“Has Ishii’s man arrived yet with the regeneration unit?” I asked, butting into the sweet little reunion.
“A man arrived a few minutes ago,” Shiga said to me, guardedly, and then turned to Driscoll, “Are you sure about the timing of this? Project Aznio is still in the works. If you wait just a little bit we can finish the test phase. Besides, third fleet is coming down Nightshade’s throat like a comet is on her tail. Something has the Emperor upset and that means that smart citizens keep their heads down and mind their business.”
“We need to bring her in now,” Driscoll replied, sounding as if he was arguing, but I was so lost that I had no idea what they were saying. “Especially with that information.”
Shiga turned to me and looked me up and down.
“She doesn’t look like much.”
“You should see her with a shadow army at her back,” Driscoll replied drily.
I ignored the byplay. I didn’t need anyone to give me bona fides. I was Vera Matsumoto.
“Since the regeneration module is here we don’t need to detain Ishii,” I said to Driscoll. “Have your men negotiate a fair price with him for the shuttle and then send him back to collect it and his people.”
Driscoll’s mouth turned up at the corner in a wry smile, as if he knew I was passing orders not just because it needed to be done but also to remind him that he was sworn to me. He nodded to Shiga.
“Make sure that Neroi gets a fair price, but not too steep. The shuttle is hot.”
“Hot?” Ishii complained.
“Are you complaining, Ishii?” I asked, examining his katana in my hands again. The workmanship was exquisite.
“No,” he said, reluctantly, his eyes still lingering on the sword. He must have known that I wasn’t planning to return it.
“Do we need to worry about him?” Shiga asked Driscoll.
“No. No need to worry about me. The Claw doesn’t rat,” Ishii said, and the glimmer of fear in his eyes was proof of his words. Driscoll’s Own struck fear in the hearts of hardened criminals. And to think Driscoll was still claiming that they weren’t terrorists.
I shied away from the reminder that Zeta had called me a terrorist only a short time ago.
Shiga nodded to a guard and Ishii followed the guard out the door. Driscoll seemed to relax as Ishii left.
“You’re sure?” Shiga asked.
“He knows about Driscoll’s Own. He’s terrified of us,” Driscoll said. “Which reminds me, we need clothing, medical assistance, and we need to get to Point B as urgently as possible. A Fleet vessel seized our ship and they’ll be sending insertion teams planetside as soon as they can. We need to move.”
“It’s you the Fleet is here for? Typical Driscoll. And now it’s complicated further,” Shiga said.
I was scanning our surroundings. The room was fully low tech. I didn’t see a computer or handheld device anywhere, unless Shiga or one of the others had one of those nifty smart rings on them.
“How so?” Driscoll asked.
“Nightshade’s sovereign space was invaded an hour ago. Our tap into the military net shows that it was completely unexpected and the Fleet is scrambling to meet the invasion force.”
“Who invaded?” I asked, horrified.
“Looks like The People’s Freehold,” Shiga said wryly. He was probably Driscoll’s age. Prettier, less certain of himself, but he was treating me like a child and I didn’t care for that.
“Then if we move now anyone official would be too occupied to follow. Excellent,” Driscoll said.
“They’ve stopped all shipboard traffic,” Shiga warned.
Driscoll waved a hand.
“For now. It’s probably an error. The People’s Freehold would never willingly attack Blackwatch. We’re too big of a fish to take down easily.”
My eyes narrowed to a slit and I watched him carefully. Interesting. As urbane as he might be about Blackwatch politics, it seemed that Driscoll was more naïve than I would have guessed about inter-galactic politics. We were not at war with The People’s Freehold, but if they had entered our planetary space, that meant they were willing to risk a war. If they thought they could scoop up Blackwatch they would. This was a much bigger deal than he realized.
Shiga nodded to Driscoll in agreement and I suppressed the urge to frown. Hopefully I was wrong and this was not the start of something very bad. Unfortunately, the prickling at the base of my spine made me think that I was right. I hate when I’m always right.
“Ok then. Order a doctor, and some clothes to be delivered to Point B and let’s get moving,” Driscoll said, and Shiga nodded and left.
I turned to Driscoll.
“I thought we were at your place.”
“It’s just a safe house,” Driscoll said dismissively. “I wasn’t going to let Ishii see the real thing.”
“I’m worried about Roman. He’s been out a long time,” I said. I was worrying about Driscoll, too. He seemed to have his own plans here.
“Don’t worry. I gave him something to knock him out. It will probably be another eight hours before he’s up.”
I frowned. I didn’t like how unilateral he was getting with the decision making. Shiga returned before I could say anything.
“Come on,” he said.
We followed Shiga into a separate hovercraft that met us at the wide windows on the side of the house. One of Driscoll’s men was driving, and Shiga came too. I huddled close to Roman holding his hand and thinking about our situation as the hovercraft dipped down and levelled off above the ocean. There was no moon and the sun had finished setting. I had no idea what direction we were headed in or where “Point B” might be located and with a sinking heart I realized how much I had strapped my own fortunes to the careening rocket that was Patrick Driscoll.
I told you not to trust him, was Zeta’s oh-so-helpful comment.
Tell the Elders that I would like a different liaison, I replied.
Forget it. They want me to keep an eye on you. After all, I am your mother.
For all the good you’ve done at that role.
There is good and there is good, Vera. I am the second kind of good. It takes courage to achieve the big things and sacrifice the little things.
Like me?
Don’t be so entitled. Of course I mean you. There are bigger things at stake here than you.
I clutched Roman’s hand tighter, wishing he were awake right now. I needed help. I was sinking under all these big personalities. Zeta. Driscoll.
I thought you wanted to be Emperor? I said to myself. Do you really think there will be fewer personalities to deal with then? If you can’t handle Driscoll and Zeta, then how will you handle that? There’s a war coming, too. What will you do when you have to negotiate the end of the war? No one is going to hold your hand through that. In the end we all walk through life alone.
Any truth to Driscoll’s claim about a secret society?
The Hand?
Yes.
I’ve heard of The Hand. I thought it was rumors, though. You should be careful about Patrick Driscoll. He will betray you if he can.
Like he betrayed you?
She didn’t answer. I always thought my father had been executed for loving my mother – or more specifically for having sex with my mother. There was obviously more to it than that, but no one wanted to tell me what it was. It wasn’t really any of my business, but at the same time I was caught in the middle of it now and the curiosity was eating me up.
“We’re heading to The Hand?” I asked Driscoll over the sound of wind and water.
The only interior lights were indicator lights at the helm reflecting on the faces of Shiga and the nameless terrorist flying the hovercraft. Driscoll, Roman, and I were in the back of the craft and it was semi-private although only partially shielded from the night air.
“Yes,” Driscoll said.
“Will they be willing to talk when we get there?”
There was a long pause.
“I d
on’t know,” he said at last.
“But they are real?” I said. He said nothing so I followed up with, “I always thought you were dead. That’s what everyone said. If you weren’t dead, then what went sour between you and Zeta?”
He snorted. “The Hand has taken in the people discarded by the Empire. Staged deaths where needed. Rescued us at the last minute and then let the Empire fake our execution at other times. I’m one of a long list. They found out about me and saved me.”
“How did the Empire know that you and my mother...” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I don’t know,” he said, and the words sounded heavy, “And don’t think I haven’t asked myself that question a thousand times. Somehow they knew. Zeta did nothing to stop them when they came for me.”
So that was it. She betrayed him. Then why did she think he was the villain of the piece? She still hadn’t spoken up in my mind. I thought about her. Young. Pregnant, even if she didn’t know it at the time. She was a Matsumoto. She would never have betrayed the rules -although I did.
“Who else did they rescue?”
He laughed and said, “Mostly Matsumotos.”
I was stunned into silence.
“Oh yes, Vera. Matsumotos kill more Matsumotos than anyone. There have been a few others like me. Innocents. Political enemies of the dynasty, but mostly other Matsumotos.”
“And what do they do with them?”
“Hide them. Test them.”
I felt a chill. “Test them for what?”
“I don’t know. For something.”
This didn’t sound good.
“Then you’re taking me to be tested,” I said, in a dead voice. “What do they do with the people who fail.”
“It’s not like that. Or at least, I don’t think it is. They hide them afterwards. Somewhere safe and far away. Neal Matsumoto set the whole thing up. It’s for the safety of the dynasty.”
Why did that make me feel worse instead of better? Maybe because the rules were for our safety, too.
“And what about Roman” I asked, “Will he be....”
I was cut off by a loud curse from the front.
“Strap in!” Shiga yelled.
Driscoll and I scrambled to strap ourselves in and Roman down. I hunched myself over his prostrate form, cradling his head in my hands, not even sure what I was trying to protect him from. One minute I was huddled, breathing deeply, listening to the string of colorful curses Shiga was spouting, and the next minute we were hit by a wall of water and I was fighting not to lose the breath I’d sucked in at the last second.
Chapter Eighteen
I clutched Roman tightly, my face cheek to cheek with his and my arms wrapped around both him and the e-stretcher. Panic flowed through me.
We broke through the water and back into air. I gasped in a breath and heard Driscoll doing the same. The hovercraft was in a barrel-roll, hurtling so quickly that I couldn’t tell up from down. I kept myself tight over Roman, clenching my belly against sudden nausea and locking my spine instinctively against the whipsaw of the hovercraft. I refused to close my eyes as I scanned Roman’s face frantically. He was coughing – a good sign, but then we plunged under water again and back out.
“Get this craft under control!” I yelled, pushing every ounce of command I could into my voice.
“It’s not the craft. It’s the ocean!” Shiga called back.
Driscoll had recovered enough to pull an emergency kit out from under his seat and clamp an oxygen mask over Roman’s head. He was securing it when we hit the drink again. Fortunately it was air-sealed and he’d secured it well. The read-out on the oxygen mask showed his breathing as steady.
“Only one,” Driscoll gasped, meaning the oxygen unit.
I shoved Roman at him, my heart lurching at physically leaving him. I hit the release on my belt and pushed towards the front.
“Are you out of your...”
Driscoll’s expletives could have stripped paint from the hull of the craft. I ignored him. As far as I knew I was the only one with a computer in my brain. I hauled myself forward. The hovercraft engines were screaming like a cat in a bonfire. I booted my pilot program.
Connect to hovercraft directly.
Connected.
Force pair.
Pair forced.
Shiga’s curses grew more intense. I hadn’t thought that was possible. He was already giving me a very quick course in the shallow-end of human behaviour.
Emergency pilot fed through human interface, I ordered my implant.
Feeding.
I sat on Shiga’s lap without permission. There wasn’t time for it, and I just hoped that he wouldn’t resist. I shoved my hands into the holo, and with my reactions and decision time boosted by my internal processors, I fought the crippled hovercraft like I was wrestling an alligator.
The waves beneath us towered far above any heights I’d seen before. How had we gone from a calm sea to thirty meter high swell in moments?
The hovercraft turbines shrieked with effort as I forced her upwards and into a complicated spin-turn that drove the hovercraft up above the wave peaks.
“Tsunami,” Shiga said from behind me. “Tsunami.”
“Nonsense,” I said absently, my mind focused on pulling the craft to safety. “Not a Tsumani.”
The other pilot spoke up. “Point B says their monitoring system has flagged it as a rogue missile from the ships above. They fired on the Fleet. Planetary defenses shattered the rogue, but a big piece got through. It caused a massive wave.”
“How bad?” Driscoll yelled from the back.
“Bad. Emergency teams are dispatched, but everything is gone for miles. The safe house. The entire city we were just in...it’s not showing on satellite imagery.”
I felt the blood draining from my own face. Planetary strikes. The civilian casualties were so high that no one did it intentionally, but some idiot had fired ship-killer missiles close enough that one had shattered. There would be so many dead. Children. Families. It hurt just thinking about it. I tried not to.
“Point B?” Driscoll asked from behind me, his voice husky.
“Intact,” the pilot said.
I slid awkwardly off Shiga’s lap now that I had the craft under control.
Return control to helm.
“All yours,” I said to him, chagrin taking over so that I couldn’t even look in his eyes.
I shuffled back to my seat and clipped in. My hands were shaking worse than the turbines. We were all dripping wet and cold. Driscoll unclipped and began to work clearing the baffles to drain the bottom of the craft.
Shiga’s voice saying, “Well a princess can ride on my lap any time she likes,” did nothing to ease my embarrassment.
Driscoll looked at me with a grin.
“You think the death of thousands is funny?” I demanded.
“Of course not,” he said repressively. “More than that, it will complicate things.”
There was no “more than that” for me. I huddled over Roman and tried not to cry. I’m still human, even after everything. I’m still broken, even though I’m stronger.
We flew in silence. The truth was grim and each of us was immersed in our own fears. The hovercraft was making a terrible sound, and I was certain we were going to crash at any moment, but somehow we didn’t.
A tiny island appeared in the middle of nowhere and grew larger as we approached. The first glimmer of light was gilding the horizon and painting the mangrove trees on the island gold. We arced towards the island, zigzagged through the over-sized trees and then settled down into the docking harness against a stony outcropping. The harness was next to an entrance carved out of the thick rock and decorated with elaborately carved warriors similar in height to me. It was all the more eerie because no one was there to greet us.
“Where is this?” I asked, trying to shake out what water I could from my Fleet-issued clothing.
“Point B,” Driscoll said, his lips tight.
&n
bsp; “It looks old,” I said, staring in wonder at the lichen-coated carvings.
“As old as The Hand.”
Since The Hand started with Neal Matsumoto that meant it was as old as our dynasty – over ten generations.
Shiga and Ebisawa finished docking and sprang up on the ledge to take Roman’s stretcher from Driscoll and I and then we followed. Roman shifted and his eyelids fluttered.
“The drug is wearing off,” Driscoll said casually and then walked past and into the carved door cut from the rock.
The door was narrow and low, with nothing but darkbehind it. I heard the scritching of boots on dust as Shiga and Ebisawa shuffled under the low stone frame, but I stood still, sniffing the fresh morning air as if the smell of earthy foliage could tip me off about whether it was safe to proceed. I didn’t think a dank cave was the right place for a wounded man, but I couldn’t leave Roman here. What if he woke up while I was in the cave? What if we all died in there and he was left alone on the edge of a cliff, missing a leg and strapped to a stretcher?
“Hang in there, Roman. I’m right here,” I said and kissed him tenderly on the forehead. “Just hold on.”
I shouldn’t have stolen a starship and made a bid for the Empire. If I hadn’t Roman wouldn’t have had his leg cut off in a door and he’d be whole and well. But then what? Would we have stayed apart? Me, going slowly mad with an angry army in my mind and he being treated like a human robot and beaten into submission when he showed his conscience? As always my limited options had shoved me into a place I never thought I would go. Sometimes I felt like my whole life had been a long tunnel with no branches and I was being prodded forward by life without any say in the matter.
I sighed and pushed Roman through the door.
Someone with a penchant for over-elaborate carvings and a lot of free time on his hands had been here before me. The tiny entrance led into a grand foyer. The ceiling was twenty meters high and dotted with little light beams. Someone had carved tiny holes in the rock above us and sunlight beamed in from them to illuminate the battle scenes that dominated the carved walls. The person who carved them seemed more concerned with grandeur than time period and richly dressed samurai’s duelled with katanas in front of skylines littered with starships. The martial theme was very in keeping with Neal Matsumoto, however, and that lent credence to Driscoll’s claim. It was Neal Matsumoto, after all, who had engineered the Red Room back at the Spring Palace that had featured so strongly in my own personal story.
The Matsumoto (The Matsumoto Trilogy Book 3) Page 11
