by Jenn Lyons
real war amongst the humans will start soon enough, I think. Szabo wants power. If he is not given it, he will take it. And who can stop him? No human, I think.”
“Lisa Keiler—”
He scoffed. “She’s a bureaucrat. Like Tirris Vahn.” It was the most scathing indictment that existed in his vocabulary. If a Sarcodinay Hell existed, Shaniran clearly would have liked to buy Tirris Vahn a one-way ticket.
“That may be, but—” I shook my head. “Have you always been so interested in human politics, War Leader? Or is this some new hobby you’ve picked up for your retirement years?”
“Humanity has always fascinated me,” he said. “Do you think that the human race would have made the strides it has—all those colonies—all those brilliant innovations in science and tactics—if we had approached your race as equals? We have been the grindstone you have sharpened yourselves against, and oh how sharp the blade.”
“A hundred years of slavery and you’re suggesting we should be grateful?”
“We measure ourselves against our enemies, MacLain. Humanity has been improved by that contact. The Sarcodinay have been diminished.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. In any event, I’m not here to let you bait me.”
“Then why are you here?” His voice was soft, lethal, the tiger’s growl.
I stopped. The mood in the room changed. I had an unfunny feeling he was about to call my bluff, and I couldn’t handle a dozen Sarcodinay knights without a lot more planning than I’d given the matter. “I told you why.”
“With your training, I expected you to be a skilled liar.” He smiled. “I am satisfied. If I were to believe my sensors, I would saying you were telling me the truth.”
“Which doesn’t help much if I am in fact telling the truth.” I looked around. “Don’t do this, Shaniran. I know you have men hidden behind these doors. Don’t throw your life away like this.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“I learned from the best.”
“Yes, that is exactly my fear. Nokoshe vas sikros, markos shivokin nallia,” Shaniran whispered softly, almost to himself.
“What?” I said. He said something in the old Sarcodinay, the High Sarcodinay almost never used anymore. It was a colloquial saying, one that fit the Sarcodinay sentimentality perfectly—if you would judge a man’s worth, look to his children. The saying was sometimes used as a measure of the relationship between teacher and student or boss and underling as well.
“WAIT!” I screamed. The doors slid open on either side of me. I could see large silhouettes in my peripheral vision. It would not be much of a fight: the first man who missed me would puncture the outside seal. They were wearing vacuum suits. I wasn’t. That would be the end of the matter.
Shaniran’s image paused.
“You know who I am? Do you know about the Janus Project?!”
Shaniran held up a hand, signaled the knights to hold.
I raised my fist, still clenched around its contents. “The dead man’s switch triggers a remote control. You kill me, and a ship will jump from hyperspace directly inside that Nova-class ship out there you’re broadcasting from. Do you understand? I didn’t come here to kill you. If I’d wanted that, I could have done it any time I felt like it and there is nothing you or a thousand knights could have done to stop me.”
I watched his eyes widen and his nostrils flare. “You’re bluffing.”
“I walked into this place with nothing but a few trinkets and this.” I held up my hand. “Knowing I’m Black Flagged. Knowing you have a High Guard here. Does that sound like a woman who is bluffing?”
We locked stares as much as two people can across a video feed. Finally he smiled grimly. “Rominval, order back your men. It may be that she has done as she claims.”
The knights stepped back. The doors shut between us.
I did not take this as a sign of victory.
Shaniran looked contemplative. “I agree: that does not sound like a woman who is bluffing. But in your case, in your particular case, it does sound like a woman who does not know who she is. If you did, you would never have risked coming here.”
“Why? Because I’m Black Flagged? Come on, Shaniran, talk to me. No one sent me here. I’m not scouting you out. I’m not a distraction. I’m not an assassin. I’m trying to find out why my friend died. That’s all I want.”
He smiled. “I think I believe you, Mallory Barbara MacLain. I do.”
“So what’s going on!?”
Shaniran shook his head. “It’s not your problem anymore. I have my orders, and as you said, Sarcodinay soldiers are known for our skill at obeying orders.”
“Orders? Orders from whom?” I felt my stomach start to clench. “What did they tell you about me?”
“Your strength. Your weakness. What you are. As one of your own warriors once said, to know yourself and know your enemy is to never lose a battle.” Shaniran’s gaze slipped behind me. “Make sure she doesn’t drop the detonator switch. She looks human, but don’t let yourself be fooled. Maia-Leia Shana tells me she was designed to have enough Sarcodinay DNA in her to be affected by your abilities.”
He said it casually, the matter-of-fact air of a man presenting simple truths rather than trying to make a point or break the spirit of his enemy. He was only presenting information; the key to winning any battle. I could have convinced myself that he was playing a mind-game if he had cared how I reacted.
Time decided to leave the room, taking my reason with it. I don’t know how long I stood there staring at Shaniran’s holographic image. Probably not more than a nanosecond which dragged on for years.
It could not be true.
Such a simple thing snapped me out of my shock: the scuff of a shoe on metal. I turned. There was a Sarcodinay standing behind me, in the door that I had come through. Unlike the knights who had just left by the side exits, she was not dressed in armor. She wore a simple jumpsuit of undecorated black, with no jewelry, no ornamentation. Her hair was closely cropped, shaved as short as any slave’s. She carried no weapons I could see.
I had little doubt this was Seris-Karat Valanat the High Guard.
“No,” was all I could find the strength to whisper. Even now, I couldn’t tell you which I was denying: the High Guard’s presence or Shaniran’s statement of my ancestry.
My shock at Shaniran’s pronouncement was quickly shattered by the quicker, more brutal touch of Valanat’s telepathic intrusion, and by everything that intrusion implied. Sarcodinay telepaths could do many things: but they could not affect human minds.
[Do not open your hand. Whatever happens, do not open your hand.] Her voice was a strong, dark wind, ripping and tearing through me.
I tried to force her out, tried to throw her away from me, but she was a High Guard with years of telepathic training, and I was a child flailing in the dark.
But like a child in the dark, I could scream.
The High Guard jerked back as if I had physically struck her. In that moment, she lost contact with me, and I could move again. I retreated back into instinct, into the training the Sarcodinay themselves had given me: I attacked her.
My first blows surprised her and bought me time, but I knew that if I let up for even a second, I was dead. She had longer reach, more power and was almost as well trained. My only advantages were that she wasn’t taking the fight as seriously as she should have been, even with Shaniran’s warning, and she telegraphed her moves with the best of them. I’d been taught to expect better but I wasn’t about to file a formal complaint.
She threw a few strikes my direction that were neither as fast nor as unpredictable as they should have been, and I rewarded her with sharp knee jabs up into her side that would have dropped any normal Sarcodinay but merely made her grunt a little. I was wearing her down—all the while knowing that she only needed to return one good hard blow to make it my last. She was so fast that being able to forecast her moves wasn’t enough, and after blocking
one of her elbow thrusts I found my lower left arm was numb. I’d like to think I landed a few good blows in return, but I couldn’t be sure. I started giving serious consideration to my other options, like running.
Then the High Guard stopped playing games. She came in fast with another elbow, and when I ducked under it, brought a fist up into my side. Something gave way. Pain shot through me, from my chest to my fingertips, and then sharp hot tingles. I fought past the pain, and concentrated on keeping out of her reach until...I don’t know. Until. She came in again, trying to hit the same spot. I grabbed her arm, pulled, kicked up with my knee. The result was a wet sound, like breaking celery.
The High Guard retreated, one arm useless at her side. She was frowning now, looking at me like I was a garden rat who’d sprouted wings. I felt a wave of frustration, of concentration, of deliberation. I was too hard to hit, too fast, too good. Part Sarcodinay was one thing; I was something else. She sneered at me.
My mind exploded in pain. It was crushing, washing over my thoughts with torrents of fire. I was drowning in a sea of black death, unable to do anything but thrash and writhe and sink under that much more quickly.
I screamed and reached into the dark waters. I felt the cool emptiness embrace me, a familiar caress, before the abyss echoed my scream.
Several things happened simultaneously: the room shuddered like some primal beast in its death-throes; the gloating form of Shaniran flickered in surprise as the vid dissolved
