Path of the Fury Read online

  It didn’t. Nothing did, and that was . . . wrong. The images were there, clear and lethal in every brutal detail. Everyone she loved had been destroyed—more than destroyed, butchered with sick, premeditated sadism— and the agony of it did not overwhelm her.

  She raised a hand to her forehead and frowned, thoughts clearer than they ought to be yet oddly detached. Memories flickered, merciless and sharp as holovids but remote, as if seen through the time-slowing armorplast of the tick, and there was something there at the last, teasing her. . . .

  Her hand froze, and her eyes widened as memory of her final madness came abruptly. Voices in her head! Nonsense. And yet—she looked about the silent room once more, and knew she should never have lived to see it.

  a cold, clear voice said.

  She stiffened, eyes suddenly huge in the dimness, yet even now there was no panic in their depths. They were cool and still, for the terror of that silent voice eddied against a shield of glass. She sensed its presence, felt it prickle in her palms, yet it could not touch her.

  “Who—what—are you?” she asked the emptiness, and a silent laugh quivered deep at her core.

 

  “Tisiphone?” There was an elusive familiarity to that name, but—

  the voice murmured like crystal, singing on the edge of shattering, and its effort to soothe seemed alien to it.

  Alicia’s eyes opened even wider, and then she closed them tight. The simplest answer was that she’d been right the first time. She must be mad. That certainly made more sense than holding a conversation with something out of Old Earth’s mythology! Yet she knew she wasn’t, and her lips twitched at the thought. Didn’t they say that a crazy person knew she wasn’t mad? And who but a madwoman would feel so calm at a moment like this?

 

  “Touche,” Alicia murmured, then shook herself. Immobilizing tractor collars circled her left leg at knee and hip, lighter than a plasticast yet dragging at her as she eased up on her elbows. She raked hair from her eyes and looked around until she spied the bed’s power controls, then reached out her right hand and slipped her Gamma receptor over the control linkage. She hadn’t used it in so long she had to think for almost ten full seconds before the proper neural links established themselves, but then the bed purred softly, rising against her shoulders. She settled into a sitting position and folded her hands in her lap, and her neck craned as her eyes flitted about the room once more. “Let’s say I believe in you . . . Tisiphone. Where are you?”

 

  “You mean,” Alicia said very carefully, a tiny tremor of fear oozing through the sheet of glass, “that you’re inside my head?”

 

  “I see.” She inhaled deeply. “Why aren’t I hanging from the ceiling and gibbering, then?”

  the voice added a bit dryly,

  “Well,” Alicia surprised herself with a smile despite the madness which had engulfed her, “I guess that would be the rational thing to do.”

 

  “I imagine it would.” She pressed her hands to her temples, feeling the familiar angularity of her subcutaneous Alpha receptor against her right palm, and moistened her lips. “Are you . . . the reason I don’t hurt more?” She wasn’t speaking of physical pain, and the voice knew it.

 

  Alicia closed her eyes again, lips trembling, grateful for the pane of glass between her and her loss. She felt endless, night-black grief waiting to suck her to destruction beyond whatever shield this Tisiphone had erected, and it frightened her. Yet there was resentment in her gratitude, as if she’d been robbed of something rightly hers—something as precious as it was cruel.

  She sucked in another breath and lowered her hands once more. Either Tisiphone existed, or she truly was mad, and she might as well act on the assumption that she was sane. She opened her hospital gown and traced the red line down her chest and the ones across her abdomen. There was no pain, and quick-heal was doing its job—the incisions were half-healed already and would vanish entirely in time—but they confirmed the damage she’d taken. She let the gown fall closed and leaned back against her pillows in the quiet room.

  “How long ago was I hit?”

 

  “’Where you and I have been’?”

 

  “Would you care to explain that a bit better?”

 

  “You sound like one of those assholes from Intelligence.”

 

  Alicia pursed her lips, surprised by Tisiphone’s quick understanding.

 

  “Not my Colonel Watts.” Alicia’s voice was suddenly cold, and a spurt of rage took Tisiphone by surprise, squirting past the clear shield, as Alicia remembered the utter chaos of the Shallingsport Raid. She shook it away, suppressing it with a skill the Fury could not have bettered.

  “All right, you’re here. Why? What are you going to do?”

 

  “Just the two of us? When the entire Empire can’t?” Alicia’s laugh was not pleasant. “What makes you think we can do that?”

  the voice said softly, and Alicia’s head snapped up. Her lips drew back from locked teeth, and a direcat’s snarl caught at her throat. Rage flooded her veins, loosed from beyond the shield within her, distilled and pure and hotter than a star’s heart. Loss and grief were in that rage, but they were only its fuel, not its heat. Its ferocity wrenched at her like fists of fire, and panic touched her as her augmentation began to respond.

  But then it vanished, and she slumped back, panting and beaded with sweat. Her heart raced, and she was weak and drained, like a chemist’s flask emptied of acid. Yet something quivered within her, pacing her pulse like an echo of her rage. Determination—no, more than determination. Purpose which went beyond the implacable to the inevitable, ridiculing the very thought that any power in the universe might deflect it.

 

  “God,” Alicia whispered, pressing trembling hands to h
er temples once more. An icicle of terror shivered through her—not of Tisiphone, but of herself. Of the limitless capacity for destruction she had tasted within her fury. Or—she swallowed—was it within her Fury?

  “I—“ she began, and chopped off as a man in nursing whites charged through the door and skidded to a stop when he saw her sitting up in bed. His eyes widened, then dropped to the bedside monitors, and he lifted a neural lead from the central console. He pressed it to the terminal on his temple, and Alicia hid a twisted smile of sudden understanding. Her vital signs must have gone off the scale when that bolt of distilled rage ripped through her.

  The nurse lowered the lead and regarded her with puzzlement. And with something else. There were questions in his eyes, fusing with sympathy into a peculiar tension his professional facade couldn’t quite hide. He glanced away from her, eyes darting for just a moment to the intercom panel, and Alicia swallowed a groan. Idiot! Of course they’d left the com open! What must he think after hearing her half of the insane conversation with Tisiphone?

 

  “Can you?” Alicia spoke aloud out of sheer reflex, then cursed herself as the nurse took an involuntary half-step away from her.

  “Can I what, Captain DeVries?”

  “Uh . . . can you tell me how long I’ve been here?” she improvised frantically.

  “Three days, ma’am,” he said.

  Tisiphone said at the same instant, and Alicia wanted to tear her hair and scream at both of them. The concerned caution in the nurse’s voice vibrated bizarrely in her ears, cut through with the amusement in that silent mental whisper.

  “Thank you,” she said aloud, and

  She felt the strong impression of a mental shrug.

  Alicia glanced at the wary nurse and smothered a totally inappropriate giggle.

  Mental fingers plucked the concept from her mind.

 

  A sense of someone else’s surprise echoed within her, as if Tisiphone were unused to hearing orders from a mere mortal, and she suppressed another manic grin in favor of a reassuring smile.

  “Thank you,” she repeated aloud. “I wonder . . . I can see it’s the middle of the night, but could I see the duty doctor?”

  “Captain Okanami is on his way here right now, ma’am. In fact, I was waiting for him when—that is . . .” His voice trailed off, and Alicia smiled again. Poor guy. No wonder he’d already called in the big guns. There he was, listening to the prize booby blathering away to herself, and then her vitals went crazy. Too.

  “I see. Well, in that case—“

  The opening door cut her off in mid-inanity. A Fleet captain came through it, his stride brisk but measured, though something suggested he found it difficult to keep it that way. His Medical Branch caduceus glittered in the dim light, and he paused as if surprised to see her sitting up. No, not to see her sitting up; to see her looking rational. Odd, she didn’t feel as if she looked rational One of his hands made a tiny shooing motion, and the nurse tried to hide his relief as he vanished like smoke.

  “Well, now,” Captain Okanami said, folding his arms across his chest as the door closed, “I’m glad to see you with us again, Captain DeVries.”

  Yeah, and surprised as hell. She hid the thought behind a smile and nodded back, watching him while she wondered what he was really thinking.

  “You’re lucky to be alive,” he went on gently, “but I’m afraid—“

  “I know.” She cut him off before he could complete the sentence. “I know,” she repeated more softly.

  “Yes, well.” Okanami looked at the floor and unfolded his left arm to tug at an earlobe. “I’m not very good at expressing my condolences, Captain. Never have been— a failing in a physician, I suppose—but if there’s anything I can do, please tell me.”

  “I will.” She looked down at her own hands and cleared her throat again. “I take it you’ve figured out I’m a Cadrewoman?”

  “Yes. It came as quite a surprise, but, yes, we figured it out. It leaves us with a bit of a problem, too, medically speaking.”

  “I can imagine. I’m just glad you didn’t hit any landmines.”

  “Actually, we did.” Her eyes flicked up, and he shrugged. “Nothing we couldn’t handle—“ she had the definite impression that remark was sliding over slippery ground “—and we’ve got partial specs on your augmentation. I don’t anticipate any more problems before the Cadre med team gets here.”

  “Cadre med team?” she asked quickly. “Coming here?”

  “Of course. I’m not competent to handle your case, Captain DeVries, so Admiral Gomez called them in. I understand there was a Cadre detachment at Alexandria and that they’re en route aboard a Crown dispatch boat.”

  “I see.” She chewed on that thought. It had been five years since she’d seen a fellow Cadreman. She’d believed— hoped—she never would again.

  “We really don’t have a choice, I’m afraid. There are too many holes in the data we’ve got.”

  “I see,” she repeated more normally. “And in the meantime?”

  “In the meantime, I’m keeping you right where you are. We had to do a lot of repair work, as I’m sure you’ve already realized, and I want someone versed in Cadre augmentation to check it over.” She nodded, and he cocked his head. “Are you experiencing any discomfort? I wouldn’t want to get into any fancy meds, but I suppose we’d be fairly safe to try old-fashioned aspirin.”

  “No, no discomfort.”

  “Good.” His relief was evident. “I wasn’t sure, but I’d hoped your augmentation would take care of that. I’m glad to see it is.”

  “Uh, yes,” she said, but a quick check of her pharmacopoeia processor told her he was wrong. she asked the voice.

 

 

  “What’s your prognosis?” she asked Okanami after a moment.

  “You’ve responded well to the surgery, and to the quick-heal,” Okanami said. “In the long term, you’ll probably want to consider replacement for your spleen, but you’re coming along very nicely for now. The bone damage to your leg was extreme, and the repairs there are going to need several weeks yet, but the rest—“ He waved a dismissive hand and, Alicia noted, carefully did not discuss her mental state. Tactful of him.

  He moved a few strides to his right, glancing at her monitor displays, and made a few quick notes on the touchpad, then turned back to her.

  “I realize you’ve just waked up, Captain DeVries—“

  “Please, call me Alicia. I haven’t been ‘Captain DeVries’ in years.”

  “Of course.” He smiled with genuine warmth, eyes twinkling with just a touch of sadness. “Alicia. As I say, I realize you’ve just waked up, but what you really need more than anything else just now is rest. Even if you’re not feeling it, this kind of surgery really takes it out of you, quick-heal or no, and you weren’t in very good shape before we started.”

  “I know.” She eased back down in the bed, and he pursed his lips.

  “If there’s anything you’d like to talk about,” he began hesitantly, then fell silent as she waved a hand. He nodded and began to turn away.

  a voice said in her mind, so suddenly she twitched in surprise at the intensity of its demand.

  “Uh, Doctor.” He stopped and looked back at the sound of her voice, and she held out her right hand. “Thank you fo
r putting me back together.”

  “My pleasure.’ He gripped her hand and smiled, and she smiled back, but shock threatened to wipe it from her lips. Her hand tingled with the power of the spark which had leapt between them at the moment of contact. God, was the man nerve-dead? How could he have missed that flare of power?!

  But that was nothing beside what followed it. A column of fire flowed down her arm and licked out through her skin. She looked at their joined hands, expecting to see flames darting from her pores, but there were no flames. Only the heat . . . and under it a crackle that coalesced suddenly into something she almost recognized. A barrier went down, like an opening door or a closing circuit, and the fire in her arm flared high and faded into a familiar intangible tingle. It was like smelling a color or seeing a sound, indescribable to anyone who had never experienced it, but she had experienced it. Or experienced its like, at any rate.

  Information spilled up her arm, crisp and clear as any her Alpha receptor had ever pulled from a tactical net, and that was impossible. Yet it was happening—happening in a heartbeat, like a burst transmission from a forward scout but less focused, more general and disorganized.

  Concern. Uncertainty. Satisfaction at her physical condition and deep, gnawing worry about her mental state. Discomfort over his decision not to mention Intelligence’s interest. Burning wonder over how she’d survived untended and undetected in the snow. Genuine distress for the deaths of her family, and an even greater distress that she seemed so calm and collected. Too calm, he was thinking, and I have to listen to that recording. Maybe—

  He released her hand and stepped back. Clearly, he had sensed nothing at all out of the ordinary, and his hand rose in a small wave.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Cap—Alicia,” he said gently. “Go back to sleep if you can.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes as he withdrew . . . and knew sleep was the last thing she was going to be able to do.

  Chapter Four

  Benjamin McIlheny looked up from a sheaf of hard copy as a hatch hissed open aboard the battle-cruiser HMS Antietam, then rose quickly as Sir Arthur Keita stepped through it. Keita wore the green-on-green of the Imperial Cadre with the golden harp and starships of the Emperor below the single starburst of a brigadier, and if he was a head shorter than the colonel, he was far thicker and broader. “The Emperor’s Bulldog” was silver-haired and pushing a hundred years old; he was also built like the proverbial brick wall, hard-faced, with eyes that were quick and alert under craggy brows. Keita was the Imperial Cadre, and his arrival had been something of a shock. The colonel suspected they would have seen someone far less senior if Keita hadn’t been right next door in the Macedon Sector, anyway.