields up to full strength. “Nyls, where the hell are they?”

Jessan was already busy on his side of the panel, his hands playing the buttons and dials like a keyboard. “I can’t tell. Wherever they are, though, they aren’t locking on to us.”

“Then who—”

Beka stopped. High in the viewscreen ahead of her, a globe of blue-white light flared into existence, then faded to a dull red and vanished. She swallowed.

“That was an explosion,” she said. “A big one. Nyls, do you think this is some kind of Space Force training exercise?”

“No,” Jessan said. “If there’s an exercise of some sort going on, it’s live-fire. I’m picking up a lot of stuff on the frequencies associated with energy beams.”

“Bastards,” muttered Beka. “They’re not supposed to be doing that sort of thing on the regular jump lanes . . . Get on the hyperspace comm relays and listen in to what’s happening.”

Jessan was frowning. “I’m already on them, Captain.” He paused. “We have total silence in the hyper bands.”

“How about crypto? Or the data links?”

“Nothing. No transmissions. As far as I can tell, hi-comms are completely silent.”

“Damn. You think our receiver’s gone down or something?”

“It was working fine when we left Eraasi,” Jessan said. “I’ll check the lightspeed comms.”

The alarm buzzer shrieked again.

“Lock on!” Beka’s hands danced over the controls, putting on down vector and feeding power to the dorsal and ventral energy guns. “Active homers, heading this way!”

The guns didn’t respond.

Damn,” she said. “We’ve still got the seals up from that blasted customs inspection on our way in.” She switched on the link to the common room. “LeSoit! Get down to the main panel and unseal the guns!”

“On my way, Captain.”

Beka spiraled the ship in an effort to throw off the homers, and diverted more power from the engines to the shields. Jessan was still working over the controls and readouts on his side of the board.

He looked up. “Captain—I think I have something.”

“Put it on.”

A voice came over the console speaker: standard Galcenian in the measured cadence that Space Force training and custom reserved for desperate situations:

“Any station, any station, this is RSF Nomestor. I transmit in the blind. I transmit in the clear. Under attack by unknown spacecraft. I say again, under attack by unknown spacecraft. Request assistance. I say again, request assistance.”

“Dammit, Nomestor, what’s your posit?” muttered Jessan. He looked at Beka. “Captain, request permission to respond.”

“Do it. Maybe he can tell us what’s going on.”

Two heavy thuds came from aft.

“Missiles,” she said. She glanced at the damage-control board. “So far the shields are holding.”

LeSoit’s voice came on over the intraship link. “Gun seals removed, Captain.”

“Good,” she said. “Take the ventral gun. I’ll gang them both to your panel.”

“Orders?”

“Fire only in response to attack. We don’t know who’s hostile out there and who isn’t.”

On the other side of the cockpit, Jessan was talking over the exterior comms. “RSF Nomestor, RSF Nomestor—this is Republic Armed Merchant Pride of Mandeyn, standing by to assist you. State your position. I say again, state your position. Over.”

Nomestor didn’t respond. “Any station, any station,” the distant voice repeated, “this is RSF Nomestor. I transmit in the blind. I transmit in the clear. Under attack by unknown spacecraft. Request assistance. I say again, request assistance. Any station, any station . . . ”

The transmission broke off, and the carrier wave vanished with it.

Jessan cursed under his breath in High Khesatan and began to run the board again. “I’m getting a lot of chatter,” he said after a moment. “Mostly reports of enemy action and requests for assistance, and pilot-to-pilot transmissions between fighter craft. All comms lightspeed.”

“All lightspeed?” Beka slammed her clenched fist against her thigh in frustration. “What the hell is going on out there?”

“Damned if I know, Captain.” Jessan was frowning. “We’re getting comms in languages I don’t even recognize. Plus some scrambled and some crypto.”

“Anyone close on sensors?”

“No. Lots of junk metal floating around at temperatures above ambient, though.”

She dug her fingernails into her palms. Drifting scrap meant broken hulls and dying ships. No way to find them, nothing to do, not even anybody to shoot back at . . . 

“Any clue where those homers came from?” she asked.

“Probably missed their target and picked us up instead,” replied Jessan. “I don’t think it was anything personal. There’s firing going on, but judging from attenuation and parallax it’s over by the control stations for the Inner Net.”

“It may not stay over there, though,” Beka said. “And we can’t jump as long as the Net is up.”

She contemplated the orange glow of the No Jump light for a few seconds longer, then made her decision.

“I’m going to make a realspace run for the far side. Nyls, take the dorsal gun and help Ignac’ keep us safe.” She laughed unsteadily. “Dadda always said this ship could outrun anything it couldn’t outshoot. Now’s when we get to find out.”


Hours passed. The No Jump light continued to burn as the ’Hammer pushed onward in realspace. Beka sat alone in the cockpit, listening to voices from ships and stations she had never seen. The occasional time-tick on a message only increased her frustration: all the transmissions had been made long before.

Then the alarm sounded again, and the electronic-warfare board on the control panel began to flash. She flipped on the intraship link to the gun bubbles.

“Nyls, Ignac’—heads up! Someone’s lighting us up with fire control—” She glanced at the board again. “—and it doesn’t match any Republic source in the data banks.”

A target appeared on the display of the position plotting indicator. “And there she is. Unknown, inbound.” And, as a scattering of small, up-Doppler targets appeared under the other vessel: “Homers. Aimed at us, this time.”

She pulled more power away from the engines—in the frictionless vacuum of space the ’Hammer wouldn’t lose any speed—and fed it to the shields. “Keep me safe, guys,” she said over the intraship link. “This looks like it could get rough.”

The other ship fired its guns, transforming in an eyeblink from a barely visible dot moving against the starfield to a dazzling array of light.

“Son of a bitch!”

Beka swung ship and fed power astern to brake and travel in a new direction. The other ship’s weapons—slow plasma bolts, with a target offset calculated on her previous course—missed, but barely.

“Bastard’s got pulsed-port weapons and more power in ’em than anything in Jein’s,” she said over the link to the guns. “And it’s not a Republic ship. Whose?”

“Magebuilt,” came Jessan’s voice in reply. “Has to be.”

LeSoit spoke up from the other gun bubble. “Well, now you know what all those resonators and engine parts were for.”

“I could have waited to find out,” said Jessan. “For years, preferably.”

Beka ignored the back-and-forth in the gun bubbles and concentrated on matching course with the Magebuilt vessel. She poured on all the power she could, trying to outrun him. Bit by bit, the sensors on the control panel showed her pulling ahead.

“Come on, girl, you can do it,” she murmured to the ship. On the PPI scope, the dots that were the homers stopped their relative motion toward her and began to show down-Doppler. “This is where you get to shine.”

Warhammer did indeed have better engines than the pursuing ship, even if her guns were smaller. When the hostile had vanished off the scope astern, Beka turned back onto her original course—a straight-line realspace drive, clean enough to serve as a run-to-jump anywhere but the Net.

Then the No Jump light winked out.

“The Inner Net just went down,” Beka said quietly over the intraship link. “Stand by for hyperspace entry.”

She fed a last burst of power to the realspace engines, then cut in the hyperdrive and jumped for the Outer Net.



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