Draft99

K9 - Europa

Europa, orange with dust sprayed on her from nearby Io, has a world-encompassing ocean of warm water under the ice but colonization there is not easy.

The Jovian moon Europa was just slightly smaller than the Earth's moon, with a surface just 6 percent of the Earth's total area, but there were almost no craters on Europa. The entire surface of the satellite was water ice about six hundred feet thick and only a hundred degrees Kelvin above absolute zero. Underneath that ice was a saltwater ocean sixty miles deep and as warm as a heated swimming pool. Driven by tidal forces as Europa orbits Jupiter every three and a half days, the thin crust of the satellite was always cracking open in random places, allowing liquid water to be exposed to the vacuum of space and freeze. This made the surface of the moon a chaotic jumbled mess, There were icy ridges two hundred feet high alternating with ravines just as deep, all oriented at crazy angles.

It was impossible to build a road on Europa, and it wouldn't last for very long even if one was attempted. So despite being one of the smoothest bodies in the Solar System, with no mountains to speak of, it was perhaps the most difficult place in the Jupiter system for colonists from Centauri system to get around, except by flying point-to-point. But the House of Gerash didn't take that into account when they barged into the Jupiter system first and took over Europa and what they thought was the sweetest meat. Belial thought only of all that water, which his ships with their antimatter reactors still required for reaction mass, for propellant.

But House Gerash soon found there were absolutely no other resources on Europa within easy reach. All the metals they required had to be imported. The only advantage Europa had over Ganymede or Callisto (which also had a mix of ice and rock) was that the ice didn't have to chiseled out and melted first. So Europa was a black hole sucking up Abaddon's treasure and re- turning no profit to hym at all. It wasn't even suitable for a navy garrison. Hy operated Europa at a loss, therefore, only as a prestige showcase, just to say the White Beards had a toehold at Sol. The families of the Gerash clan who were established there lived largely on the Imperial dole.

Power was plentiful to be sure, obtained by taking advantage of the large thermal gradient between the frozen surface and the warm underground liquid reservoir, but on Europa it was a life where almost nothing could be thrown away. Every piece of garbage had to be weighed in the mind with regard to its possible value after being recycled. So the colony languished, and after a time Belial thought of it seldom, if ever. Europa rarely figured in the military conflicts of the colonies. The largest towns on Europa numbered only in the hundreds of souls. Family Gerash on Europa shattered into thousands of individual families living in homesteads or small communal farms with very little communication between each other.

But it did not escape notice that part of the surface of Europa was streaked with color, and some of the colonists realized the sea salts in those areas were rich with minerals such as magnesium or iron or even gold that could be painstakingly extracted by electrolysis. Some families started operations to extract these minerals, and they not only went off the Gerash dole, they even turned a tidy profit in their own right. Abaddon naturally demanded a cut of these profits in taxes. Most did not comply, judging it would be far more troublesome and expensive to extract these taxes by force than could ever be obtained in the shakedown. They forgot the ancient principle of "kill one to warn a thousand". Their operations were spotted by the Navy of Belial from above by examining the waste stream, the melted discolored water they dumped on the surface to freeze, leaving a tell-tale sign someone was living and working below. Abaddon sent warships on random raids to cow the rest of the homesteaders into paying up. Whatever was taken in these raids was pure booty for the ship's crew.

There were a few families who required no such intimidation. They paid the Gerash tax out of loyalty to Belial. One such family belonged to Terel, husband of Greidi and father of Lahatiel and Noriel. But their tax payments did not redound directly to the account of the offers and men of the Exiler. To the captain this made them perfect candidates for a raid.

The Exiler timed their raid for one of the periods when the waste stream at Terel's homestead diminished, which they took for a sleep period. Europa was tidally locked on Jupiter and "night" lasted for almost two standard days, so it was impossible to tell when the locals were asleep otherwise. What saved the family was Terel's strict orders that at least one member stand watch while the other three members slept. That, and the fact that the sole entrance to their homestead had a silent alarm.

At the commencement of the raid, Terel's wife Greidi was on watch one level below the top of the main shaft. The cave network that was har family's home was two hundred feet below her, and the warm, inky surface of the Europan sea was three hundred feet below that, sending up billows of condensed water vapor that made it difficult to see anything in the shaft.

When the first bluecoat stepped onto the portico Greidi hit a control stud that tipped the floor on that level forty-five degrees from the horizontal. Taken completely by surprise the spacer slid into the main shaft and began to fall toward Europa's ocean, but was arrested by his safety line. Beware the female whose loved ones are endangered. Greidi reached out with a sharp blade and severed the line, causing the yang to fall. Any scream was muffled by the helmet of his vacuum suit, but no doubt his compatriots on the other side of the airlock heard his death cry on the radio. Whether or not he survived impact, his heavy suit made him sink like a stone toward the rocky core of Europa, which was another sixty miles below the surface.

For her part, Greidi hightailed it down to the family living quarters to awaken har husband and children. This escape was done by using a ladder with a safety lanyard sliding in a safety rail between alternating footrests. Sha took them five at a time to get completely out of the main shaft before the airlock cycled and another intruder arrived.

When two more bluecoats had emerged from the airlock they called out for their companion in the white steam but got no response. Then they saw the cut line and realized there was trouble. An attempt to report this to Exiler failed. There was a film of heavy metals that had precipitated out from Terel's waste stream on the surface above and formed a Faraday Cage which blocked all radio signals out of the shaft. The wise thing to do at that point would be to abort. But the two yeng knew their skipper was not a wise yang. So they proceeded slowly down the shaft under high alert.

When they got to the multi-level series of tunnels that formed Terel's home they dropped one at a time, alternating on point while the other yang covered him. On the third level, Terel let the first exposed yang have it with a stunner, a weapon which was actually a living plant from Gorpai. The dart penetrated his suit and gave the yang three minutes of total paralysis. All voluntary motor functions and even breathing was disabled. Hy couldn't move his mouth to warn the other yang, hy couldn't even blink. The stunner wasn't used as a weapon of war in Belial's armed forces, but it was often used to render a victim helpless but conscious for torture.

The other yang above hym wasn't a soldier per se but merely the lander pilot, a Europan colonial who was more or less drafted into the robbery "mission". Hy assumed the other one who really was a Gorpai spacer was merely rendered speechless by what hy saw, and curious hymself, hy dropped down to see what it was. And Terrel hit hym with the stunner too.

After they were both tied up Terrel demanded, Where's your unit?

The reply hy got from the yang who was soldier was a stream of obscenities, beginning with what hy planned to do with Terel's wife, who was standing there covering all of har loved ones. Lahatiel couldn't abide the insult to hyz beloved mother. Hy kicked the man's chair into the white abyss of the central shaft. This time Greidi could hear him scream, for a very long time. It was the first time Lahatiel killed a yang, but not the last.

The third intruder became very co-operative after witnessing what had hap- pened to his companion. Hy said, Our mother ship is hovering overhead.

That's much better, Terrel said. You're not really in the Navy, are you? You have a remarkably better attitude. What's your name?

Karayan. The hashmal was short-handed, I was pressed into service.

So a Jovian civilian? Karayan nodded that Terel's guess was correct.

Lahatiel kicked the chair. Nuriel spat on him. A curse on your beard, Greidi told hym bitterly. That you would do this to your own people.

From the very beginning I had no choice, madam. The punishments...

After Terel learned there were only three more yeng aboard the ship hy said, So that makes your Exiler a corvette?

Frigate. But we came down in the lander, Exiler Sidekick.

Then I see one narrow way out for you, Karayan. You do not have to die like your two friends. All you have to do is fire up your lander and take myself, my wife, my son and my daughter up to your mother ship.

Karayan thought about it for a moment. Lahatiel helped hym along hyz thought process by drawing near to him and tapping his feet. You'll nev- er make it, Karayan said. They'll know something is wrong right away.

That's why I'm hoping you are a very good actor, Karayan. You need to get on visual, ship-to-ship, and give the performance of your life. Immediate- ly. Because your life is at stake.

And then where can you go? The empire will never stop looking for you.

Never mind about that. Will you fly us up?

It'll be crowded. And what about the yeng on the Exiler?

No one has to die. I'll give you the lander and you can all fly away.

Five heartbeats later Karayan said, Then we do have a deal, sir.

On the way up Terel demanded Karayan describe the interior of the frigate with great detail. Then he gave his orders to Greidi, Lahatiel, and Nuriel.

Before docking, the commanding officer of Exiler raised Corporal Karay- an on intership VHF and ordered hym to make his report. Karayan pasted a smile on hyz face and said, Gold, sir! There's so much the ravmalak told me to take a load up here and go back for more. And there were only four locals in the hole. We finished them off easy.

Excellent work, Karayan. We'll get ready to receive you.

So anxious were the other three yeng on the Exiler to see the gold they were all present when the lander docked with the frigate and the hatch swung open. That made things easy for Terel and Lahatiel. They didn't have to go though the warship looking for strays. They did have to hit the yeng with the stunner several times before they were all strapped into their seats, the hatch was closed, and the lander was cast off into space.

Lahatiel never learned what happened to the spaceyeng after they departed. Perhaps the three overcame the one, wriggled free, and killed Karayan when he succumbed to sleep. But Exiler Sidekick never returned to Belial.

Failed colony though it was, Europa had the benefit of being the anchor for the only ID Grid in the Solar System, by fiat decree of Belial. The worm- holes linking Sol and the three Centauri star systems were opened only upon request, and that request took the form of a properly identified imperial vessel moving at the correct velocity through an ID Grid. The only sensa- tions Lahatiel and Nuriel noted during the transit was that the stars were instantly replaced by a bright white sky, there was the abrupt sound of roaring air slipping past the ship, and they both felt gravity suddenly, probably eighty percent of Earth normal. They were over the Great Sea, Thalury, which completely surrounded the Land We Know..

Exiler was configured with a large delta-wing, and she was approximate- ly the size and shape of the NASA space shuttle Robyn saw on Timeline Two, if you omitted the shuttle's large external drop tank, and also clustered six booster rockets around the orbiter. The wing was sufficient to keep Exiler from dropping like a stone over the Land We Know, as long as a cruising speed of about five hundred MPH was maintained.

Coming from the west, Lahatiel turned the ship due north when he reached the Sacred Mountain, careful not to fly too close to the shaft of heat and light that leaped straight up from the center of the lake on the summit plateau which served the role of sun for the Land. Eventually the ship would reach the northern edge of the fold-space bubble enclosing the land and sea, and the elohim would spit Exiler out of the ID Grid over Palato.

But Lahatiel knew it would take many more hours for the passage so he set the ship on autopilot and joined Nuriel in the common space which was a combination dining hall and sitting room and parlor, with many tunnel open- ings in the deck, overhead, and bulkheads leading to other parts of the ship. Instead of a common table there were six smaller individual tables and chairs facing each other in a ring along the wall. The frigate was originally designed for a crew of twelve. Underway, half the crew would be on watch while the other half messed here in the Banquet Room or hot-bunked it in the six staterooms. Everything was a claustrophobic's nightmare.

Six hatches in the Banquet Room led to the six main drive modules, each with a space for performing engineering duties and more hatches leading to access tunnels aft. Forward of each one of these engineering spaces was a large supply room, corresponding to the domed enclosures that capped each engine. Access ways in this space were shaped by the stored material it- self, they were simply the voids between boxes, a bewildering three-dimen- sional maze. The previous crew had plundered most of the supplies.

The flight-deck was all the way forward. This was the ship's "bridge," and it was somewhat more cramped than the common room. Arranged around the rim were empty tubes for Bulldog missiles, radar, communication equipment, and the F/1 Fairchild 500mm CCD optical tracking system called the Big Eye, an import from Earth. There was also a thick circular window dead center with a liquid crystal layer which could be electronically polarized or even made opaque in the event of a laser attack or if Lahatiel tipped the ship di- rectly at one of the Centauri suns. Nuriel marveled that no sizable flat space along the interior bulkheads was wasted as merely a bare wall.

Crew's berthing was between the Banquet Room and the flight-deck, shaped like a pie cut into six pieces with a wide hole taken out of the center. These six "staterooms" had some 900 cubic feet inside each one, roomy as such things went. One entered through blue curtains secured with runners. Each stateroom had a large picture window looking out the side of the ship. In one of these staterooms Lahatiel took his sister to bed, claiming har for hyz wife. Hy hadn't come by har strictly by the rules of the Law of Belial with the ritual death combat, but in the story he planned to tell Belial, which would be embellished with a tale of the death of hyz parents to keep them safe, the capture of Exiler would fulfill the ritual nicely.

When Lahatiel and Nuriel emerged from the fold-gate over Palato, traffic controllers at the naval station took control of the Exiler and brought it down to an empty hanger sufficiently far from the unknown location of the avatar of Belial that it would preclude any damage from a booby-trapped ship. It spoke volumes of Belial's regime that such a precaution was necessary. Lahatiel had no illusion they would survive an escape attempt from the heavily fortified moon of Palato, which was riddled with tunnels and sported so many missiles and guns it resembled a giant gray cactus.

After landing, the Eyes of Belial swarmed over the interior of Exiler and found to their astonishment that there was no one present but a dirk and a doll. The commander of the Eyes and chief lieutenant of Abaddon, one Balberith, decided to forgo the usual session of rusty pliers applied to nails and teeth and bring the children before Abaddon directly to provide an explanation, but this was done with no small amount of rough treatment.

Five Eyes were deemed sufficient to guard the children while simultaneously not irritating God with a crowd. In the throne room to Abaddon's right a large television screen showed live footage from a station in orbit over Gorpai, where the Emperor's son Azibeel was locked in free-fall combat with another dirk named Haziel. The five Eyes bowed face-first before the throne and with hard kicks ensured that Lahatiel and Nuriel bowed as well.

Then Balberith arose at the Emperor's bidding, saying, Forgive us, Lord, but there is a curious happenstance which requires your personal attention. The imperial frigate Exiler has returned without orders from the Sol System, and we have found it to be crewed with only two children!

Rise and explain all of this, young dirk, Belial commanded.

Lahatiel got to hyz feet and said, If you please, Sire, I am Lahatiel, son of Terel of Europa. My father was an honest yang who distilled the waters of that satellite for metals and sold them for a small profit. Hy never failed to send the fourth part of the increase to the crown, according to Your Majesty's holy law, and this was always done out of gratitude and loyalty more than obligation. While it is true my father lived outside the Cupel system of testing under the dispensation Your Majesty allowed for the first generation of colonists in the Sol system, hy was preparing me well for the death combat and dreamed of the day when I attained the ranks of ishim and became fully a yang. But there is a foul stink of corruption on Your Majesty's fleet in the Jupiter colonies, Sire! All of the homesteaders know this, but our family learned of it first-hand when the frigate Exiler engaged in a naked invasion and robbery of my father's operation. We resisted, of course, even as other colonists on Europa have resisted, and the crews have taken many losses, but before hy died fending off the attack my father suspected Your Majesty's Navy has covered up these casualties, because a colonist had been forced to serve aboard Exiler as a replacement crewyeng. Send aides, Your Majesty, to examine the books kept by the crew, and the booty we found stashed throughout the ship.

Your pardon, Sire, Balberith interrupted, but I have just received word of a jen intruder approaching. I do not know how that is possible.

Outside the throne room there began a commotion so loud it penetrated the door. A hissing black shaft about a yard long penetrated the door and made a neat circle. A heavy slug of metal was pushed through and Lilith stepped inside. Lahatiel and Nuriel saw that there were many bodies of dead Eyes strewn about the passageway behind hem, and these were in two pieces.

You are dead meat, Belial! Lilith shouted, and Abaddon leaped off his throne with sword in hand to meet hem, more a display of bravado for the Eyes and the children than self-defense, because hy knew absolutely nothing could withstand the Golden Gift. Lilith smiled, deactivated hez weapon and snapped it to hez belt with a carabiner. Dead god walking.

Emperor Abaddon walked around Lilith and stared through the hole che had made in the door to hyz throne room and appraising the casualties che had left lying on the deck out there. I thought you were a "good" eloah, Binah. There are less violent ways to communicate with me, you know.

Mindspeech doesn't have the same dramatic character that befits this news, Lilith said. Nephilim have departed in the first starship.

Then I must block your access to El. You have broken our agreement.

I have observed our agreement to the letter. You gave them the technology for matter flippers yourself when you seized my spacelab at Proxima.

So what is their destination, Binah? It must be a boring trip, I'd like to make it more interesting, perhaps enliven their attempt to settle. But Lilith remained silent. Abaddon said, Come now, you always liked the bad news up front. Chances are they are just heading to one of the stars of the other harem I share with Mastema, the less troublesome one.

You can be quite sure they selected their target with that in mind.

Yefefiah then? You must be joking. She sleeps for a hundred and fifty years, wakes up for five minutes maybe, looks around with her orbiting avatar, then goes back to sleep to repeat the cycle. That's why no male eloah in the galaxy has ever successfully courted her. Look how she slept right through the entire Golden Age of Earth radio. Completely missed Gunsmoke and Bewitched and Gilligan's Island. Otherwise the entire community of elohim would be on fire with the news. I reckon she'll sleep for another fifty years and that is plenty of time for me to bombard your colony of nephilim to a pre-radio level of technology, and more for good measure.

Perhaps you are right, Belial. When the humans make their own starship, I suppose they can bring something that will allow them to communicate directly with the target eloah, maybe even an avatar.

Binah, listen carefully. If you allow the humans to make a crossing with your avatar you will violate our agreement not to travel to another star. If you teach Chokhmah, El Shaddai, or Bat-El to make an avatar you will violate our agreement never to pass the lore of El to the other elohim.

Of course, Belial, but you forget that El Shaddai has already caused an avatar to be made, by the hands of human beings no less. You already tried to steal it once, and that got you arrested for attempted burglary.

The Ark of the Covenant? Do you have any idea what the conditions of the center of a star will do to a tiny artifact of wood and gold and whatever electronics you've clandestinely stashed inside?

Do I need to remind you there are ways to shield things from any conditions no matter how harsh? And she briefly touched the Golden Gift. The dark matter converter is another one of my toys your Seraph Ithuriel gave to the planet-dwellers, even if you use it mainly to produce bombs.

And from that moment Belial became obsessed with gaining possession of the Ark of the Covenant, no matter if it meant returning to a war footing.

Lilith allowed her gaze to settle on the television screen for a moment. Is that your kid, Belial? He moves in ways that remind me of a bene elohim named Hunky when hy played a zero gravity game we call Freeball.

The one you called Hunky is dead. At my own hands.

Don't be too sure of that, Belial. Che pointed at the screen. It depends entirely on the outcome of that death combat ritual, doesn't it?

Abaddon knew from the beginning that Azibeel was possessed by Hunky, but hy decided to wait and see what the dirk could do in the death combat before hy killed hym. Abaddon never had high hopes for Azibeel before the posses- sion. In the negotiations with the father of Haziel which cleared the way for that yang's son to have a crack at Abaddon's son, Azibeel insisted on the right to establish the conditions of the match. Hy chose a variation of Freeball hy made up on the spot, Combat Freeball, with knives.

As the match drew to a close Haziel placed all six of his dirks in a ring, who hoped by sheer numbers to capture Azibeel and fling hym at armed Haziel for the kill. At the referee's first whistle Azibeel's closest team- mates curled into fetal positions at hyz feet, and hy was also curled up. At the second whistle all three made themselves straight as fast as they could. Azibeel surged forward and the other two dirks were flung back.

When Azibeel was joined by hyz Van and Wingbacks, the Flankers reached the elastic end cap feet first and kicked back off again, perfectly timing it to take advantage of the thumping rebound. Spinning on hyz long axis now to make him harder to grab, Azibeel reached Haziel's defending line. Azibeel's Wingbacks had overtaken him and joined to face Haziel's defenders too. Freeball was a contact sport. Azibeel's team kicked and punched to form a narrow tunnel for hym to drill through, scattering bodies like bowling pins. Forbidden to stab the unarmed dirks, Azibeel bent and twisted hyz body like a maggot to wriggle free. Stinging from blows, Azibeel reached a wall feet first and did a dance. Left foot sticks, right foot kicks, hy chanted,

launching hymself out again to chase after Haziel.

Haziel and one of his flankers linked hands to swing off each other and change course, tumbling head-over-each-other's-heels. Thus, Haziel was flung after Azibeel, but he was left flailing with a yaw rotation he couldn't control. By chance, when they met, they were both in a poor position to strike each other, but Haziel's position was slightly poorer. Azibeel slipped his blade between his Haziel's ribs and pierced his heart.

The match was televised across the empire, and everyone knew Abaddon did not cheat to favor hyz son. The Emperor was overjoyed. No one had ever seen him happy. Ever. On a whim hy made young Lahatiel the rank of ophan.

At this the Eyes of Belial grumbled, and Balberith even protested openly. Lord, we have very good reason to believe this dirk has slept with hyz sister on the ship before the ritual combat demanded by your holy law.

Belial had never really cared about those sexual prohibitions. Hy had used them to try to pit the planetdwellers against their own instincts. Now it suited hym to ignore his own law, and Abaddon said as much. Balberith accused Lahatiel and his sister of bewitching Abaddon into spouting heresy.

Abaddon replied by asking Lahatiel if he desired anything. Anything at all. Lahatiel faced Balberith and drew out the yang's own blade from the sheath dangling from his side. You speak of heresy and in the same breath imply it is possible for our Lord and God to fall under the spell of mere nephilim! And with that blade Lahatiel brutally butchered Balberith.

How many dependents were attached to the officers manning Exiler?

Arioch, next in line after Balberith, quickly answered Abaddon, saying, There were a total of sixteen yin and all their children.

Lahatiel, today I have made you a flag officer, entitling you to eight wives. You may take your sister Nuriel and any seven of those sixteen yin, whosoever of them pleases you the most. The rest shall be returned to their fathers. You are my chief lieutenant now! Choose a new crew for the warship. In the days to come I am going to rely on you to deal with the issues presented today by Binah and hez blasphemous starship.

Emperor Abaddon appointed Arioch the head of the Eyes of Belial and commanded hym to allow Lilith to leave unmolested so long as che kept moving toward hez avatar, and so long as hez avatar was moving away from Palato.

Lahatiel requested access to the full personnel records of the Navy of Belial in order to obey the emperor's command to staff the Exiler with a new crew, and Arioch said he would accommodate him only if he could be present and retrieve the records. The Empire was running old school. All of the archives were in the form of microfilms embedded in punch cards. At Sol the equivalent archive would be in the Swarm and accessed by Micros.

First on Lahatiel's agenda was an operations officer. He asked for the best tactician in the fleet, regardless of rank. Arioch retrieved four microfilms and Lahatiel instinctively went for the one that he seemed to be most reluctant to hand over. Suriel Larund was har name, and sha had last served on the cruiser Coercer when the Emperor had sent that ship in together with a squadron of smaller ships to follow up on rumors the Beaters had constructed a spacecraft carrier. They found the vessel in question, but during the battle the skipper of Coercer was killed when the hull was breached. Suriel took command using the lander as a secondary bridge, and sent fourteen four-yeng corvettes to their deaths making futile torpedo runs against the carrier. The Beaters were obliged to pull their fighter cover in close, and that opened a window for three bombers to stand off and let their payloads fly. Scratch one Beater carrier.

Arioch didn't care about any of that. What was important to him was the fact that Suriel was a yen, she was a "bliss" who preferred other yen in bed, and she worshiped Chokhmah. But Lahatiel knew most yang approved of the post-Summit policy of letting yen serve in Belial's military. If a yang, by some fluke, was killed by a yen in the death combat, then he did- n't deserve to live and contaminate the gene pool. And if sha died sha yielded up a sister who would otherwise be unavailable. But she must be very fierce, Lahatiel said. Always on guard against being raped. As for Arioch's other objections, neither Belial nor Lahatiel really cared.

Lahatiel settled on a navigation officer named Barakiel Antero, with the rank of Erel. On the Adversary during a raid by rebels from Ganymede, Barakiel had flown the ship into the Palato ID Grid and brought the vessel to a stop inside, where she could fire at the rebels while being perfectly safe from counterbattery fire, at least if the rebels still wanted to go home. Arioch's objection was that hy was actually just a fraud, a homosexual who faked the two death combats that led to hyz current rank and whose "mate" was a convincing yen but still a yang where it really counted. Lahatiel knew Belial's only penalty for homosexual yeng was to withhold their access to breeding females, which probably suited them quite nicely.

The Sar called Adnarel Sala, at least, was not a fraud, sha easily killed har opponent in the death match, simply because sha could not miss. That was the talent for which Lahatiel proposed to make har hyz weapons officer. Arioch's objection was that sha was too feminine, it was jarring to see that in Belial's navy. At least Suriel made an attempt to emulate a yang.

Arioch had no objection to the Ravmalak named Kushiel Bellon, neither hyz devotion to Belial, hyz adherence to Law, hyz sexuality, masculinity, or any other grounds, aside from hyz low rank. An engineering officer should be an erel at least. But Arioch knew there was no use convincing Lahatiel.

I wonder when daylight appeared between the things that were important to Belial, Lahatiel purred, and the things that were important to Balberith? I think it was Binah announcing her starship. Imagine the universe filling up with people who are loyal to Chokhmah rather than Belial. Imagine what Belial would do if he found another Balberith dragging his feet.

So Arioch left without another word, leaving the archives unmonitored.

Lahatiel crewed Exiler with just five officers, when the normal complement of a frigate was eleven. When Arioch objected, Lahatiel reminded hym that he returned the vessel to the emperor with just hyz sister as crew.

Erel Barakiel took the ship out into the Eggbeater on a "shakedown" cruise that was really an opportunity for the new crew to work and gel together as a team. And if some Beaters were flushed out of the woodwork along the way so much the better. Two weeks into the deployment Suriel said to Lahatiel, I think I know what this is, sir, but I need a second set of eyes.

Yes, I recognize those numbers, Suriel. Where did they come from? Why is there's no corresponding symbol on your scope?

Sir, one time on the Coercer I was bored and I discovered that commercial signal analyzers are actually much more sensitive than what the SLIP-64 uses, so if I create a dummy symbol out there and hook it, I can open a beamport on that bearing and my store-boughten gear will trigger on stuff that's way out there, long before the SLIP-64 shows a symbol. Just now I took a look out at 210 tack 45 and I got a whiff of something. Fusion motor signature. No doubt there are others nearby on different bearings. I can open more beamports out that way and fish around for more, sir

Actually, I have a better idea. Sar Adnarel, program a torpedo for Launch On Bearing Only and send it on its way: 210 tack 45 and go.

Yes sir, she said, immediately complying with his order. Adnarel's fingers flew over the console and then a thump shook the ship. LOBO away.

There was about an hour of watching with the Big Eye and waiting. Then Hashmal Suriel announced that one of the unknown contacts had lit off their fire-control radars to take shots at Adnarel's torpedo which they discovered, far too late, was almost upon them and in terminal cruise. A little puff of light appeared on the Big Eye briefly, indicating that either Adnarel had scored a hit, or the enemy had somehow detonated the torpedo.

Immediately there was heard frantic shouting back and forth on UHF radio in the clear, indicating the presence of at least two more ships. It also told them Adnarel scored a hit. One of those two remaining ships started slicing and dicing the sky with search radar to find whoever it was that shot it at them, and after a few minutes they had Exiler locked on with what Suriel called "steady rails" which referred to the constant train of radar pulses on one of har scopes. It meant a torpedo was bearing down on them.

Adnarel, warm up your laser and get ready for some incoming rounds. And Barakiel, begin taking evasive maneuvers, I don't want to make it easy for them. Immediately everyone began to be pitched back and forth in their couches as Barakiel made random course changes under high acceleration. Ravmalak Kushiel, belowdecks, monitored the strain on the engines. Sure enough, within ten minutes a rising whine filled the bridge. Suriel had picked up an inbound torpedo and initiated countermeasures.

As sha tried to jam the torpedo with MACKSY, Adnarel spotted the dot moving against the star background on the Big Eye and started putting short, powerful, Q-squelched laser pulses on it, one after the other. The lights on the flight-decked dimmed with each power draw. Somehow, Adnarel never missed and she didn't need any stinking fire control radar, an uncanny fact that astonished even veterans when they saw her do her magic. Every hit took a toll. Pretty soon the dot became a harmless scattered line of tumbling commas that missed the ship by a good 500 meters, flashed by like a set of lightning bolts, then sailed off to infinity on the other side.

That was my first real ship-to-ship tussle, Adnarel said.

Lahatiel beamed at har. You performed like a champ. Everyone did.

If hell existed anywhere in the universe, then Gorpai's third moon Rhene was a good candidate for it. Belial created on Rhene a brutal prison for the worst offenders of the Empire, those recalcitrants for whom simple exe- cution would be deemed far too merciful. Every art of torment devised over thousands of years of nephilim tribal warfare reached its pinnacle and ut- termost fulfillment in the dungeons of Rhene, whose majority of inmates were virtually buried alive, crammed naked in dark cells hardly larger than a coffin, with not even the possibility of escape by suicide. In those iso- lated and claustrophobic conditions their minds wandered on strange ruts and withered, and when after many days or months they were periodically taken to the questioning chambers, dimly lit with blood red light and as- sailed by the never-ending screams of countless other inmates in neighbor- ing cells, it almost seemed better to them.

Yet all these tortures would serve no purpose if all the inmates simply perished in the bowels of Rhene completely forgotten by society. So some of the survivors of Rhene were taken back to Gorpai and released into society to spread horrific tales of what happens to nephilim who sin against Beli- al, or break the Law, which of course were exactly the same thing.

Lahatiel emerged from the upside-down lander hanging under the Exiler weighing all of three pounds, and was met by guards who escorted hym through a maze of corridors to the spacious office of Warden Achimel, a man with an exceedingly cruel reputation, where Lahatiel presented a fake docu- ment using the "blank check" Talishi had provided. The order was for the Warden to release one Elimelech to the custody of Ophan Lahatiel.

A jumpsuit hid most of the damage to Elimelech, but numerous scars on his face attested to a life of constant violence, either before or after his incarceration, or possibly both. A haunted look in his eyes spoke of the toll the prison was taking on his mind, but there was also a small hint of defiance there. Lahatiel conditioned his release on the act of identify- ing on an aerial photograph the center of Iron Fist activities on Xanthos.

Happy to comply with such a small request, Elimelech marked the place on the photograph. The Warden released him from his chains and Lahatiel led him to his ship. The Ophan entered the Exiler first and headed straight for the flight-deck. When Elimelech climbed through the lander to follow hy found the hatch to the rest of the Exiler closed.

The Ophan's voice appeared on a speaker. "Relax and make yourself comfort- able, Elimelech," hy said. "I regret that the rest of my ship is classified for visual inspection and you don't have a clearance. When we get to Xan- thos I'll fly you home myself. In the meantime, you might want to close the exterior hatch before we return to open space.

A day later Barakiel reported, We have achieved synchronous orbit over the city of Xanthos, Ophan. Suriel was summoned from a nap back to har station, where sha focused the big imported 500mm refractor down onto the city and threw the image up on the main viewport's liquid crystal layer.

Lahatiel climbed down into the locked lander with Elimelech and prepared for separation. A series of thumps announced their departure. Time of flight to the surface was about an hour. Several domes on the outskirts of Xanthos were landing bays for ships. The metallic half-sphere that covered one of these domes rolled completely over on huge gimbals, opening to allow the lander to settle to the surface inside. When it closed again the dome quickly re-pressurized. Standing outside the lander after they both emerged, Elimelech shook hands with Lahatiel and thanked hym for his role in securing his freedom. I didn't trust you at first but now I believe you are a good yang, Ophan. Feel free to move around the city at your lei- sure, sir. Then he went on ahead into the port of entry offices to ar- range a ride. Lahatiel stayed with his lander for an hour conversing with Suriel by micro before seeking his own ground transportation.

Remadiel was head of the clan which dominated the Gnome Dome. And through his dreaded Iron Fist criminal organization Remadiel totally dominated all of the city too, but few have spoken of it openly, because Remadiel brutally enforced a code of total silence. Elimelech and Remadiel embraced with the traditional double touch of cheek to cheek, boss and underboss together again. I learned just now, Remadiel said, that some ophan is sniffing around the Cabala Dome asking embarrassing questions.

Elimelech laughed. That is the very dome I marked for hym as the secret heart of power in Xanthos. Obviously the Emperor has decided hy must flat- ten a Xanthos dome, any dome, to quiet the nobility on Gorpai. If hy hap- pens to take out Cabala Dome, the stronghold of his own accursed loyalists, so much the better for us, no?

Raid Cabala Dome, Remadiel commanded, but do not use members of your family and do not go yourself. Send someone you can trust, Eli, yet someone it would not upset you overmuch to die in the very likely event the Emperor does something rash. As for this ophan, do not kill hym. Have hym confined somewhere inside the Cabala Dome. Should the Empire carry out an air strike, I want his final thoughts to be that it is his very own fleet which is killing him. And if the Empire sends down troops to occupy and search the city, he will be our hostage, If they do not withdraw the Commodore can die together with the Marou dirk. I'll send hym along presently.

Over the next hour Elimelech raised a small army of Iron Fist soldiery in the Gnome Dome, in case there was any trouble with the loyalists, but hy was confident a strong show of force would be sufficient to cow them into submission as it had always done before. Iron Fist associates throughout the dome were pumped up when they saw their former underboss free from Im- perial clutches and barking orders once again. Presently a convoy of ground vehicles went out from the Gnome Dome led by one of Elimelech's more aggressive captains, and this movement was registered in the corner of Ma- jor Suriel's eye.

Some of these vehicles went to other domes to gather more Iron Fist men. They were told to put their shopkeeper shakedown rackets on hold temporari- ly so they could participate in a major spoiling raid. A trickle of cars from these other domes joined the main parade and converged around the rim of the Cabala Dome in southeast Xanthos, and this too was observed by Hash- mal Suriel, though perhaps sha was not aware of everything on a conscious level. All of these maneuvers were tabulated by Suriel's mind as sha watched from above, which gradually built up for har a gestalt impression. Koth had doubted Rogziel that Elimelech could be followed through the city from a warship in orbit, but he had no idea Suriel could do it this way.

I know which dome the ringleader is in, sha finally said after a solid hour of watching the screen. Hashmal Suriel spoke with a shaky confidence sha knew would quickly erode if anyone pressed har to prove it. Sha went to Adnarel's fire control gear and selected a nondescript dome three rings in from the southwest edge and painted a red digital smudge on it with har finger. Take out this dome, Sar.

That's perfect, Adnarel said, studying the image at har own fire-con- trol station. I can come up this canyon at eye level, right between these domes here and here, Hashmal. There wont even be collateral damage. Ad- narel deftly flipped the switches that armed and released the torpedo. One Mark 64 Mod 2 torpedo configured as an orbit-to-ground smart bomb jumped from the aft end of Exiler, near the lander, with a burst from a small attached pyrotechnic squib. Designed to penetrate the atmosphere, it was made of heat-resistant titanium wrapped in an even more heat-resistant cer- amic case, protecting a thousand pound high-explosive warhead, but here at airless Xanthos, the heat shielding would be redundant. After its engine ignited, the torpedo pulled away from Exiler on an descent ellipse whose projected orbit just touched the ground at the city.

In Cabala Dome Lahatiel found himself surrounded by a circle of toughs who motioned for hym to turn over his sidearm. Hy was cast, none-too-gently, into a windowless room in one of the commandeered shops. It could not be locked, but a 350 lb. mountain of a yang sat on the floor on the other side of the door, which amounted to very much the same thing. Some time later the missing youth was also thrown into the room with Lahatiel. He was beat- en and bruised as well, but Lahatiel was glad the dirk was still alive.

I'm Commodore Lahatiel Gerash of Lord Belial's Navy, at your service, hy told the dirk, who seemed dubious, on account of Lahatiel's own youth.

I am called Marou, sir. Hy hardly needed to indicate his family affiliation, his white hair declared that he was also of the House of Gerash quite plainly, and the tufts of hair on his chin declared that he was on the cusp of physical yanghood, even if his parents would never allow him to attain to yanghood in a cultural sense through the death combat.

Your mother and father will be very pleased to see you again, Lord Marou. Proxima Station will be our very next stop.

Marou's face fell after an initial show of excitement. What are the chances of that ever happening now?

The four officers aboard Exiler had a perfect bird's-eye view from directly overhead displayed on any number of screens on the flight deck. Adnarel's torpedo entered like a lightning bolt on the first floor, immediately detonating and punching through with a cone of destruction that was fully blossomed 10 milliseconds later. Many of the residents were on Elimelech's spoiling raid, but most of the eight hundred remaining occupants including Elimelech, his whole family, Remadiel, and the senior figures of Iron Fist, were killed instantly by the concussion.

Molten droplets of metal and concrete flew everywhere, twice as fast as any bullet, ricocheting off of floors, walls, ceilings, through the bodies of the dead and through the bodies those nephilim who had somehow lived through the initial blast. The fury of this shrapnel was expended by the middle of the third second after impact when the whole physical structure of Gnome Dome began to collapse in on itself. If anyone survived the blast, they soon suffocated to death.

Vehicular traffic around Xanthos looked like an ant-hill after throwing a boot into it. Suriel, monitoring battle frequencies, said to the other officers, It looks like we got the right dome. They seem to be in total disarray.

Gnome Dome's destruction could not be heard through the vacuum, but Lahatiel felt a great deal of vibration and had a good hunch hy knew what just happened. Later hy heard a commotion outside the door, including several gunshots, which ended when the door was opened and four strangers entered. Lahatiel identified himself when he saw they were not Iron Fist.

One of them nodded to Lahatiel and introduced his leader. Lord Jetrel, the head of his titular clan.

And these are my sons, Jetrel added. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Commodore. You seemed to be just the trigger we needed to do what we've put off doing for much too long. The Iron Fist is soon to be no more, their dome been completely flattened. We're just picking off their loose remnants now, the bitter-enders with nowhere to go..

Indeed, flashes of light were seen on the streets of Xanthos throughout that evening, but it tapered off by early the next morning. The Commodore made ready to depart with young Marou, who was now much more optimistic that he would meet his parents again.