To the Victor

by R Coots

  Syrus ignored him, gathering the stiff cloud of black hair up in one hand and pulling it out so he could take a guess at its length. He made the judgement that it was too long, pulled the still-active spacer’s knife from his belt, and wadded the whole mass up in his fist. A few seconds later, he’d cut it off somewhere around her shoulders and deactivated the blade.

  It wasn’t until he kicked the pile of hair to the side and picked the woman up again that he noticed the growling.

  Sure enough. The bajbarog were back. Well, not back. But there were more of them. Probably from up mountain, where digging warrens wasn’t possible but denning was. They stood at the edge of the clearing, shifting from foot to foot, heads low and growls rippling like low thunder through the air.

  “They been like this the whole time?” he asked the soldier next to him.

  “No milord,” the man replied. “They were quiet until you came out.”

  Syrus looked at the creatures, then down at his baggage. “Quinn,” he said quietly. “Toss some of that hair out there.”

  When the bundle, held together with a phase-net, landed just past edge of the meadow, the line of bajbarog shifted. And drew back.

  Syrus nodded, hitched the woman in his arms a little to resettle her, and started for the downed tree his men had obviously been using as the path to the roof. “Thought so.”

  “The genetic tag,” Quinn said as he caught up. He’d been a little more liberal in the hair he’d left the woman he was carrying, letting it hang past her shoulder blades. The sun lit her head like a bonfire when it hit.

  Syrus nodded and started up the tree. “Good thing we’re leaving from here. If I made the men wrap themselves in hair to get out of here unhurt, they might lynch me.”

  Not that they’d have succeeded. But it was a fun image, even if it didn’t get much of a reaction from Quinn.

  Twenty minutes later, standing in the forward hatch of the ship as it lifted off, he looked down and watched the bajbarog swarm the bunker. None of them attacked. In fact, he thought they looked a little lost. The thing they’d been set to guard was gone. No more reason to exist now.

  He knew the feeling. The only difference was, he lived with it every day. As far as he knew, the animals didn’t have the self-awareness to know how unwanted they really were.

  > Chapter Six

  Syrus

  The Head of the Fleet is not the Heart of the Fleet. Just as the Fleet is not the whole of the Kuchen nation. But as a head directs the movements of the body, so too does the Head command its many branches.

  -Hierarchy of Rank, Fleet Training Manual

  Syrus nearly tripped coming into his rooms. Catching himself on the edge of the door, he glared down at the woman kneeling in front of him. “What the hell are you doing?” he growled.

  The surge of arousal that hit him in the face told him exactly who he’d knocked over. The woman pulled herself upright, rubbing at her jaw where it’d hit the floor, and held up a cleaning unit by way of explanation. “The blood, milord,” she said, voice low and husky. “Milord, you told us to clean. Top to bottom.”

  Now he remembered. This was what he got for banning the cleaning crews from his quarters. Women underfoot everywhere he turned. Usually he didn’t mind. Right now, the urge to plant a boot in her ass and send her halfway across the room was almost overwhelming. He could hear movement further back in his rooms, where the women stayed when he didn’t want them in his bed. This one should be back with the others, not lagging here by the door.

  “Move.” He stepped away from her reaching hand. “You’re going to get run over.”

  She blinked at him, and then at the small parade standing in the hall. Something dark passed over her face. Scrambling backwards, she put herself out of the path of incoming traffic. He noticed she managed to spread her legs and lose the shoulder of the short tunic she was wearing in the process. It was a good view, but he had other things on his mind at the moment.

  Like the woman standing quietly against the far wall, her emotions so locked down that if he hadn’t seen her, he wouldn’t have known she was in the room. The only thing she had in common with the woman on the floor was that her hair was pinned up at the back of her head. Everything else, from the steady gray eyes to the knee length dress to the collar around her throat—every inch of her was the picture of a perfect Fleet woman. Except for the spectacular bruise forming around one eye, complete with medical tape holding the split in her eyebrow closed.

  She moved aside when he approached, allowing access to the door panel she’d been blocking.

  “Nice shiner, Iira,” he said, pulling off a gauntlet. He grabbed a knife hilt from his belt and carefully nicked his thumb. After letting the blood well for a moment, he smeared it across the scanner on the lock panel. She wasn’t anything like a sai, but she was too fucking observant. He didn’t want her watching him crack open a door he’d kept locked for almost three standard years. Fuck. He should have thought ahead when he’d pulled the women out of the caskets to start with. Or told everyone to wait for him in the hall while he got this over with. Making them leave now would just paint a giant target all over his weakness. Why the fuck hadn’t he thought of the fact that he’d have to open up the infirmary?

  The better question was: where else could he put them? Nowhere. That was where. Fuck.

  Iira didn’t reply, just bowed and moved further out of the way as the door melted open behind her. Syrus waved the med-techs and their burdens through, then thought of something. “You.” He snapped at the woman over by the main door. “You ’bout done in here?”

  “Yes, milord.” She was back on her knees and cleaning again. He got a decent view down the open neck of her tunic when she looked up at him. “This is the last of it, milord.”

  He raised an eyebrow. The floor all but shone. Hell, she’d probably been scrubbing that same spot in front of the door since morning, just so she’d be in the way when he came back. Well, mission accomplished. Except he wasn’t interested in playing evil Warlord for her right now. And he didn’t need her slipping out the door and finding one of the men to latch on to instead. “Go see if the others need help,” he told her.

  He didn’t wait to see if she listened. The med-techs and the gurneys had made it into the other room. He followed them in, Iira and Quinn on his heels. The pair of them radiated disapproval like a faulty reactor.

  The door had shut behind them. “Out with it,” he ordered.

  “Milord,” said Quinn. “It is the prerogative of the lesser to—”

  “Take the leavings of the strong. I know.” Syrus crossed his arms and glared at his second in command. “Except it wasn’t a concubine that died. Run a tally of my women. They’re all here. Instead of jumping all over me like one of your rapist freaks of nature, why don’t you ask Iira where her Chief of Surgery went? When I saw her last night, she was more interested in cutting my heart out than stitching me up.”

  The man’s face went flat, and he looked over at his wife. She nodded. Just barely.

  Quinn looked back at his warlord. Syrus allowed himself a smile, just a slight baring of his teeth. “And before you get all snippy about the body, I already sent her down to reclamation. Her husband wants to say one last goodbye, he can join her down there.” He leaned forward as Quinn opened his mouth. “My Fleet, my rules, remember?”

  Fleet or outFleet, a body was a body after the person in it died. They all got sent down to reclamation eventually—but Syrus had seen what female corpses looked like after the rank and file got ahold of them. He knew of a few people who needed that sort of treatment, but he’d rather they were alive to know what was happening to them.

  He took that mental image and stuffed it down a hole. Quinn didn’t seem to have noticed his mental wandering. He just stood there, watching his warlord with a blank face.

  “So,” Syrus said. “I make the rules. And rules say dead bodies don’t leave my quarters by the front door. You want to change that? You know how.�
�� How many times was he going to have to make this point?

  Quinn’s jaw clenched. Behind him, Syrus could feel Iira’s emotional wall crack, but he couldn’t get a clear read before she locked herself back down.

  “No? Then worry about your own women. Your wife here managed to run into another door frame.”

  That, finally, was enough to pull the man’s attention. Syrus went over to where the med-techs were rearranging the two foundlings and setting up the medunits, complete with tubing, needles, and more sensor pads than he’d ever realized could be stuck on and into a human body. They worked fast, but everything had to be tested and checked before they could start poking, prodding, and stabbing. He probably should have had someone in here every so often to make sure things were working, but the only thing he’d cared about was that the lock worked. Stitches and splints were enough to fix the injuries he’d received since taking the Helm.

  He kicked the next thought into his mental hole and locked it down. No. Not fucking going there.

  Behind him, he could hear Quinn asking Iira what had happened, and her even quieter voice telling him . . . something. Syrus couldn’t make it out, and he wasn’t too interested in eavesdropping.

  “Iira,” he said when the muttering had died down. “What can you tell me?”

  “Not much, milord.” She stepped around him and started checking leads and needle sticks. “They are in sad condition, as you well know. The data you forwarded confirms your thoughts. Dehydrated, malnourished. Liver and kidneys under a great deal of strain. Electro-stims kept their muscle mass up, but atrophy was starting to take hold.” She shook her head. “It is not unexpected, in long-term cryo. The images of the units imply they were set up for it, but they had been working on reserve power for a significant number of years. How many, I cannot say until the computer-tech can parse the data. A minimum of two hundred years.”

  Two hundred? So much for decades. Syrus followed her around the end of the table that held the red head. He watched as one of the assistants removed the temporary oxygen mask they’d used on the flight up and replaced it with one hooked into the medunit. “Fits,” he said. “Longer than I’d guessed, but bajbar take a while to dig in. For there to be as many as there were . . .” He shrugged and let her fill in the blanks. “What about waking them up? Getting them innocked?”

  “First they need to stabilize. The drugs in their system will filter out in time, and that will only happen by replacing their fluids as we support their organs.” She held up a hand to stop the question he was about to ask. “I cannot simply inject them with the wake drugs or the inoculation. For one, I am not sure what particular combination of meds was used. Considering the fact that it was a freestanding cryo unit you found them in, not a ship, it would have been a different blend than the ones I have encountered in the past. For another, there is a very real chance that forcing consciousness would do more harm than good. As long as we have them on secondary oxygen that hasn’t been touched by the Seed, the inoculation doesn’t matter as much. In fact, it could very well kill them as they are now. The best thing to do is—”

  “Where is he? I know you’re in there, milord! Get the fuck out of my way, bitch.”

  Someone in the other room cried out as they hit the floor. Quinn beat Syrus to the door, and the warlord had to stop to let his second through. Behind him, the med-techs went into a rush of motion. He didn’t look to see what they were doing. The inferno of grief and anger standing in the middle of the main room was too much of a draw.

  The man standing over the crumpled form of a woman turned and caught sight of his audience. “You,” he roared, and lunged forward. Quinn caught him around the shoulders. “You took her down there to die!”

  Well. That answered the question of what the dead tech’s husband would think. Interesting. Syrus crossed his arms and tilted his head as he watched the letten try and get past Quinn. The first rank of officer to command more than a squad or two, lettens were fresh out of Command training. They were also the first to be allowed to choose wives, instead of just taking leave time on the Breeder ships or conquered planets. It was like mixing several varieties of explosive and hoping nothing set it off. More lettens died from bad decisions in battle than ever made it to the higher ranks. And more letten wives got passed around the barracks as trophies than ever lived long enough to produce sons.

  “What am I supposed to do with my daughter now?” the man yelled, still trying to get to his warlord.

  Syrus decided his first opinion of the man needed some changing.

  “You took her down to the surface and now she’s dead and I’m saddled with a useless bag of flesh to care for. She’s not old enough to train, much less marry off!”

  The blade of the knife sank into the man’s unprotected eye and Syrus rode him all the way to the floor. The bastard didn’t even have time to scream. Growling to himself, Syrus pulled the knife out of the eye socket, tugging to free it from the bone. He did it slowly, moving carefully as he stood. The thing inside him was starting to buck free again. Letting himself off the chain now would just make a mess. One he didn’t want to deal with. Assuming Quinn didn’t shut him down the way he’d just done this moron.

  “Very impressive, Milord Turan.”

  Syrus grabbed the edges of his temper and hauled them back. Fuck it all, what now? He’d just barely gotten his shit straightened out.

  Syrus looked up and saw a man in full armor standing in his doorway, silver spiked crown of a Branch warlord built into his helmet. Now that the letten was dead, Syrus could feel something other than the pyre of emotion the man had turned himself into. And what he felt just on the exposed skin of his face made him wish he’d killed the stranger instead.

  He’d never heard of a word that could describe the emotion this man gave off. But he knew what it was. One of the first feelings he’d ever learned to identify from a distance. Guarding against it was even harder than naming it. It went beyond hate. Beyond anger and rage, or any of the other emotions of the moment. It took the long view, calculated, and prompted decisions meant to hurt as much as possible. This wasn’t an emotion. This was such a lack of true feeling that it was almost anti-feeling.

  Syrus stood and clipped the knife back on his belt. “And you would be?”

  “Forgive me. I’d thought you knew that I would precede my Fleet. I am Warlord Kizen, of the Ataorl Banso.” And then he smirked, like he was waiting for this outFleet man to ask what the words meant.

  “I am Syrus. Warlord of the Turan, and by extension, the entire Kuchen Fleet. I’ve been busy. Your alert must have been miscommunicated.” And now someone owed him cash for all those extra syllables. Beside him, Quinn’s emotional lockdown cracked slightly. Syrus ignored it. It was clear that Kizen was insane. The main thing to do now was to keep damage to a minimum and get him out of the private quarters.

  “Syrus.” Kizen smiled a little. “An outFleet name, yes?”

  “Was he your guide?” Syrus toed the body at his feet. “Quinn led me to understand that most ships of Kuchen design have the same layout. I’m sorry you needed someone to help you find your way.” Asking him if his flagship had gotten destroyed and he’d had to make do with a scavenged Imperial ship wouldn’t help. But it was tempting.

  Something in the warlord’s eyes shifted, and the bundle of not-emotion twitched. A heartbeat later, the man settled back on his heels and hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Indeed. My apologies. I was in a hurry to make my obeisance. I see I was mistaken in my choice of companion. He seemed to need directions, and I was trying to oblige. But it looks as though you have your people well in hand. If it’s all the same to you, I shall go and request some rooms from the steward, providing he can be found. Then perhaps we will be able to plan the next Campaign.” The man bowed and was out the door before Syrus could unclench his jaw to reply.

  > Chapter Seven

  Syrus

  The maruste are our lives, child. Our lives writ in the only thing that matters.
>
  Our blood.

  -nurse of the lis Chuis isk Fuerrus, to Delfi

  The starscape stretched over the ceiling and portside wall, its glittering array like the panicked host of a fleeing enemy, to quote a Fleet saying. The nanoprojectors embedded into the metal walls of Syrus’s quarters were keyed to the feeds from the cams in the outer hull of the Edde Belo, giving him a fair picture of the system as they moved through it. He could activate the floor too, if he really needed to know what was going on out there. He could also turn the display off if he wanted, but the glow of the planet’s third moon was a distraction from the keypads on the doors. The one leading to the infirmary was locked again, but that meant less than it had this morning. He couldn’t sleep, so he thought instead.

  Kizen would try to get Syrus to make the first move. He had to, or the whole Fleet would turn on him. The fact that Kizen had come ahead of his Fleet meant he’d hoped to provoke a Challenge before Syrus declared Campaign and the ban on Challenges took effect. When it came to moving up the chain of command, Challenges happened from the bottom up.

  Syrus had checked the records against those brought over by Kizen. The other warlord had worn his Helm longer than Syrus. The laws of rank were the same for warlords as for letten or ralen. The Fleet rated people according to chronology when officers were otherwise equally ranked. Only the fact that Syrus held the Trunk Fleet, not a Branch, kept him in authority now. The fact that the whole Fleet would turn on Kizen if he called Challenge on Syrus was small comfort. They lived by their own rules or died for breaking them. By the same token, if Syrus were to snap and attack Kizen, they’d greet the winner the same way Quinn had greeted Syrus. With an empty helm and bent knees.

  Kizen was counting on it.

  The stars on the ceiling shifted slightly as the ship made a course correction. His head almost echoed with the silence of the room. This fucking mess was screwing with his sleep, damn it all. Kizen was screwing with his sleep. Fucker just wasn’t worth it, so how was he managing it?