Stormblood

by Jeremy Szal

  ‘There’s not much that hurts more than losing family,’ I said.

  Only now did Katherine look at me. ‘Is that what happened to your sister?’

  I opened my mouth, closed it again. I’ve very rarely let people see me, really see me. It’s not that I care what they might think; it’s that some things should be private. Especially from Harmony. Us Reapers spend so long wrapped in our armour, in our fireteams, in the sensations of our bodies, that the concept of opening up to anyone outside of our comfort zone is an alien one. It’s why so many folks with stormtech suffer from depression and suicidal tendencies: we’ve been biochemically altered to feed on our own hyper-stimulated mentalities, to block support and logic off from third parties. Most therapists give up on us out of frustration.

  But sometimes, against all logic and reason, you take a leap of faith. If I couldn’t trust Katherine with this, how could I trust her with my life?

  More than that: I wanted to trust her. Wanted her to trust me.

  I let the words spill out of me. ‘Rent isn’t cheap on New Vladi. My sister was planning to leave home and take me and Artyom with her. My father was … difficult to live with. We wanted out. Kasia knew a few guys who were in gangs, controlling the local drug trade. Spacefaring traders had just brought grimwire and synthsilver to New Vladi. Most of it was seized by the local forces, but not all of it. They issued a public warning to stay away from the stuff. And guess what happens when you tell people they can’t have something?’

  ‘You’ve sold them for life,’ Katherine confirmed.

  ‘It spread through the main city, reaching across to towns and remote settlements. Shipping it became a high demand, rewarding business. All Kasia needed was a few deliveries and she’d be set. There was this one guy called Joon. Joon Szymanski.’ We looked down simultaneously as the stormtech burned an enraged blue up my arms, twisting in furious knots. I worked some saliva into my throat. ‘My sister did about half a dozen shipments for him. But there’d been raids and people were on high alert. When Kasia told him she wanted out, he had a choice: let her go and trust her silence. Or silence her for good.’

  Katherine looked at me for a long moment. Not saying a word, she poured me a glass of vodka and slid it towards me. I wished more than ever that I could get drunk.

  ‘It took us a week to find her body. He’d have come for us, too, but Kasia was smart enough to use a false identity. We overheard Szymanski boasting about killing her to his mates when he thought no one was listening. Everyone knew he did it.

  ‘On New Vladi we don’t bury our dead. We leave their bodies on the mountain for the animals. Only one family member is allowed to take them up. I was the one who did. But she deserved better than to have her body torn apart by animals.’ My words were thick and raw, catching in my throat. ‘I dug her grave out of the frozen dirt with my own hands, right on top of the mountain where we’d go sometimes to sit and watch the view. There’s no sight like it, Katherine. Not in the entire Common. Fields and snowcapped mountains and vast, empty tundra as far as you can see, no sound but the wind in your ears. It was our one place of peace. And she’s buried there for ever, right in our spot. I’m the only one who knows where it is.’

  ‘How old were you?’ Katherine asked quietly.

  ‘It was my thirteenth birthday. The day Kasia promised we’d be free to live a new life together.’

  Katherine set her glass down very carefully. ‘Vak … I don’t even know what to say. Some folks wouldn’t have come back from that.’

  I managed to plaster on a tight smile. ‘We’re a different breed on New Vladi. Everything’s tough there. If you want justice for a crime, no matter how big or small, you go to the Five Courts. If they cannot reach an acceptable settlement, you fight to the death. I’ve seen people butchered over land disputes and reach a settlement agreement for war crimes.’ Even thirteen-year-old me knew I’d never have enough evidence against Szymanski: with his family name and privileges he would always walk. ‘Or, you go to the one person on New Vladi who has authority above all others: the Babushka.’

  ‘I remember you telling me. Babushka means grandmother, right?’

  ‘By title only.’ I’d heard of folks unhappy with her authority who’d tried to take her out. They tried once. Only once. ‘She decides whether to remain neutral, mete out justice herself, or allow you to take it into your own hands with no consequences.’

  ‘And that works?’ she asked, as if I’d told her we used death by stoning as a capital punishment.

  ‘It’s worked for hundreds of years, ever since the first settlements,’ I said. ‘We’ve got about half a dozen crime families running the show on New Vladi. They only have one thing in common: they all respect the Babushka.’

  ‘What did she do for you?’

  ‘She allowed me to decide Joon Szymanski’s fate, and helped me deliver it.’ The stormtech was cycling through me now, stirring up the old wounds like a storm dredges up the ocean floor. I let it. I needed to say this, needed someone to hear it. ‘She gave me a toxin to mix with his synthsilver. It made his body dependent on the drug. It also meant that, over time, synthsilver would become deadly to his system. If he didn’t use it, his system would slow down, his organs would fail and his motor functions gradually decline.’ I swallowed, my throat parched but unable to raise my glass to drink. ‘So he had a choice. Use it and poison himself slowly. Or don’t use it and suffer as his bodily functions shut down one by one.’ I stared into the vodka, shimmering like mercury in my glass. ‘I don’t know what he decided or how long he lived. But I never saw or heard from him again.’

  Katherine said nothing. Not intruding, not questioning, just letting me speak.

  ‘Everyone told me to forget it, always forget,’ I said. I felt myself drifting down the backstreets of my mind, dark places I swore I’d close. ‘To leave Kasia behind. Get some sort of closure out of moving on. But she made me who I am. She’s part of who I am. It’s not such a terrible thing, grief. It means you carry a bit of them with you. Forgetting her would be forgetting that. Forgetting how I got here, who I am. I can’t do that to my sister. I can’t imagine anything worse than drifting off, unremembered and forgotten. She deserves better than that. Even if no one else remembers her, I will.’

  Katherine reached out to me, holding my hand, allowing my fingers to fold into her’s. She wore a sad, tight smile on her face. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m glad you told me.’

  ‘So am I,’ I said, and realised how much I meant it. How glad I was that Katherine knew this about me. ‘So am I.’

  27

  The Kaiji

  Everyone tries at least once to out-drink a Reaper. And everyone learns that it’s impossible and never to do it again. Everyone except Grim. No matter how many times he drank with me, he never learned his lesson. He was roaring drunk as he sagged between me and Katherine, his breath smelling like a gin-distillery and moaning that he felt like death. Katherine wasn’t looking so great, either.

  We were in some kind of small parkland. Miniature greenhouses growing tropical fruits and vegetables were scattered around us. Rinds glistened behind chainglass walls, streaked with condensation. Globes of white light were strung above the trees as we stumbled down the pathway. But the scenery was lost on the other two. I grinned at both of them, not so much as tipsy. ‘I could go for a few more rounds. What do you guys say?’ I raised my voice. ‘Vodka? My treat?’

  ‘Oh, please god no,’ Grim said, clutching at his head.

  ‘Maybe some gin? A couple of shots will do you right.’

  ‘I’m going to puke my guts out,’ Grim groaned.

  But come the morning, I knew he wouldn’t regret it. We’d both needed this. What had happened in that arena hung over us, even if Grim was a good enough friend not to say so. Getting smashed in public together wouldn’t fix everything, but it helped. As had talking to Katherine
.

  Katherine’s palmerlog rang. ‘Please don’t let that be work,’ she muttered as we set Grim down on a well-worn park bench. He rolled over, falling to the soggy grass and somehow managing to grab onto a bergamot tree. He lay there like a dead fish, still groaning, paying no heed to the flustered octodrones harvesting the tree, wondering what he was doing to their property.

  ‘Wait. Say that again.’ Katherine’s mouth was set in a grim line as whoever was on the other end of the palmerlog spoke. ‘You’re serious. No, he’s with me. Yes, I’ll tell him.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked tentatively.

  ‘It’s the Kaiji,’ she said, not taking her eyes off me. ‘They want to meet with you. Alone.’

  They gave me the choice of saying no, of course. But it was the sort of choice you know is really no choice at all.

  I hadn’t seen Saren since the raid on the compound down in the Warrens, not until he invited me for lunch at a lavish hotel buffet for a pre-meeting briefing. Turns out, he wasn’t only a Harmony SubPrimer but was on Harmony’s Alien Affairs Committee. ‘We’re still in peace negotiations,’ he told me as we sat. Jasken stood guard in plain clothes, angled away from the other customers. ‘Anything you do could jeopardise our task, so you have to play their game.’

  ‘Oh, good. No pressure,’ I said.

  ‘They’re … different.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘In every way. They haven’t assimilated into human society like the Bulkava or Torven. They’re a heavily militarised, regimental species. Rank, hierarchy, order, are of the highest priority with these guys. They don’t like to waste their time, and they don’t tolerate fools. Their homeplanet is a hellscape, ravaged by brutal metal storms and a thin ozone layer. Until they escaped their system, both space and resources were incredibly scarce. They’ve been a spacefaring species for at least several millennia, with a presence on over a dozen planets and three star systems. Nevertheless, specificity and frugality has been ingrained into them.’

  I leaned back in our alcove. The buffet area around us was minimalist grey and white, though the food spread was set out like a photoshoot. Thick wads of prosciutto, rolls of bacon and spiced salami, membrane-thin. Fried tomato, slices of melon and bowls of glistening berries. Omelettes and hash-browns and lacquered duck and dripping pork. White yoghurt and honeycomb swirl and sottocenere cheese with winks of nutmeg. Thick, chunky sourdough and raisin bread and cake, light as a breath. Carafes brimming with freshly squeezed juice. It all looked fantastic, but I settled on spiced egg with red onion and shallots with a side of steaming black coffee.

  Compass never sleeps, so despite the predawn hour, the buffet was quickly filling with people. Most of them were pilots, Navigator crews, Shipmasters, all getting their last proper meal before reboarding their spacecraft. To say shipboard food is terrible is like saying engine solvent doesn’t mix well with vodka.

  ‘Why meet with me, and not anybody else?’ I asked.

  ‘My guess is because you’re a Reaper. Maybe they think a soldier represents their interests better. Their Shipmasters, Commanders, Naval Officers are big leagues in their hierarchy, so maybe they assume we operate on a similar wavelength. They’ve got a specialised military intelligence called Elite Tactical Force. If they’re around, they mean business.’ Saren began carving his way through a cheese platter. ‘As part of the peace negotiations, Kindosh has been providing them regular status updates of your investigation into the Reaper deaths. They’ll probably want to talk to you in person.’

  I extended an arm, livid with churning clouds of stormtech. ‘You think this has got something to do with it?’

  ‘Definitely. They’ll probably ask you to see it. Do what they ask, but within reason. Don’t agree to anything. They’ll hold you to it.’

  Maybe I was out of my depth. ‘It’s that serious?’

  ‘From what we understand, they’re top political players. Could eat the Borgias for breakfast.’

  ‘I don’t know who that is,’ I said evenly.

  Saren looked as if to explain, but evidently decided it was too much trouble. ‘They’re powerful creatures with massive armadas. They’ve got superior-class dreadnoughts, battlecruisers and frigates at their command, packing high-class artillery weapons and defence systems. As far as political, technological and military might goes, they’re the most powerful alien species in the galaxy. We need to stay friendly with them. If we went to war we’d probably lose.’

  ‘They’re that powerful?’

  ‘They’re that powerful. They’re still upset that Harmony used stormtech in the first place, so their being here at all means they’re ready to take action. We need that action to be in our favour. Just so you know who you’re meeting with: Ambassadors and politicians all carry a van in the middle of their names. Military and Naval personnel have dan. Presumably, you’ll be meeting with three of them.’

  ‘Three to one?’ I asked.

  ‘Their politicians usually work and travel in threes.’ Saren drained his third coffee that morning. ‘Oh, and whatever you do, don’t touch their horns. The males find it incredibly emasculating and offensive.’

  ‘Wasn’t planning on doing that.’

  ‘You’d be surprised what people try to get up to with aliens. They’re not intelligent animals who learned to talk, like pro-human groups like to pretend they are. Most aliens have history and culture stretching back three times further than humans do. That goes double for the Kaiji. If you’re condescending, they’ll react badly. Understand?’

  ‘Be polite, be diplomatic, don’t say anything stupid.’

  ‘That’s the gist of it.’

  I waved Jasken over. It wasn’t like I was going to get shot in here. ‘Food’s going to go to waste,’ I said, gesturing at the spread.

  ‘Thanks, kid.’ Jasken planted himself down and swiped a hunk of meat before Saren could protest. ‘Barely eaten all day. Shoddy shift rotation.’

  Saren elected not to comment on that. ‘I owe you for the armour,’ I told Jasken. ‘It wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it.’

  Jasken shrugged. ‘Your money’s not going to be worth much if you kick the bucket tomorrow. Live it up now, I say.’

  ‘That’s such a moronic philosophy to hold onto,’ Saren sighed. He and Jasken seemed to disagree about everything except how much they hated the House of Suns.

  ‘It’s true!’ Jasken protested through a mouthful.

  ‘But it doesn’t make it wise!’

  Jasken shook his head. ‘You Navigators. Always about the long game, waiting and waiting for something to pay off. Not everything’s light years away, you know.’

  ‘You trained to work on spacecrafts?’ I asked Saren.

  Saren nodded. ‘It’s in the family, so it was expected of me. Trained for astral navigation and onboard management on chainships, lungships, even deepspace dreadnoughts. Wanted to be a Commander one day. Compass might be our home, but there’s a whole other universe out there that needs discovering. Not everyone’s got the aptitude for spending years in a ship surrounded by vacuum or surviving warpspace, but I do.’

  ‘Why’d you stop?’ I asked.

  ‘Things didn’t work out. But I landed with second best. I can’t say I’m sorry it ended up this way.’

  Two more rounds of coffee and a pastry each and we wrapped up the briefing. I returned home to give my armour a good scrubbing before strapping into it and heading to Spacedock 409D, as instructed. I went early to make an impression. Three hours later, I was still sitting in the brightly lit arrivals hall, watching the never-ending stream of ships docking. Of course the military-minded aliens with the mega-sized space fleets were late. A good reminder as to which species was waiting on who around here.

  By now, whatever cohesive thoughts I’d cobbled together had quickly fallen apart. Meeting up with the mysterious creatures from the verge of
the Common will do that to you. I knew people who’d hack off their right arm to get a few minutes alone with the Kaiji. It was more likely they’d hack off both my arms and beat me to death with them by the time the day was done.

  They weren’t there one minute and the next they were. Three of them, just as Saren predicted. A little taller than me, wearing elaborate, ceremonial suits with high collars, long sleeves and heavy hooded cowls. No helmets or any kind of space-appropriate gear. They were slender and elegant, ash-skinned with large eyes and a crown of horns atop their heads. Two of them had soot-black eyes, while the other’s eyes were cerulean, matching the sash over his shoulder. Their noses wrinkled, as if already smelling the stormtech in me.

  The tallest spoke first. A sharp, multi-layered voice with a strange depth to it. ‘You are Vakov Fukasawa?’ He’d completely butchered my name, but I’m used to that. It’s not exactly John Smith.

  I nodded, but they showed no reaction. Then I remembered Saren’s words. ‘Yes. I am.’

  And they whirled away, robes dragging on the floor, apparently expecting me to follow. Well, this was going to be interesting. His words about their social niceties seemed to be proving true, too. I caught up and noticed they were wearing armour under their ceremonial clothes. High-tech and curved close to the body. Designed to go undetected.

  I followed them to their docked transport – a black pod in the shape of a balloon. It looked like a short-range transit craft, but it’s hard to tell with alien tech and I had no idea where they planned to take me. My knowledge of the entire species ended at the fact that they were pissed at Harmony for using stormtech. And once away from Harmony’s jurisdiction, they could do whatever they wanted with me.

  But if I wanted answers, I had to trust them.

  I entered their pod.

  ‘You must be Fukasawa,’ a voice like thunder said.