Chapter 4
Many light-years distant from Planet Oswight, an altogether different test of wills was taking place. Golsubril Vex—kosmarch of Nautilan—was unused to getting so much pushback from her system’s general officers. Ordinarily, the men and women at the top of Starstate Nautilan’s military chain were selected for their obedience, even more than their ability. A willingness to execute orders—without hesitation, without question—was one of the main reasons why Nautilan had been ascendant within the Waywork for as long as Golsubril Vex could remember. It would only be a matter of time before every system in the Waywork was united beneath Nautilan’s blood-red flag.
But first, there was the matter of the mysterious Waypoint which had appeared near Nautilan’s border with Starstate Constellar. A Waypoint which now lay within Vex’s exclusive reach.
“We must wait, Madam Kosmarch,” grumbled General Ekk, running his spotted hand over his bald head. “Assemble an overwhelming number of ships. Then proceed unchallenged.”
“Unchallenged?” Vex said, her eyebrow arching. “For all we know, Starstate Constellar has already moved many ships across the Slipway. Give them too much time to dig in, and Nautilan’s fleet and army may both pay a very high price for such a delay. Perhaps too high a price?”
“Better than rushing in, Madam Kosmarch,” said General Ticonner, who served as Ekk’s deputy. “For generations, our standing strategy has always paid off. There is no war trickery which can gain Constellar any advantage over us now. One by one, we have pruned away their outer systems. Just as we have pruned away systems from the other Starstates too. We can produce and maintain more ships than they can. We have more people than they do. Even if we waited months—to assemble an expeditionary battle fleet—Constellar’s admirals, in their Deep Space Operations and Defense chain of command, cannot divert sufficient strength to cover this newly discovered Waypoint. Not without leaving themselves fatally vulnerable in other areas.”
Vex’s marble-and-column audience chamber glowed with the light from a supersized map of the Waywork. Fifty-seven stars, all linked by tendrils of laser light: each representing one of the Slipways over which interstellar travel was achieved. It was a wholly artificial construct—left over from the era of the Waymakers. Who had vanished from this portion of the galaxy half a million years before.
Until a few hours ago, the structure of the Waywork had been static. And was assumed to always remain thus. Using the alien Keys, humanity could access the Waywork. But no Slipways beyond the confines of the Waywork had ever been created. Nobody knew how to even go about trying. The Keys were as inscrutable as they were indestructible. They permitted access to the Waywork. But not expansion.
Unless something fundamental had suddenly changed.
“I agree that our strategy has worked well, so far,” Vex said, using a trackball on her chair’s arm to slowly spin the Waywork in the air—the way a child might spin a star wheel, looking for the different constellations each culture saw in each planet’s sky. “But we’re assuming all conditions will remain constant. Clearly, the appearance of a fifty-seventh Waypoint outside of the Waywork is a sign that we can no longer make such an assumption. And though we in our system do not have the resources to deploy a fleet with truly superior capability, we can at least send a probe force. The results of this probe will tell us whether or not additional military resources have to be applied to the problem.”
The shoulders of both Ekk and Ticonner sagged.
I know what they’re thinking, Vex thought to herself. This isn’t the way they’ve been taught to do it according to war doctrine. Ignoring or flouting the rules is a good way to ruin one’s career. Or worse. Oh, gentlemen. You have so little faith. You’ve been bred too well. Trust me to do what I have been bred for, and we shall have victory. With the potential for so much more!
“Worry not,” Vex soothed, her low, melodic voice echoing around the audience chamber. “I am taking full responsibility for this decision.”
“Then who shall lead the probe, Madam Kosmarch?” General Ekk asked hesitantly.
“I will, of course,” she said calmly, a slight smile curling up the corners of her full lips.
“You?” both generals said in unison, practically stuttering the word.
“Why not?” she asked.
“It’s just that…well, Madam Kosmarch, you see…we cannot guarantee your safety!”
Here again, Vex thought. A pedant’s attention to tradition and duty. It’s unheard of for any kosmarch to participate in a military venture, beyond the rechristening of newly conquered and pacified worlds. And if this were a mere frontier system being carved out of the hide of a rival Starstate, I might be content to fulfill an obligatory role. But my senses tell me this time there is a great deal more at stake. Involving the fate of not just this new system on our back doorstep, but Nautilan as a whole. Perhaps even the Waywork in its entirety?
“My decision is final,” Vex announced, rising from her chair—her kosmarch’s official olive-drab robe swirling slightly.
The two generals—their own olive-drab uniforms neat and crisp—turned to look at each other, then they looked back to their mistress.
“I want to leave in less than a day’s time,” she commanded them.
“We hear, and we obey,” they said, snapping their heels together, then bowing at the waist. When they straightened, they turned as a unit, and marched swiftly out of the audience chamber, letting the chamber’s automatic doors slip quietly shut behind them.
Golsubril Vex continued to play with the trackball on the arm of her chair, caressing it with carefully manicured fingertips. The Waywork gradually rotated end over end, like a collection of jewels joined with pencil lines of fire. Her eyes kept drifting back to the single new jewel which stuck out of the side of the Waywork—its light throbbing intensely.
“This might be the fulcrum,” Vex said quietly, to no one but herself. “All my life, I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to change the game.”
And put the whole of human space under my thumb!