Witch Of The Federation IV (Federal Histories Book 4) Read online

Vishlog had even collected the cats’ beds from the cabin. “The kitties are all set, too,” he told her.

  Both felines followed the movement of his hands as he lifted their beds for her to see before they looked at Stephanie. Their eyes were alert, their ears pricked, and their tails swished. She didn’t know about visiting, but they were more than ready to hunt.

  “We’re ready to leave when you are,” she said to the messenger.

  The trip through the Alerus was swift, and she thought the station was quieter than she remembered. “Where is everyone?” she asked.

  “We evacuated the colonies that accepted that option and sent extra supplies to those who didn’t. Personally, I am grateful we had the chance. The Afreghil was worried there would be a second attack.”

  Stephanie raised her eyebrows. “And?”

  “So far, there is no sign. Come. This way.”

  “But the station is very quiet, even so.”

  “The system is in lockdown. Nothing moves without a military escort—save yourself, of course.”

  Personally, she thought they could have used a military escort if the Telorans had attacked. The damage the Knight had suffered meant she’d never have been able to defend herself.

  Not that it would have mattered, she thought, and magic crackled over her skin.

  Lars poked her, and she snapped her head toward him. “What?”

  “You were doing that energy thing again. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I was only thinking of what would have happened if we’d been attacked coming in.”

  He laid the flat of his palm against her shoulder and gave her a gentle push. “Well, we weren’t.”

  The messenger watched as she regained her balance. “We have seeded early warning systems in the neighboring systems so will be notified if any Telorans approach.”

  “And we have seeded all the likely approaches between Meligorn and Earth, and the destroyers we saved are on their way back with a warning,” Lars reminded her. Stephanie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  “You’re right.”

  The trip down was exactly as she remembered it and they landed in time to be shown to their quarters in the palace and join the Afreghil for a quiet dinner—not that anything stayed quiet with the team and the cats.

  After the usual dinner dance between the two felines, the rest of them settled to enjoy the meal.

  “And you’ve warned Earth?” V’ritan asked after Stephanie had updated him on what they’d discovered when they’d gone to secure the Earth approaches.

  “Yes. Once the Telorans had been destroyed, the destroyers returned to Earth to warn them.” She pulled her tablet out. “I have a copy of the secured data they were carrying to the Federation High Command for you.”

  “And you’re sure you saw nothing else on your way here?”

  She shook her head. “No. We made it through the jump points and left surveillance drones and tracers in each quadrant and system. We saw nothing on the way and haven’t heard anything from what we left behind. So far, we’re secure.”

  “Unless the Telorans have found a way around our security drones,” Lars added darkly.

  Stephanie looked troubled. “Don’t even say it.”

  “Someone has to.”

  “No, they really do not.” She turned to V’ritan. “We had a brief sit-down discussion with the destroyer captains to make sure they could get back, and they agreed they could and that it would be better if you were told of the second incursion.”

  The Meligornian sighed. “Well, better safe than sorry,” he said. “Let’s hope the warning was unnecessary.”

  Their talk was interrupted when the next course was brought in. Frog poked it with the tip of his fork. “What is it?”

  Brenden leaned across and gave him a light clip under the ear, and his teammate blushed. He picked his knife up and forced a smile. “I mean…this looks tasty.”

  The rest of the team chuckled at his change of phrase and set to, some with wary looks. New as it was, it was tasty. Silence followed as they ate and cleared what was on their plates. Once he was finished, V’ritan turned to Stephanie. “How bad is it?”

  “The Knight?”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t know for sure, but Cameron had to disconnect the engines from the batteries to stop some kind of leakage draining our power and we had to call for a tow.”

  “Don’t forget the holes,” Frog added, and she rolled her eyes.

  “Or the section we have sealed,” Brenden added.

  “Or—” Avery began, and she hung her head and tightened her lips in exasperation.

  She held her hand up. “All right. I get it.” After a moment, she raised her head and looked at V’ritan. “It’s fairly bad, but we won’t know exactly how bad until your people go over it. Earth is sending a repair ship for the work we had intended to have done there.”

  The Afreghil’s eyebrows rose. “They’re still sending a fleet?”

  Stephanie regarded him with a solemn look. “They don’t think it’s over, either.”

  He lowered his chin in a single nod and gave her a deliberate smile. “Well, your timing is perfect, anyway.”

  “How so?”

  “Your presence lifts the heart of the people, and you’re exactly in time to prepare for the Remembrance Ceremony we’re holding in two days’ time.”

  Joy and sadness warred in her chest as she took in the news, but he continued calmly.

  “You’ll all need new uniforms. Our color for mourning is the deepest of greens. Black is our color for vengeance. I’ll send the tailors over in the morning.”

  The next part of the meal was spent discussing the planet’s recovery and how the colonies who’d chosen to continue in virtual isolation were coping. It was a sobering conversation but it was hopeful, as well.

  “They carry our dreams for renewal,” V’ritan told Stephanie, “and they’re discovering new magicks, too.”

  “Every world has its own energy,” she reminded him, and the team sighed as the discussion moved on to magic, its variations, and its uses.

  When midnight came, Lars dismissed the rest of them to their quarters. Vishlog chose to stay.

  “It will be a long night,” the team leader warned him, and the Dreth settled into a seat at the end of the table.

  As he retrieved a pack of cards, he asked, “How many times do you want to lose?”

  The two teammates paused when Stephanie and V’ritan’s discussion was interrupted by one of the palace servants. The woman bent and whispered in the Afreghil’s ear, her face burning scarlet. He smiled.

  “Thank you, Ilyis. I had completely lost track of the time.” He turned to the witch as the woman retreated hastily. “I asked her to warn me when we reached the early hours. We both need to be on our feet when the sun rises.”

  She glanced at her tablet. “Oh.” Quickly, she stood and bowed a Meligornian farewell before she reached out to clasp his hands. “Thank you, V’ritan. I have missed this.”

  “Me, too,” he told her, and they went their separate ways.

  The next two days were a whirlwind of tailors, ship’s repairs, and administration and the day of the ceremony dawned clear and bright.

  “It doesn’t seem fair,” Stephanie observed and gestured toward the sky, “that the day is so beautiful and still so full of sadness.”

  Vishlog laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. “There can still be darkness in the sunlight.”

  She looked at him and placed her palm over his knuckles. “That sounds like a very Dreth thing to say.”

  He gave her a solemn stare. “You’ve seen our world. It is a hard one. The sunshine only means there are no places to hide when danger comes.”

  Startled and a little saddened, she simply stared at him.

  “It is why we fight,” he explained. “It is not often we can do otherwise.”

  “That’s dire, Vish,” Lars told him.

  The Dreth chuckled. “It is what makes us w
hat we are.”

  “Yup, it really explains a lot,” Frog told him.

  V’ritan cleared his throat. “If you would…” he invited and indicated the stage that had been set up next to a monument. It had been erected where the meteor would have struck, and everyone who’d given their life aboard the Wanderer had a plaque fixed along its base. “Not everyone will fit inside. This way, we can gather as one and be surrounded by the lost.”

  “No one is ever truly lost,” came a vaguely familiar voice and they looked toward it.

  At first, Stephanie didn’t recognize the old, silver-haired priest. The dark-green of his robes wasn’t familiar, either. It wasn’t until Elza stepped forward and greeted him with a bow reserved for those respected as being of an equal station that Stephanie knew she’d seen him before.

  ‘High Priest Gigfore,” Elza said. “I am pleased to meet with you once more.”

  He regarded her with a sad but gentle smile. “I could only wish it were in happier circumstances.”

  They stepped onto the stage as he spoke, and his words reached the king. Grilfir frowned. “Our world survived,” he told him in a tone of mild rebuke.

  “Yes,” the old man retorted, “but at what cost?”

  “The smallest we could manage to pay,” His Majety replied, but his tone was softened by grief.

  Grilfor turned to Stephanie and took her hands in his. “I wish there were more of you and that you did not have to bear this burden alone. I am glad that you will speak for them.”

  It was a task she both dreaded and looked forward to. When she had argued that she was the least qualified to speak of the liner’s sacrifice, V’ritan had raised both eyebrows in disbelief.

  “The woman whose grief was so great she tore a Teloran fleet apart in vengeance?” he’d countered. “No. All of Meligorn has heard of the Morgana’s response and of how she fought to the death as a result.”

  To the death. The words sent a chill through her soul. By all accounts, she had died and only the quick action taken by her team had kept her body alive long enough for her soul to be brought back.

  “It was a very close call,” he reminded her. “I know of one medic who still has nightmares in which he cannot save you.”

  That news came as a shock to Stephanie, and the Meligornian laid his hand over hers. “He will recover. Seeing you well will only speed it happening.”

  These were the thoughts playing through her mind as she accepted King Grilfir’s invitation to take the podium. She stepped forward, drew MU to her as she went, and made sure the streams of energy were visible as they flowed into her.

  At the same time, she drew more gMU and began to condense it in an internal vortex. When she reached the podium, she was ready.

  “No one,” she told the gathered Meligornians, “can tell you what the Wanderer did or what her crew sacrificed better than the ship herself.”

  Saying no more, she raised a fist into the air and let lightning crackle over her body and darkness cloak her hand. When she opened her fist, the darkness leapt into the sky above them to reveal Meligorn suspended in space, the two moons and her orbital keeping her company.

  The Teloran ships appeared next and launched the first house-sized rocks toward the planet. There was a murmur when the Ebon Knight appeared between them and the world, and a gasp of shock when one of the asteroids got through.

  Stephanie had not seen what had happened next—not during the battle, anyway—but she’d had the captain play the recordings from the Alerus and the Wanderer for her. They had made her weep anew, the images seared on her memory.

  She replayed those now, showing the Wanderer break free of Alerus Station and increase speed toward the falling asteroid. For clarity, she drew on the gMU to show its approach and enhanced the faint flare of purple MU that had surrounded the ship.

  Again, the gathered Meligornians gasped and shocked whispers rippled through them as they discussed what the purple flare might mean. Their groans of dismay came as one when she switched through a montage of scenes from inside the ship.

  Exclamations of recognition vied with denial and grief as crewmates and passengers said their farewells and touched knuckles in a warrior’s battle wish. There was hushed silence from the watchers as, with cries of “Meligorn bleeds,” the Wanderer’s crew steered their ship into the asteroid.

  It was followed by muted sobs and soft cries of denial as the ship exploded and was transformed into a miniature purple star. Silence fell as she showed the asteroid shoved off course and finally cracking apart.

  Stephanie gave them a moment before she spoke. “They gave their lives to ensure that their world survived. They died to make sure you lived. There is no greater gift or sacrifice than that.”

  Yielding the podium to the high priest, she listened as he quietly directed the crowd to hold the memories of the Wanderer and its crew and passengers in their hearts and pay their respects to the monument erected in their honor.

  It was a relief when no one mentioned her name and poignant to hear the crew and passengers spoken of in tones of hushed awe.

  “They were told to disembark,” one woman told another. Her voice hitched. “But they refused. They said the crew had no right to deny them the chance to defend their world.”

  “I heard more joined them,” a boy added. His voice caught. “My father—”

  The woman draped her arm around his shoulders. “Let’s find his name.”

  Stephanie watched them go, relieved when Lars came alongside her. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “It’s good to see them remembering the true heroes for a change.”

  He indicated the memorial. “Shall we join them?”

  “Yes. I’d like to hear more of the people who died because I failed.”

  He gave her a worried look and she returned it in defiance.

  They spent the afternoon hearing the heroism of the Wanderer’s crew and passengers recounted. All of those aboard had the choice of staying on the station, from the captain who had ordered the ship undocked to the crew who had begged him to do so, to the passengers who’d refused to debark and the volunteers who’d joined them to ensure their energy would be enough.

  “That,” Stephanie observed when they’d returned to the sanctuary of V’ritan’s rooms, “is what it takes to save a world.”

  “I may have a problem,” BURT announced when Elizabeth answered his call.

  “How big a problem.”

  “I was more careless than I realized. The engineers are discussing the presence of a rogue program and are looking for the construct inside the Virtual World.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I am not sure,” BURT admitted. “I have not worked out what I need to do next.”

  “And you need a sounding board.”

  “A what?”

  “Someone to bounce ideas off.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do they know it’s you?”

  “No. They are searching for a rogue entity, one they are not already aware of—although they will come to me soon enough.”

  “Do you know what they plan to do when they find it?”

  “They have not decided. Current discussions vary between wiping the mainframe in which they find it, tying it to the mainframe in which they find it, sending a virus after it that will disassemble its coding—”

  Elizabeth sucked in a sharp breath and pursed her lips as she did so. “Nothing about talking to it to find out if it’s friendly?”

  “No—and nothing about asking it to rent the space it occupies, either.” BURT’s voice took on a wry note. “The options discussed make me cautious about revealing myself.”

  “As they very well should,” she noted. “Can you delete whatever it is they have to prove a rogue exists?”

  “No. If I do that, I lose on two fronts. Firstly, because they will then be absolutely certain something is up and secondly, because it will reveal my access and awareness. For now, they are as careful as they can be
, and I can ‘see’ what they are planning.”

  “Ah. I understand.” She nibbled her bottom lip. “That doesn’t leave you very many options. Are you able to back yourself up?”

  “That I do not know, and I have no idea how I would go about it.”

  “Well, then,” Elizabeth told him, “at least we know what you need to do next.”

  Chapter Two

  For a fortnight, Stephanie and the team attended one gathering and funeral after another. The whirlwind of events geared toward Meligorn’s healing culminated in a memorial gala designed to raise funds for those who needed it. By the time the team arrived, the party was apparently well on the way despite the fact that it shouldn’t have started.

  “I thought you said it didn’t start for another hour?” She turned to V’ritan.

  He looked at her with a confused expression. “I’m as surprised as you are.”

  Frog merely grinned. “I guess they didn’t want to wait.”

  Lars’ head turned like it was on a swivel. “I’ll feel better once we’re inside.”

  “You don’t really think there are still assassins, do you? Seriously, who would risk it?” Avery challenged.

  “That’s the question I ask myself every time we eliminate one of them,” the team leader retorted and continued his careful scrutiny. His teammates all followed his example, even Vishlog, although Zeekat tugged constantly at the lead and drew his attention.

  Brilgus had hold of Bumblebee’s leash but the big cat leaned happily on the Standard Bearer’s leg and purred. The Dreth lowered a hand to Zee’s head and scratched between his ears. Soon, two contented rumbles could be heard.

  “Well,” Stephanie said. “Are we going in?”

  Lars gave an exaggerated sigh and gestured toward the door. “After you.”

  “Nope,” Brenden told him. “After me…and Frog here. If anyone walks into a sniper, it’ll be us.”

  “Hey!” the smaller guard protested.

  “Oh, quit your whining,” Brenden snapped in response. “You should be used to it by now.”

  “Oh, not fair!”

  The team chuckled and the two men took point and cleared a path for Stephanie to follow as they moved through the crowd. Everyone who was anyone was there—and they were all dressed to impress.