“Decorated,” the Queen said. Calculated the words. “Like pets.”
“No wonder you want them dead,” the pirate hissed, and resumed rooting through her drawers. “Nothing. We’ll have to make you some clothes. Here, have a spare blanket until then.”
The spare ‘blanket’ was made of stitched furs of similar silver hues. The Queen did not allow herself to think of them as people and draped it over her lap to please her newest keeper.
“So.” The pirate queen perched on the bed across from her. “I know you want vengeance.”
“More than anything,” the Queen lied.
Her captor grinned, ears flicking back. “I’ve been thinking about it. They offered us plunder—you know that? Or did they never tell you the deal they signed with us?”
“Nothing,” the Queen said, curious how the pirate would describe the arrangement the Queen had overheard while kneeling before the Usurper.
“They want us to raid the coreward border of the Alliance in order to draw their attention. And they’ve promised us those worlds and all the slaves and treasure we want to keep. Not a bad offer.”
“They must not want those worlds very much,” the Queen said. “Or they would never have given them to you.”
“Of course.” The pirate fluffed her pillow and leaned back on it, her arms resting on the low headboard of her bed. “They want the core worlds in the Bright Belt. Goddess save them… the hardest targets in the entire Alliance, and they blithely think they can handle them. It’s more likely they’ll get badly hurt and then we can swing in and take our pickings of what’s left.”
“Why?” the Queen wondered, studying this cipher.
“Why?”
“Why do you want them? Why do you have an army?” The Queen flexed her shoulders, a hitch of her wing-arms. “What is it you want, in the end?”
The pirate queen laughed. “You perceive a pirate with a navy to be an oddity?”
“I can only imagine your force requires a great deal of administration to maintain,” the Queen said. “And so many people to man them… you must have a nation’s worth of pirates.”
“Exactly.” The female leaned toward her, eyes fixed on the Queen’s. “A nation of criminals. That is what I want. To start an empire.”
Would she ever understand the motivations of people like this? Why did they need to hold more territory than they could overfly? Why did they seek the burdens of governance? Didn’t they know that empire was mostly a tiresome exercise in bureaucracy? They imagined riches and power and people fawning at their feet, but what they received was endless meetings with ministers, long nights spent planning to quash yet another rebellion on some restive world, and ever-expanding lists of economic problems. After the Emperor had become their Greatness and she and the Ambassador had nearly lived in his suite for those halcyon months before Second’s accusations, the Queen had watched him at his duties. Even ignoring them to drown in their arms, he still spent many tedious hours on activities she found mind-numbing.
Empire. It was so cliché.
“Naturally a female of your power deserves a dynasty,” was what the Queen said aloud. “I could not imagine myself succeeding at such lofty goals. It is enough for me to secure the deaths of my enemies.”
“You’ll get them,” the female promised. “It’s just a question of how and when. The problem, you understand, is leaving both the Alliance and the Empire too weak to chase me. I feel the Empire would be inclined to ignore me if I set myself up properly—historically they’ve been eager to make deals with pirates. It’s the Alliance who won’t suffer us to grow into a nation. That’s why I’m helping the Chatcaava for now. If they break up the Alliance for me, I’ll have plenty of time to entrench.”
“But?” the Queen asked.
“But,” the female continued, “the Chatcaava are untrustworthy.” She grinned slyly. “Obviously. They consort with pirates. So something needs to be done about them. Which is where your revenge comes in.”
“It sounds as if I will have to wait for a long time before I see them die.”
“It might sound that way but it won’t be that way.” The female shook her head. “No, the Alliance is going to rip a chunk of their navy apart. It won’t be enough to do the Chatcaava in, but I think both sides are going to be surprised at the carnage. The key is to make the cost of the Bright Belt conquest even higher for the Chatcaava than they planned. Maybe by warning the Alliance they’re coming? There will be a way. I just haven’t chosen it yet.”
The pirate pulled at her lip, lost in thought, and the fire in her eyes… this, the Queen thought, was what motivated her captor. Not just the contemplation of empire, but the heady feeling that she might be able to manipulate the greatest powers in space, to fall or rise at her whim. What was it like to be that addicted to the game of nations? How exhausting it must be to be this female, never satisfied with her effect on the few people with whom she had direct contact. To need to be significant to an entire galaxy?
Megalomania. Was that not the term? The Chatcaavan tongue didn’t have it, naturally. But she had tasted the Universal word through the Ambassador’s skin, one of those days she was wearing an Eldritch one and could sip his thoughts like tea-wine. How intense those days had been. How satisfying. She could almost pity the pirate admiral for being incapable of such pleasures. For believing them to be modest, when in fact their intimacy had made them a breathless and infinite joy.
“There is nothing I might do to speed their end?” the Queen said at last.
“I don’t blame you for being eager,” the pirate said caressingly. “I would be impatient too. But destruction on this scale takes time.”
“I could give you information?” the Queen offered.
The female laughed. “Goddess, what a delight you are! I’ve so longed for someone to talk to. Someone I could share my mind with. You understand.”
She did, though the thought of becoming this female’s confidant revolted her.
“I’ll give you a data tablet and you can put all the notes there that your heart desires,” the pirate continued. “And a room of your own, of course.” A pause there as the pirate’s eyes glided over the Queen’s shoulders to the vaneless wings. “Yes, definitely. You should sleep alone. You probably never had a place to call your own, did you?” She beamed then. “Clothes… whatever you want, I can get it for you. You’ll like that, won’t you? Finally being able to arrange your own destiny. Even to deciding what to wear in the morning.”
“I will hardly know what to do with myself,” the Queen said, guessing this confession would please the female, and it did. She even reached out and patted the Queen on the knee.
“What a mistake they made, giving you to me. Almost as big as the one that left me alive after taking from me the one thing I wanted.” The female bared her sharp teeth. “Let’s find you a place to stay. And some guards… people to protect you. Your very own bodyguards! I bet you’ve never had any.”
The Queen rose when the pirate rose, tucking her wing-arms behind her as if they still had vanes to fold. Naturally she would have guards. For her own ‘protection.’ They were to keep her from escaping, not to give her consequence. A female bent on empire acted like a male bent on it, the Queen thought, following her captor. Perhaps the justifications changed, but not enough to matter.
In the days that followed, the Queen was showered with unwanted gifts. The pirate gave her a data tablet and access to the base computers—within reason—and reacted with less interest than the Queen anticipated to the information she recorded about the Lord of the Twelveworld and what she knew of his fiefdom. The pirate draped her with soft furs, which she dared not refuse but excused herself from using by claiming not to be cold. The pirate insisted on clothing her, and when the Queen demurred by saying she wasn’t used to clothing and found it stifling, finally pricked forth a tantrum.
“You won’t walk naked in my base,” the pirate snarled. “Only chattel goes naked. You are a person, not
a thing!”
Fine words, the Queen thought, from someone who’d never so much as asked for the Queen’s name. Not that she had one to give, but it was ludicrous to be referred to as ‘The Chatcaavan’ or not at all.
“It is just that I find it awkward,” she’d explained, truthfully. “I’m not used to it.”
“Not used to it,” the female said. “Is that all you can say? Why don’t you talk more? Why won’t you show me what you’re feeling?” She leaned closer, eyes bright and hard. “I’ve saved you from slavery. I thought we might be friends.”
The Queen’s pulse leapt. Many cruel and evil people had used her before, but none had ever wanted her to feel anything but fear or pain. But she saw, very clearly, that if the pirate could not find emotional fulfillment from the Queen in the way she expected, then she would dispose of her ungrateful captive and call it a regrettable necessity. “I-I-I am sorry. I never thought I would ever be worthy of anyone’s friendship,” she said. “Much less with someone like you.” Which was the truth, and she hoped it would buy her time—
The female’s fur smoothed from its bristled anger. “Of course. I forget just how much abuse you’re springing back from. You’ll come around, I know. You just have to trust me, you see? I know what’s best for you. Clothing might seem awkward but it’s important. If you’re naked, someone might mistake you for merchandise.”
That the pirate admiral could maintain “inventory”—primarily female—and claim to care about the suffering of other females mystified the Queen, but did not surprise her. Such compartmentalization was typical of the evil people she’d known. “I understand. Perhaps you could pick out something for me, then. Since you know best.”
The pirate brightened. “There, that’s better. I’ll find you something nice, and you can wear it to dinner.”
There was a subtext there that disturbed the Queen, but she did not allow it to color her response. “Thank you. You are… you are very kind. I have never known such generosity.”
It was perhaps inevitable that the clothing the pirate brought her was a modified uniform, like the one she wore. The Queen accepted it with resignation and struggled into it alone. She thought herself ridiculous, pretending to a fake military rank in a navy that didn’t exist except in the mind of the female upon whose whim she lived. But seeing her in it pleased the pirate greatly. “Look at you,” she said. “One of my people now. Aren’t you pleased?”
“I am honored,” the Queen lied.
“You can be a little more enthusiastic,” the pirate said, examining her face. “It’s all right to show emotion around me. I won’t hold it against you.”
“I will try,” the Queen said, bowing her head. “But it is a hard habit to break.”
The female’s ears flicked back. “Try,” she said, voice hard.
“I promise.”
This, though, did not go well. Many things the Queen could fake, but enthusiasm was beyond her. Fortunately, the pirate became busy, though she refused to divulge what actions kept her away. “Getting ready for business,” was all she said, and then turned the conversation elsewhere, and the Queen feared she had failed some test which would have permitted the female to confide in her. Or perhaps that was optimism on her part; perhaps the pirate was incapable of trusting anyone.
No matter how busy the pirate was, they met every evening for dinner. The meals were awkward, since they represented another of the pirate’s attempts to give her something she didn’t want: lavish feasts, in this case. But at least she didn’t need to talk, because the pirate was content to soliloquize.
One evening, half a week into her stay, the pirate didn’t begin the meal by holding forth on her enemies, or her own grand but nebulous plans. She stared instead at the Queen’s throat… no. At her collar, which rose high enough above her uniform to be completely visible.
“That,” the pirate said. “We’re going to remove it.”
“I… I beg your pardon?”
“That symbol of oppression and servitude. How did I never notice it? It makes your uniform look wrong.” The female pushed her chair back, the scraping of the legs against the deck too loud. “We’ll do it now.”
“But… the food… will grow cold?”
“It can wait.” She strode to the door of the compartment and called for a guard as the Queen sat, frozen. All her adult life she’d worn the imperial collar. She’d hated it when she’d noticed it, but she had long since ceased to notice it. And now… now she found she didn’t want it removed. It was her link back to the Emperor and Ambassador, and the happiness they’d found in one another’s arms. But the moment the pirate strode back to her, the Queen knew she could not object. The hard glaze of the female’s eyes brooked no disobedience, and her next words only confirmed the Queen’s impression.
“You have so few needs. I understand that. You downsize when you’re a victim. You learn to do without. But it’s time to give up that fixation on privation. You’re a person now, your own person. That means you’re allowed to need things. And other people are allowed to give them to you.”
“Of course,” the Queen said, bowing her head. “I am grateful for the lesson. It has been so long, you see, since I’ve been allowed to think of myself.”
The pirate set a small furred hand on the Queen’s head between the horns, as if administering a benediction. “It’s all right. You’ll learn.”
Their dinner grew cold as they awaited the right people, the right tools. And then at the table, while her soup congealed, the Queen bent her neck for the male who cut her collar free. He carved channels in the metal on either side of her throat, between two of the amber gems, and when he finished the second side the front half fell into her lap, and the other into the hand of the male with the tool.
The Queen stared down at the metal chunk. The inside was smooth and the edges worn where contact with her flexing neck had rubbed it over the planetary revolutions. It looked wrong. Like a broken egg. Its wrongness was so involving she didn’t look up as the male deposited the second half on the table alongside her bowl and departed.
The pirate settled across from her and resumed eating as if nothing had happened. At last, the Queen turned to her, and presumably the female misinterpreted the lost look in the Queen’s eyes, because she smiled. “There. So many things I’ve tried, and none of them were right. But finally I’ve given you something you wanted. Now… now you’ll be my friend and ally. Won’t you.”
The Queen swallowed against the unfamiliar freedom, touched her throat.
Grinning, the pirate said, “I know you’re overwhelmed. You don’t have to thank me now. Eat.”
She ate, but without appetite.
After that, the pirate ceased pressing her, leading the Queen to the uneasy conclusion that the female had needed to give a gift in order to either put the Queen in her debt, or to shore up a personal belief in her own magnanimousness. Or both. Either possibility made it increasingly clear that her captor was insane, in the way Third had been. Dangerous, volatile, ruled by her passions and her delusion that she was a generous and powerful personality whose time had come.
It would be easy to use this female to remove the Lord of the Twelveworld. The problem was defeating her afterwards. Lying on the uncomfortably soft bed, the Queen wondered which group needed to go down first. To betray the Twelveworld Lord would aid the Emperor, for the Twelveworld Lord would never throw in with him after promising himself to the Usurper. The Emperor would kill him if he switched sides, because who could trust a traitor? So the Lord had to die. But this pirate… the Queen did not want her creating her “nation of criminals” next door to the Empire. Her unpredictability made her a terrible foe, particularly when wedded to her sociopathy. It would be like encouraging a state run by Third to emerge on their border.
It was obvious to the Queen that there were no good choices in war. She hadn’t anticipated just how bad those choices would be.
The pirate still required her presence at meals, and at ra
ndom moments when she decided she wanted ‘someone to talk to.’ The Queen’s only duty during these monologues was to listen and make appropriate comments when the pirate paused. Rarely were they useful monologues, embroidering as they did on similar themes. But now and then the pirate said things that made the Queen think she really had been ex-military, and that troubled her. A criminal intent on starting a nation might succeed, or not. But someone who’d had formal training in operating a navy had a much better chance. Her lovers might need this information, so the next time the pirate edged toward that topic, she waited for an opening before asking, with every evidence of timidity, “You seem to know so much about these things.”
“Mmm?” The pirate tossed herself on her throne of furs and looked down at the Queen from it. “What things? Ships? Fighting?”
The Queen nodded her long neck. “Yes. Is it because you have a natural talent?”
“Of course.” The pirate smiled thinly. “It takes talent to rise to the top.”
“I can’t imagine you not succeeding at anything you have tried,” the Queen said. “Were you a master criminal, then? Who decided to expand her enterprise off-world?”
“Oh!” The pirate laughed. “No.” She dropped her hands onto her knees and leaned forward. “Can I say it’s so nice to hear you ask questions? We’re friends now. You should tell me your feelings, your ideas. I’d love to hear more of your thoughts.”
No doubt she would, the Queen guessed, so long as her thoughts revolved around the pirate. “If not that, then… where did you come from? How did you learn to be a killer?”
The title pleased the pirate, as it had during their first audience. She was almost purring when she leaned back, relaxing into her macabre upholstery. She even rubbed her shoulders back against the pelts, as if remembering the details of their creation. “You want to be a killer too? Is that it?”
“I don’t think I am capable,” the Queen murmured.
In Extremis Page 7
