[LEGACY VERSION] The Enemy of Time (Book 2 - The Kaireyeh Chronicles)

Chapter 22 - Edora

PART TWO: AEZTHENA

Admiral Edora Zivali opened a new entry in her dream log and typed in the coordinates that had flashed white in her mind just before she'd awakened. She finished and stared at the holo screen hovering over her desk. There were five sets of numbers; these were Kaireyeh coordinates, not translight.

Her cabin was as quiet as it always was when she was alone, this early in her shift. There were the distant ship sounds, the hums with occasional changes in pitch. She'd posted guards in her corridor, so she didn't hear any crew traffic outside the hatch. Every now and then something clanged, or thumped, or she heard a distant call from the decks above or below her.

But just now she sat in a bubble of silence, with Kaireyeh coordinates on her holo display, and the edgy urge to act on them. The need to act was also from the dream.

Bumps prickled up her arms, and she rubbed at her uniform sleeves. Her dreams had never been wrong before. They'd been different lately--cold and insistent--but the information she'd received was still accurate.

She pulled up a Kaireyeh-to-translight translation matrix, which ran thousands of Kaireyeh travel scenarios and combined them to find the median. The result was a set of translight coordinates ending deep in Avren space on the edge of the Kaireyeh Eddies. The Eddies spanned hundreds of lightyears of uninhabitable space and ended at the Void--every sane crewer steered well away from the Eddies. Not even smugglers hid there. Why would her dreams send her and her fleets to the Eddies?

Edora sat back and rubbed at her eyes. She hadn't slept well since Andavar, and her dreams weren't helping. She usually woke feeling edgy, and it took some time to gain her composure.

She'd only been shot by a stun-dart once before Andavar, in a training exercise. The migraine had lasted three days after, long enough that the ship's doctor had to check her for other adverse reactions. Maybe getting shot this last time had screwed up her dreams.

Or maybe it was because she'd been shot by her daughter.

Edora felt the now-familiar anger rise and grimaced. It was too early for this, and too tired an emotion. She picked up the mug of coffee on her desk and sipped last night's dregs, then made a face and tapped her console to order her morning pot.

The crewer had probably been waiting, because she showed up a minute later. The young woman poured a fresh mug before setting the pot on a side table. "Can I get you anything else, sir?"

The question was said in exactly the right tone. The crew of the Teven Spar had made it a point to be excruciatingly correct in their manners to her. She'd heard the rumors: piss off the admiral and, like the captain, you'd end up dead.

"Leave the pot," Edora said. "Dismissed."

With the cabin to herself again, Edora opened a second holo screen and contemplated the many red blinking messages in her queue. She'd brought her own secretary, at least, who was also waiting for a summons to their morning briefing. Only the most urgent messages would be in Edora's queue.

Edora considered bringing Pirri in, letting her summarize the whole so she wouldn't have to wade through it herself, but the Kaireyeh coordinates and their subsequent translation caught her attention again.

Why would the dream have given her Kaireyeh coordinates? Why not give them as translight? Was there another layer of meaning that she was missing?

She couldn't deal with Pirri's summaries today.

Edora rose, straightened her uniform and gave herself a quick once-over in her washroom mirror, then headed for the bridge. When she entered and climbed to the command platform, Captain Roche glanced over, her thin lips tightening. Roche certainly knew more than she should, but she was discreet, and wise enough about politics to know that anything said about Jonas or Talina would be the death of her career. She was also in love with Talina--Edora wasn't blind. Roche had listed Talina in the log as on traumatic long-leave, and Edora trusted her to keep the records that way.

Edora took the flag chair--hastily installed last week, as the Teven Spar wasn't meant to be a flagship. "Where is Admiral Nejem, has her Ninth Fleet arrived yet?"

"The fast escorts came in ten minutes ago," Roche said. "You have standing orders not to be disturbed before you report to the bridge for the day."

So subtle, that phrasing. Roche might not betray Edora's secrets, but she wasn't happy about them, or Edora's control of the fleets. Good. Edora felt itchy when too many people around her agreed with her. It made her lose her edge.

"Thank you, Captain," she said mildly. "Tell their commanders to stand by until Nejem arrives."

Roche nodded, and set the order in motion.

The rest of Nejem's Ninth Fleet would arrive in waves over the next two hours. The Fourteenth and Twelfth fleets were inbound as well, but Edora would redirect them to rendezvous ahead. She didn't have time to assemble all her fleets here in this uninhabited system where Seonu's Fifth Fleet held station. Her dream had also been clear on timing: she had little room for error.

Dammit, but she didn't want to go to the Eddies. She needed these fleets to solidify her control over the capitol, at least until the Caelians had been purged from influence and another Grand Ciren could be put into place. Surely her dreams understood that? To abandon the capitol and important worlds now was to invite disaster. It was a strategic mess.

And yet her dreams had led her to Iuri Kosef's secret. Her dreams had led her to the Resistance cell at Hale, and to Andavar where she had almost--almost--succeeded in stomping out a threat to her and the Miravec Justice. Where she had almost succeeded in saving her daughter from the mess Talina had gotten herself into.

Edora couldn't afford to question her dreams now, not when the stakes were so high.

The holo screens wrapping the front of the bridge held overviews of the Spar's systems and tactical readouts of the uninhabited star system her ships were currently cruising in. On one screen, an enhanced visual of Seonu's dreadnought loomed black with bristling weaponry. Seonu was--marginally--on her side. They had been convinced, at least, that if Wycliffe was a threat, anyone could be. There wasn't yet another side for Seonu and those like them to turn to--not without turning Caelian and running to Kalec, as Iuri had done.

But Seonu would not follow her to the Eddies. She would have to manage these next few days carefully, stringing her coordinates out in smaller translight jumps. She'd cut as jagged a line as she could to the Eddies without losing too much time. There would be questions, from Seonu and Nejem and her other fleet commanders, but she could hold them at bay for a while with the very real threat of Caelian spies among them. Spies couldn't pass on information that they didn't have.

Edora sat forward. "Captain Roche, signal Admiral Seonu to have their fleet ready to leave in three hours. Further instructions will follow."

"Yes, sir. Do you plan to move on Aijalon?"

Well that was bluntly asked, in front of the bridge crew. Edora's lips drew tight. Roche was pushing her limits today.

"Aijalon answers to me," she said. "And you will have your coordinates when I give them to you."

Roche gave a curt nod, and turned back to her wrap of holo screens. Whatever she might be thinking, she would keep it to herself.

Edora let out a slowbreath. Three hours. She could manage three hours without a fleet-wide mutiny. She didn't know about the next few days.   

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