Without a Front Read online

  Sign up for our newsletter to hear

  about new releases, read interviews with

  authors, enter giveaways,

  and more.

  www.ylva-publishing.com

  OTHER BOOKS BY FLETCHER DELANCEY

  Mac vs. PC

  Chronicles of Alsea

  The Caphenon (Book One)

  Without A Front I

  The Producer’s Challenge

  (Book Two)

  Without A Front II

  The Warrior’s Challenge

  (Book Three; Coming in November 2015)

  For my tyree.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, I owe buckets of gratitude to my lovely wife, Maria João, who gave me the opportunity to write without guilt. Before we met, I stole time from my life, marriage, and sleep requirements to furtively spin my fantasy worlds into real-life words. With Maria, theft has never been necessary. And so my greatest thanks must always go to her, for loving a writer and never complaining about being an occasional writing widow.

  Well, almost never.

  Obrigada, minha tyree; tens sempre o meu coração.

  Thank you hardly seems enough for the amount of work Karyn Aho put into this manuscript, analyzing the bejeebers out of it with her psychologist’s eye and delighting me by picking up on every plot thread and connection that I wove into it. Because authors are the omniscient creators of their works, we need to know whether someone without a perfect knowledge of the storyline can see the same things we do. There is little point in weaving threads so gossamer that readers cannot detect them. Karyn’s work reassured me that my threads were visible and helped me to find places where I could weave in a few more.

  I am also grateful to Erin Saluta, who reads with her heart in her hands and offers the viewpoint of readers looking for the emotion; and to Rick Taylor, who brushed aside my concerns about his busy life and reassured me that for him, the work of beta reading this manuscript was a pleasure he took for himself in the quiet moments of his days. Fairer words an author could not hope to hear.

  Extra thanks go to Rebecca Cheek, who e-mailed me with constructive criticism of The Caphenon and promptly received a job offer in return—and whose “tough love” style of beta reading may have cost me some sleep, but also made a visible difference in the quality of this story. I hereby dedicate every physical description of place to her.

  Glendon Haddix of Streetlight Graphics once again produced a lovely book cover from a tiny pile of words and pictures. Hol-Opah came to visual life under his hands, and every time I look at that cover, I want to dive into it.

  Astrid Ohletz continues to be the publisher every author dreams of, simultaneously friend and book-shepherd. How many authors get shipments of chocolate and tea from their publishers to keep them going? (Which reminds me, Astrid—that Irish breakfast tea shipment contains enough caffeine to keep me awake and writing for a year. Was that the plan?)

  Sandra Gerth’s editing targeted exactly what I asked for, and our professional teamwork went so smoothly that we finished the editing a month ahead of schedule. I hereby request her on a permanent basis.

  I am also permanently requesting the copy-editing services of Cheri Fuller, who is both a perfectionist and an emotionally involved reader. It is a fortunate author who finds herself laughing out loud at the sidebar comments from her copy editor.

  Lisa Shaw, who staffed the last stop on the edit train, did a crack job of proofing the final layout and slaying a few escaped hyphens.

  Finally, thank you to Daniela Huege and all of the folks at Ylva Publishing who make everything tick. You are a professional and polished team, and you’ve built a name to be proud of.

  PART ONE:

  AFTERMATH OF WAR

  CHAPTER 1

  Running

  “They won’t take any more,” said Erik Solvassen, second Protectorate Ambassador to Alsea. “I’m sorry. I did suggest sending the sane ones first.”

  Lancer Andira Tal leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Yes, you did. And we wanted to, but that kite flew into a tree. They’ve just asked for political asylum.”

  Ambassador Solvassen’s eyes widened. “That is…unusual.”

  “And that is not what you were about to say. Why does this shock you? Have no Voloth asked for asylum before?”

  “Yes, but never on a pre-FTL world.” He shook his head. “From the beginning of my political career, I’ve learned to keep my reactions behind my face rather than on it. I have to keep reminding myself that won’t work here.”

  She had to smile at his honesty. “I’ve heard that empathy takes some getting used to.”

  “It really does.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel better, you’re already two lengths ahead of your predecessor.”

  “Yes, Ambassador Frank was…not the best example of what the Diplomacy Corps has to offer.”

  When Ambassador Frank had arrived in Blacksun, one moon after the departure of Captain Serrado and the remaining crew of the Caphenon, Tal had greeted him with the expectation that he would be as shining an example of Gaian ethics as Ekatya Serrado and Lhyn Rivers had been. That expectation had been disabused within the first five ticks. By the end of the first hantick, she wanted to expel him from her office and preferably off the planet. The man was unqualified, arrogant, and under the impression that he could ingratiate himself into the highest levels of Alsean government simply by virtue of his job title and patrons in the Protectorate. It was abundantly clear that his “expertise” was a synonym for wealth—he had bought his way into the job and the prestige that came with it.

  Mindful of the newness of Alsea’s relationship with the far more powerful Protectorate, Tal gave Ambassador Frank a moon to change her first impression. Not only did he fail, he also insulted and alienated the entire High Council in that time, along with a good number of the lower Councilors. It was Prime Merchant Parser who saw Frank’s true intent. “Trust a merchant to know a merchant,” he told the rest of the High Council. Frank was not a diplomat—not even a bad one. He was a businessman who had maneuvered himself into position to open up the new markets that Alsea represented. When he went one step too far and Prime Warrior Shantu threatened to kill him, Tal figured she had ample reason to do what she had wanted to that very first day.

  Ambassador Solvassen was Frank’s polar opposite. He was shy, unskilled at prevarication, and quite surprised to find himself in such a prestigious position. Apparently, he had been pulled from a dead-end assignment at the other end of Protectorate territory, where he expected to spend the remainder of his career. When Tal asked him why, he admitted that he wasn’t good at keeping his mouth shut when he saw things that seemed wrong. Tal understood immediately: he was a scholar, not a political player.

  But he certainly understood Gaian politics. As he explained, former Ambassador Frank hadn’t given up on his plan to open Alsean markets. Though he was forced to retreat and regroup, he made sure no competition got in ahead of him. Solvassen was Frank’s personal choice: a man with zero business prospects, a poor record of advancement, and little chance of success in the position.

  Tal would dispute that last characterization. Within one hantick of meeting the portly man with his bald spot and honest smile, she had known they would work well together. Solvassen’s emotions matched his words.

  “I wish I could tell you that Mr. Frank is an exception to the rule,” Solvassen continued, “but the truth is that the Diplomacy Corps is really two separate entities. One is made up of professional diplomats with training and experience. The other is made up of political appointees—”

  “With
neither,” Tal finished for him. “And in one nineday you managed what Mr. Frank could not. You persuaded the Voloth to agree to Protectorate help with the prisoner lift.”

  The Council would not allow any Voloth shuttles on Alsea, so it had to be the Protectorate carrying the prisoners of war into orbit. But the Voloth did not want their people on Protectorate shuttles, nor Protectorate shuttles on their ships. It had been a two-moon standoff until Solvassen arrived and brokered an agreement.

  “Not much of a success, though, was it?” Solvassen said. “Only two trips and they’ve cut us off.”

  “It wasn’t entirely unexpected. As soon as the sedative wore off, they must have realized what they were getting.”

  “No, but I still hoped. These are their own people.”

  “Their own insane people. Those prisoners are a burden to us, and they’ll be a burden to the Voloth. And now we have two hundred and forty-four to take care of instead of two hundred and seventy-four. It’s an improvement.” She leaned forward again and crossed her hands on her desk. “What about the sane ones? Are they asking for them?”

  “Not yet. I was just about to propose that when Commander Qualon cut me off.”

  “Good. Then he thinks all of the prisoners are insane, and he doesn’t want them. That gives us some time to decide what to do about this petition for asylum.”

  “You really are a planet of firsts,” Solvassen said. “First to break out of the Non-Interference Act, first pre-FTL civilization to repel a Voloth invasion, and now the first that any Voloth ever asked to stay with. How many are asking for asylum?”

  Tal picked up Colonel Razine’s report, which she had been reading when Solvassen had knocked on her door. “All those that were turned by untrained empaths, and…” She scrolled down, scanning for the second number. “Good Fahla. All but nineteen of those that were turned and left fully intact. Why would they want to stay?”

  “Well, they did kill their own people. Hard to go back after that.”

  She felt his revulsion. “There was only one way to win that battle, Ambassador.”

  “Of course. I studied it even before I got this assignment—that report blew up the Diplomacy Corps com lines. I agree with your tactics. You had every right to defend your world in whatever way possible.” He shrugged. “But I still can’t think about it without imagining the horror of having your free will taken away.”

  “And if the Voloth had won, they’d have killed most of us and enslaved the rest. How is the horror of having your free will removed via slavery any more palatable than having it removed via empathic force?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way. I suppose we’re less horrified by the thought of slavery because we’re used to it. The Voloth have been doing it for four generations.”

  “So if something unthinkable is repeated often enough, it becomes less unthinkable?”

  “Seeders, when you put it that way… It doesn’t reflect well on us, does it?”

  “Or it’s simply a way to cope.” She spoke absently, having just seen her own name in Razine’s report. She read the full sentence and caught her breath, then read it again. A shiver ran down her spine. “Ambassador, I’m afraid I’ll have to cut this short. I’ll contact you when I know more about this petition.”

  Somehow she got him out of her office while maintaining a calm expression, but the moment he was out she locked the door behind him, told her aide not to bother her, and picked up the report again.

  The words hadn’t changed. The sane Voloth prisoners had elected a spokesperson—one of the weapons officers she herself had turned.

  Razine’s report made it clear that the Voloth knew what they were doing. While Tal hadn’t identified herself to any of the crew she turned, they had figured it out from watching Alsean broadcasts in their cells. They were leveraging their only advantage by forcing her to speak directly with one of the people she had violated.

  She was still feeling sick to her stomach when an urgent report came in from Miltorin, her communications advisor. Grateful for anything to take her mind off the vision of facing that Voloth, she pulled it up on her reader card to see what new crisis he was fretting over.

  The first thing that greeted her was an image of an Alsean hanging from the lowest branch of a tree, her head tilted to one side and her face slack in death.

  “Oh, no,” she breathed, suddenly certain why Miltorin was sending her this. His report confirmed it. The dead woman had left a note asking forgiveness from Fahla for breaking her covenant. It was the first suicide of a Battle of Alsea veteran.

  Miltorin was on his way to her office. He would want to discuss how to handle this publicly, and right now Tal couldn’t handle it at all. She didn’t want to talk about containing the political damage. She didn’t want to think about facing the Voloth she had turned.

  She didn’t want any of this.

  A sense of urgency pushed at her as she stripped off her wristcom and tossed it in her desk drawer. Her earcuff followed. She slammed the drawer shut and exited her office at such a fast clip that the Guards in the anteroom were startled.

  “Lancer Tal—”

  “Leave it.” She strode into the corridor, where State House staff took one look at her and edged to the sides. Without pausing, she pushed open the door to a little-used stairwell and began running down fourteen flights. At the bottom she edged open the emergency door, having deactivated its alarm a moon ago, and checked outside.

  No Guards in sight.

  Quickly, she slipped out and walked toward the landing pad, her heart pounding at the thought of being stopped. It was ridiculous; nobody would stop her from going wherever she wanted. Nobody except Micah, that is.

  She arrived at her personal transport without any interference and wasted no time lifting off. Only when she left the State House behind and had the Snowmount Range in sight did she relax.

  Fifteen ticks into her flight, the com panel beeped with an incoming message. The ID displayed a familiar code and the name Colonel Corozen Micah, and without hesitation she pressed the key to reject the call.

  Ten ticks and two more rejected calls later, she landed at the entrance to a trail she knew well. It wasn’t one of the scenic ones and so had few visitors, which served her purpose. She stepped between the front seats into the back, where a bag held her running gear. The space was a little cramped, but she was used to it by now. It didn’t take long to change her clothes and strap on her shoes, and then she was outside, gratefully breathing in the crisp autumn air.

  Dry leaves crunched beneath her feet as she walked up the trail, releasing their scent to join those of rich loam, decaying logs, and the minty smell of winterbloom. It was still too early for the winterbloom flowers to be open, but their leaves bore a fragrant oil that was used in many an Alsean recipe.

  Tal didn’t walk long enough for a good warmup. She simply couldn’t wait, and began jogging along the trail at an ever-increasing rate until she was running at her normal speed. The trees flashed by, the scents filled her nostrils, and she heard nothing but the pounding of her feet on the trail and her own harsh breaths.

  Slowly, her mind cleared until she was aware only of the rhythm of her breathing. It had evened out as her body caught up with her pace, and she ran for lengths in a perfect balance of muscle exertion and breath, effortless and unthinking.

  Then she tripped over a root and stumbled, and all of her rhythm dropped away. The vision of a slack face and a rope around a neck floated into her mind, and she set off down the trail at a dead sprint. She ran as hard as she could and then she ran harder, the breath sobbing in her throat.

  As if Fahla herself were in pursuit, demanding justice, Andira Tal ran.

  CHAPTER 2

  Political asylum

  Lanaril Satran had never been part of a High Council meeting before. She had occasionally been invited to speak at one when her input
as Blacksun’s Lead Templar was required, but the High Council meetings had always been closed-door affairs, limited to the six caste Primes, the Lancer, and occasionally the Chief Counselor.

  But then the Caphenon had landed and the changes kept coming, with no end in sight. And here she was on the fourteenth floor of the State House, sitting with the leaders of Alsea and waiting for the arrival of a Voloth soldier. A soldier who was asking to stay on the very world he had tried to take by force.

  Fahla certainly did have some interesting plans.

  She glanced up at the head of the table, where Andira sat with an inscrutable expression and an impenetrable front. She looked every bit the Lancer today, with her dark blue uniform and her blonde hair wound back in a formal twist. If the thought of facing one of the Voloth she had turned was bothering her, Lanaril couldn’t tell.

  “So the technology is identical?” Prime Merchant Parser asked.

  “No, but it’s close enough.” Prime Scholar Yaserka tossed his thin gray hairtail over his shoulder and leaned forward. “Our healers harvested several lingual implants from dead Voloth, and Chief Kameha reverse-engineered them.”

  “The man is brilliant,” Prime Builder Eroles added. She was resplendent today in a turquoise suit that set off her dark skin and hair to perfection. “It took him just three days to come up with a prototype. They’re very similar to Protectorate implants, so he had no problem altering one of the Caphenon’s chip burners to produce the right chip.”

  “‘Harvested,’ what a horrible use of that word.” Prime Producer Arabisar shuddered. “Could we refrain from using that for anything other than what Fahla intended? We harvest crops, not technology from the heads of dead aliens.”

  “My apologies,” Yaserka said. “We dissected them.”