Disquiet Gods -eARC by Christopher Ruocchio

Author:Christopher Ruocchio [Ruocchio, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Military, Space Opera, Fantasy, Epic, Action & Adventure, General
ISBN: 9781803287584
Google: zjnVEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B0CGVQ9WW3
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2024-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

Chantry intends to block your meeting with Emperor.

They know about the Cielcin on Gadelica.

Will attempt to frame for treason.

May attempt violence. All I know.

In haste,

E

CHAPTER 37

DISSOLUTION

The day before I was at last to meet with His Radiance—a meeting that would never occur—the Emperor himself failed to appear in Council. An apparition of Prince Alexander appeared instead, alone below the throne upon the dais, a portent of things to come.

I stared at the empty throne over Alexander’s shoulder, the round, red cushion of the headboard an empty halo amidst all that filigree of golden sun beams.

He can’t have much longer, Edouard had said. Edouard, who was leaving, who had been summoned away. By my allies, as he suspected? To insulate what it was he knew? Or by my enemies?

If they meant to block my meeting with the Emperor, they were not moving Edouard fast enough. They would have to act quickly. But how? Edouard’s note had talked of violence, of a plot to frame me for treason. He said they had the Gadelica, had found Ramanthanu and the others. They would arrest me, snatch me from Martian hands and produce the xenobites as evidence, ask why it was that the Emperor’s pet sorcerer kept demons bottled on his ship.

A show trial . . . then what? An execution?

All these thoughts and more danced like the fire reflected in my eyes, played there while I sat in council on the highest row, and listened as Lorian argued with Lord Rand and Sattha Kull. The Tavrosi Grand Admiral did not believe the science of Lorian’s machine, and the Exalted captains that had accompanied the little Commandant General had shouted him down.

Kull remained convinced it was a sham. Director General Wong Xu shared that skepticism in more measured terms, a skepticism echoed by King Paeon of the dryads and by the Durantine Doxe. In return, Captain Archambault presented detailed footage of an attack his Two Dreams of Spring had carried out against a worldship that had stopped to refuel in a desolate system about a red dwarf star.

“The Cielcin siphon material off gas giants,” the Exalted captain proclaimed. “Separate the hydrogen and helium, use the helium in their fusion reactors, run the hydrogen through their accelerators to create the antihydrogen required to achieve warp.”

That had long been speculated, as Lord Rand indicated at once. The first great plasma siphons had been uncovered in the wreck of Typhon, the second worldship ever captured.

“But they make stops between battles to refuel,” Archambault explained. “Often for years at a time—as long as it takes for them to replenish their fuel reservoirs.”

“You cannot imagine how much fuel is required to move a worldship,” said Captain Zelaz, floating above the proceedings like an evil spirit.

“While the Cielcin park to refuel, they are vulnerable,” Archambault explained. “That was when we struck. We tracked them to this system, VA-87:13 DS-114. They were not prepared for attack: The statistical probability of a random encounter in an unsettled system is so close to zero, after all.

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