by Ilsa J. Bick
Suddenly, he saw the horizon—and, dear God, he had dropped far enough for there to be a horizon—and clouds spread in a foamy cushion. Thirty, forty degrees max… come on, come on, lemme see it… The Lucifer still spun, but more drunkenly now, as if the craft were a top running out of kinetic energy. He kept inching back on power, knowing that, if push came to shove, he could land with one engine. That didn’t happen, though, and in another second, Penn knew he was going to live through this.
“Damn,” said Menace. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Penn was soaked through with sweat. “Power?”
A pause. “Look down. Starboard.”
Penn looked. There, so small and distant Penn was afraid to blink because then the ship would be gone, a tiny speck plummeted, trailing a plume of dense, charcoal-colored smoke. And then Penn supposed there must be a god because, in the next second, as the full horror of what had happened broke against his mind, the clouds swallowed up the speck, and Samantha Will was gone.
He couldn’t think anymore, not now. But much, much later Penn would float an idea: that the Dracs didn’t give two shits about Prefecture I. Dracs took; Dracs destroyed; Dracs conquered. Dracs did not make like no-seeums on a buggy summer’s evening, teasing planetary militias into full-scale screwups. The Dracs were up to something, sure, but it wasn’t about Tsukude, or Prefecture I. But Penn had a little problem: no evidence.
Something else would happen, too. A flight mishap investigatory board would convene. Penn would be cleared of negligence but only after countless repetitions of the disaster captured by a planetary satellite; and each time he saw the replay, something would rip in Penn’s heart.
But that would be then—and this was now and, for now, Penn and Menace turned. And they went home.
4
Conqueror’s Pride, Proserpina
Prefecture III, Republic of the Sphere
20 November 3134
Control.
Blinking away sweat, Antonia Chinn clutched her shinai, steadying the tip on an imaginary line with her opponent’s throat. Yeah, right, control; now if I could only get some… She was so frustrated she wanted to snap her bamboo sword over her knee; maybe use it for kindling. But she wasn’t going to back down, especially in front of the Old Master, Otome Sensei, motionless as a statue at one side of the tatami–matted dojo : a small man in traditional keiko-gi and hakama : black, flowing jacket and split, skirtlike trousers that brushed his ankles. Otome Sensei’s weathered features were relaxed in zanshin, watchful alertness.
Chinn blew out, then pulled in another breath, her nose crinkling at the smell of old, sweat-stained leather from the pad beneath her jaw. Her tenugui, a red headband snugged against her forehead, had soaked through; her keiko-gi clung to her spine; and clammy sweat pooled at the waistband of her hakama.
She wondered if her opponent was fagged out. Doubted it. Her opponent stood three meters away, in a picture-perfect stance: shoulders relaxed, back straight, feet a fist’s width apart, each heel two centimeters off the floor. A pair of unwavering, jet-black eyes glittered with the intensity of two lasers from behind a protective mesh of horizontal wires that formed the frontispiece of a navy blue helmet. To either side of her opponent’s men, her face mask, a thick cowl of protective fabric flared in a design reminiscent of the helmets worn by the ancient samurai. Her opponent was taller by a half meter, but compensated for the difference, angling her shinai at waist level and inscribing an imaginary line that, had it been an arrow, would have whizzed through Chinn’s throat and pinned her to the wall, like a butterfly to cardboard.
Just one lousy hit on target so I don’t look like a complete idiot. It wasn’t as if Chinn hadn’t hit her opponent anywhere. Problem was all her hits had been off-target and illegal. So she had to figure how to trick her opponent into thinking that she meant to attack one place—say, shomen-uchji, a quick cut to the head—but end up striking another. Chinn’s eyes darted to the apex of her opponent’s men, then her left torso, and then back at her shinai. Okay, if she covered ground in a really fast ayumi-ashi, pushing off on the ball of her right foot and springing forward on her left, yeah, she could feint a cut for the head but angle left as soon as her opponent moved to parry and then POW! Left chest cut, just below the ribs.
Chinn sucked in a deep breath, tasted the musk of sandalwood and the salt tang of sweat, pushed it out. “Toh!” She lunged, bare feet slapping wood hard enough to send ripples up her shins. She bounded one step, then two; at the second step, she saw her opponent take a half step back—and stop.
Go, go! Chinn pressed her attack, angling her shinai ninety degrees—and realized, too late, that she’d created an opening by moving the tip of her weapon off center. Her opponent whirred forward in a blur, and then there was a hard smack to the top of Chinn’s head that she felt all the way into her teeth.
The Old Master raised a hand. “Yame!”
“Yeah, stop is right,” Chinn said, disgusted. She let her shinai drop with a clatter then pulled her left kote until the padded glove came free. “I’ve had it.”
Her opponent said nothing. But the Old Master glided over, almost soundlessly, his eyes flashing with disapproval. But when he spoke, his tone was mild. “This is the way of a warrior? To throw a tantrum like a spoiled child?”
The questions, so precise and to the point, made Chinn’s face hot with shame. Yanking off the helmet, she wiped sweat from her forehead to cover her embarrassment. “Maybe it’s not the way of a warrior, Otome Sensei, but there are times when you can practice too much.”
“Perhaps.” The Old Master had very brown eyes, but the orbits were marred with splotches of yellow that reminded Chinn of a broken yolk. “Yes, perhaps practice is the problem.” Then he told Chinn and her opponent precisely what he wanted them to do.
“Fight? Without armor? Without anything?” Chinn gawked, not sure she’d heard right. “You’ve got to be kidding. We can’t just fight …” She wanted to say in the nude but didn’t.
“Oh, of course we can,” said her opponent, shucking her helmet. Katana Tormark’s face was so slick with sweat, her chocolate-brown skin looked oiled. She, too, wore a tenugui saturated with perspiration, and her hair, cut close in wavy locks, glistened and clung to her scalp. Her nimble fingers quickly peeled off her do, and she dropped the body armor onto her helmet. “Don’t you understand, Toni?” she said, unself-consciously high-stepping out of her hakama, then letting the black trousers puddle on the floor with a whisper of fabric against wood.
Chinn swallowed. Katana wore a black loincloth snugged tight over her hips. Her legs were very long, knotted with muscle in calf and thigh, and perfectly shaped. Katana was the most beautiful woman Chinn had ever seen, and it was all she could do to meet Katana’s eyes, keenly aware that her stomach cramped with longing. “Understand what?” she said, her voice suddenly husky, her mouth as dry as sand.
Katana worked the ties of her black cotton jacket, but her eyes never left Chinn’s. “As long as you keep practicing, you’ll never know real fear. You don’t play kendo ; you fight in the way of the sword. You must be in fear of your life. Then your mind will be one with your body, and the sword merely an extension of the whole.” As she said this last, she pushed her jacket from her shoulders and let the keiko-gi slither to the floor.
Chinn’s chest squeezed. The sight of Katana’s sweat-stained body—high, rounded breasts; the ridges of an abdomen dewy with sweat; muscles that corded along her forearms—made everything recede into the background: her frustration and fatigue, even the Old Master. Her head felt hollow, and she was dizzy and a little breathless.
Man or woman, Katana could have anyone she wants, and yet she’s picked me.
“I,” she began, and swallowed again, struggling against a sudden wave of desire. Her voice firmed. “I can’t fight you that way, Tai-sho. I am Amaterasu and a chu-sa. I have pledged my life for you.”
“Yes,” said Katana, her tone a low, melodic contralto. She stepped away from
her clothes and reached out to draw the ball of her thumb along Chinn’s lips as her own curled into a half-moon. “But pledging loyalty and fighting for your life are two different things, hai? So,” she said, releasing Chinn and backing away, “Kore o kudasai.”
Do this for me. Chinn’s tongue flicked out to wet her parched lips; she could still feel the pressure from Katana’s touch. “You know I’ll give whatever you desire, Tai-sho,” she whispered.
Katana’s lips parted in a silent laugh. “Later. But for now…” She turned, strode to a lacquered wooden stand, and plucked up a katana, still in its sheath. Balancing the blade in her hands, Katana’s features suddenly tightened, and her eyes narrowed. “We fight.”
“Until one is blooded,” said the Old Master. Chinn flinched; she’d forgotten Sensei was there. But the old man took no notice of her discomfiture and merely withdrew to his position to watch… and to judge.
In a few moments they stood, katanas unsheathed and at the ready position. After sweltering in her armor, Chinn felt her sweat wick away, and a forest of gooseflesh suddenly erupted along her forearms. This is for real. These are real katanas, and at best, they’ll hurt like hell. At worst… No, she wouldn’t think the worst. The worst wouldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let anything happen to Katana, and she had to trust in Katana to do the same for her.
She cast her mind back over her last attack pattern. Now, in the calm after the storm, she knew her error. In the split second after she’d begun the attack, she’d been so focused on connecting, she’d lost track of Katana herself. Katana’s counterattack had been as simple as it was devastating: exploiting Chinn’s anticipation by executing a classic debana-waza that took advantage of Chinn’s forward momentum. Chinn had come to Katana, and Katana had waited until Chinn was committed and couldn’t pull back in time.
Chinn let her eyes run along the length of her sword and to Katana’s throat. They were close enough for Chinn to see how Katana’s skin bounded with her pulse, and the sight was a little unnerving. In the dojo, the exercise hall, she was used to glimpses of Katana’s dark eyes and the barest outlines of her face—all that she could see when Katana wore her men. But this… this was like giving the enemy an identity. It reminded her of something an instructor had told her once; that it was easier to kill a person when that person was an anonymous cipher within the hulking carcass of a ’Mech. Chinn shivered again, not with cold this time but with a sudden, sharp apprehension.
The Old Master hacked the air with his right hand. “Hajime!”
Instantly, Chinn sensed the change in Katana: the way Katana’s muscles, strong as endosteel, tensed ever so slightly; the way her heels raised a centimeter from the floor so her weight balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to spring. Chinn readied herself, feeling Katana’s eyes bore through hers and into her brain.
My mind is a pond. It was one of the Old Master’s teachings, and now Chinn seized upon the words as a precious mantra. My mind is a deep, still pond. I reflect everything and absorb all. Her eyes locked onto Katana’s: peering past them and into Katana’s thoughts. I am a pond; I am…
Katana made a sudden shifting movement with her upper torso, and Chinn’s eyes flicked away from Katana’s blade for a brief second.
It was all the opening Katana needed. “Yah!” Even as the word flew from her lips, Katana mounted an attack. As she bounded forward, she brought her sword up into jodan, a ready position over the head whose attack angle was impossible to engage.
Startled back to alertness, Chinn resisted the temptation to glance up at Katana’s blade and instead found her opponent’s eyes, read their intent—a head cut, right on center–and quickly thrust her own sword out to parry. There was a clash of metal upon metal as their swords met, and Chinn felt the force of the blow shiver through the blade and into her arms as she batted away the attack, her kiai a high shriek: “Toh!”
Disengaging, Katana took a half step back, and then Chinn was spinning away to her left, her blade whirling to the ready. She faced forward just in time to see Katana advance again. Chinn saw it all in a flash: the way Katana’s right foot stayed behind her left, the way her blade turned slightly counterclockwise. A cut to the side! As Katana brought her sword around in a two-handed thrust, Chinn parried, pushing her left foot diagonally left as she lifted her arms up and twirled her blade point-down and parallel to her left ear in the split second before Katana’s blade sliced toward her middle. A clang as blade met blade, and then Chinn had disengaged, swinging her sword up and over her head as she slid her right foot behind her left.
“Toh!” she cried, whipping her blade down. The bright steel seemed to move in an agonizing stop-motion as Chinn’s brain fought to control the speed of her thrust. Can’t hurt her, not really, I can’t…
“Yah!” Katana dropped into a squat, rotating her hands clockwise and stiff-arming her sword. Chinn’s blade cut against the reinforced, notched hi. Chinn heard a scraping sound as steel slid against steel, and she felt a steady pressure pushing her sword aside. Suddenly, the pressure was gone and, without thinking, Chinn pulled back, angling her sword along the left side of her body, point-down, just as Katana swung left in a lethal cut aimed at Chinn’s waist.
My God! Chinn barely had time to register the clash of steel before she had sprung back and out of range. Too damn close. She was winded, panting hard, slick rivulets of sweat coursing between her breasts. Her shoulders burned, and she could feel her calves knotting with fatigue.
A glance at Katana showed that even she felt the strain. Yet, even as Katana gulped air, her lips peeled back from her teeth in a feral grin. “You see?” she said, her words punctuated by deep gasps. “Fighting… is… different.”
Something tripped in Chinn’s brain. If she’s talking, she can’t be concentrating. She forced her breathing to slow so she could hear over the roar in her veins. Something that Sensei had said very long ago: Sound comes first . If you wait until your eye catches the attack, then you will die.
Now Chinn concentrated all her effort into listening for the minutest change. She heard the thrum of her heart and forced her mind away from that; she heard air whistle through her nose, and she blocked that out, too. From Katana’s position two meters distant, Chinn heard her tai-sho pulling in air: a long inhalation, then the rattle of air rushing from her lungs, in and out. And then, she heard a change so subtle that afterward she couldn’t really describe it: a hitch and then a small, barely audible click, like the sound a dry throat made when a person swallowed.
Alarms clanged in her brain. Now, she’s coming right now! Chinn didn’t think; she acted. As Katana gave a loud kiai at the same instant that she attacked, Chinn’s blade was already shooting out. Their swords made contact, and Chinn heaved up and out with her left hand, hard. Katana’s sword cut on empty air; before she could retreat, Chinn leapt, her blade cutting for Katana’s head. Katana ducked and bobbed to her left. Momentarily off-balance, Chinn’s forward momentum carried her past Katana on her right and, for an instant, she thought about fighting gravity, struggling around for a quick counterattack. But instead she let herself fall past Katana, twisting on the ball of her left foot and whirling in a complete circle until she faced forward. Just in time, too: Katana’s left knee pistoned as she sprinted toward Chinn.
A flash of insight: She expects me to pull back. So Chinn did the opposite. Howling her kiai, Chinn erased the distance between them. Their blades clashed as their bodies collided; Chinn, who was the smaller and lighter of the two, staggered, then righted; and suddenly, they were nearly eye to eye, two lengths of glittering steel bracketing their faces in a shiny V, and so close Chinn felt Katana’s hot breath slash her cheeks.
Got to get out of here. They were in taiatari, blades locked, the most dangerous position in which two swordsmen could find themselves. Chinn knew that the only way she could escape would be to move Katana’s sword from center while angling her body away and trying to push Katana off balance. The problem was that Chinn was too small
, and she could already feel Katana pushing, forcing Chinn’s blade out of line. Grunting, Chinn tried holding the stance until her shoulders and forearms screamed with pain. Gathering her strength, Chinn pushed back with all her might, up and left; and just when she thought she couldn’t hold Katana anymore, she sucked in one last breath of air and thought: Push up and then drop into a squat and then when she’s fallen past…
And then Katana let go.
Startled, Chinn gave a yelp of surprise as she staggered forward, realizing much too late that, somehow, she’d betrayed herself again, and then she stopped thinking as she heard the high zing of metal slicing air, saw the cut coming fast as lightning.
The Old Master shouted at the last possible second. “Yame!”
Katana froze, and Chinn felt the bite of metal on the sensitive skin along the right side of her neck. She closed her eyes, aware that there was blood trickling into the hollow between her breasts; aware, too, that Katana’s breathing was harsh and rapid; aware that, when she saw the cut coming, she’d thought she might really die.
Opening her eyes, Chinn looked into the eyes of her tai-sho and then let her sword clatter to the floor. “And so you’ve killed me,” she said.
For a moment, Katana did not reply, and then Chinn saw the bunched muscles of Katana’s jaw relax, her shoulders slacken. Katana lifted her blade from Chinn’s neck, and Chinn saw that the steel was marred by a smear of bright red blood.
“Killed you? No,” said Katana. Then she moved closer, and in the next instant Chinn felt Katana’s tongue tease her neck, linger over her cut flesh. Chinn’s knees went to water, and her breath caught as a sudden wave of hot desire flooded her veins.
Katana took Chinn’s face in her hands. “I haven’t killed you yet,” she whispered, running her tongue along Chinn’s lips, and Chinn tasted the salty metallic tang of her own blood. Moaning, Chinn closed her eyes, drowning in sensation, and she heard Katana say, softly, “Not quite yet.”
