Pirate Throne

by Carysa Locke

  "I can appear anywhere in the Enclave. The consoles on the aisles are merely where I can be manually summoned." Vera, in a movement far too human, eyed Cannon's prone form. "His blood pressure is dropping dangerously low. He has internal hemorrhaging. He will die soon."

  "What?" Mercy clawed at Cannon's chestplate. She couldn't see his wound clearly with it on. She fumbled with the seal, peeling it away from him and tossing it aside. The wound beneath didn't look life threatening at first glance. Small, painful, and bloody, yes. But nothing like the myriad of injuries that covered Sebastian. Mercy went for her pack and the med kit within, only then remembering that it was gone, lost.

  Fear churned nausea through her. They didn't have any med kits.

  "I can’t—I can't heal him," she said aloud. Frantic, she pressed hands to his wound. "I can't stop the bleeding!"

  "Pressure will not halt the internal hemorrhaging. His body will die in approximately three minutes. Would you like assistance?"

  "Yes! Yes, I would like assistance." Mercy couldn't imagine what the AI could do, but anything was better than watching Cannon die. She stared down at his face, so serene, like he was merely asleep.

  "You are not allowed to die," she whispered. "As your Queen, I forbid it."

  Tears slid down her face. She couldn't imagine never hearing Cannon's sardonic humor again, never seeing his green eyes sparkle with wit and charm. She couldn't imagine trying to lead the pirates without him.

  "Please don't leave me."

  A drone appeared beside her. It extended an arm and placed something on Cannon's chest.

  "Move back, please," Vera said. "Do not touch him."

  Mercy lurched back. A crystalline blue field snapped into existence around Cannon. He froze before her eyes.

  "You… put him in stasis?" she asked, disbelieving.

  "It was the only way to halt the progression of his injuries," Vera said. "When you reach a medical facility, perhaps you can heal him." Somehow, her tone managed to indicate doubt even without inflection.

  "Of course we will." Mercy wiped at her tears with the back of her hand. "The medical bay on Nemesis is as advanced as it gets."

  Vera cast an unreadable look at Cannon and the stasis pod. "I do not know if there will be enough time to perform the healing when the stasis field is removed."

  "There will be." Mercy clenched her jaw. "Cannon will live."

  She crawled to where Sebastian lay in an inelegant sprawl on the floor. He was covered in blood, mud, and dirt. His wounds would get infected at this rate, but she had nothing to clean them with.

  “How bad is he?” Mercy asked Vera.

  Vera was quiet for long enough that Mercy turned and looked up at the projection of her. But of course, that told her nothing. The AI held no expression, no look of worry or concentration that would tell Mercy anything.

  Finally, she said, “He is not as critical as Cannon was. His injuries seem intended to cause pain, not to kill. However, his brain activity is cause for worry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “His injuries are not in and of themselves life threatening. However, he is, effectively, in a comatose state. I do not know when, or if, he will wake.”

  Mercy stared at Sebastian. His hair fell over his face, fanning out around his head. She moved it aside, stroking her fingers along his jaw and up to his forehead. A hundred small wounds covered him. Even his clothing was cut and torn, the self-mending capabilities exhausted. She saw evidence of burns, cuts, bruises, and angry red welts she couldn’t immediately identify.

  It looked like someone with a penchant for sadism had put him through torture. That was, she reflected, exactly what had happened. They had tortured him to get to her. Her jaw clenched. What she wouldn’t give for five seconds alone with them. Long enough to kill whoever was responsible. Was it the man she’d killed with the spores? Suddenly she didn’t feel so much guilt about how he’d died.

  She wiped at her face, feeling wetness on her cheeks. She was crying again. Everything had gone so terribly wrong, starting from the moment Sebastian had been taken. Now Cannon was hurt, dying. She had no idea where Reaper was or what condition he might be in. Ghost and Feria were in the wind, their status unknown. Declan was dead.

  Something dropped into her lap. She looked down, dazed, to see a square of white cloth. She picked it up. It was impossibly smooth and soft, the fibers that distinctive feel that said they were made from real natural material and not synth.

  “What is this?”

  “Uldarn. It used to be grown in fields here. Durable, and when spun and layered softer than cotton, more absorbent, and with a natural drying effect that makes it ideal for many uses. Including as a handkerchief.”

  “Thank you.” Mercy used it to wipe her face, and then wiped her hands and arms down. The dust of the floors here had covered her from head to toe. As the cloth wiped it away it turned gray, only to slowly bleed back to white.

  “That has also been treated with self-cleaning capabilities.” Vera paused. “Would you like some water? We have some small stores of water here, which we have kept replenished over the years. The food stores, sadly, have not withstood the test of time.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Mercy stayed by Sebastian’s side while the drone left and returned carrying a tube of fresh water. She drank deeply, wondering when Sebastian had last had food and drink. Then she used the cloth and what was left of the water to clean Sebastian’s wounds as best she could. It took a long time. She had to remove his shirt. The lean length of his torso was covered in cuts, welts, and bruises.

  It flashed through her mind the last time she’d seen him without a shirt. Tamari had spilled half a bottle of some kind of purple juice all over him while playing a game with Rasa, and laughing at the little girl’s contrite apology, Sebastian had removed the shirt and toweled off.

  Mercy had been struck silent, the casual moment underscored by a new tension. It was the first time she’d realized that she was just as attracted to his leanly muscled body as she was to Reaper’s more defined, cut build. Reaper looked like a soldier. Sebastian looked like a dancer. Both men were attractive in their own way.

  She draped the remains of his shirt back over him when she was done, for warmth if not modesty.

  “Why do you think he’s in a coma?” she asked Vera.

  “Unknown. It could be Talent related, or trauma related. There appear to be no drugs or other external influences in his system.”

  That was good news, at least.

  “Will the others be coming back as well?” Vera asked, her gaze turned to the door. “My sensors do not extend past this Enclave.”

  “I don’t know,” Mercy said.

  “The injuries on your friends are not made by any of the animal life on this planet, but appear to be of human design.”

  “Yes.” Humans who would pay for what they had done. “Our enemies tracked us here.”

  “And will these enemies try to breach the Enclave?”

  Mercy shrugged listlessly. She was so tired, now that the adrenaline had faded. “Maybe. If they do, they’ll try to ransack this place.”

  She didn’t know that for sure, but why wouldn’t they? The Alpha Queen and her people liked to take whatever they wanted.

  “If they can get inside, they will not be permitted past the entry.” Vera paused. “Perhaps you should move downstairs, so if we are breached you will not be in the kill zone.”

  Mercy nearly laughed. That’s what this place was. Not a decoy. A kill box. She eyed Cannon’s stasis cube and Sebastian’s prone form. “I don’t think I can manage them both, Vera.”

  “No need. My drones will bring a hover cart. Lift them into it, and I will take them below. Then, you may rest easy, knowing that no one will get past my defenses.”

  Mercy hoped she was right. But how long could they stay here? Even if it was safe, they had no food. They couldn’t survive forever down here. Hopefully the ship was intact. Hopefully Titus a
nd Max were okay. Treon, Reaper, Octavia, Feria, Ghost. So many lives, and she had no way of reaching them from here. Talent wouldn’t penetrate these walls, and her datapad was as lost as her pack.

  Once those creatures abandoned their efforts to get in and left, maybe she could step outside long enough to reach someone.

  “How long do you think they’ll keep trying that?” she asked Vera, listening to the continuing thumps and distant growls from the other side of the door.

  “The Kantaku are patient and determined hunters. Food is scarce. They will prowl this entrance for a long time before giving up.”

  Mercy’s heart sank. That was not the answer she wanted.

  However safe they were, this place could easily become more tomb than sanctuary. For a second, she stood with her head in her hands, overwhelmed. Just a short time ago, she’d been here in these very archives, watching Fareena’s story and knowing her mission to come here had succeeded. And now it all gone to hell.

  They’d be lucky to make it off this hellhole alive.

  No, no. That was defeatist thinking. Reaper was the most capable combatant she knew. Treon was the most powerful telepath in the galaxy. Everyone was gifted and smart. They would live. Cannon would be fine. Sebastian would wake.

  She would rest, and then she would find a way to get them out and back to the others.

  She would keep telling herself these things until she believed them. There was simply no other option.

  Chapter Twenty

  Somewhere between getting Cannon and Sebastian settled down in the archives, and sitting exhausted at a bench Vera conveniently created for her, Mercy decided there was one way she could try to help Sebastian. If she could do nothing else while they waited down here, maybe she could at least accomplish that.

  She finished the water Vera had brought to her, and tried to rest, closing her eyes and stretching out on the bench. It was a hard surface, but she didn’t care at this point as long as she was lying down. This hellish day had started far too long ago. She tried to think how many hours it had been since they’d left the ship.

  She had no idea. More than twenty, less than thirty. That was as close as she could muster. And in that time, she’d had a tiny cup of coffee, and water. She thought longingly of the nutritional bars still in her pack, wherever it was. And who would ever have thought she’d crave those disgusting things? But right now she would have happily taken a nutritional bar. Instead, she drank enough water to make her stomach think it was full, and thought about what she was going to try.

  She needed Lilith. Her grandmother would have helped her, if she could. For Sebastian, Lilith would forgo her usually sarcasm and nagging, and she would help.

  “I’m going to wake him up,” she said aloud. Her words rang with a conviction she didn’t feel. She knew nothing about comas. But she thought she could reach Sebastian. She’d questioned Vera, and the AI didn’t think it would prove harmful for Mercy to try.

  Here, surrounded by technology, she’d hoped for a few moments that he might respond somehow, that his Talent would reach out for something familiar. But nothing had happened. Yet.

  Mercy just needed to give him a nudge.

  She tried to settle her mind. Even when she was connected with Lilith, this was never easy. The only way it might work was if she fell asleep, or Lilith pulled her across. Sleep was proving elusive.

  “Vera?”

  “Yes, Mercy?”

  “Is there a way you can, I don’t know, help me sleep or knock me out?”

  “I am not a medical unit. I do not have the ability to make you sleep.”

  Disappointing. “And what about knocking me unconscious?”

  “The only methods open to me would prove dangerous to your health. I could not control the amount of injury you received.”

  Mercy huffed out a breath, one arm flung across her face as she stared up at the ceiling. It was quite far up. The shelves seemed to go on forever. Her eyes narrowed. She realized something. As far up as it was, it was nowhere close to as tall as the stairs that led down here.

  “Vera, that ceiling does not extend all the way up to the floor above us.”

  “No, it does not.”

  Ah, the pedantic nature of an AI. “So what’s in between that floor and this one?”

  “Some of the scholars preferred more comfortable working conditions. Many kept offices here, or even living quarters.”

  “Living quarters? Like with beds and showers and kitchens?”

  “Yes, but the food stores were depleted centuries ago. You will find nothing to extend your survival there.”

  Mercy sat up. But it had beds. “Can you help me move Sebastian and Cannon there?”

  “If you wish.”

  “I do.”

  Wearily, Mercy maneuvered Sebastian back onto the hover cart. Cannon no longer fit with him, being snowed in the stasis cube. But that had its advantages as well. One of Vera’s drones approached him and connected to the stasis controls, easily lifting him off the floor.

  She made a mental note that Vera’s drones were strong.

  Moving was good strategy. None of them had even realized the extra level existed when they were here before. If anyone did breach the Enclave, it would give them an extra layer of security.

  A lift on the far end of the archives was the only entrance to the middle level. It was large enough to accommodate the cart, probably because scholars had loved taking boxes and stacks of hard copy with them. Mercy leaned against the wall as it took them up.

  “Vera,” she said, staring at her own reflection in the translucent surface of the wall. “Will you tell me the instant someone breaches the door up above?”

  “If you wish.”

  “Good or bad, I want to know.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “You know, if it’s one of our group, someone else, or those creatures.” She hesitated. Vera had never seen Titus, Treon, Max, or Octavia. “Maybe don’t shoot them unless they’re aggressive, or until you’ve checked with me. There are people in our group you haven’t met yet.”

  “As you wish, Mercy.”

  Mother, she hoped they were all right.

  The lift stopped, and Mercy pushed the hover cart out into a hallway. Doors lined either side.

  “Any of these in particular?” she asked.

  “Offices are on the right, living quarters on the left.”

  Mercy moved down the hall past several doors before picking one. She didn’t want them to be in the first one off the lift. “Here,” she said. The door slid open.

  It was much nicer than she’d imagined, especially given how long it had stood empty. Emptiness usually decayed things quicker. Then again, the Enclave had Vera keeping watch over it, her maintenance drones seeing to its care. The upstairs only looked aged and neglected. A trap to lure the unwary into range of those turrets.

  The door opened up to a large room, the floor and walls made of more of that orturium. The floor had luxurious rugs covering it, seemingly no worse the wear for their age. A small desk and chair stood against one wall, a kitchenette against another, but the room was dominated by a bed. It looked so soft, Mercy wanted to run and jump on it like a little kid. It was even made up, and had a huge fluffy blanket and pillows that looked as soft as clouds.

  A door led off to the right, to the bathing room she assumed, and beneath the bed were drawers. She crossed to and opened one. She was surprised to find clean clothes. Nothing fancy, but serviceable. Shirts, pants, underthings, all sized for a man. This room had belonged to someone, once. How had all of this survived all this time?

  “This room looks like it was frozen in time,” she said.

  “It was,” Vera said. “I have cared for the belongings in all of the rooms, prepared for the day when scholars would return here.” Her voice took on a sad note no AI should be able to exhibit. “But they never have.”

  The AI appeared next to Mercy, looking around the room as though measuring it with her gaze. “The st
asis cube will not fit comfortably in here with you. It would hinder your movements. Shall I put it in one of the other rooms?”

  Mercy hesitated. Part of her balked at being separated from Cannon. But he was as safe as he could get inside that stasis field. “The room next door, please.”

  “Of course. There is running water. Heat and cooling are voice activated. Can I assist you in anything else?”

  Mercy took a deep breath. “Just let me know if anyone comes through the entrance upstairs.”

  “I have said I will.” Was that a trace of annoyance in the AI’s voice?

  “Thank you, Vera.”

  “You are most welcome.” The AI vanished, effectively leaving Mercy alone.

  With a sigh, Mercy began the painstaking process of removing the tattered remains of Sebastian’s clothing. They were filthy, and she’d rather not put him in the bed like that. She used the cloth Vera had given her and some of that running water to clean him better than she’d managed before, and then got him settled on one side of the thankfully large bed.

  With no reserves left to draw upon, she crawled into bed beside him. It cushioned her in a cocoon of softness, and she let the wave of exhaustion fall over her. “Lights off.”

  There were no windows. The room plunged into darkness, and Mercy allowed herself the luxury of closing her eyes. Sleep would be good, but she had a different goal in mind. A way she might reach Sebastian, and help him wake up.

  As she drifted off, she thought of Lilith. She focused on her grandmother, on the space she occupied outside of the physical world. She prayed this would work.

  The first thing Mercy noticed was the breeze on her face. She opened her eyes, expecting to see Lilith's house.

  Instead, she stared out at ocean waves. Blue-green water glittered beneath a yellow sun that hung low in the sky. White froth tumbled over a black sand beach unlike anything she'd ever seen.

  Her eyes watered as the wind whipped her hair around her face. No, this was wrong. Why was she here? She needed Lilith.

  She turned in a circle, casting her gaze down an endless length of beach that stretched into the distance in either direction. Cliffs rose behind her, intimidating and seemingly impassable.