by K. B. Wagers
“Well, we were hoping we could convince Captain Earnest to change sides, but that’s not going to happen. So, Hao?” I gestured for him and he pushed himself away from the wall.
“I have several programs that provide excellent identity masking. It won’t stand up against deep scans but should be enough to get us into the shipyard and past the guards in the detention center.”
“Good.” I nodded. “Once we’re on the bridge, we’ll have the technicians do their magic. The ships will warp out and we can leave in the chaos. No one is going to question three Saxon ships booking out of there when that’s exactly what all the Vajrayana ships are going to be doing.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan, Majesty.” Admiral Hassan crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “You want to tell me why you think I’m going to let you do it?”
“Well, for starters because Saxon Shock troops bringing the Empress of Indrana back as a prisoner is going to open doors pretty damn fast.” I grinned at her. “And I’ve got the lock codes. This doesn’t happen without me.”
Admiral Hassan looked at the ceiling and then at Emmory, who lifted his hands in surrender.
“I tried to tell her no, ma’am, but short of forcibly removing the codes from her smati there’s no way to get them.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear the argument before we landed,” I said. “Emmory was quite upset.”
“Majesty—”
“We’re not going over it again, Admiral. If Emmory couldn’t convince me, I can promise you won’t either. This is the option that gives us the best chance of doing this with no casualties. Anything else is going to end with more of my people dead, and I will not stand by while that happens. Am I clear?”
Inana eyed me for a long moment while the hammering of my heart filled my ears. Finally she nodded. “Perfectly, Majesty.”
“Once we warp back here, we’ll transfer personnel as quickly as we can. I’m assuming you’ll come up with a plan for the actual assault on Canafey, Admiral, but things are obviously going to be much easier with at least half the Saxon ships away from the planet trying to figure out where the Vajrayana ships went.”
“Admiral?” A woman sporting a pair of brand-new commander insignia cleared her throat and looked nervously around the room.
“Yes, Commander Zhen?”
“If we can get them to act in concert, why don’t we just have them fire on the Saxon fleet?”
Admiral Hassan shook her head. “They’re not autonomous, Petra. We could have them fire a salvo or two, but battles require split-second thinking and the ability to read a situation. The hive mind function was designed to help with coordinating warping into and out of battles as well as for maneuvers where the timing needs to be exact. It won’t help us here.” She smiled. “Good question though, keep them coming.”
“We’ll take the Saxon ships into Canafey,” I said. “Emmory, Hao, and I will be prisoners on one with Cas, Indula, and three of your crew members, Admiral.” We were short on people who could pass as Saxons, and so Emmory had agreed to pick from the admiral’s crew to fill in the gaps. “Zin, Gita, Rai, and Johar will be on the other, with Kisah and Iza as well as three more of your crew.”
“I can pull names for your Ekam to look over, though given our current predicament, we’re reasonably sure everyone here is loyal.” There were chuckles around the room.
“That’ll work. Once we’re in, Cas and the others will take us to the detention center, where I’ll demand to speak with the commander of the station immediately. Cas and his team will escort us up there while the others stay behind and take over the detention area. Once we know they have things under control we’ll make our move up on the command deck.”
“With all due respect, Majesty,” Admiral Zellin said. “There are a lot of things that can go wrong with this plan.”
I grinned. It was sharp enough to have several of the staff shifting. “Tell me about it. Something similar worked for Hao and me back in ninety-eight. We’ll sort through problems as they arise. It’s all we can do. Unless someone’s got a better plan.”
Silence met my words.
It was a six-day journey from the refueling depot to a spot just out of range of Saxon scanners in Canafey. The arrival of ten ships from Po-Sin surprised me since I hadn’t asked for them when we’d talked. Further investigation revealed that it was Hao and not Po-Sin who’d brought the mismatched fleet.
“Some people owed me favors and it seems a better idea to have as many ships as possible for this little adventure.” Hao waved a hand at me. “Plus this way you’ve still got Po-Sin’s promise in storage for when you really need it.”
“What in the universe kind of favor could someone owe you that would convince them to bring that into a battle they’re not a part of?” I waved a hand at the window where a gigantic if somewhat obsolete model Solarian dreadnought hung in the blackness of space.
“Trust me—you don’t want to know. Honestly though, with Mel I’m not sure this isn’t just an excuse to test out her guns. Usually no one messes with her.”
“For good reason. Look at that thing.”
“True enough. I got word on that favor you wanted,” Hao said. “Your target somehow made it off Santa Pirata without being seen, but a dockworker on Midway spotted him boarding a ship headed for Undile. I have several contacts there; I’ve already let them know to be on the lookout for him.” Hao tilted his head toward Emmory. “He knows about it.”
“I let Winston know, Majesty,” Emmory said. “If they can get ahead of him, they’ll take Bial into custody.”
“Will your contacts coordinate with Trackers?”
Hao shrugged. “Possibly. They’re not nearly as official as some of your other people, so there’s a good chance it won’t spook anyone. I can’t force them to cooperate though.”
“I wouldn’t expect it,” I said. “If they will help, it’s appreciated. Financially.”
Hao grinned. “That will make a difference, Hail.”
“Send Dailun, tell him to take one of the Saxon ships.”
Hao raised an eyebrow but nodded and passed the instructions along to Dailun over the com. After he finished talking to Dailun, he turned his back on the ships we were looking at up in the Vajra’s observation deck and studied me for a long time in silence.
“What?” I asked.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine. We’re moving in the morning.”
“You look like you haven’t been sleeping.”
My nightmares had come back with a vengeance last night, thanks to the anticipation of the fight for Canafey, but I wasn’t about to tell Hao that. Or anyone else, for that matter. Emmory and the rest of my BodyGuards knew, of course. It was hard to hide that sort of thing from people who were wired into your health and well-being.
“I’m fine.”
“Gita says you’re having nightmares.”
“Gita needs to shut her damn mouth.”
Hao’s mouth twitched and he failed to hold back the smile. “Your Ekam would say the same if I asked. He trusts me.”
“Cowshit.”
“I know you, Hail.” Hao turned abruptly serious. “I watched the security feed of what happened in the docking bay. Zin was right. You saved her life. You won’t always be successful. I know that feeling of being responsible for the welfare of everyone around you and just how much it hurts when you can’t keep them safe.”
I closed my eyes to hold the tears in.
“You’ve had a rough couple of months, sha zhu, and lost a lot of people you care about. Your Ekam is more forward than most of the men on your homeworld, but even he won’t question your competence outright.
“I will. I need to know if you’re okay to do this, or if you need to be honest with yourself and pass those lock codes over. We can come up with a new plan and I’d rather do it now than in a shipyard surrounded by Saxons.”
“I should break your nose.”
“But you didn’t.�
�� He smiled. “That’s a good sign. Temper is still under control.”
“There is a hollow place in my chest, filled with the screaming ghosts of the dead,” I said in Cheng.
“Ai, little sister.” Hao wrapped his arms around me. “Poetry from you is always painful to my ears.”
I choked back a sob and clung to him. Once upon a time we’d been mentor and student. So much had changed since those days, but the man I’d relied on time and again to tell me the truth of things was still here. “I have lost so many good people.”
“Any life worth living collects ghosts,” Hao said. “The only certainty is we will join them someday.”
“Do you remember what you said when I left?”
“I believe it was ‘Don’t fuck this up—you’ve got people’s lives in your hands.’”
“This is far harder than being captain of my own ship,” I whispered. “So many lives at stake, Hao, and I’ve barely been able to keep those closest to me safe.”
“We can’t keep people safe,” he said, and pulled away. Taking me by the upper arms, he smiled. “You lead them, give them opportunities to make their lives better, but you let them live their own lives. Fasé would have chosen her death. You saved her from that, at least for the moment.
“However, you do no honor to the dead by trying to avoid making any choices of your own.”
“I know.” I leaned my forehead against his and sighed. “I’m exhausted.”
“You need to sleep. Go on.” He spun me around and gave me a gentle shove toward the stairs. “I’ll talk to you later. I’ve got all the programs hammered out for our teams. I’d like you and Emmory to take a look at them.”
I shot an amused look at Emmory as we headed down the stairs and into the hallway. “He always made me feel like a child who’d just been lectured by her father.”
“He was in a sense, Majesty, a replacement father,” Emmory said. “For a young woman grieving the loss of her own.”
“A good one, though he’d deny it.” I shoved a hand into my hair as we walked the quiet hallway. “I think I recall my father saying something very similar about loss to Mother after a battle.”
Hao was right. I hated it. But I couldn’t deny it. I packed away my fears and my grief for another day. Focusing on the plan to infiltrate the shipyard was where my head needed to be.
I went to sleep and wasn’t bothered by a single dream. I slept like the dead and hated myself for it in the morning.
35
Majesty, please stop pacing.”
I paused in midstep aboard the bridge of the Saxon Shock vessel Falki and glared at Emmory. “It helps me stay calm.”
“It makes the rest of us nervous.”
I kicked the back of Hao’s seat. “No one asked you. Cas, when we get to Canafey can you make sure they lock him in the tiniest cell they have?”
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
“Power-hungry warlord.” Hao grinned at me.
The banter helped calm my nerves more than the pacing. Hao and I used to drive Portis to distraction with our sniping just before missions. His infinite patience during stressful times was beyond annoying, and when we’d split from Hao I’d realized just how much I’d depended on my mentor to keep me grounded.
“Floating out of warp in ten seconds,” Cas said.
I sat down between Emmory and Nakula and tried not to fidget as Cas counted down.
The disorientation had barely passed from the bridge when the cursing started.
“Holy Shiva!”
The dark gray ships of the Saxons were barely visible against the blackness of space, and I looked from the observation window to the screen in front of me, my stomach dropping into my toes as the numbers kept climbing.
“That is a damn sight more ships than we were expecting, Hail.”
Nakula had come up out of his seat at the first exclamation and leaned over Cas’s shoulder, studying the specifications scrolling across the screen. “Majesty, we’ve got a major problem. That’s the entire Saxon 17th fleet out there. Fifty-seven ships.”
“Turn us around and get us out of here, Cas,” Emmory said. “Message Zin and tell him to do the same.”
“Hai Ram.” I rubbed a hand over my face and got up out of my seat. “Everyone calm down.” I leaned over Hao’s shoulder to study the screen closer.
“I am calm, Majesty.” Emmory followed me up. “We can’t survive against an entire fleet.”
“We’re not taking on the fleet. We’re going to the shipyards.” I pointed at the station glowing in the black backdrop of the screen. “And when we get the Vajrayana ships, we’ll be the ones with superior numbers and better ships. We won’t get another chance at this.”
The muscle in Emmory’s jaw twitched. “Hail, this is too dangerous.”
“We need those ships. Otherwise the ones in our little fleet aren’t going to survive past the first battle.”
“Emmory, I’m being hailed. We have about fifteen seconds to get out of here or commit to this.” Cas’s voice was strangely calm. “I’m with the empress. Let’s do this.”
“Dhatt,” Emmory muttered. “Answer them, Cas. Hao, send a tight beam message to Zin. Tell him to send the information back to Admiral Hassan. I want her to have some kind of warning, for all the good it’ll do. We’ve got twenty minutes to get ready. Let’s go.” He grabbed me by the arm and practically dragged me down the stairs.
Indula met us in the bay, already dressed in one of the spare Saxon Shock Corps uniforms we’d salvaged from the ship’s quarters. Standing with him were the three crew members from Admiral Hassan’s ship, and I had to check my smati to remind myself of their names.
Lieutenant Bing was tall and black-haired, towering over her shorter, stockier companions. The two ensigns, Scholler and Roche, had obvious Saxon ancestry in their light complexions and angular faces.
“Lieutenant, get upstairs and take over for Cas,” Emmory ordered. “You’re staying with the ship. Don’t let anyone on board except for us.”
“Yes, sir.” She saluted and took off.
Emmory looked back at me. “You ready?”
I nodded.
He pulled his punch, but stars still exploded behind my left eye, and I staggered back a step spitting curses into the air. As soon as the bells stopped ringing in my ears I returned the favor.
Emmory’s head snapped back and he wiped the blood from his now-split lip on the sleeve of his white shirt, smearing it across the fabric and rubbing it in to make the injury look far worse than it was.
Hao came down into the bay. He already bore a long gash in his upper arm and stripped his shirt off as he crossed to us.
Of all Hao’s tattoos, one had always stood out to me. A single white rose was etched over his heart, the petals falling across his chest. The significance of it was known only to him. He’d refused to tell me no matter how many times I’d asked.
Indula wrapped the cut on his arm and Hao pulled his shirt back on with a nod of thanks. He grabbed Nakula by the chin and sliced him across a cheekbone.
“Jia’s going to kill you,” Nakula said, pressing a hand to the cut and then flicking blood down the front of his shirt.
“Girls like scars.”
Cas came down the stairs sporting a bruise on his right temple and dressed in the same uniform as Indula. “We’re docking in ten,” he said.
“Everyone better get their costumes on,” Hao said. He touched the hands of the two blond Indranan men and I watched as my smati readings ceased to identify them as members of the Royal Navy.
“Corporals, you’re in the back. Don’t speak unless spoken to,” Cas said, his identity now that of Captain Thomas Hebring from the Saxon Alliance. All trace of his Indranan accent was gone and I only just managed to keep from staring at him as he spoke in perfect Saxon.
I put my hands behind my back, and my heart jumped when Emmory closed the handcuffs around my wrists.
“Test the code, Majesty.”
I sent
it and the cuffs dropped off. Emmory caught them with a nod and put them back on me, squeezing my forearm gently as he moved away.
The minutes flew by, and the Falki shuddered as we docked at Darshan Station, the hub of the Canafey shipyards. Cas grabbed my upper arm. Weapons whined. And the ramp lowered to reveal a contingent of Saxon soldiers.
Cas and the others saluted sharply.
“Captain Hebring.” The man at the front saluted back. “Colonel Probst. Welcome to Darshan Station and may I be the first to congratulate you on your capture.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
“We can take the prisoners from here, Captain. You and your men get some rest. I’m sure it’s been a long trip.”
“With all due respect, Colonel, they’re our prisoners and they’ll stay that way.” There was a bite in Cas’s voice I’d never heard before.
The colonel flushed, but the reputation of the Shock Corps held. Even though he outranked Cas in the broader Saxon military, the Corps was an entity unto itself, and unless someone from the Corps showed up who did outrank him, Cas was in charge.
“We’ll escort you to the detention center at least,” Colonel Probst said, trying to recover some semblance of authority in front of his men. “Desperate people can make stupid decisions, eh?” He grabbed my chin and tipped my head back, examining the bruise decorating my face.
I kicked him in the nuts and he dropped like a rock on a ten-G planet. The blow from the butt of a gun between my shoulder blades knocked the wind out of me and I went down.
The metal deck was cool under my cheek as the commotion raged above me. I heard Emmory swear and then the pained grunt as someone brought him up short.
“If all you’re going to do is antagonize my prisoner,” Cas said with a sigh from above me, “I think we can do without your help, Colonel. I had her calmed down before you went and fucked with her. Don’t touch my prisoner.” He jerked me back onto my feet and propelled me over the man still writhing on the floor.
We met up with Iza and Kisah masquerading as the other Saxon Shock team, and I exchanged a look with Zin, who was sporting an impressive black eye.
