by K. Eason
Then, almost as an afterthought, she took the last ’slinger from its slot in the armory and clipped it to the chestplate of her hardsuit.
When she returned to the cockpit, the primary turing remained unresponsive. The arms-turing, however, had recovered. It was rebooting itself in a series of eldritch-looking lines of code scrolling down its screen.
Well. If she needed to aim Vagabond’s limited arsenal at anything, she’d be able to do so. But—oh, but, the arms-turing had scanners, too. That would mean she was not flying entirely blind. Zhang sat at her station and breathed deeply and slowly and reminded herself that Vagabond was a very small ship, incapable of really dangerous high speeds, and that it, and she, did not need a primary turing to fly; Rory had in fact removed its original turing when they’d stolen the ship from Urse, and Zhang had flown it then, so there was the proof. She was reasonably sure she could get Vagabond away from the vakari ship, too, and, barring attack, limp it to SAM-1.
Whether she would attempt to do so without anyone else on board, however, she had not yet decided. Zhang did not want to leave Rory, Thorsdottir, and Jaed behind, assuming they remained alive, which she could not at the moment confirm. She also knew she could not go mount a daring rescue, single-handed, armed only with the remaining ’slinger in the ship’s arsenal. That was the stuff of stupidity, and Zhang, like Thorsdottir, was practical, and not prone to flights of romantic overestimation of her own abilities.
She could prep the ship and hope the others returned and that the vakari did not. And if, when, it became clear that they would not come back (Zhang was not sure how she’d know; face that fight when she came to it), she could—perhaps, with luck—detach Vagabond and make some kind of escape. If the tesser-hex beacons remained intact, and if Sissten did not blow her to dust, she might even get out of the Samtalet system. Might get back to Lanscot and—well. There, her plan hazed into tell Grytt, which only meant Grytt and Messer Rupert would share her distress. They had no warship of their own. They had nothing except what Dame Maggie of the Confederation of Liberated Worlds granted to them in gratitude for the parts they had played in the rebellion, and in trade for Messer Rupert’s advice on political and diplomatic matters. Practically that meant political asylum and a small grant of land. Zhang was certain that Messer Rupert’s value, and Dame Maggie’s gratitude, would not equal a rescue mission to the Verge to retrieve Rory Thorne, Thorsdottir, and Jaed Moss from hostile xeno custody.
But, oh but, there was Rose: a secret and terrible weapon out there, commissioned by and stolen from the Tadeshi royalists, and now in vakari custody. That might suffice for persuasion.
Except without Thorsdottir, who had Rose stowed in her hardsuit, Zhang had no physical proof of the weapon, only the documents describing it, which someone could claim had been faked. Without proof, it was unlikely—
Oh, stop there, she told herself. Everything was unlikely from this point: Rory and Jaed and Thorsdottir returning to Vagabond, any kind of escape, any, let us be grim, hope of surviving. Long-term plans were impractical. Short-term: prep the ship for departure, which without the primary turing meant manual checks of the sort that kept a mind occupied.
The arms-turing squeaked an alert. Zhang went to its console and checked. The arms-turing was certain that high-velocity projectiles were inbound, and it recommended evasive maneuvers and returning fire, not necessarily in that order. Zhang perched on Thorsdottir’s chair and picked through the readouts. Thorsdottir had never said the arms-turing was prone to flights of fancy and exaggeration. But if there were projectiles inbound, then that meant—
Vagabond shuddered. There was a momentary flickering of teslas as Sissten’s power-feeds to Vagabond went down. Then Vagabond’s engines took over. The interior teslas steadied, brightened.
—that the vakari ship was under attack, and that those projectiles had just made contact.
Zhang slid back to her own seat and conducted a little bit of improvised redirection so that the arms-turing sent its reports straight to the main screen. It reported that Sissten was returning fire (another shudder). Zhang wished that she dared patch the arms-turing into Sissten’s transmissions, or at least into its network; but that would almost certainly alert the vakari to someone on board Vagabond, and while she would like to imagine that an attacking ship would demand all their attention, she could not risk nervous soldiers coming back through the aetherlock.
However, she could and did seal the hatch from the inside. If someone did want to board, they would either need the correct codes or superior firepower, and she would have plenty of warning.
The arms-turing chirped and spat out another slew of reports. There were more projectiles inbound, here and here and here, none of which would come close to Vagabond, but all of which would strike Sissten unless the vakari countermeasures intervened successfully. The arms-turing estimated the probability high of some penetration, with an accompanying series of damage estimates (accuracy percentages low, since Vagabond had no real idea of what a vakari ship could tolerate, or how it was laid out, or, really, anything). The arms-turing repeated its recommendation, and this time it was firm on the order: take evasive, then return fire, y/n?
Before Zhang could acknowledge the recommendation with an emphatic n, the arms-turing transformed the main display into a cascade of orange that Thorsdottir would have recognized, a semi-sentient outburst of outrage (it was an arms-turing) and dread (it possessed a small arsenal and was aware of its limits). Vagabond had been Tadeshi once, and despite the shuffling and reprogramming of its turings, it recalled its origins in much the same way a child remembers an unpleasant classroom experience with a wretched teacher.
Zhang was not given to talking to herself, or to outbursts in general; but when she saw the arms-turing’s identification of the attacking vessel, she both swore aloud and demanded of the multiverse and the arms-turing if they were, indeed, joking. That was one of the remaining Tadeshi dreadnoughts, of the sort more generally employed in trying to obliterate the fleet of the Confederation of Liberated Worlds. There was no reason for it to be in Samtalet, and yet, here it was.
Zhang made several leaps of understanding, then. A dreadnought did not run escort or courier work. It must know about G. Stein’s errand. It had come to collect Rose. And it was prepared for resistance, which meant the Tadeshi must already know about the vakari, too. The Confederation’s relative successes this past year, the ease with which they had retaken occupied systems, was not due to Maggie’s leadership or her generals’ skill. It was because the Tadeshi were engaging in battle (or perhaps war) elsewhere in the galaxy.
A part of Zhang (the same part which kept her quiet in most social interactions) insisted that Dame Maggie and the nebulous they who ran even more nebulous things must already know about the Protectorate. Authority always knew more than regular people. That was the whole point of it. There was no need for one former guard of a disgraced Consortium princess to insert herself as a harbinger of woe. They already knew. They didn’t need her warning.
But if they did not know about the vakari, this nebulous authoritative they, then they desperately needed to; and even if they did, they did not know about Rose, and she was uniquely positioned to deliver that information.
But to do so, she would need to get Vagabond loose, and leave her friends on board a vessel under attack by (let us assume the worst) superior firepower, if not superior arithmancy.
Zhang squeezed her eyes closed and counted to five. Thorsdottir would say—oh, gentle ancestors, she had no idea what. Thorsdottir would look first to Rory, because that was everyone’s habit, and Rory would put the needs of others over her own safety, but she had always had people like Zhang and Thorsdottir and Messer Rupert and Grytt to limit the consequences of her choices to her actual person.
Zhang settled into her seat, fastened the harness, and lowered her suit’s visor. She was not at all sure how Sissten was holding on to Vaga
bond. Clamps, presumably, which would also presumably unclamp if the object they held proved a danger to the ship.
“All right,” Zhang told the arms-turing. “You win. Target Sissten. I know it’s point-blank and that if you actually fire, you’ll blow us up, too. But let’s hope the vakari ship’s safety protocols don’t know we aren’t suicidal.”
The arms-turing said nothing, of course, having no voice/speech capability, and though Zhang had to input the commands manually, she felt better for having said them aloud. She could imagine that Rory would hear and approve. That Thorsdottir would, too. And that they would forgive her for leaving them behind.
The arms-turing beeped, rather petulantly. Someone was trying the aetherlock, which had set off its safety protocols and interrupted its targeting sequence.
Zhang whipped around to face the aetherlock and unclipped the ’slinger in one motion. Thorsdottir would have been impressed, if she had witnessed the speed and grace of that action; Jaed would have been both impressed and envious; Grytt would have merely grunted approvingly and without surprise, since she had chosen Zhang (and Thorsdottir) for their excellence.
Zhang herself experienced a giddy moment of detachment, staring down the barrel of a ’slinger with adrenaline flooding her system. She was also expecting that hostile boarders would need to force the lock, but no, Vagabond’s aetherlock was calmly counting the seconds to green-and-unlocked, as if whoever was on the other side either had the entry codes or (and here, Zhang’s stomach dropped into her boots) had the arithmancy to hex past the locks.
A ’slinger might do very little good against an arithmancer. Still, she leveled the weapon and angled herself out of the direct line of sight. There was not much cover in the cockpit, but there were chairs, and she was smaller than Thorsdottir. She would have one, maybe two shots, if she fired immediately.
The hatch irised open. A siren wailed in the corridor. Emergency teslas flooded into Vagabond’s relative quiet, splashing bloody light on the deck and the bulkhead.
Zhang did not, in fact, fire at once. She hesitated. She would think about that, in subsequent days, with a sort of queasy guilt and relief.
But so: the hatch irised open and Jaed Moss came through in a rush. It was only when he spotted her, as she rose from her pitiful concealment in the cockpit, that he realized he was on the wrong end of a drawn and aimed ’slinger, and froze, mid-step. He had a stick of some kind in one hand, black and shiny and very weapon-like.
There came a shuffling noise behind him, boots scuffing on decking, and someone who did not sound like Thorsdottir swore in what did not sound like GalSpek.
Jaed rocked just a little, as if bumped, but he did not take his eyes off Zhang, or the ’slinger, even as his own weapon drooped. “Zhang?”
“Gah,” she said, and lowered her ’slinger. “Dammit, Jaed.”
He stepped clear of the hatch. “Thorsdottir’s hurt, this is Crow, he’s on our side, someone’s attacking the ship, we have to go.”
“The attacker’s a Tadeshi dreadnought.” Zhang clipped the ’slinger to her suit and tried to peer past Jaed’s shoulder into the aetherlock. “What do you mean, Thorsdottir’s hurt? Who’s Crow—ah. I see.”
“I’m fine,” said Thorsdottir, which was a clear lie. Her hardsuit was cracked just below the right elbow, blackened in streaks running toward her wrist. Her skin looked waxy, too pale even for Thorsdottir, her eyes, bruised and glassy. She was draped across a xeno’s shoulder and back, which was testament to the strength of the carrier. (Crow, Zhang told herself firmly. Not a what, not an it, a person named Crow, gender-designation male, and never mind that those were tusks sticking up from his lower jaw.)
“—took a whitefire wand strike to the forearm,” Crow was saying. “Where’s your med-kit?”
“Rear cabin,” Jaed said, before Zhang could answer or ask what a whitefire wand was. “Give her to me. Take this.” He thrust the weapon at Crow. “Zhang—you said a Tadeshi dreadnought?”
“Yes.” She looked in vain for Rory, as Jaed took custody of Thorsdottir and Crow moved toward the cockpit. There appeared to be no one else in the corridor. “Where’s Rory?”
But Jaed was saying something to Thorsdottir as he got her into the cabin, which left Zhang facing Crow, who grinned at her. It was not a friendly or welcoming expression. “You the pilot?”
“Yes.”
Crow made as if to move into the cockpit, as if he expected Zhang to step aside. Zhang didn’t. She was aware of her dimensional inadequacies, and that anyone who could carry Thorsdottir could shove her aside easily enough, but Jaed and Thorsdottir had left her alone with this person, so command of Vagabond must fall to her.
“Rory,” said Zhang. “Is she dead?”
Crow looked at her with what Zhang could only interpret as pity and a grim discomfort. His eyes were gold with green flecks. Ordinary hazel eyes in an extraordinary face. “The veeks took her off somewhere, so good as. We have to go. Listen. Your friend back there’s in bad shape. She needs help, and we need to get off this ship before the veeks figure out we’re gone, or before the slagging Tadeshi marines board.”
That was all more or less what Zhang had already determined. It was both comfort, and not, that this Crow had come to the same conclusions she had. But it was not just the pair of them, was it?
She kept her arm where it was and called past Crow’s shoulder. “Thorsdottir!”
Thorsdottir did not answer, but Jaed appeared on the threshold between cockpit and cabin. He exuded dishevelment, wide eyes and sweat-matted hair and, like Thorsdottir, far too pale. “It’s all right,” which it clearly was not. “Crow’s with us. Rory’s—I don’t know where she is, they took her.” Then he turned and disappeared back into the cabin.
He had said nothing about Thorsdottir. And she had not answered. That—that had to be bad.
“Pilot. Zhang.” Crow grabbed her arm. There was no way Zhang could have actually felt the grip through her suit, but she imagined she did. “This ship have weapons? I can run an arms-turing.”
“Yes. Right.” Zhang shook herself out of guilt and immobility and threw herself back into her seat. But she was not sure anything would be right again.
* * *
—
Thorsdottir was getting worse.
There was no reason for the deterioration that Jaed could detect. They hadn’t encountered any trouble, no fighting, no pitched battles in the journey from jail cell to Vagabond. (One small fireball, a joint test of transmutational cooperative hexwork by him and the fragments of Rose, which had caused a section seal to drop and blocked any pursuit from at least one direction.) Not that he was an alchemist, or a chirurgeon, or, well, anything remotely useful in this situation. He knew what shock looked like, from the mandatory first-aid training, but he was not sure what else was wrong under her hardsuit. He suspected burns, about which he knew very little, except that they hurt.
The contents of Vagabond’s meager medical kit stared back at him. He knew, in theory, what all of it did. The packages were all clearly labeled. He selected an analgesic patch from the kit, peeled it open, and showed it to Thorsdottir. She turned her head obediently and let him stick it to her neck. Her eyes crawled over his face.
“We can’t leave Rory.”
“Shut up and let me do this.”
She did, which was only proof how unwell she was. Thorsdottir should be slapping his hands off and arguing with him. She should be shouting at Zhang. She should be in charge, if Rory wasn’t. They hadn’t worked out a chain of command, but Jaed had always assumed Thorsdottir came second.
He could hear Zhang and Crow talking, though too softly to make out the words. They were probably planning the last few minutes of everyone’s lives. Somehow get away from the vakari ship, and then run straight into Tadeshi dreadnought fire—or Tadeshi demands for surrender.
Or, or. Without Rory on
board, Zhang and Thorsdottir weren’t anyone. Rory Thorne’s body-maids. He would be willing to bet (his life, theirs) that no one knew their names. So asking for asylum, aid, from the dreadnought might actually work.
Jaed Moss was, of course, someone. Traitor at the least. A useful bargaining chip, if it came to that.
“Jaed?”
He set aside the rising panic, attached as it was to an unproductive line of thinking. Most likely they would explode trying to decouple from Sissten. Operate under that theory. But to Thorsdottir, as he resumed rummaging ineffectually in the medical kit, he said, “Mm.”
“You’re supposed to tell me I’m going to be fine.”
“There’s a Tadeshi dreadnought out there firing on the ship to which we are currently clamped.”
“That isn’t fine, Jaed.”
“No, it’s not.”
“So you’re saying, I’m probably going to die when the ship blows up, don’t worry about the arm?”
“Something like that.”
She chuckled, a dry sound like sand in a bucket, and put her head back. At least she wasn’t watching him have no idea what to do for her anymore.
He stripped his gloves off and clipped them to his suit. You didn’t leave things loose on a ship, in case the hexes went out. Unsecured debris could turn lethal. So could unsecured people. He would have to hurry and get himself and Thorsdottir strapped in before Zhang took off, which meant he’d have to deal with the wound on her arm, which meant touching it.
He felt a bit like she looked: pale, clammy, cold. He flexed his fingers and then, carefully, peeled back the edge of the hardsuit. The metal snapped like a material far thinner and more brittle than hexed polysteel. Jaed stared at the broken piece in his hand. Then, before Thorsdottir noticed, he shoved it under the medical kit. Several other pieces followed. The whitefire had somehow altered the hardsuit’s composition.
