Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9), Glynn Stewart [reading well .TXT] 📗

diameter,” Kadark noted. “I’m including them in my Category Six list, though they’re on the small end. Mark them separately as Category Six-A?”

“Agreed.”

Morgan looked at the listings taking place and shivered.

“Once we’re done with this, we’re going to need to go back over every single scrap of footage from Defiance,” she told them. “Because we need to know what each category of bioform threw at us. I know Category Seven and Category Six forms had singularity launchers.

“If every Category Five form has one too? This whole mess could be even worse than I thought.”

Chapter Four

“I am leaving.”

The translated words weren’t truly a surprise to Rin Dunst, just a disappointment. The A!Tol on the video feed had brought him to Tan!Shallegh’s flagship on her personal stealth ship, but she’d stayed on her ship.

Ki!Tana was extremely old, even for an A!Tol, and the price she paid for near-immortality was that she couldn’t be around males of her species. Or females. Or, really, her species in general at this point.

“I wish you could stay,” Rin told the big A!Tol. Ki!Tana had been a reassuring presence throughout this whole mess.

“Our…associates will require reassurance that all we say is true,” Ki!Tana told him, referencing the shadowy organization that had recruited Rin and Morgan Casimir to find the people starting a war out there.

Rin doubted those associates had suspected any of what they’d actually found out there.

“Can you convince them to talk sense into their governments?” he asked. “The Wendira are being…difficult.”

“The Queens have told Oxtashah there is a price for their cooperation,” Ki!Tana said grimly, her skin dark gray. “I will bend the waters toward those who must hear. But there are no guarantees in this, my friend.”

“Will you meet with Morgan?” Rin asked.

“There is no time,” she replied. “I have old friends among the Laians, as well as our associates. I will head into Republic space to start and I will do what I can. You must do what you can here.”

“I’m barely sure I even belong in those talks,” Rin admitted. “And it’s not like there’s massive fleets here to send.”

The gathering he’d interrupted had been intended to stave off a potential war along the Wendira-Laian border. Including Ki!Tana’s Dark Eyes, there were only four ships there: a Wendira star hive, a Laian war-dreadnought, and an A!Tol superbattleship.

“But the people here have authority over those fleets,” Ki!Tana told him. “The Laian and Imperial fleets along the Dead Zone are eleven cycles from Tan!Stalla. The Wendira fleet is sixteen. The next-nearest Laian significant deployment is twenty-three.”

An A!Tol cycle was twenty-three hours and twenty minutes. Not quite a full day, but close enough that most senior Terrans had learned to switch between the two almost effortlessly—and Rin Dunst was a senior Imperial academic.

He’d spent most of his adult life away from Earth and other humans. He thought in Imperial time.

“I will do what I can,” he promised Ki!Tana. “Morgan is in trouble if I don’t, not that I need that extra motivation.” He shivered. “I can’t help but feel that the Infinite are going to eat us all if we don’t stop them.”

“That certainly seems to be their intent,” the A!Tol agreed. “I will move the waters only I can swim. I leave you to move the waters you are already in. We will meet again in time, I hope.”

“Gods speed you, Ki!Tana.”

“And may the waters be warm where you swim, Rin Dunst.”

Tan!Shallegh’s office aboard the superbattleship Va!Tola was sumptuous and well decorated. One wall was covered in a massive screen, subdivided into the usual array of windows of an A!Tol multitasking. The other two were filled with shelves holding art.

All of the artworks, Rin knew, were originals—commissioned from up-and-coming artists on the worlds Tan!Shallegh had brought into the Imperium, including Earth. The being the office belonged to had the wealth and power to have Picasso’s or Michelangelo’s original work removed from Earth for his pleasure, but instead he’d chosen to support Earth culture instead of steal it.

“Your companion once again flees without ever showing their face,” Tan!Shallegh observed as Rin took a seat, gesturing to a screen showing Dark Eyes rapidly departing.

“You…understand her situation,” Rin said carefully.

“I know exactly who Ki!Tana is,” Tan!Shallegh agreed. A flush of red amusement flickered across his skin. “Exactly, Professor. A confidence I am not permitted to share, even if she has.”

Rin looked at the Fleet Lord in confusion. There was some meaning there, he was certain, but he didn’t have the context to pick it up. As a historian and an archaeologist, the feeling was familiar.

“You asked for me, Fleet Lord?” he finally said.

“Yes. We just received the first formal update from Squadron Lord Tan!Stalla,” Tan!Shallegh told him.

He and Tan!Stalla were related—the Tan! meant they were both closely related to the Empress. What, exactly, that relationship entailed was beyond Rin. He had a decent understanding of what A!Tol family relationships looked like, but the Tan! were notorious about keeping a lot of those details off of public networks.

“I believed you would wish to see it,” the Fleet Lord continued, tapping a command with a manipulator tentacle.

The multiple different windows on the wallscreen faded to black, providing a backdrop for the holographic image of a female A!Tol in the black harness of the Imperial uniform.

“Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh,” Tan!Stalla greeted them. The hyperfold communicators they used for portable FTL communications were faster than light, but they weren’t instantaneous. Instant communication was only available to those at the massive, immobile starcom stations in major systems.

Still, this message had been sent barely eighteen hours earlier from the time stamp.

“This is an update to our earlier reports,” Tan!Stalla continued. “We have, as reported, made rendezvous with Defiance. Unfortunately, Captain Casimir’s command was beyond any possible repair-at-space.

“Defiance has been scuttled to protect her technology, and we have taken up a position on the course the traitors used to enter the Astoroko Nebula.” A flash of purple crossed her skin as she fluttered her manipulators in a shrug.

“I lack the numbers to