Alliance of Equals Read online

  Table of Contents

  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

  CAST OF CHARACTERS & GLOSSARY

  ALLIANCE OF EQUALS - eARC

  SHARON LEE & STEVE MILLER

  Advance Reader Copy

  Unproofed

  BAEN

  A new novel in the popular and exciting science fiction Liaden Universe® series. Over a half million Liaden Universe® books sold with an audience that keeps growing!

  Beset by the angry remnants of the Department of the Interior, challenged at every turn by opportunists on their new homeworld of Surebleak, and somewhat low on funds, Clan Korval desperately needs to reestablish its position as one of the top trading clans in known space. To this end, Master Trader Shan yos'Galan, aboard Korval's premier trade ship, Dutiful Passage, is on a mission to establish new business associations and to build a strong primary route that links well with existing Loops and secondary routes.

  But reestablishing trade and preserving the lives of the few remaining members of the clan aren't all of Korval's problems. Matters come to a head as Dutiful Passage, accustomed to being welcomed and feted at those ports on its call-list, finds itself denied docking, and blacklisted, while agents of the DOI mount armed attacks on others of Korval's traders, under the very eyes of port security systems.

  Traveling with Dutiful Passage on this unsettling journey is Padi yos'Galan, the master trader's heir and his apprentice. Padi is eager to make up for time lost due to Korval's unpleasantness with the Department of the Interior. She is also keeping a secret so intense that her coming of age, and perhaps her very life, is threatened by it.

  BAEN BOOKS by SHARON LEE & STEVE MILLER

  THE LIADEN UNIVERSE®

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  Ghost Ship

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  Necessity’s Child

  Trade Secret

  Dragon in Exile

  Alliance of Equals

  OMNIBUS VOLUMES

  The Dragon Variation

  The Agent Gambit

  Korval’s Game

  The Crystal Variation

  STORY COLLECTIONS

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  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

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  please go to www.baen.com

  Alliance of Equals

  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 ©2016 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: 978-1-4767-8148-8

  Cover art by David Mattingly

  First Baen printing, July 2016

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  t/k

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)

  Printed in the United States of America

  THANKS TO . . .

  Patrick Shawn Bagley, for the gift of his expertise—

  and for being a good sport

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dutiful Passage

  He rushed her, a tall Terran male, overtopping and outmassing her. Padi dropped back one step, flat-footed and centered, knees flexed—and he was on her, keeping himself tight, seeking to overturn her with his speed, and flatten her under his weight. She ducked inside his reach, snatching at belt and elbow, twisting her upper body, letting him lift himself over her shoulder. Momentum, it was all his own momentum, and, in the last instant before she let him go, she straightened, adding her motion to his, throwing him with every ounce of strength she possessed before she released him—and continued the spin, completing the move and dissipating unused energy.

  Her late opponent hit the floor some number of his own body lengths down the room. Hit, rolled, and leapt to his feet; turned…

  …and bowed, vanquished to victor.

  “Your follow, having thrown your attacker far away?” he inquired in Terran.

  Padi’s bow was from student to teacher.

  “I would have run, sir, and been many blocks distant before he regained his feet.”

  “And if he had a partner at the top of the street?”

  “I would have shot her,” she said coolly, “and run on.”

  “I see.”

  Arms Master Schneider looked around the practice room, as if he were seeing something other than the padded walls and floor.

  Padi folded her hands and waited. Arms Master Schneider took time with his words, and there was no speeding the man up, no matter how much one might wish it. Padi supposed it another sort of practice, and did her best to recruit herself to patience.

  “I wonder,” he said eventually, walking toward her, his posture soft, and his hands unthreatening. Padi remained at center, and allowed her hands to unfold into neutral positions at her sides.

  Her instructor did not seem to notice; he continued to walk gently forward, his eyes on her face.

  “It’s very natural,” he said, resuming speech without giving voice to what it was he had wondered, “to want to throw an enemy as far from yourself as possible, gaining the opportunity to run. But it seems to me, Padi, that your solution to a rush is invariably to throw.” He smiled, and added, “Even if you are able to throw impressively far.”

  He paused, well inside Padi’s defense space, and settled deliberately, hooking his thumbs in his belt.

  “We’re fortunate to have such ample practice space, but I wonder what you would do, if you were on port, and had to counter an attack in, let’s say, a small space. An alley, a vestibule, even a ’fresher? What, for instance, if the person standing peaceably next to you suddenly—lunged?”

  He did so, far too close for mercy. There was only one imperative, here: survive to protect her pilot, and her passengers—a little boy with two infants in his charge.

  S
he knew the answer; she had drilled the answer until it was reflex.

  Ducking, she stepped into his lunge, raised a hand and snapped into a short, savage jump. The extended palm should have caught him under the chin, but Arms Master Schneider was far too canny for that. He arched into a backflip, using the space he had only just been scolding her for utilizing. Padi landed lightly in place, shaking her arms to release the energy she had withheld. Delivered with full force, the strike to the chin would have snapped her attacker’s head back and broken his neck.

  It was of course very bad form to kill one’s instructor; besides, she liked Arms Master Schneider—and it was practice. Even if the blow had landed, he would have been in no danger, though he might have had a headache, after.

  “Your reasoning?” he asked, from two body lengths away.

  Padi bowed.

  “You had posited cramped quarters and an assailant well within my space. The only sure answer in such a case is a kill. I cannot risk a deflection; I might find myself snatched and immobilized, unable even to call a warning. I cannot risk a prolonged engagement, if indeed, as you had also offered, the first attacker was one of a team. I am alone, and I must prevail quickly, if I am to survive.”

  There was a long silence while Arms Master Schneider mulled over his store of words.

  “Let’s try another scenario, in that same small space, in a confusion of wind and darkness, let’s say. A person is grabbing for you, and crying out. What’s your answer?”

  Padi frowned, and paused to consider the question twice, suspecting a trick, but a second examination revealed nothing that might change her answer.

  “It is the same,” she said calmly. “I must take definitive action.”

  “And if it’s later found that the person who reached for you was asking for your assistance—or warning you of danger? Your answer would kill an innocent—even an ally—no differently than a villain.”

  But this is play-acting! Padi thought irritably.

  “The only intent I can be certain of is my own,” she said, which was straight from the training tapes they had Learned on the Rock. “Others depend upon me. I cannot risk myself.”

  “What do you risk, by dancing an avoid before the kill?”

  “Time,” she said promptly. “Tempo. Opportunity.”

  Arms Master Schneider pressed his lips together, which he did when he was considering something especially difficult.

  “We have a few minutes left,” he said eventually. “Let’s practice some of the common avoids. Particularly, we should pay attention to how much time is lost to the move, and if tempo can be preserved—or even created. You will take the part of the attacker.”

  He bowed, and she did. Both centered themselves.

  “At will,” he said, and Padi launched into action.

  —•—

  There was no new correspondence in his mail queue.

  There was, for instance, no letter from the Terran Trade Commission confirming the committee’s decision to upgrade Surebleak Port from Local to Regional. Such confirmation had been promised to him by the committee chair no later than the end of the relumma, which was fast approaching.

  Additionally, there was no letter from Lomar Fasholt, which he had been expecting daily, if not hourly, since Theo had reported that his former trade partner had broken with her Temple, and subsequently disappeared from her homeworld.

  Nor, for that matter, was there a message from Theo, acknowledging receipt of his pinbeam, and reporting that she, her ship, and her crew were en route to Surebleak and the safety of Korval’s clanhouse.

  Shan glared at the empty inbox. It hardly seemed fair or fitting that a circumstance which ought to have afforded real, if fleeting, pleasure should instead generate strong feelings of frustration.

  He felt his fingers moving in a soothing, familiar rhythm, glanced down and saw a chipped red gaming counter, its edges showing naked wood, moving across the knuckles of his left hand. The token crossed the last knuckle, his hand turned, palm up, to catch the thing before once again setting it on its journey.

  He sighed.

  He had acquired the gaming token, and the fingering exercise, elsewhere, and some little while ago. In fact, he had lately considered himself quit of both, having gone so many days undisturbed by either, only to find them manifesting again, and with the Passage barely out of the home port. Simple sleight-of-hand, that was all. Completely unremarkable, save for the manner of its…acquisition.

  Three times, while he watched, the token walked across his knuckles. At the end of the fourth journey across the back of his hand, it did not fall into his waiting palm, but seemed instead to vanish into plain air. That would, perhaps, have been comforting, if he did not know with a certainty that had nothing to do with logic, or even understanding how the trick was done, that the token was, now, in his right front trouser pocket.

  Blast the thing.

  He took a deep breath to cool his irritation, and looked back to the screen.

  Certainly he had other work to fill his idle hours, even if he had no mail.

  The touch of a key banished his unsatisfying inbox and brought the sketch of the new trade route onto the screen.

  It was, truth told, a malformed and unbalanced thing, hardly worthy of a novice trader, much less a master. He knew how to build routes, of course, but the sad truth was that most of his work as Korval’s master trader had been the maintenance and modification of long-established routes built by the master traders who had gone before him.

  He hadn’t built a major new route since…well…since the Bestwell-Kessel-La’Quontis Route, the year that Padi was born.

  “Admit it, Shan,” he said aloud, “you’ve gotten soft.”

  There being no argument forthcoming from himself, he reached for his wineglass and sipped, eyes on the inelegant shambles adorning his screen.

  He might, he thought, putting the glass aside, be somewhat kinder to himself. The route as described revealed not so much a master trader whose skills had atrophied, as a master trader who was required to feel his way, combining discovery with design.

  The first part of the route—that had been well enough, with six stops of light trade, all at ports known to Korval ships, if not to Dutiful Passage herself. At each of those six ports, in addition to the trade, he and Priscilla had met with allies and business partners, to strengthen old ties, and to build new ones, where necessary, the two of them empowered by the delm to speak with Their Voice.

  They were now embarking upon the second phase, wherein they would be on the search for new trade partners, allies, and business associates. They would also, in this phase as in the former, be demonstrating to the universe that Clan Korval, doing business as Tree-and-Dragon Family, was doing business; that it was not afraid of its enemies, nor ashamed of its past actions. Miri had dubbed the plan playing chicken with the universe, but she had agreed with him, Priscilla, and with Val Con, that the demonstration was required.

  Though the actions that had seen Korval banished from Liad had been justified, not to say necessary, they had—people, rumor, and politics being what they were—their character to redeem, and the sooner they began that work, the sooner they would succeed.

  Also, they labored under another piquant truth: the clan’s purse was…less than plump. Oh, they were by no means destitute, and Ms. dea’Gauss was hard at work establishing new income streams and researching new investments.

  Still, there had been a cost in removing themselves, and their finances, from Liaden society, and Liaden economy. In the long term, Liad would pay the larger portion of that invoice, which, while satisfying to contemplate, did nothing to mitigate the necessity of Korval’s holding household while establishing a firm base of operations on a rather backward planet, and seeking to expand their resources.

  Historically, the clan had expanded resources through trade. And it was his duty, as Korval’s master trader, to build new routes—strong, viable, profitable routes—and build them quickly. br />
  Which he had best be about.

  So. Their first new stop on the route they were simultaneously discovering and building was Andiree in the Kinsa Sector. According to the Guild Quick Guide, Andiree was a solid port, rated Safe, for whatever comfort that might lend to the naive, or those who made it their business to be unsafe. It declared itself Terran, yet had included in its colonizing population a small number of Liaden artisan clans.

  That was of interest, being something like the situation in which Korval now discovered itself. The Liaden artists of Andiree, rather than forming an enclave from which the greater planetary society was excluded, as Liadens had done on other worlds where they were the minority population…the artists had embraced the local culture, first on the level of craft, as they joined with those who shared their passions for pottery, sculpture, painting, paper-making, carving, and weaving, and from that base spreading out, into, and finally joining with the planetary society.

  According to the anthropologists who had studied the place, what had occurred over time was not the assimilation of one population, with its customs, into the other, but a melding that had produced a separate-but-equal third society with entirely new customs. The primary unit of personal allegiance, for instance, was neither clan nor family, but guild. Contract marriage existed, but between guildmasters only, as a political tool, rather than for progeny. Balance existed, administered formally through the guilds, while Balance between individuals was socially unacceptable.