House of Fate

by Barbara Ann Wright

  “Or that you were in the other washroom.”

  “Well, now that you’re here.” Annika stepped close. She’d had far too much thinking that day. It was beyond the time to feel.

  Judit exhaled slowly, and her gaze wandered over Annika’s face. Annika licked her lips.

  “I…” Judit swallowed hard, but she didn’t run. Annika wondered if Judit would let herself be trapped against the door, a thought that made her shiver.

  Annika took a step closer. “You what?”

  “We…”

  “Better.” She was nearly there now, their chests almost meeting. She took Judit’s hands, wanting Judit to turn her head, to lean forward, anything to signal that they should take this step. The thought that Annika would have to do all the seduction work was intriguing, but another part of her wanted Judit to lift her onto the sink and make love to her before either of them knew what was happening.

  A crash sounded outside as Noal screamed. Judit was through the door like a shot. Annika ran on her heels, wondering what could have happened, if Noal had changed his mind about them being together. When she saw Feric lifting Noal by the neck, she stopped in surprise again.

  Judit charged him, but several figures in black raced around him. Their bodies and faces were covered in shroud fabric that concealed bodily dimensions and features. Judit yelled for her ship through her comm and moved to engage one. Another rushed Annika, and she fell into a fighting stance, kicking him in the chin. Annika hopped back, hoping Judit hadn’t noticed the move.

  The attacker staggered but didn’t fall. He didn’t have a weapon, couldn’t have gotten on the station with one, but how had they gotten there at all? Feric? Someone had to be controlling him.

  Another attacker rushed her, and she twisted out of the way. She couldn’t let Judit see her defending herself, but she also didn’t want to be captured. Had her family organized this? Would she be thwarting them if she got loose? Judit seemed to have herself well in hand with her blunt, brutish, Meridian moves. Feric had hauled Noal out the door. Annika charged after them. Maybe it would look as if she was fleeing.

  Judit called after her, and several attackers followed. Annika called for Noal and spotted Feric carrying his limp body. “Feric!”

  He turned, but his face bore the same half-lidded look it always did, as if he was two seconds away from sleeping. He couldn’t speak. Nocturna had removed his vocal cords long ago, but they spoke in sign language. And she’d learned to read his moods, and he didn’t seem angry or upset. Didn’t seem fazed at all by what he’d done, and she pictured the worm in his mind, slowly changing him until whoever was controlling him could do this. But who could get so close besides Annika’s grandmother?

  “Put him down!” she said.

  He looked to Noal as if just realizing what he’d done. She stopped out of reach and ducked, letting a pursuer fly past her. He dodged away from Feric, and Annika fended off his blows. “Feric!” Whatever they’d done to him couldn’t completely rewrite the programming he’d had since birth. He had to defend her. Even the worm couldn’t combat that.

  Feric launched her attacker out of the way, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Now all she had to do was convince him to drop Noal, and she could get to the bottom of whatever was happening.

  Feric reached out more quickly than she expected and wrapped his meaty hand around her neck. She hit his elbow, dug her fingers into the bundle of nerves near the joint, but nothing decreased the pressure on her windpipe. She stared into his eyes, and something struggled behind his half-lidded, bored expression, something she couldn’t fathom, but whether he was struggling to regain the programming he’d always had or resisting the urge to submit to something new, she didn’t get to know.

  Chapter Three

  Judit awoke to the soft white shell of a biobed curving around her like a giant egg. Confusion reigned for half a second before her memory came back. She didn’t move, fearing she’d disturb the bed. The seal above her was unbroken, which meant there was still work to be done, but if she was awake, she had to be nearly healed. During the attack on Noal, she’d taken a hard hit to the shoulder, dislocating or fracturing it. Whichever, the pain was now only in her memory.

  Feric had attacked Noal. Had he simply betrayed Meridian, or had he betrayed Nocturna as well? Nocturnas were never truthful; that’s what she’d been taught, and until she’d met Annika, she’d believed it. And Annika had run after Feric, so his betrayal had caught her by surprise. Judit went over the attackers’ appearance and gleaned nothing. She’d gotten a few good strikes in, but she hadn’t been able to unmask anyone.

  Judit tried to breathe deep and ease her frustration. What awaited her outside the biobed’s pearlescent shell? Had security arrived in time to save Annika and Noal? She knew she shouldn’t worry about Annika as much, but her feelings tangled together.

  The biobed made a soft, sighing sound, and the cover retracted. Judit felt a tug as various IVs left her skin, but there was no pain; the bed took care of that. A hand reached in and eased her upright, and she recognized the medbay on the Damat. Dr. Sewell had one hand on her back and another on her shoulder. His silvery hair was shot with red strands, the sign of diluted Meridian blood, but she wanted no one else seeing to her welfare or that of her crew. Having a full Blood doctor would be important to some, but his graduation high in his class mattered most to her; that and he didn’t ever fawn over her status, probably didn’t know how.

  “Easy does it,” he said as he helped her stand. “Any pain? Stiffness?”

  “No. How long was I under?”

  “Beatrice is in the hall pacing the flooring away. She has all the information you need. What I need to know is how you’re feeling.”

  She tried out her shoulders, made a show of stretching. “Fine. Can I have my uniform now?”

  He sighed. “On the bench.” He turned and fiddled with the bed as she dressed, adjusting its settings for the next patient. Sewell’s medbay was cold and austere, all shiny implements and counters, interrupted only by the twin biobeds taking up most of the space. It was small, but the Damat only had a crew of twenty. The chosen one didn’t need a warship to ferry him around, just a fast ship.

  “Take it easy for the next forty-eight hours,” Sewell said. “There might be some dizziness, some stomach upset. You had a broken collarbone. Let me know if it twinges. I’ll be here pretending you’ll take my advice while knowing you won’t.”

  She snorted a laugh though her belly was twisted up in knots. If he heard any hysteria, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he gave her a wry smile over his shoulder and waved her out the door.

  Beatrice waited in the hall, right where Sewell said she’d be. She sighed heavily when they saw each other, and the dark circles under her eyes said she’d done nothing but worry for at least a night.

  “Noal and Annika have been missing just over twenty-four hours,” Beatrice said before Judit could ask. “We’re heading for Meridian Prime.”

  Darkness, which was worse: the time she’d been out of commission or the fact that she’d soon have to face her family? “How long until we get there?”

  “Let’s put it this way; it would be easier to head for the shuttle than the bridge.”

  With a sigh, Judit changed course for the shuttle bay, shoulders back, ready to face the ire of her grandmother, of the rest of her family. She tried to wrestle down her worry, not wanting to show weakness. If her family thought she was too emotional to head up a rescue mission…

  But she wouldn’t leave this in the hands of anyone else. The Damat’s sleek little shuttle waited in the small bay, the door open. Judit had to duck all the way to the two seats in the cockpit, and she didn’t protest as Beatrice took the copilot’s seat, both of them strapping in. Judit passed her hands over the console, and it flared to life under her fingers.

  She primed the engines. “Tell the bridge we’re ready for launch when we’re within range.” She could have done it herself, but Beatrice passed the w
ords on. Judit wanted to save all the calmness she could muster for her grandmother.

  “We’re clear,” Beatrice said.

  Judit shut the door of the shuttle and heard a hiss as the air reclamators started up, pumping atmosphere through the small space.

  “Life support looks good,” Beatrice said.

  The seat under Judit heated slightly, the whole shuttle growing warmer as it prepared for the cold of space. Judit keyed the huge outer doors of the airlock, and they slid open, a warning light coating the bay with a wash of orange. The maglocks on the landing struts held the shuttle in place as the atmosphere was jettisoned from the bay before the inner airlock doors opened. The floor slid outward, heading for open space, and Judit’s stomach did a little lurch. The platform carrying them out always put her in mind of the world’s highest diving board, and she had to shake the feeling that if they fell, they’d keep falling forever.

  She disengaged the maglocks as the platform stopped, and the shuttle drifted gently forward. Judit guided them free from the Damat with little puffs of air before they were in clear space, and she could fire up the engines. They glided away from the Damat and turned toward the bright riot of greens, blues, and purples that was Meridian Prime.

  How long had it been since she’d been back here? At least two years, as the Meridians counted time. The family preferred to keep Noal moving from place to place. Their ship was their home more than any planet could ever be. Still, seeing the twin moons around the planet’s curve and picking out landmarks like the massive Paltross Island or the near perfect oval of the Shuttered Sea coaxed a small smile from her. This was the birthplace, the nerve center of her house, the jewel in the crown of House Meridian.

  “I like it, too,” Beatrice said. She gave Judit a shy smile. Beatrice’s dark curly hair didn’t show a hint of white, but she was dark-skinned like most people born on Meridian Prime. She wouldn’t be counted as Blood by most, but she was the best copilot, navigator, and aide that Judit could ever hope for. It didn’t hurt that they’d known each other from childhood or that serving Judit and Noal had been all Beatrice ever wanted.

  “I’m going to have to talk to them alone, Bea.”

  Beatrice nodded. “I’ll keep the shuttle warm in case you want to make a quick getaway.”

  Judit chuckled and headed straight for Meridian City, the capital. Uninspired, she knew. Meridian City on Meridian Prime in House Meridian, but she supposed her family didn’t want anyone to doubt whose territory they were in. All steel and glass, Meridian City shimmered in the sun, and the light reflecting off the nearby bay gave everything a purple tint.

  Judit headed for the city center, submitting all the right codes to land at the dock reserved for high-ranking members of the Blood. At the tallest building, where Meridian ran their empire, she glided to a stop at the open bay. After she landed and stepped out, she submitted to the bot that came forward and gave her a quick DNA scan. Only then did the doors leading into the large government building open.

  From the outside, it gleamed like glass, even crystal, but the inner corridors had no windows, even ones made from glassteel. Nocturna spies were keen and everywhere, and there was no way Judit’s grandmother would give them a glimpse into the inner workings of Meridian. Instead the walls were a uniform gray, as was the thickly padded floor. Maybe the leaders of Meridian thought the gray kept everyone moving; people might stop to admire bright colors or decorations.

  The halls bustled with people, all of them wearing the uniform of the Meridian military, just like hers, with trousers that fit through the hips and flared only slightly above knee-high boots. The jacket fit the same across the shoulders and then flared beneath the belt that secured it around the waist. Gray, of course, the uniforms only differed in the color of the buttons and the stripes around the cuffs. She saw many brass buttons go by, a few gold, but she was the only platinum; only the highest military tier for the woman charged with guarding the chosen one.

  Still, it meant nothing, save that it caused people to scramble out of her way. In the history of her house, she was unique. She had the highest honor of being guardian of the chosen one, but she made no decisions for the house or its people. Every other person she saw, no matter their tier, had stripes at the cuffs of their uniform, white against the gray denoting their rank within their tier, their level of responsibility within the military. Her sleeves had none. It used to make her angry, as if the military was saying she wasn’t really one of them, but she supposed she deserved it today. She’d had one job to do, and she’d failed.

  The command hub was another riot of activity, a sea of pale heads bent over consoles or talking to the spectral faces of holo displays. Many held their hands to their ears to better hear the comm signals in their heads. Judit caught snatches of code as she weaved through the room. Short-range transmissions could be made secret, but any long-range messages had to be sent over the same gates that enabled ships to fold space and travel thousands of light-years. Any such transmission could be intercepted, and any code could be cracked, though they often worked for the short term. Like every other house, Meridian only sent long-range transmissions that they knew would be cracked. And like every other house, they had computers and people whose only task was to listen to what everyone else was saying.

  And Judit wished all of them were talking about Noal and Annika and how they were alive and safe and waiting for her to come get them. She reached the central console where her grandmother was speaking with a holo projection of Noal’s mother. Judit took a deep breath then cleared her throat.

  Her grandmother turned, and her eyes bored into Judit’s, though her face was as calm and composed as ever. “Here she is now,” Grandmother said in the latest code. “Judit, speak to your aunt Cecily.”

  Noal’s mother switched her gaze to Judit. Like all holos, hers had a green cast, making her seem alien. And unlike Grandmother, her brows were drawn in anger, and Judit could feel her rage through the light-years that separated them. “Aunt Cecily, I apologize—”

  “We need your assessment, not your apology,” Cecily said. “Do you know who it was?”

  “I don’t…I’ve been in a biobed and have yet to study—”

  Her grandmother waved her away, the barest hint of annoyance flickering across her features.

  “Find them,” Cecily said, inclining her head. At least she had the specter of politeness. With her son raised apart from her, Judit wondered if she was worried for him or simply concerned for the family, as they were all supposed to be.

  “Your parents are in my office,” Grandmother said.

  Judit’s stomach dropped even further. Just what she needed. She usually looked forward to seeing them. Well, to seeing her father, but why did they have to come now? But the answer was simple. They couldn’t share what they knew over the comm, so they had to do it in person. Her grandmother probably had ships streaking toward every listening post and mining operation, desperate to compile whatever information they could. Judit straightened her shoulders as she headed toward the office, ready to hear whatever they had to say. She’d do whatever she could to find Annika and Noal, even if it meant being berated by everyone in Meridian.

  As she passed the small door into her grandmother’s personal office, leaving the noise of the command hub behind her, she let out a breath. Calm, looking calm was important. Behind the desk, a projected image gave the appearance of a window, a live feed of the outside. The sun was slanting down over the bay, turning the sea to silver and gold.

  Her parents rose from the sleek black couch next to Grandmother’s desk, and Judit looked as she always did for the resemblances between them and her, tiny markers of who they really were, but so many of the Blood shared so many features. Her mother had the silvery white Meridian hair and the dark eyes, but Judit saw her own chin in the slope of her father’s jaw. She’d gotten his broader shoulders and sense of humor. His hair was a deep copper, and she’d always admired him for not dying it to match the Meridian B
lood. His green eyes smiled at her, but her mother was as calm and put together as ever in her military uniform.

  “We’ve spoken to Nocturna,” Judit’s mother said. “They deny responsibility.”

  Judit nodded. She leaned on her grandmother’s desk, and her parents resumed their seats. “Annika seemed surprised by her guardian’s actions,” Judit said. “And it seemed opportunistic.”

  “What happened?” her mother asked. “The scans showed you weren’t in the room when the attack began.”

  “If you’ve seen the scans, you know what happened. I was…in the washroom.”

  Her father shook his head. “Jude, it’s not your fault.”

  Judit fought a blush even though they wouldn’t see it. With the rush she’d been in upon waking, she hadn’t had time to think of the washroom, to think of Annika gliding toward her with unashamed lust. “I should have been there, but Noal told me Annika needed help.”

  “Then you should have let her guardian help her,” her mother said. “She is not your responsibility.”

  Judit curled her hand into a fist. “They’re going to be married. How can she not be my responsibility if she’s Noal’s wife?”

  “She’s not Meridian Blood,” her mother said.

  Judit thought she saw a flicker of pain cross her father’s face. He wasn’t Meridian Blood, either. If their lives were in danger, who would the guards rescue first? But Noal and Annika were different. They were joining their houses. She stayed quiet, knowing that would never truly matter to most Meridians. To them, people who weren’t their own Blood could be replaced.

  “How did they escape the security net?” Judit asked.

  Her father sat forward. “The shuttle they used had Meridian codes, but when it pulled away, the exit codes weren’t right. The drones went into action with our ships not far behind. We shut down the nearest gate, but they engaged an antimatter drive.”