by Blaze Ward
But he could play as well.
Instead, he brought his nose around and lined it up with the tower. Uller and Vienna did the same. The targeting system got a lock almost instantly, a happy little bell tone, even without inertial guidance. Apparently, those people really were just being assholes. He would have at least turned on the ECM generators and started broadcasting static if he were down there.
“Corynthe Tower, this is Aquitaine Escort Flight,” he said, projecting as much professionalism and anger into his voice as he could. “I have a weapons lock on you. Turn off your targeting systems right now or I will consider you hostile and destroy you. You have four seconds to acknowledge and comply.”
At this speed, he would blow by them in less than ten seconds. If he had actually intended to fire right now, he’d have to bank over hard and stand the fighter on its ass, just to avoid the sort of explosion you got when a stack of missiles caught fire and went boom.
One…
Two…
Jouster’s fingers twitched with anticipation. If they were going to get stupid down there, it would be right about now.
The solid lock tone vanished from his cockpit as they turned off their systems.
Jouster let go his breath and locked his own weapons down. Because they deserved it, he nosed down a little bit, drifted to port a shade, and passed over the top of the tower at a little over twice the speed of sound at about two hundred meters relative elevation.
That ought to make that whole building shake, you punks.
“Jouster, this is Keller,” SHE said. The dragon lady. The bane of his existence. The reason he was acting more like a grown–up these days.
He tensed up and ground his teeth a little, expecting the worst.
“Nice flying, Jouster,” she said.
Really? Huh.
He did a victory roll as he blasted over the city. What was the worst these punks could do?
Chapter XXIV
Date of the Republic October 29, 393 City of Corynthe, Petron
Auberon carried a small armored limousine for transporting important personages on the ground. Jessica had never used it before today, since Auberon was normally docked at stations. At Ramsey, the local streets had been safe. Safe enough.
Corynthe was a different equation.
The car rumbled down the big ramp at the aft end of Cayenne and crossed the tarmac to where Jessica waited at Necromancer’s hatch. Across the way, she could see her marines escorting most of the refugees away from Cayenne, towards a series of local buses that would haul them to the terminal.
Her people weren’t being especially rough, but this group had a large number of extremely hard men, so the marines were much less friendly than they would be helping widows and orphans, which she had also seen them do. Still, today they were being merely professional. Hard, but professional.
Her chariot rolled to a stop like an earthquake subsiding. Marcelle opened the rear door and stepped out to look around. Jessica could see the butt of a pistol in a shoulder holster.
Marcelle had gotten much more protective and paranoid since Ramsey.
Jessica climbed into the vehicle and smiled at Warlock, sitting uncomfortably across from her. Her purser had worked up something simple for him to wear that didn’t look like it came from ship’s stores, but was still better than anything he had brought with him.
He really did clean up well.
“I still think,” he said, continuing the discussion, “that I should be with my people, getting them settled, instead of coming to the palace with you. That’s where I belong.”
She scowled at him. “I don’t care what you think, Warlock,” she said simply. “Had you been more open with me, maybe I would do it differently right now. Since everyone wants to dance around me with half–truths and lies, I want you where I can get to you quickly, if I decide to stop playing nice.”
He pursed his lips, as though he had bitten a lemon, but subsided into silence for the ride.
She settled back as the vehicle rumbled into motion.
Ξ
The Palace sounded so much more interesting when described than when seen. It reminded Jessica of a barn that had wandered sluggishly away from its roots. It sat on one whole side of a mammoth square on the edge of town, backed up to a wide river.
From the air, her guess had been that the square was part of the original spaceport for the city, once upon a time, and the palace originally a warehouse with a dock on the back to barge things up and down the river. She didn’t plan to ask any of the locals about the actual history. It wasn’t that interesting.
Interesting were the people.
As far as provincial capitals went, the city was average. Jessica guessed a population of a few hundred thousand, at most, surrounded by a hinterland of average to poor farmland. Good enough to sustain the planet. Not enough to get rich. That was why they went into space in the first place.
The people reminded her much more of a mining colony than anything else. The population mix on the streets as she rode through town was very heavily tilted towards males. And the few females she did see looked almost as hard and rugged as the men. This didn’t look like a place for families. Just ship’s crews.
Every corner had a bar. Many of them also had chandlery services of some sort, or flop houses, or pawn shops. She didn’t see any schools or day care crèches. It was possible they were mostly located on the other side of town.
She doubted that with a snort.
Warlock perked up at the sound. He raised an eyebrow silently.
She studied him for a second. Most men would have felt compelled to say something right then. Probably flirtatious. Possibly demeaning. Something. Few were self–possessed enough to not be threatened by a woman like her.
“Hard town,” she gestured out the window as the passing buildings. “Hard people.”
He shrugged.
“At least we’re on the Boulevard of Kings,” he said, referring to the street. “On some of the sketchier streets north of here, I would expect someone to take a potshot at us as we drove by.”
“Really?” Marcelle perked up immediately in the front seat. Jessica imagined one hand disappearing into her jacket to touch a pistol butt.
He waved a hand negligently. “I checked with the marines before I got in this beast,” he replied. “Hand–held weapons like the locals have won’t even scratch the paint. We’re safe. At least until we get to the palace.”
“What happens then?” Jessica asked.
“Why then, Command Centurion Keller,” he replied calmly, with only a hint of sarcasm, visible around the eyes, “you will meet the King of the Pirates.”
The half–smile on his face only vaguely mollified her.
Ξ
“Her Excellency, Admiral Jessica Keller, of the Republic of Aquitaine.”
Jessica listened to the herald fill the grand space with his baritone voice. She hid her smile at the subtle promotion he had granted her. Apparently, only important people, or people with warfleets behind them, got properly announced into the Court. She could settle for the latter.
This chamber was intellectually just about as far from the reception at Ramsey as she could have imagined. That had been a small affair, a hundred or so people at an afternoon cocktail party with a buffet line.
This was an auditorium big enough for team sports. The floor sloped subtly down from the door into a large flat spot before a raised platform with a throne atop. It was the only chair in the place.
Around her, several hundred people waited. Most were generally quiet and about half were looking in her direction as she entered, with Warlock and Marcelle immediately behind her. There were several side conversations going on and people turned completely away from her.
The crowd was dressed exactly how central casting would have done it, if you told them you wanted to make a space pirate movie.
Jessica wondered how much the image drove the reality, and how much of it were people like this tryi
ng to look like the fantasy on the screen. Certainly, the number of blades on belts, from little shivs up to poniards the length of her arm, plus all the colorfully–dyed leather and occasional chain mail, carried the look.
A space parted down the middle of the crowd as she walked forward, escorted by the herald and a pair of guards. The herald, an older man with a noticeable limp and a shaved head, was obviously for show. Pomp and circumstance. He carried a lovely carved–wood staff that appeared to be his badge of office.
The guards, on the other hand, were fully armed. Jessica had left her marines with the vehicle. It was easier to do that than to potentially insult the man she was here to see.
That left her, facing this man, Arnulf Rodriguez, King Of The Pirates, and his entire Court. With just the entire weight of the Republic of Aquitaine Navy behind her.
It was a fair fight.
She walked most of the way down the length of the room, stopping perhaps six meters away from the platform. Close enough that she could talk at reasonable level without having to yell over the quiet buzz. Not so close that she had to smell him or his guards if he was really into the whole barbarian–image thing.
Warlock had turned out to be more civilized than she had expected, but she still wasn’t expecting much from the rest of these people.
The king and Jessica stared at each other from across those six meters of space, the two of them, alone but for the half dozen guards and one herald between them. His look was frankly appraising, almost indecently so. She decided she could return the favor.
Arnulf Rodriguez, Corynthe’s King of the Pirates, was a giant of a man. Warlock was merely big. Rodriguez appeared to be more than two meters tall, dressed in an outfit that started out as a dark, almost–slate, gray, with touches of color added subtly, mostly dark reds. Far more reserved than she would have expected a pirate king to be.
He had been a fighter in his prime. He had that look to him, in the set of his shoulders and the way his weight stayed forward on his toes when he stood still as she approached. The middle was getting thick, but the hands still had that something that she recognized subconsciously.
Something she saw in the mirror.
Hands used to holding blades.
This man, this pirate king, had led a very successful, very violent life, as one would expect to rise to the level of power he had, and to then hold it.
“So, Commander Keller,” he called out, loud enough to be heard across most of the chamber, “you speak of political alliance between our nations.”
Jessica could feel the theater of his presence take hold. Among his many talents, the man was apparently a carnival barker as well. His charisma was magnetic, drawing all eyes into their conversation, making it intimate for their four hundred close friends.
“Just so you know,” he continued, “such things are frequently family affairs in Corynthe, arranged politically between clans and sealed by marriages. How would you feel about becoming queen of the pirates?”
His flourish with his right hand as he finished was just the perfect calculated move. She could feel the room around her on pins and needles as she watched him, a small grin spreading across her face. They were probably expecting an embarrassed, stammering withdrawal.
She could only imagine how Fleet Lord Loncar would have responded to this group. That just added to her smile. These people were warriors, not bureaucrats.
“That depends, Your Excellency,” she replied with a broad smile and a soft drawl, “what do you have to offer as a dowry?”
The whole room turned silent, with a sudden shocked awe. For a moment, she was afraid she might have pushed this stranger a bit too far.
But really, he had invited it. In Aquitaine, it was extremely rude to even discuss such topics with strangers, let along in front of mobs.
The King of the Pirates responded with a hearty, bellowing laugh that shook his whole frame. After a few beats, the rest of the Court joined in politely.
Jessica let herself breathe and stopped calculating just how quickly she could lay her hands on a firearm and which guard she would have to take it from. She expected Marcelle had already plotted three steps farther ahead.
“Bravo, Admiral Keller,” he said as his laughter died down. “We shall dicker. But, later. First, is Warlock under your protection?”
From the way his emphasis was heavy on the last word, Jessica supposed that there was a deeper meaning, something nobody had bothered to explain yet, either locals with knowledge or the sailing gazette. She could update that later, assuming she hadn’t just stepped into something stupidly messy here.
“That depends, Admiral Rodriguez,” she replied carefully. “As a refugee in need, it was incumbent upon me and my fleet to make sure he and his people made it home safely. But he is a free citizen of Corynthe, as I understand the term, and a respected leader. He is his own man, now.”
The pirate king’s eyes grew cagey as he studied first her, and then Warlock.
“So, Warlock,” the man began, his tone taking on a very formal, stilted tone as he spoke. “Have you taken foreign service?”
The most fascinating part, for Jessica, was the way Ishikura’s shoulders squared forward and his weight rolled forward onto his toes, in a pose that unconsciously mimicked the king before him. He moved a couple of steps to his left, clearing space around him and having a clear path around the herald.
“I have not, King of the Pirates,” he replied, equally formal. “I am a Captain of Corynthe and a Free Pirate. I challenge any man who would say otherwise.”
Around the room, Jessica could hear the silence spread outward, like ripples on a pond.
Theater had turned suddenly dangerous.
Fortunately, none of the guards were paying much attention to her, just in case.
The king nodded at them, all business.
“How come you to stand before me, Warlock? I had ordered you to Sarmarsh.”
“That woman,” Daneel Ishikura, Warlock, said, pointing back at her without looking. “After she attacked the bases at Sarmarsh, and destroyed everything we had to fight her with, she added insult to injury by redirecting an asteroid into the planet. The entire base, and a significant chunk of the surface of the planet, was simply annihilated.”
Jessica heard the surprised intakes and yelps around the room as people processed the chain of events.
“I was given the choice of living to fight another day, or dying in silence,” he continued. “I chose to fight.”
All of the attention, both from the king and his Court, shifted to her. It wasn’t hostile, exactly. Or rather, it was hostile, but it was a hostility at her gender as much as her uniform. There were very few women in the crowd that weren’t obviously bimbos on the arm of someone important.
“Is this truth?” the king rumbled at her.
Jessica took a moment to scowl back at him. “It is.”
She could see a new light in the man’s eyes. Here was a very dangerous player, he was thinking. Almost dangerous enough to play games with the King of the Pirates.
If only he knew the real truth.
“Very well, Warlock,” the King announced. “You are home, and you are a free man.”
He paused for a moment, looking to the people on his left. “Hellhound,” he called out, “I will allow your challenge to Warlock, but do not insult Aquitaine in your haste for revenge or justice.”
Jessica picked up the man as soon as he moved. Not as tall as Warlock. Possibly as broad. Hellhound had medium length hair, brown and greasy. He moved with solidity, almost the opposite of Warlock’s easy grace. The scar on his face made him look like something of a wild animal. The light in the green eyes accentuated it.
He stepped out from the group into a space that suddenly opened as people scurried back out of the way. Perhaps five meters separated him from Warlock when he stopped.
The two men stared at each other for several moments.
“Captain Daneel Ishikura,” the man began, an unlik
ely tenor voice coming from such a large frame, “you and I have unfinished business before this Court. The blood feud is not forgotten. I challenge your right to stand here as a Captain and not a slave.”
Ishikura had pivoted to face the man and his friends, a bear brought to heel by a pack of dogs. Jessica watched closely as the pack dynamics played out.
Warlock was silent for a few moments. He raised his chin and flipped his hair back with disdain.
“Captain Rory Agano,” he replied, equally formal, “I recognize your feud and your challenge.”
He appeared to smile, from what Jessica could see of the side of his face.
“How like you to wait in an alley to ambush a lone traveler, with only a dozen of your dogs for help. Will they be enough?”
Jessica nearly laughed as the captain known as Hellhound turned beet red. It almost felt like one of those children’s cartoons where steam would come out of the villain’s ears.
“You came here with her.” Hellhound pointed at Jessica with a hiss. “She can stand Second as your Witness.”
Jessica was pretty sure she actually heard a pin drop, somewhere over in a corner. Certainly nobody was breathing at that instant. Several of Hellhound’s mates suddenly looked nervous. Even the King of the Pirates stirred uncomfortably.
Warlock turned to face her with his own nervous look. She pasted a neutral, questioning look on her own face and stared back at the men, daring either of them. She might have only come up to their shoulders, but she was pretty sure she could take either of them in a pinch. Maybe both of them.
“Admiral Keller,” Warlock began. The formal edges were gone from his voice, so this sounded much more like a conversation than a challenge. “It is customary to have an ally stand close by to witness the challenge and testify to the fairness later, if necessary.”
She watched something appear in his eyes. Not pleading. This was not a man who pled, and certainly not with a woman.
Perhaps a simple request for help?
