by Blaze Ward
“I will make you proud, Ambassador,” she said, standing.
He stood as well, reaching forward to shake her hand.
“Find me the truth, Inspector,” he countered.
She would.
Or she would at least find a way to deliver Tarasicodissa’s head on a stake.
9
Valentinian
Valentinian watched the station as they closed for docking, following all the correct navigational instructions like a good, little merchant. Longshot Hypothesis was running at about ten percent power, where most ships this size would be decelerating into orbit at about a third of their total drive capacity. But they didn’t have engines as big as he did, either.
Aestrolathia was a dull and dreary planet that had never inspired Valentinian to stay longer than necessary to deliver a cargo or passenger to an orbital station, or a landing pad; find his next cargo run; and then leave.
But if he was going to be here a while, and he suspected they were, he’d survive.
The people here were nice enough, after all, in a restricted, farmerly sort of way. All they cared about, most of the time, were futures contracts, weather forecasts, and currency fluctuations. A few occasionally had daughters that broke loose from the pack and ran away, looking for excitement. Usually, they eventually ended up someplace like Jnini Centra, to be sucked into the vortex of beautiful people and the monsters that preyed on them.
All the while dreaming of being a vid star.
Plus sporadically, you had middle-aged housewives looking for a little adventure on the side.
Valentinian wasn’t too concerned that he would have to undertake an extended case of monasticism on Aestrolathia, even if he was surrounded all day and night by beautiful girls. Most of them were so utterly focused on dancing, singing, and homework that he doubted any of them even knew his name.
He had been introduced, early on, but hadn’t bothered associating names with faces. Even if he could. At best, each girl could be tracked by the color their hair had been dyed, and the particular cut, as the only way to tell them apart. Madame Cleray had chosen them to be identical. Music videos focused on that similarity, balanced by just enough difference to keep you interested.
More or less.
“Aestrolathia Flight Control, this is Longshot Hypothesis, on final approach,” Valentinian said into the radio as the hatch behind him opened and Dave entered, taking the starboard seat.
“Acknowledged, Longshot Hypothesis,” the man’s voice came back, sharp and even professional. “Docking bay B-23 still cleared and awaiting docking. No secondary services have been engaged at this time. Is that correct?”
“Affirmative, Control,” Valentinian said. “Passengers may debark temporarily before returning, and we’ll need to arrange to take on supplies later. I’m hauling the musical group Solaria Femina for shows on the station and the ground.”
“Roger that,” the man perked up. Apparently he had heard of them. Or maybe just anything new was good for a smile. “Customs will meet you shortly.”
And the line was closed.
“Customs?” Dave asked in a careful, trying-to-sound-casual tone.
“Standard operating procedure,” Valentinian assured his new first mate, a man who had obviously never done this before, but was willing to learn.
Because, you know, even crazed, warrior monks can have mid-life crises.
“What happens?” Dave pressed, obviously at a loss.
Have you never flown commercial, dude?
“So we back into the station and dock, just like at Dominion Prime,” Valentinian explained. “Two officials come aboard and check everyone’s papers against a central registry. In your case, they’ll add you, but I’ve already been here a few times. Since we don’t have cargo, they don’t have to check the manifest and make sure I have all the right buttons stuck on.”
“What did he mean about secondary services?” Dave’s face scrunched up on concentration.
“No cargo being delivered, so I don’t need stevedores or pipeline services, beyond just docking to the station and drawing air, water, and power from there for a few days,” Valentinian said. “We’re flying this about as casual as possible, just waiting for that bully Nash to start something, either here, which I doubt, or down on the planet, where it will be harder for gendarmes to track things.”
“Okay,” Dave nodded.
The big man was more nervous that the situation warranted. But Dave probably expected whatever trouble he had fled, back on Dominion Prime, would catch up with him, and be waiting on the dock when they arrived.
Valentinian hadn’t explained just how fast the warp bubble this ship cold generate was, or how hard he had pushed to get here ahead of anybody else’s news.
Even the fastest military couriers, running flat out would have had to start almost at the same time, just to beat them here by a few hours. At least this time.
Valentinian wasn’t showing off, so much as fleeing the scene of a crime he didn’t even know about, on the safe assumption that Dave needed to be elsewhere, and in a hurry.
Because the last thing Valentinian wanted was to be collateral damage if somebody felt the need to arrest the big man.
He opened the internal comm and broadcast everywhere, since he didn’t want to try to figure out where the woman was right now. Not on his command deck, and that was good enough.
“Madame Cleray, this is your captain,” he announced. “We’ll be docking with the station and ready for customs inspection in approximately one hour.”
A pause. Probably her getting over her shock.
“We’re more than a day ahead of schedule, Valentinian,” she replied from the lounge.
“Yes, ma’am,” he shared a grin with Dave as he spoke. “I hope that won’t be a problem?”
“No, no,” she even sounded excited. “This gives us time to perhaps add in extra performances. I will have everyone ready.”
Valentinian cut the line and settled back. The fight path was programmed, and the ship could pretty much dock itself at this point. He needed to be ready for emergencies, surprises, and idiots not obeying traffic lanes in space.
Dave still looked concerned.
“We’re really a day early?” he asked hesitantly.
“There is the slightest chance that news from Dominion Prime got here ahead of us,” Valentinian suggested. “If they pushed and had a ship as fast as mine. Most don’t, and regular news will take a week, unless something crazy happened, right about the time we were leaving.”
Dave’s face revealed nothing. Not the slightest emotional signature.
Which suggested the man had just drawn an Inside Perfect Arcade on the his last card.
Something big must have happened back there. And Valentinian was doubly sure today that he didn’t want to know, certainly not from Dave, just in case he ended up having to testify later.
Your Excellency, the first time I heard that my new first mate might be a criminal was when he was arrested. I am just as shocked and appalled as the rest of you…
Or something like that.
Maybe not that bad, since Dave had saved him from getting his ass kicked by Nash and friends. And might do so again.
But yeah, honesty would look so much better, if Valentinian was called to testify.
Dave wanted to say something. Valentinian would have nothing to do with it, so he called up a short-range scan on the screen between them and began to fiddle with it, just to stop looking at the big man, and whatever demons he was exercising today.
Valentinian suspected that something big would be all over the local new boards, probably in about two days.
10
Lianearia
Lianearia had not been able to sleep. Not that she was surprised. She had always managed to get by on four to six hours of sleep per night. Less in an emergency, but nothing untoward had happened.
The station where they had docked yesterday kept time with Dominion Prime, just like the shi
p did, so her internal clock was still synchronized. It was extremely early in the morning.
If they were at their next destination on the surface of the planet below, the sun would just now be thinking about rising soon. Roosters would still be warm and content, assuming no foxes had come sniffing about.
But her mind was fully awake. And her body quickly joined it.
The girls were asleep yet. Even Hiranur would only now be thinking about getting out of her warm bed and preparing breakfast for everyone.
Lianearia had grown restless, almost manic this morning, for reasons she could not identify. So she rose and made her way to the kitchen. Fixed a mug of strong tea as a way to calm her nerves and sensibilities.
A sound echoed up the stairwell to her as she sat in the kitchen and sipped. A hatch opening below.
Intrigued, she silently glided to the top of the stairs on bare feet, stopping to put a cap on her tea mug before ghosting down to the landing, pausing to peek around the corner at the lights below.
During ship’s night, the captain normally kept the overheads at the lowest setting, just enough that someone could find their way to the kitchen or head without their own flashlight.
Down in engineering, a light spilled into the engineering hallway from beyond. Someone was in the cargo bay, and had brought those lights up halfway.
Lianearia squatted down to try to see who it was. She assumed one of the girls had risen earlier than the rest and was down in the big space practicing her steps. But from here, the angle was wrong. She could only see a shadow moving.
Carefully, she slid against the outer edge of the staircase, out of view of the open doors to the cargo bay. She would want to know who was working extra hard in secrecy, either because the girl deserved a gold star, or because she was behind her sisters and needed to be worked harder, or perhaps considered for replacement.
Music was a cruel and unforgiving business. Even Lianearia had to cull them with a farmer’s eye, if she wanted to maintain the reputation of Solaria Femina for another decade or more.
Into the engineering space hallway she slipped, still unable to see beyond, or hear whoever was moving about.
Closer she crept, staying against the wall on her left.
She could hear footsteps now. the slap of gripping soles against the metal deck, almost inaudible.
Lianearia was impressed. Most of the girls made far more noise when dancing, since the music covered it. Someone was going through her steps in near-perfect silence.
Moving like sap from a cold tree, she peeked barely an eye around the sill to spy within the cargo bay.
Her gasp was hopefully silent, because it wasn’t Meryem or Belinay practicing.
The First Mate was moving in a slow-elaborate dance of his own.
Fortunately, he had his back to her as she slipped back out of sight, but she had studied enough martial arts in her dancing to recognize the man’s movements. And her Dancemaster, Kostantina, had served in the Solar Guard for a time, teaching the girls additional classes in self-defense, to go with learning how to walk and dance.
The giant man moved with a grace and power at least as good as any woman Lianearia had ever seen dance.
She pressed herself against the wall and slid away from the door as quietly as humanly possible.
The man had been moving with a length of pipe in both hands, slashing and blocking invisible opponents in the slow, deliberate steps of kata training.
Muscle memory.
Once you embedded the moves, you could bring them out at a much greater speed, slashing and killing on a real battleground at a speed almost too quickly to see.
Lianearia could fight, with or without weapons. She lacked the brute strength or mass of that man, but she suspected from the way he moved that he was faster in combat than she was, something she had not seen during the fight in the bar, as she was occupied at the time.
But Hall had engaged four or five men and taken then all down so quickly that it was almost a blue, even in her memory.
Quickly, she retraced her silent steps, anxious to be upstairs and away from the man before he realized that he had entertained an audience who could appreciate his moves.
Kostantina had showed her some of the same moves, to be used with a dancing sword, but Lianearia had not incorporated them into any song recently. Nothing she had written had suggested that level of martial splendor.
But Lianearia still recognized the katas. The Dominator’s Caelons, the elite shock troops of the Dominion itself, trained that way.
Who was this man Hall?
11
Valentinian
For a station that excelled at being bright and clean, Valentinian was amazed at how dark and grungy the doorway in front of him was. The proprietor had to work really hard, just to make a bar feel like such a dive.
Probably got fines from the station and intentionally racked up health code violations in the kitchen, just to maintain the ambiance. The air inside stank of smoke and old grease, in spite of being on a space station.
“Is it safe?” he heard Dave rumble, a step behind him.
“Seriously?” Valentinian glanced back as his eyes began to adjust to the gloom.
“Hey, last time I was in a bar with you, I had to beat the place up,” Dave noted with a wry grin. “Just managing expectations.”
“Very funny,” Valentinian replied grumpily.
He got deeper into the bar and kept his thoughts to himself. Dave had never been to Aestrolathia. It was an out-of-the-way place that usually dealt with mega-freighters from the big houses, hauling in cargo loads bigger than all of Longshot Hypothesis herself.
At least the man was relaxing. Trying to fit in. Pretending to be a spacer, instead of whatever it was he had been two months ago. Or a year ago.
However long had to pass from the moment a man woke up disgusted with the sum of his life’s choices, to the point he chucked it all out the airlock and started over.
Valentinian found a table along a side wall, farthest away from the smoke signals being generated in the kitchen. Not that it made much difference, but it made him feel better.
“This is business, so I’m buying drinks,” he muttered to Dave as they sat.
At least everyone in here was human, as near as he could tell in the gloom and hoods up around heads. That would change if they left the Dominion for some of the weirder neighbors. The Dominion was still a human-centric place.
“I have money cached,” Dave got serious. “Not enough that they’ll miss it, but more than enough to keep me going for several years.”
Valentinian didn’t ask who they were. Not that he figured Dave would actually tell the truth, but anything that left him a fool rather than an accomplice was better, on the day when Dave’s past inevitably caught up with them.
Valentinian was betting on the wife making an appearance. As the waitress took their orders and headed back to the bar, Valentinian amused himself with trying to imagine the woman Dave would have married. Or the kids, since Dave had mentioned that he had a boy and a girl about Valentinian’s own age.
It was pointless, but fun. More likely, a squad of Caelons, in full assault armor, would suddenly walk into the bar with guns pointed at the two of them, and they’d end up in a jail cell, eventually on Dominion Prime.
Valentinian had no idea what sorts of torture might be acceptable, once they had Dave in their hands, but even the best truth serum couldn’t get anything out of Valentinian, if he didn’t know it.
Cowardice has many forms. This was the one Valentinian knew he could handle, looking in the mirror. And yeah, he was probably looking at himself in another twenty-five years, seated across the table, so he could at least prepare well for his own mid-life crisis.
He wondered how he’d look in monastic robes with a shaved head as the drinks got delivered.
“Why are we here, anyway?” Dave’s silence finally cracked as the waitress delivered two glasses of something amber, took coin, and left.
“Looking for a man,” Valentinian replied quietly. “Don’t know who he is, what his name might be, or what he looks like, so I’m hoping he finds me, eventually.”
“Was that supposed to make any sense?” Dave asked.
“The local fixer,” Valentinian clarified. “The guy who finds things for you that aren’t necessarily listed in a business catalog somewhere.”
He watched Dave’s eyes grow distant for a moment. Judgmental, perhaps, but the big man kept his mouth shut. Something about having previously been a songbird in a pretty cage must have registered on the fellow, because his eyes changed and the grin came back.
“I have had it easy, haven’t I?” he asked.
“That’s why I’m the captain, and you’re the first mate,” Valentinian grinned back. “You’re too wet behind the ears to be safe out on your own just yet.”
Dave lapsed into silence and sipped. Valentinian did the same, enjoying the smoky flavor of the beer. Like all bars everywhere, tail ends of casks and leftovers were mixed in a central tank and served to anyone asking. It was always a mixed bag, what flavor you might end up with, but it tended down into the brown, porter range, and was cheap, if you wanted alcohol and weren’t too pissy about being a beer snob.
Valentinian could have afforded the good stuff. Just didn’t want to get into that habit. A Solar not spent on beer was available later for maintenance, or went into the retirement fund, where it would make more with the magic of compounding interest.
You had to take the long view on these things.
An old man approached, wearing weird robes that combined the classical monk with some desert sensibilities. Inquiring with them about transport to the sector capital for himself and a nephew.
Valentinian didn’t like the look of the old man. Smelled like trouble. More trouble. Dominion troops getting involved kind of trouble. He took a hard pass. Watched the man return to the bar itself.
