The Gathering Edge Read online

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  THE GATHERING EDGE

  SHARON LEE &

  STEVE MILLER

  The Gathering Edge

  Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

  A series milestone as we welcome the twentieth amazing entry in the nationally best-selling Liaden Universe® series.

  The luck runs rough around Theo Waitley. Not only are people trying to kill her and capture the self-aware intelligent ship Bechimo to whom Theo is bonded, they’re also trying to arrest her crew members, and throw the dignity of an important passenger, the duly-constituted norbear ambassador Hevelin, into question.

  No wonder Theo and her crew felt the need of a break, and retired to what Bechimo refers to as "safe space." Unfortunately, safe space may not be so safe, anymore. It seems that things are leaking through from another universe, and another time. In fact, whole spaceships are coming through. One of those ships is a blasted battleship seemingly fleeing a long-lost war. What’s more, its crew may be members of Theo’s ancient ancestral line—her relatives. It’s certain that they are in dire need of help. Theo has a choice to make. It seems that Bechimo’s “safe space” is about to become deadly perilous.

  BAEN BOOKS by SHARON LEE & STEVE MILLER

  The Liaden Universe®

  Fledgling

  Saltation

  Mouse and Dragon

  Ghost Ship

  Dragon Ship

  Necessity’s Child

  Trade Secret

  Dragon in Exile

  Alliance of Equals

  The Gathering Edge

  Neogenesis (forthcoming)

  omnibus volumes

  The Dragon Variation

  The Agent Gambit

  Korval’s Game

  The Crystal Variation

  story collections

  A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 1

  A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 2

  A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 3

  The Fey Duology

  Duainfey

  Longeye

  by Sharon Lee

  Carousel Tides

  Carousel Sun

  Carousel Seas

  THE GATHERING EDGE

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

  Liaden Universe® is a registered trademark.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4767-8218-8

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-577-9

  Cover art by David Mattingly

  First Baen printing, May 2017

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)

  Printed in the United States of America

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  Many thanks to Fearless Typo Hunters

  Thomas Bätzler, Roseanne Girton, Chris Meadows,

  Kate Reynolds, Trude Rice, Sarah Stapleton

  Dedicated to everyone who stands

  at the gathering edge of change

  PROLOGUE

  Orbital Aid 370

  “Move.”

  The radioed message from Stost was clear, while sound from outside their suits was muddied and muffled. There was still atmosphere here, for what that was worth. There were also odd vibrations, and strange sounds too, here in the crew quarter zone, the most worrisome being a continuous scratch-scratch-scratch. It was best, Chernak assured herself, not to think too closely on it. After all, they were just passing through.

  There was another sound—familiar, even companionable—the sound of breathing not her own, coming through her headset. She concentrated on that, even as she observed the passage they moved down, alert for threats, for traps, for—

  The way ahead was blocked by an undogged door, likely last touched by a dead man. The light in hand would have to do; they could not manage their kits and their cases, and the cases could not be abandoned. The beam sprayed about weirdly, the passageway was bent in ways it had not been when they’d boarded. Gravity was wavering.

  Calling the ship plan to mind, Chernak realized there was another emergency cabinet ahead, which might be useful. She signed to Stost, behind her, to slow, heard a tap in the troop cadence asking again for speed, which was understandable given the state of the hallway. It went against instinct, but caution was key, here. They could not afford to rush into error; neither could they lay down their burdens: both were required for mission success.

  “Patience.” Her voice was perhaps louder than it needed to be, with Stost quite so close.

  A touch on her shoulder, fleeting, perhaps even gentle. She took a full breath of the stored air, stood straighter.

  They both wore generic soft-suits from the rack, extra flexible, high visibility, patterned with glowing stripes, but without rank marks. Not that Pathfinder Chernak needed to see rank marks to know who she was, who her companion was, or where either stood within the Troop. As equal as might be, male and female versions of the same genotype, date and times of their first breaths so close as to have the same certified minute mark.

  Both were pathfinders by training and birth and…she was seven seconds the elder. They shared the seventh minute of the seventh hour of the seventh day, and had been tagged as the “lucky ones” of their cohort by some K-grade staffer, for reasons they had never learned, and now never would; the Third Corps creche-world was long ago dust in a sheriekas raid.

  “Patience,” she said again, less loudly. Being second was not easy.

  The breathing in her ear changed to an exasperated sigh, overloud in the dimness, and then a rebuttal: “I had patience yesterday, when I knew what I faced.”

  Yes, well. Patience.

  In fact, they had been patient yesterday, as they sought passage to the station while panic built among the city dwellers. Rumor was loose, rumor and griefers and doubters all reaching a crescendo as ships returned to port telling tales of runs ending in transition failure a
dozen times in a row, while others reported successful transitions into systems staggering under the loss of entire planets.

  The port authorities at Curker Center would have attached the pair of pathfinders to the garrison as mere soldiers. Chernak and Stost, however, traveled on top level diplomatic ID, which they waved and worked with a fine bluster. The cases—one each—were strapped ’round them, under uniform jackets no longer so brave as they had been, and those they did not show.

  Their orders identified them as part of a group of a dozen, but the other ten—

  Of the other ten, four had never arrived in-system; two had arrived and had been pressed into local garrison service. Four had died in an explosive ambush at Loadzt, where the histories of seven thousand worlds were being destroyed by attacks from within and without.

  It was telling, that none who scrutinized their orders asked where the others of their team were.

  Curker Center orbited Loadzt; the station orbited both. They arrived at Curker Center amid riot and screaming. Gunshots were not infrequently heard—it might have been a war zone, itself.

  They had orders; a mission. To fulfill the mission, they must find transport to the station.

  They killed no one in their transit down to the docks; they used what force was necessary to clear their path—and no more.

  At last, they found a shuttle preparing to cast off. They had wrangled, demanded, and bribed freely. Their orders directed them to win through at any cost with those items they had removed from the archives, now packed into the precious cases.

  “I’m giving you the last of my pay!” Stost told the shuttle captain, who had wanted a year’s pay, and battle bonuses, too—for two places to stand, no straps, on the overcrowded shuttle to the station.

  Grudgingly, the civilian let them by, and Stost had laughed as they rushed aboard.

  “Oh, I hope the fool banks all of it tonight, for tomorrow night’s binge!”

  There had been riots at Curker Center; on-station, there was chaos.

  Cases hidden, they flashed diplomat cards, Troop marks, and high security pathfinder ID. The passenger docks were in riot as ships and crews were beset by would-be escapees. The vessel they had expected to be awaiting their team of twelve was not at the military dock—but they had long ago stopped believing in its existence. It was a matter, now, of the orders, and they were determined to run to the end of them. They were of the Troop; what else had they, but orders?

  Against riot, disorder, and violence, the Troops on-station were prepared to act. They were also prepared to absorb a pair of ragged pathfinders into the riot squad until those high security IDs were unleashed. It seemed for a moment that they would be required to contend for the return of those IDs, before the surly half-captain threw the cards back, only slightly stained with her blood.

  “Try the trade docks then. Run!”

  To the trade docks they ran then, halfway around the station through halls crowded by maddened civilians, arriving while two-minute warnings blared, and in the midst of relative calm found a tech with an air mask ’round his neck, a repair belt over his shoulder, and a senior crew hash on his sleeve, who was willing to see them, hear their orders, and consider their request for passage.

  “Soldiers, we’ll be rushing a blockade,” he told them, serious, voice full of warning. “Bad odds!”

  They’d glanced at each other, Stost and Chernak, recalling the Over Commander’s dismissal of their team, feeling the weight of their orders, which none had doubted would be their last.

  Stost had signaled lead on. Chernak nodded to the crewman.

  “Bad odds,” she said, “are better than no odds.”

  “Come ahead then,” he told them, and they boarded behind him, seconds before the final-check bell rang—

  They moved fast, past an inset ladder with well-worn treads leading up to a pressure seal, past dogged doors and hatches neatly labeled for utility pressure suits, emergency patch kits, spill containment, and one ornately inscribed, Jarbechapik—Bug Hut—past two doors with nameplates affixed, and…

  “Pathfinders? Here—only open spots are crew seats back here in engineering quarters.”

  “Head’s there.” Their guide tech pointed. “Crew room’s up ahead. Only me now, besides the bridge crew—the rest run off—run home, run to get drunk, run to hide, I guess. Grab a seat back there—” a nod in the direction of the crew room, a semi-salute—and he was gone.

  They entered the proper compartment, the passageway a tunnel between stasis-storage units and maintenance lockers—one wall marked with radiation protection signs, it being the rear bulkhead where a push ship might butt, another wall supporting two dozen lockers containing basic low-pressure suits and tools.

  “Just strap in,” had been the tech’s orders. “Strap in and wait for me to fetch you out. The crew won’t know you and you might be called for pirates or worse if you aren’t with me.”

  They strapped in, each with reference to their down-counting chronometers once they’d taken that catch-up breath, the one breath that signaled each other that now all they had to do was wait for whatever it was the Over Commander had not had the time—or the understanding—to explain.

  The ship’s transition into independent orbit when it released from the station had been smooth. But then, in moments, the action had started; bad odds, Stost signed lightly, recalling to both of them bad odds of the past.

  They sat, strapped in and humble, during acceleration, during evasion, during the bombardment, accomplished pilots belted like pallets of spare ration bars into a compartment where they commanded no screens, nor any attention whatever.

  However humiliating their situation, though, they could take pride in the fact that they were, as per their final orders, and according to Chernak’s chronometer, in space when the zeros matched across nine digits.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Bechimo

  Wyrd Space

  “Theo, the subetheric device on that ship is an unacceptable risk,” Bechimo said.

  “Is it unstable?” Theo asked, with interest.

  “No, it is not. However, I believe it is compromised. Responses to testing are ambiguous. This may reflect damage taken when it transitioned to this place, or it may be the result of deliberate tampering; it would be interesting to know which, but not at the cost of putting our crew in danger. I cannot allow that vessel on my decks. Surely you have not already forgotten the dangers inherent in a compromised unit.”

  Since they’d only just replaced Bechimo’s own Struven unit, which they’d compromised in the course of that risky—not to say, theoretically impossible—Jump out of Ynsolt’i traffic, the dangers inherent in a compromised unit were vivid in Theo’s memory. Granted, from Bechimo’s point of view, her memory was desperately short and horrifyingly inaccurate, but she doubted he thought it was as bad as all that. Still, best to treat the comment as a conversational device, rather than deliberate sarcasm.

  Even—especially—if she suspected sarcasm.

  So.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” she said evenly. “But it can’t call anybody from here, can it?”

  “Here” being a piece of space that Bechimo was pleased to style a “safe zone,” which was what Theo had originally considered to be “dead space,” where no signals came in, nor signals went out.

  She’d since revised her opinion to “wyrd space”—which was straight out of Thrilling Space Adventures—when teapots and other small bits of flotsam began phasing in from Galaxy Nowhere.

  The latest bit of flotsam was looking likely to change her opinion again, assuming the math…but before she did math, she had to deal with an intact spaceship of somewhat baffling lines, more or less outfitted and arranged like a courier ship that had just phased in out of Jump. It held air, that ship, and all systems were go, the only things lacking being pilot and crew.

  Unless the tree in the box of soil grey-taped into the copilot’s chair was, in fact, crew.

  In any case, an
d even without the math, this was another order of business than teapots, random bits from what might have been instruments, hull shred, and broken tile.

  “It can, in theory, influence us,” Bechimo said.

  Theo thought about that, then shook her head.

  “No, it can’t, because you put two layers of shielding around our unit, and set intruder alarms.”

  “It could try to influence us.” Bechimo amended, sounding cranky.

  “Sure it could,” she said soothingly. “And if it does, then you’ll stop it, and we’ll have learned something. Right now, it might be a puzzle, but it’s no more threatening than—than a teapot! You brought that on board.”

  “A teapot does not contain a subetheric unit,” Bechimo said, smug at having scored a point, which Theo guessed he’d earned. Maybe.

  “Is it the captain’s intent to remain here, in safety?” he asked then, which wasn’t as much of a change of topic as it might seem to the uninitiated.

  “Master Trader yos’Galan has directed us to abandon the route and return to home port,” Kara spoke up from third board. Hevelin the norbear—the norbear ambassador—was sitting on her knee, studying the screens like he was a pilot himself, which he wasn’t.

  At least, Theo thought he wasn’t.

  “Not to mention that Himself takes a personal interest,” Clarence added, from the copilot’s chair.

  “Val Con says he wants me to come home and meet my new niece,” Theo said repressively. “No hurries, there.”

  “He asked gently, for melant’i’s sake,” Kara murmured. “Truly, Theo, you do not wish to push your delm into issuing orders. Best to go home, as your brother asks.”