5
Anlyn screamed. She ran out of the command center and down the hallway, the glass tube providing an anguishing and perfect view of the fiery destruction beyond.
The corridor beneath her feet trembled as Edison raced to her side, reaching for her as she collapsed to her knees.
“Nooo,” she whimpered. She covered her face with her hands so she wouldn’t have to see, but the flashing lights and warning alarms from the command room echoed off the glass around her, sliding through the cracks in her fingers and hammering home the reality of the loss—of the so many lives destroyed.
“It came from the Rift,” someone in the command center yelled.
Anlyn could hear Bishar screaming orders, demanding updates, and scrambling a regiment. She felt like the great paradox of burning ice—the frozen heart of the depressed wrapped in a flame of vengeance.
That didn’t come from the rift, she told herself. She knew. Bodi, her ex-fiancée, was responsible. It was an act of sabotage, designed to spare only her. It stunk of him. Immediate. Remorseless. Savage. The cowardice of asking lackeys to sacrifice their lives.
Anlyn looked at her palms. Below—past the grav panels and through the transparent visisteel—she could see ships darting out from their stations. She watched them as they roared toward the expanding cloud of debris.
Edison wrapped his arms around her as she fought valiantly to not break down. She felt like a Wadi canyon with its base eroded by the wind. Her shoulders shivered as if they threatened to topple off her body. Outside, all her hopes were scattering in a billion pieces. So many noble, valiant believers had been reduced to dust. Thinking of them—of the many faces, smiling and bowing in the corridors—it made the ridiculousness of her mission hit home. It made her feel lonely and young. A little princess, spoiled and spouting prophecy, journeying to the Great Rift because of some old words handed down through time.
The shame she felt—the guilt—they shattered floodgates already weakened by despondency. Anlyn sobbed into Edison’s fur. She heard his lance drop, felt him scoop her up into his lap.
Over his arm and through the tears, she watched a pointless fleet of emergency response ships circle the new nebula, looking for clues. The only good they did was to whip what remained into whorls and eddies of nothingness.
????
“We caught something on vid,” Bishar said softly.
Anlyn tore her eyes away from the debris field. She had no idea how long she’d been staring, transfixed, into the blossoming cloud. She wiped her face and looked up at Bishar, then pushed herself from Edison’s lap. She took a few steps away from them both, trying to look less like the child she suddenly felt.
“It looks like a solid beam of light,” Bishar said. “It’s only there for a single frame, right before the explosion. We’ve never seen anything like it from the Rift. It’s—there’s nothing we could’ve—”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Anlyn told her cousin. “And it wasn’t the Rift’s. I know who did this, and I know why.”
“Cousin, I know you’re upset. We all are. Several among your volun-teers had family here at the Keep. There will be a great cooling for all—”
Anlyn turned to face Bishar, her face as stern and serious as she could muster. “There will be a great burning, Bishar Nooo, that’s what there’ll be. And I do not doubt the Rift’s involvement out of some superstitious fancy—I know the work of my former suitor. Check your vid again, and tell me which direction that beam of light was going.”
“But Cousin, I already told you it was on a single frame. How do you suppose we determine the direction if we can’t see it moving?”
“I don’t expect we will. You have your bias and I have mine. They just point in opposite directions.”
Bishar rose to his feet and looked through the visisteel. “If what you say is correct, I’ll file the charges myself. There’ll be an investigation. The Circle will look into this—I’ll demand it.”
“The Circle is aflame,” Anlyn said, “and Bodi’s the torch. My mission here was our only chance at snuffing it.” She looked down the passage-way toward the control center. “I’ll not be surprised if the flash of light you saw was a message to the Bern, or that the reduced break attempts are no coincidence ahead of my coming—”
“Preposterous! I’ll hear your theories of jilted lovers and such barb-arisms as this,” Bishar waved a hand at the scene beyond the glass, “but not of treason against the Empire. Not from the Circle, nor from any Drenard for that matter.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” she muttered.
Edison picked up his lance from the floor and rose, taking his place by Anlyn’s side.
“I detest supposition,” he said, looking out at the ships encircling the cloud. “All theories are testable, or they are not truly theories.”
“I don’t follow,” Bishar said. “Is he speaking English?”
Anlyn turned to Edison. “I think he’s saying we should go and see for ourselves. Is that right?”
Edison nodded.
Anlyn rested her head against his side and reveled in his warmth. She looked out at the swirling loss, at the stars of her galaxy beyond. Reflected in the glass, she could see the confusion on Bishar’s face.
“He means,” she told her cousin, “we need to enter the rift to know.”
Bishar gaped at Anlyn. “I hated the idea of you hanging out here with a full complement of peacekeepers while you waited on some insane prophecy to come true. What makes you think I’ll go along with this plan?”
Anlyn looked over at him; she noted the way his hands clenched the sash across his tunics.
“Because,” she said, “I asked the former as is my right and duty as a member of the Circle, a right you were prepared to deny. I ask you now as my cousin—”
“A cousin I hardly know!” Bishar shook his head. “I’m sorry, but what you need now is some rest while my men investigate. You can burn away your woe in peace and think with a cooler head come morrow.”
“Come morrow, I will be on the other side of that rift or I’ll be dead by your hands,” Anlyn said. “For that’s what you’ll have to do to stop me.”
Bishar laughed, but eyed Edison warily. “Nonsense, Cousin. To stop you, I’ll just have to stop you. Come, my men are on the alert, and my best experts will go over the evidence. We’ll travel to Keep Central and get you more cloaks and a warm meal. While you rest, I’ll prepare my report for the Circle and request transport for your safe return to Drenard. It does no respect to the dead for you to add to their number.”
Anlyn reached over and took hold of Edison’s lance; he relinquished it willingly. Bishar made a sudden move forward, but Anlyn backed away, and Edison shoved her cousin so hard he nearly fell.
“Not a move!” she told him as he staggered backward.
In the command center, several heads watched the scene intently, hands reaching for warning devices—and worse.
“In case legend of this lance has not yet arrived to this corner of the galaxy,” Anlyn yelled beyond Bishar, “I will tell you that what you saw beyond this glass is easily reproducible right here! I’ll take an entire corner of the Keep with me, by the twins of Hori.”
“Anlyn.” Bishar held out his hands, pleading. “I understand your rage, but you must cool yourself.”
“I am cool, Cousin. Cool as ice. And I take it from the quiver in your voice that you know of this lance.”
It was a bluff, the lance a mere pyrotechnic toy, but in Anlyn’s exper-ience, rumors rarely dwindled in their retelling.
“I’ve heard stories,” he said, a false smile creeping across his face.
“You’ve heard whispers from shadows carried on a Drenard wind compared to what this device is capable of. What I am capable of. Here’s what you’ll do. Before you write your security report, you’ll craft a letter to every family from that ship expressing my—expressing our deepest grief. Then you’ll swear by Hori it was sabotage and open an investigation. But first, call your best pilot and have him bring the swiftest Bern ship you have in impound and lock it to the end of this corridor. Make sure there’s plenty of fuel and supplies. One pilot. He’ll be free to go.”
“And what will you do with this ship?” Bishar asked. He kept an eye on Edison, who had backed to Anlyn’s side. “Do you think I’ll unblock the rift for you?”
“Yes, I think you will. Feel free to tell the Circle we were on my ship when it blew, if such will protect your job. And if you think your soul is better served by blasting us out of the cosmos and living with your family’s blood on your hands—that is your decision to make. The other option is to allow us to depart and face our deaths in our own manner. Choose this, and no harm will come to your people.”
Bishar continued to show Anlyn his palms. He glanced at the lance.
“Very well,” he said. “My men will escort you to your end. We had an interior barrier patch upcoming, anyway. I’ll move it up the schedule. I’ll even use the attack on your ship as an excuse for having done so. But know this: any sign of a breach, and your ship will not prevent us from firing. Also, I will not chance discriminating between Bern craft if things get ugly.”
Bishar looked at her sternly. “One more thing,” he said. “Your mission will not pass back through here, no matter what happens. You’ll not be allowed through. Ever. Understand that I am doing this not for you, but to get you out of my tunics so I may perform my duties. You leave this galaxy never to return, because even if you did, you would not find your Empire welcoming you home as they did the last time. I’ll make sure of that, Cousin.”