She shrugged, showing that the price mattered little to her. “I can give you your life,” she tried.
He laughed and lowered the sword completely. “No, you can’t, since you’re not likely to leave here with your own. But even if you could, that’s not enough. There’s no good being alive and poor.”
She smiled. She had his measure now. “A man who knows what he wants. Good. My people will give you more than your lives.” She grinned, showing all her teeth. “We’ll give you a fleet.”
Vance frowned, suspicious but intrigued, all banter gone from his face. “What do you mean?”
“You’re a subordinate to Kate, yes?” His growl told her all she needed to know. “And not happy about it. Good. That speaks to your ambition. Give me the chee, and I will see that you serve no master but that ambition.”
“You have no fleet to give. I won’t take dragon ships.”
“Of course not. We will give you this fleet. In exchange for the chee, we will help you destroy Kate and take her place as king.”
The man growled again, and for a moment, she thought she had misjudged him. Then his eyes flashed with the same light as Kate’s had. “And how would you go about this?”
“We’ll wait until this raid ends, so you gain all your plunder. When you return to the Star Nebula, we will strike at her weakened captains and slay those that will not serve you.” The plan lacked nuance and detail but sounded plausible enough, and Vance nodded to her.
“Right, then. I reckon there’s a bargain in that. But it’s not done.” He pointed to the chee. “She stays here, in that cage, until we’re back in the nebula and Kate’s dead.”
“If I can’t study her, there’s no bargain. I will stay here to do it, but I must begin.”
Captain Vance tapped his sword point on the deck plates three times before nodding. “Agreed,” he said, “but I kill Kate.”
The high priestess shrugged. Vance extended his flesh hand. Zineda took it gingerly and shook.
Chapter 16
Black Spot, secondary cargo bay
Zineda sat in the cage next to the remains of the chee. Long slave-hair ropes suspended the robot’s frame from the highest bars and strung together her largest pieces in a grotesque parody of her actual form. The high priestess had wasted no time in bringing over her assistants and slowly, gently vivisecting the semiconscious machine. She had kept the chee strung in this loose semblance of her shape to aid understanding, but it had availed her little.
“She certainly feels pain,” Zineda said to Spite.
Her venomous cypher hissed happily as she dug out another component from the creation’s deformed chest piece and handed over the bundle of twisted wires. The robot moaned slightly, though her eyes never did more than flicker open. Zineda felt a distinct disappointment in that.
“Normally I like them more responsive,” she muttered. “Give me your sight,” the high priestess commanded, and Spite’s eyes went brilliant red with esper.
Zineda examined the metal and stamped carbon composites in her hands, but they gave off only the faintest shimmer. They looked as if they had been dipped in esper, rivulets of it running off and the thin layer of energy still coating the parts. She turned her gaze from one piece to another, all carefully arranged on the floor around her. Everything held only the faintest glimmer of esper, but when she looked back at the robot’s nearly hollow shell, the blinding glow returned. She cut the connection to her cypher and let her vision return to normal.
“I don’t understand it,” she said again. Spite frowned. “I don’t see it, but it is there. Where is this opening? What is the origin of the energy flow?”
“Perhaps it is not a part but the whole, mistress,” Spite replied in her hissing voice. “What does it matter? She is the Source, and that is enough.”
“Is it?” Zineda snapped. The two priestesses closest to the cage jumped at her tone. “She is this great artifact, but what good is that? If I do not know how she functions, then I do not know how to use her. And if we cannot use her, what value is she?”
“That will become clear,” Spite said in a soothing tone. “In time, she will be the most valuable slave we have ever taken.”
“In time. In time.” Zineda nearly spit. “Patience is not something I have in great store just now. I have too much need of leverage.” She tapped her claws against the deck plates.
Distantly, through the esper, she could hear Mamaro To calling for her, to ask her council, she supposed.
“Perhaps it is time to bring allies in. Our enemies will arrive soon enough.”
Spite nodded.
Zineda regarded her cypher. “Go. Answer my warlord’s call and conduct my message to him.”
Spite sneered and glanced at the chee. “The Heretic is engaged near the mercenary Relic Knight called One Shot. He can be of little help to us, less even than usual.”
Zineda’s hand flew like a serpent striking. She caught Spite across the face, the trailing tips of her claws drawing pale blood when they sliced the creature’s cheeks. Spite hissed as she recovered, baring her fangs and extending her claws.
“Come at me, little imp,” Zineda said through clenched teeth. “I need to hurt something, and you will do if I find nothing else. I have told you before not to speak thus of the Grand Warlord, and I will brook no violation of that.”
“He feuds with Nozuki’s chosen. He opposes the Anointed One. That is heresy.”
“That is the way of our people, as you well know,” Zineda said, her frustration dimmed by the outburst. “The conflict makes us stronger, which is as Nozuki desires.”
Spite hissed again but relaxed. The thin cuts on the cypher’s cheek had already closed. “He would also desire that we take our prize and go,” Spite said firmly. “We must take the Source and join the Anointed One and the Herald.”
“In good time,” Zineda replied smugly. “I will share this prize with whom I choose and when I choose. For now, the warlord is of greater aid to us. Find him and act as my mouthpiece.”
The cypher glared at her but vanished in a puff of esper. Zineda called one of the priestesses to her and instructed the young woman to fetch carrying gear from the Hydra’s Will to transport the chee. She studied the parts around her for a few more moments until she felt the call from Spite. Through the cypher’s eyes, she saw her lover’s face from a strange angle, looking up his arm. She tasted blood and knew that Spite had bitten him to use the blood as fuel for the connection. She could also see Mamaro To’s rising rage and quickly moved to push her mind through her cypher. She could hear him growling with his anger.
“Peace, my warlord,” she said, and her own voice came from Spite’s small mouth. “I have good news. I have found the artifact we sought. It was concealed among the corsairs all along.”
Mamaro To rage grew. “They betrayed us?”
“Not yet,” Zineda replied, trying to sound amused. “This was unknowing. I have traded with the captain called Golden Vance. We shall acquire the artifact once this raid ends and we have assisted him in deposing of Calico Kate.”
Explosions echoed from behind Mamaro To, but he did not flinch. “Can we not just seize it?”
“We may have to,” she replied. “It will not be long before other Knights discover our prize. The warrior called One Shot, who now opposes you, will soon learn that it is here through her cypher and likely find it. I suspect Kate will discover it even sooner, and others likely will too. You must prevent One Shot from leaving the surface. The pirates will want to flee before long; they are looting even now, and their courage will not last long after their holds are full. Keep the Knight in place only until then, my love.”
Mamaro To looked skeptical but determined. “She shall not leave the planet. But can you use the artifact? What will it do for us?”
“I do not yet know, but I do not need to. That Nozuki commands it is enough, and He shall reveal its use in His time. And then, we shall be the most exalted of his servants.” She mirrored his b
road smile and shook at his triumphant roar.
Chapter 17
Lucky Chance, slip space, entering Ulyxis orbit
Kisa could see Fiametta glancing uneasily at her. Again. She rolled her eyes but tried to keep her frustration out of her voice. “I can hear you thinking, Fia. Just say it.”
Fiametta cleared her throat. “Fine. Are you sure about this?” The bright spectrum smear of slip space reflected on Fiametta’s doubtful expression.
Kisa quirked an eyebrow. “Am I sure? No, of course not.” She settled back in the pilot chair’s deep cushions.
She tapped a secondary monitor to bring the real-space projections of Ulyxis near-space and high orbit onto the main screen. From behind them both, Candy and Cola leaned forward for a better view. Scratch crawled onto Kisa’s shoulder. Though only a rendering based on what little data the sensors could gather in slip space, it looked bad. Debris from numerous planetary defense installations filled the edges of the image, while pirate vessels of every description and dragon ships from at least three fleets dominated the center.
“But have you got a better idea?” Kisa asked.
“Not that doesn’t begin with getting out of here,” Fiametta said.
Kisa saw motion from the corner of her eye, and glanced back to find Candy, Cola, and Scratch all nodding.
Candy shrugged. “She’s only saying what we’re all thinking. We’re still going in.”
“Then I don’t want to hear another word unless it’s a suggestion for a better way in.” Kisa glared at Scratch. “Traitor.”
The feline cypher only settled down and started cleaning his paws.
Kisa sighed. “Actually, Candy, you can tell us what your message from Alliance Security said.”
“Not much useful, I don’t think,” Candy replied. She made a concerted effort to keep up her usual bubbly good humor, though she wasn’t succeeding very well. “Intelligence thinks the Source is some kind of weapon. They’re not sure of that, but given what little we know, it’s a reasonable guess.”
“Pfft,” Fiametta snorted. “Of course you’d think it was a weapon.”
Candy let the comment pass. Kisa and Fiametta shared a glance that meant that they both knew from the silence just how seriously Candy took the situation.
“We can’t afford not to think of it as a weapon,” Candy went on. “Even if it only exists to bring flowers and puppies into the world, until we know that for sure, we have to assume that the noh and corsairs are planning to detonate it, or whatever, on Ulyxis. Nothing else makes sense of all the data.”
Fiametta humphed, and Candy sighed.
“All the Alliance knows about the Source comes from the few scattered mentions in the Doctrine histories we retained after the Sundering War. And those references are kind of the definition of vague,” Candy said pointedly.
Fiametta rolled her eyes, crossed her arms, but agreed. “Yeah, that’s true. I’ve been scouring every reference I can find, without access to the actual Library on Catermane, and they all agree that the Source is some staggeringly powerful esper generator.” She shrugged. “Beyond that, who knows? It’s connected to the Calamity, though. Somehow.”
“Well, whatever it is, if anything big is going to go down on Ulyxis, I need to stop it.” Candy sat back. “There’s not much of the Alliance left, and I cannot let any more of it go without a fight.”
“Well, strap in, ladies,” Kisa said, closing her own restraints, “‘cause the ride is about to get rough. Real-space transition in six seconds.”
Kisa was already spinning the Lucky Chance as they punched back into reality. She cut sharply to starboard and dove below the planet’s ecliptic plane as she engaged the ship’s cloaking. Waves of night-black esper rippled over the vessel, concealing it from electronic, mechanical, or organic detection. The esper signature would show up, she knew, but it would be imprecise, useless for targeting solutions, and time consuming to get a fix on. It came down to speed now.
She edged the ship back into the thick of the chaotic melee. She slipped around wreckage and ducked under dragon ships like a cat stalking in high grass. Kisa’s tail looped back and forth behind her chair, and Scratch purred directions in her ear. She glanced around once, when they broke briefly into a clear space, and saw both cyphers swaying in synch, almost like they were sniffing out the Source. Their eyes blazed with cool white esper. A moment later, they both leapt onto the control panel in front of Kisa and pointed in the same direction. “There,” Scratch said in his rolling voice. “There, my pet.”
Kisa dove the ship under a roiling furball of two pirate ships and the dying remains of an Alliance corvette determined to take its attackers down with it. There, just beyond, she saw a tall, ugly Galleon-class starship, or what had once been one. Years of hard service, inadequate maintenance, and piecemeal repairs had resulted in a vessel that more resembled a patchwork whale than the darting shark the designers had claimed inspired them. It had a predatory look nevertheless, and Kisa saw in a moment how too many captains would underestimate that ship to their cost.
“Hold on,” she said, and brought her craft around to circle the pirate ship and look for a way in.
“There,” Scratch said and pointed. “There. Starboard bay six. That is closest to our prey, pet.”
“Bad news, hairball,” Fiametta said. “That’s a maintenance bay. No way this ship fits in there.”
Scratch hissed but without any venom in it.
Cola turned back to Candy. “We can fit,” he said, his voice firm, though a little high pitched for Kisa’s taste. “We can get there.”
“Excellent,” Scratch said. “The Source is hurt, badly—well beyond my pet’s ability to repair.”
Everyone looked at Cola, who nodded.
Scratch huffed at not being trusted. “You must secure the Source. Keep it stable until we can heal or repair it. We will dock in the hangar and meet you.”
“How?” Candy asked. “I can cut my way in, but they’re sure to have the exterior doors on lockdown.”
“I can take care of that,” Fiametta said and started working the panel to her right. “I can give you a disposable one-shot spike. Plug it in on any network jack and we’ll have a backdoor to their system. I can open the hangar with that.”
Candy looked at Kisa, who shrugged.
“It’s not a terrible idea, and I don’t have a better one,” Kisa admitted. “Suit up. We’ll pop the cargo door open for you as we pass. Signal when you’re ready. Don’t take too long.”
“You either,” Candy said. She caught the datastick that Fiametta tossed at her and dashed from the bridge, Cola a bounce behind.
In the silence that filled the space, Kisa looked carefully at Fiametta. Her friend sat rigid, staring out the viewport, as if her glare could burn holes in the Black Spot.
Kisa set her jaw and turned back to flying. “I’m sure she’s there,” she said quietly. “We’ll get her.”
Fiametta licked her lips, clearly thinking unpleasant things. “I doubt it. That place is going to be a mess and even worse once we get in there.” She rubbed her face. “I—I don’t think we’ll get to her, if she’s still alive.”
Kisa felt sick, but her mind kept working over the problem as she circled close to the maintenance bay. She said nothing for a while and just concentrated on flying in the tight melee. Her mind kept working at the problem, though, like a cat with a toy.
“I didn’t think Squall was on Vance’s crew,” she finally said, focusing on a detail that kept nagging at her. “What’s she doing on his ship?”
“I’ve no idea,” Fiametta replied quietly. “Since she left us, she’s sailed with Kate almost exclusively.” Her brow furrowed, and she glanced at Kisa. The detail had clearly caught on her mind too. “Why?”
“Well, I can’t imagine her volunteering to join Vance’s crew. I think people are condemned to do that. So she had to be there for a reason, probably connected to pirate politics, for lack of a better word.” She shrugged. �
�At least, that’s the way I’d bet.”
A light went off on the console. Fiametta tapped it. Candy’s voice crackled over the small speaker, indicating that she was prepped and ready by the bay doors.
Kisa glanced around at the arrangement of vessels surrounding them and calculated the best odds. She fed the engines power and pushed the Chance into a tight turn. She popped open the cargo doors and swung the ship side-on, as if skidding toward the pirate vessel. A feathering burst from the maneuvering thrusters slowed them sharply, and the momentum flung Candy and her relic clear of the cargo bay. Kisa could feel the esper shifting around them as she slammed the throttle forward, the probabilities of different outcomes changing every second. The Chance lurched and accelerated, and she had to spin and flip around to avoid three collisions in rapid succession. She prayed softly that she had not used up all her luck on that.
As she circled the ship back around toward the far docking bay, she noticed Fiametta watching her closely. “What?”
“You’re plotting something. What is it?”
Kisa smiled and relaxed her touch on the control yoke. “Open a comm channel to Kate and find out.”
“Kate? Why do you want to talk to her?”
Kisa just smiled and nodded at the communications controls.
Fiametta looked both amused and confused as she touched the comm switches. She started by spinning through the local frequencies—all predictably crammed with battle chatter—until she found the group that the pirates were using. Violet-gold esper crackled from the Doctrine mage’s fingertips as she adjusted the controls, and a second later, the speaker crackled with an open connection. A confused and irritated pirate comms operator demanded to know who they were and what they wanted.
Fiametta grinned, and more esper flashed from her fingers. “Boring conversation anyway,” she said as the frequency shifted again, riding an electromagnetic trail from the starship down an otherwise secure link. Static crackled briefly before another connection opened with the sounds of battle in the background. A grainy holoimage appeared, and from the corner of her eye, Kisa saw Kate’s skeletal cypher Skully toss what looked like a round, black bomb with a lit fuse toward a group of paladins. She sighed.
Darkspace Calamity Page 14
