Dragon Pearl

by Yoon Ha Lee

  I didn’t like smearing Jang’s character this way. I’d seen how my brother’s reputation had suffered after he’d allegedly deserted. But what other choice did I have?

  Haneul and Sujin would especially worry about Jang’s disappearance. I couldn’t reassure them in advance, though. Not without revealing what I’d learned about Captain Hwan’s secret mission and, more importantly, risking execution for posing as a cadet.

  I could get Jang’s permission beforehand. It might assuage my guilt a little.

  “Jang,” I whispered, “are you there?”

  Cold air swirled next to my ear.

  “I’m going to have to leave this ship in order to get our answers.”

  The silence was heavy, expectant.

  “I can only do it with the help of the mercenaries down in the brig,” I said. Then I added coaxingly, “I could get more information for you in the process.”

  I took it as a good sign that Jang hadn’t stirred up more wind or frozen my fingers off.

  “Once we dock at Abalone Spire, will you help me spring them and escape?” I finished.

  His voice hissed in my ear. “Yesss,” he said. “Maybe this time I’ll finally get some satisfaction.”

  I sighed. Would he ever be satisfied? But I knew I shouldn’t complain, because he was handy to have around. Hopefully he would be even more so in a couple days’ time.

  Two nights later, I rose at three a.m., when my bunkmates were still sound asleep. For a moment I listened wistfully to Haneul’s loud snoring, and the softer breathing of Sujin and the others. I might never see any of them again. But I couldn’t delay any longer.

  Given the subtle, self-serving consideration with which the interrogator had treated the captives, I doubted she’d be getting them up in the middle of the ship’s night for questioning. All I’d need to do was get past any guards and try to bargain with the mercenaries myself. While I didn’t like the thought of working with pirates, I didn’t have many options if I wanted to get off the Pale Lightning.

  First things first. I retrieved a blaster from one of the weapons lockers, along with some extra power packs. I imagined I’d have plenty of use for the blaster in the days to come. It took me a few moments to buckle the holster onto my belt, mainly because my hands shook with nerves.

  I headed to Deck 3 with its damaged meridian as Jang kept a lookout. He tickled me with cold air whenever he spotted someone. I held my breath as I approached the restricted area, slowing down so I wouldn’t fall on my face again. I had wondered if bad luck might also make my timing wrong, but no one else was in the passageway. There was less nighttime activity when the ship was docked.

  As I expected based on my previous visit, two guards were stationed at the site. This time they were standing together—probably to keep each other awake—back-to-back and facing opposite directions. I had my ruse prepared. I took a deep breath, then nudged them with Charm to convince them my presence was nothing out of the ordinary. I pretended to be distraught and kept glancing over my shoulder.

  “What’s the matter, Cadet?” one of the guards asked.

  I drew harder on Charm to increase their anxiety. “I saw someone acting strangely down the corridor. One of the privates—a short woman. She had some power tools. I was afraid to stop her because she looked dangerous. Please, you’ve got to go after her. . . .”

  If the guards hadn’t been under the influence of magic, they would have called in the incident instead of looking at each other and then breaking into a run. Their footsteps sounded unnaturally loud as they dashed off, and I couldn’t help wincing at the racket. Still, I had bought myself a little time while they pursued a false lead.

  Time for some real sabotage. My stomach ached as I ducked under the tape and tried to sense the damage to the invisible meridian. It looked like the recent battle hadn’t done this area any favors. The floor tiles had warped further. Some wiring spilled out from a panel in the wall. It was black with corrosion, making it resemble the tormented branches of a diseased shrub.

  Had the original sabotage been Jang’s doing, however unintentional? I still didn’t know, and now, when I needed his help, it certainly wasn’t the right time to ask him.

  I had no idea how the exposed wiring was related to the meridian, but it made a good target, in any case. I backed up, almost twisting my ankle in the process, and drew out the blaster. I aimed it squarely at the wires. The pistol writhed in my hands like a living creature, and I tightened my grip and shifted my stance, taking slow, deep breaths.

  I squeezed the trigger. Red fire splashed the wires and the recess beneath the warped tiles. Sparks sputtered as the wires melted, and a noxious vapor rose from them. I gagged and stumbled away, gasping for untainted air, then quickly replaced the blaster in its holster to avoid accidentally frying my own feet.

  Good thing the ship is already undergoing repairs, I thought. They can just add this to the list.

  The pain in my gut intensified. Time for me to get out of there. I headed in the opposite direction from the guards and made my way to the elevator.

  By the time I arrived on the brig level, I had a ferocious headache. I wasn’t sure whether it was a side effect of what I’d done to the ship, or a result of nerves. Probably both. I should have grabbed some painkillers on my way out of the bunk. Too late now.

  This time, I used shape-shifting to imitate Captain Hwan’s form. I wasn’t used to being so tall, and it took an effort to imitate his confident gait. But I figured the guards would be less inclined to stop the captain, especially if I used Charm to dampen their suspicions.

  “Sir!” The guards snapped to attention in a way that would have been funny if the situation hadn’t been so fraught with danger. If only they knew who I really was! Of course, if they guessed, this would end messily.

  “I’m here to see the prisoners,” I said, discomfited by the low growl of the captain’s voice emerging from my throat. I couldn’t let that show, though. I almost blurted that I had some additional questions for the captives, then thought better of it. The captain wouldn’t owe anyone explanations, after all. Too bad I hadn’t had the chance to impersonate him before this. It would have made my life easier.

  “Of course, sir,” said the guard in charge, a burly man. “Right this way, Captain.”

  It was bizarre to be addressed as “Captain,” as if I were a real officer. Then again, Captain was just as much a fiction as Cadet. I couldn’t let a fake rank go to my head.

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and followed the guard to where the three captives were being held. “Open the cells,” I ordered, “then leave us.” I leaned hard on Charm for this one.

  Even so, the guard hesitated. “Sir—”

  I decided a bluff was in order. “What’s the matter, you don’t think I can handle them?” I caught and held his gaze in a way I never would’ve dared to as Jang.

  The color drained from the guard’s face. “Of course not, sir.”

  Did he think I was going to eat the prisoners? I’d never heard anyone so much as breathe the suggestion that Captain Hwan followed such ancient practices. But then again, who would, and risk offending a tiger?

  Just out of curiosity, I smiled, letting just a hint of my teeth show. They weren’t sharp fangs, though it would have been easy to conjure some—and that kind of shape-shifting was something even a tiger could do. I thought it might be overkill.

  The guard swallowed visibly. “As you say, sir.” He hastened to unlock the cells. I nodded at him, and he fled.

  The three prisoners stared at me, frozen. The air was thick with the scent of their terror. It made me uncomfortable, but if it kept them from rushing me, it wasn’t all bad.

  I’d already gotten a chance to study the scholar, so this time I took a closer look at the other two. The man had a dour, unshaven face and the breadth of a bear. I made a note not to get close to him in a fight. As for the woman, stringy hair almost concealed her eyes, and her thin, scarred hands twitched nerv
ously. I couldn’t afford to discount her as a threat, either.

  I reached for my blaster, and the smell intensified. “Keep your distance,” I said, training the blaster on the scholar, and stepped back. “Out.”

  “You’re executing us?” the woman prisoner demanded. She sounded more outraged than afraid. “An honorable captain of the Space Forces?”

  You did attack us, I thought, remembering Sujin’s burns. But this wasn’t the time to seek revenge. “I said out.” I narrowed my eyes, directing Charm at her to make her more willing to obey. “I have a bargain for you.”

  The weasel-faced scholar made a calm down gesture at his comrade. Then to me he said, “Fine,” in a weary tone. He emerged from his cell, and the other two followed suit. “What do you mean, ‘bargain’?”

  This was going to be the dicey part. I concentrated, making sure to keep my blaster trained on the scholar, and shifted back into my cousin Bora’s shape. (If Bora ever made it out into space, she was going to have a certain reputation and it was going to be my fault. I wasn’t really sorry, though.)

  The scholar’s eyes widened. “Gumiho,” he breathed. “I thought your kind was extinct.”

  The other two were gaping at me as if I’d sprouted fox ears. When I was younger, I would have been tempted to make that actually happen, but I didn’t think it would improve my bargaining position. I wanted to keep the scholar’s attention on my blaster.

  “I’m going to make you a deal,” I said. Another bluff: “I’ll take you to your captive ship and get you out of here. In exchange, you’ll take me to the Fourth Colony. That’s where you were going originally, wasn’t it?”

  The scholar drew a shaky breath, his mouth tightening. After a moment, he said, “I don’t see that we have much choice at this point. But I have bad news for you. I can’t wield protective magic, and the shaman we hired to exorcise the ghosts was a casualty of the fighting.”

  “I can deal with that,” I said, more boldly than I felt. “I have ways to persuade them to listen. Ghosts are still people”—even if they were dead—“and fox magic should work on them. I’ll be able to calm them down so we can negotiate.”

  The scholar considered it. “I suppose it could work . . .” he said, his fear subsiding a little.

  “If that thing is really a fox, it might be preparing to eat us,” the woman said in an undertone, although I could hear her perfectly well.

  I couldn’t help feeling nettled. I was standing there with a blaster and she thought I was going to use my teeth? Besides—and it’s not like I would ever do such a thing—I bet she’d taste revolting. “If you really don’t want to be eaten,” I said flatly, “maybe you should get moving like I told you to.”

  The woman began to protest, but the scholar made another placating gesture and she shut her mouth. The other man, his face pale, remained silent—too dumbfounded to speak, I guessed—but nodded at the scholar.

  I changed back into Captain Hwan’s shape. Borrowing the captain’s authority would help us get by the guards more easily. Once again, the smell of fear wafted from the scholar and his comrades. Fear—and hope.

  They didn’t have to trust me, exactly, but I needed them as badly as they needed me. I just hoped they didn’t catch on to that. In the captain’s voice, I growled, “Forward.”

  When we reached them, the guards startled. “Sir,” one of them said hesitantly, “I’m not sure this is the best—”

  “Did I ask your opinion?” I said pointedly.

  This, plus another dose of Charm, did the trick. The guard subsided. I pushed harder to convince them to skip the usual step of signing out the prisoners. Not only would that slow us down, I didn’t want to leave any record of what had occurred.

  The female prisoner coughed to catch my attention. “Maybe we should . . .” She jerked her head toward the guards, who were smiling blankly at an empty stretch of the wall. “You know . . .” She made a throat-slitting gesture.

  A growl escaped my throat.

  “Suit yourself,” she said, “but you know they’re going to cause trouble later.”

  No way am I killing anyone, I thought. Not unless absolutely necessary. I would have to keep an eye on the woman, in case she tried anything.

  The scholar glanced back at me thoughtfully while I gave him directions to the bay where his captured ship was docked. After I’d Charmed a cluster of crew members into passing us by with glazed eyes, he said in a low voice, “I’d always thought the old stories were exaggerations. Apparently not.”

  I was dying to ask why, if he was so impressed with my magic, it didn’t seem to be having much effect on him.

  As if he’d divined my question, the scholar smiled. It wasn’t a happy expression. “I may not be the best scholar,” he said—and I was reminded that he’d gotten his position by faking his credentials—“but some of my knowledge of the old lore is genuine.”

  That lore presumably included ways to resist fox magic. I longed to ask him how he was doing it, but he had no reason to tell me. I’d have to see if I could coax it out of him later. Assuming we all survived.

  More guards awaited us at the docking bay. I practiced my glare some more, reinforced by Charm. Even if the Pale Lightning’s crew was intimidated by Captain Hwan, his decision to reunite the prisoners with their ship was going to make them hesitate.

  While I’d grown more confident in wielding magic, I was throwing a lot of it around, and my headache had intensified. Just a little longer, I told myself. Once we got off the Pale Lightning, I could ease up.

  “There it is,” the pale-faced man breathed. I wished he would stop sweating so heavily, even though I knew he couldn’t help it.

  The mercenaries’ starship rested on several struts. For something that had caused us so much trouble, it was dwarfed by the expansive space of the bay. It had a blockish, rectangular shape with protrusions for its various missile launchers and laser cannons. Most of them had been melted into blobby shapes like tree fungus. Good, I thought vindictively. Then I remembered I was going to be a passenger on it, and I gulped.

  The ship’s hull was dented and blackened with laser marks. No one had done any repair work on it—there was no reason they should have—and I winced, wondering how reliable the ship would be. But it was my only way off the Pale Lightning.

  I followed the three mercenaries to their ship. The scholar smelled calm, but the woman swore when she looked it over. “We’ll be lucky if we can get the maneuver drive to work,” she said as she opened the hatch.

  “You’re going to have to do your best,” the scholar said to her. I gathered that she must be the engineer, or the closest thing that remained.

  I glanced about as I ascended the ramp. Considering the amount of damage on the outside, the interior wasn’t as messed up as I had expected. Part of the airlock had been sealed off, but that was it.

  The woman started toward the back of the ship. When I twitched, she said impatiently, “I need to check on the engine. You want to launch, don’t you?”

  She smelled sincere. “Go on,” I said. I holstered the blaster. I didn’t want to be caught unawares, but I also needed to avoid antagonizing the mercenaries too much. I hoped they’d remember that they owed me a favor for releasing them. I leaned on Charm to strengthen their feelings of gratitude.

  In the cockpit, we waited tensely while the pale man asked the computer for the ship’s status. I held my breath until the comms crackled on and the woman’s voice said, “We can make do. Just don’t try any fancy maneuvers.”

  As much as I wanted to let go of Captain Hwan’s shape, I held on to it a little longer. It would be useful for confusing the Pale Lightning’s crew until we got out of there. I prayed the docking bay’s guards would stay Charmed long enough to do nothing.

  “Ready?” the pale man—the ship’s pilot—said, his glance flicking between the scholar and me.

  The scholar looked my way, and I nodded crisply. Time to go.

  “All systems go,” the pil
ot said. He sounded grimly cheerful, or cheerfully grim. “Everyone strapped in?”

  The scholar and I both said yes. The lights on the control panel changed to blue. The glow sheened over the pilot’s face and pooled in his eyes, making them resemble windows to another world.

  I shivered. It wasn’t dread. Rather, I felt the ghost-wind again. Jang must have followed me off the Pale Lightning and onto the mercenaries’ ship. I hadn’t expected that. Ghosts typically stick close to the location where they died. Maybe now, without him around, the broken meridian on the Pale Lightning would heal. But would Jang curse my mission with bad luck?

  The ship surged forward. A new light came on, this one red. The pilot hit it out of reflex and laughed sourly.

  The real Captain Hwan’s voice snarled from the communications channel. “Scholar Chul.”

  The scholar flinched.

  “You have one minute to power down your stardrive and exit your vehicle with your compatriots. After that, I make no guarantees for your personal safety.”

  “Ignore him,” Chul said quietly. “There’s no going back, not anymore.” His mouth pulled up in an expression that would have resembled a smile if not for the exhaustion in his eyes.

  “Right,” the pilot said. He thrust a joystick, and the ship surged forward.

  I bit back a shriek as we headed straight for the docking bay’s hatch. A glance at the cameras revealed that two squads of fully suited soldiers had burst in and were opening fire on the ship. Lucky for us that antipersonnel weapons didn’t have much effect on it, despite the damage it had already taken. I kept expecting to feel impacts, however small, or hear the clatter-shatter-bang of projectiles hitting the hull.

  I was worried we’d crash on the way out. But the pilot was prepared. He blew open the hatch with a missile at short range. Red lights flashed crazily throughout the docking bay as air whooshed out into hard vacuum.

  Acceleration slammed us sideways as our ship veered hard to starboard, then rolled. Alarms clanged and flashed red, this time inside our ship. I narrowly avoided biting my tongue as I clutched the seat’s armrests.