There were crew in the corridors as they passed; two jogged by with rolled Pads on their shoulders, and another three were working on something that seemed electronic, affixing small beads to the floors or ceilings and then camouflaging them. Jahir led the way back toward the clinic, ignoring the suffusion of surprise in the mindline.
"Arii?"
"You said yourself that we are not fighters born," Jahir said, crouching beside one of the bio-beds and reaching under it for the expanded kit. "We are healers, and there will be a need."
Vasiht'h's uncertainty was at least leavened with a willingness to be convinced, something that reminded Jahir of... cookies. Inevitably, given how many times the Glaseah had baked his way through their difficult times. "Triona's far more qualified than we are."
"We know first aid. I have had experience with triage." He pulled the kit free and checked the straps. As he suspected, it could be modified to be buckled on, and Vasiht'h held still for him as he began the process. "Even if we cannot administer the aid, having extra supplies is always wise."
Vasiht'h glanced back over his shoulder, and Jahir found his breathing easing as the Glaseah's anxiety subsided. Not completely, but to a level they could both manage. "A little tighter. Goddess knows how much running I'm going to be doing."
"Very good," Jahir murmured, and tightened the belt. "There are weapons in the gym. We shall go there next."
The Glaseah breathed in, let the air out slowly through his nose. He managed a weak smile. "Right. Lead the way."
They were not the only ones heading for the gym; the two had to pause to allow a Hinichi to trot past them, carrying an armful of weapons.
/Kordreigh,/ Vasiht'h noted, the mindline tense with unease.
/Looking very grave,/ Jahir agreed.
/I wonder what the situation is?/
/We will find out soon enough./
Inside the gym they found Triona, dragging another Pad into the back corner.
"Alet?" Jahir said. "We came for a weapon and directions, if you know them."
"Directions... expect those soon," she said, terse. "For now go back to your quarters and stay out of the way. We've got half an hour to prep for boarding."
/Half an hour!/ Vasiht'h exclaimed, panicked.
/The sooner we begin, the sooner we end it,/ Jahir reminded him. He took his staff down from the wall. "Could you recommend a weapon for one of the uninitiated?"
She glanced at Vasiht'h instantly, then stopped the Hinichi. From his load she plucked out a palmer and tossed it to the Glaseah, who nearly fumbled the catch.
"The great equalizer," Triona said. "Point it, press the button."
"I thought they would be a poor choice on the Chatcaavan vessel?" Jahir asked.
"It will be, but we have to get there first. If you don't mind, aletsen?"
"Not at all. And thank you," Jahir said for them both, because his partner was speechless. Once outside the gym, he set a pace that would stretch Vasiht'h's legs—the Glaseah thought better when he wasn't idle, and if there was no kitchen for cooking in, exercise would do.
/This is really happening, it's really happening to us. There's a Chatcaavan ship and it's coming for us. Jahir—/
/Ariihir,/ Jahir said, putting all the firmness of his conviction into the words, /We survived the Ambassador's extrication from the first vessel. We will survive this as well./
Vasiht'h shivered. "All right," he said. "All right. You're right." He squared his shoulders. "Even if I'm useless with a gun, I can still watch your back."
"Yes," Jahir said, seeding the mindline with his approval. His partner's acceptance of it was rueful, the gratitude of a soaked person accepting an umbrella against a storm.
But as another of the ship's crew loped past them, Vasiht'h said, quiet, "It's amazing, watching them work. They seemed so normal, and now it's like they've become different people."
"The benefit of training," Jahir said. And then, sifting through the impressions he'd derived from all their Fleet clients over the years, "Training that some of them never need, but that they all take against the possibility of occasions just like this one. But it's the training that gives them the confidence."
Vasiht'h eyed him, and it was such a familiar look, such a normal one, that Jahir didn't begrudge the Glaseah one iota of his skepticism. "I think the lesson's clear enough without you pounding my head with the book."
Jahir grinned at him and received an amused huff, and if he could feel the slight hysteria edging it, it was only an edge.
They had barely entered their room again when Lisinthir glided through the door. That was the only word for it; he'd always moved with a duelist's precise grace, but now... now even if Jahir had not known the battle was upon them, he would have read it in his cousin's economy of motion. Jahir's self-defense instructor had often spoken of the fighter whose nerves were already aroused and reacting faster than the conscious mind could direct: as if every possible action and reaction was trembling in a net of light throughout every muscle. He'd never approached that state. Now, at least, he knew what it looked like.
"Cousins," Lisinthir said. "You'll be wanted in the gym presently. It appears the Chatcaava would also like to dance."
"Is it bad?" Vasiht'h asked. "How many people are we going to have to subdue?"
"We are guessing about sixty."
"Sixty!"
Jahir sent a calming wave through the mindline, and Vasiht'h's response was a single incredulous thought, like an exclamation point. To Lisinthir, Jahir said, "There is a plan, presumably. A new one."
"Yes. Most of you will be hiding in the gym, where good Cory can keep the enemy from penetrating for roughly three hours with her magical machinery. The rest of us will be encouraging our visitors to spend their strength against us. Our goal is to pull as many of them here as possible, then flee over the Pads onto their vessel and destroy this one."
"With them on board?" Vasiht'h said, eyes wide.
"As many as possible, yes," Lisinthir replied. "After that we will have to wrest control of the ship from them so we can use it to cross the border."
Jahir studied Lisinthir's face. "And by 'rest of us'," he said, quiet, "you mean 'you,' don't you. You will be the one taunting them."
"No one better," Lisinthir said. "Though I will have help. Very cunning help... these people are professionals, cousin. Don't fear overmuch for me."
"You should know better than to ask it," Jahir said, trying for exasperation and mostly feeling fear.
"Are you sure about this?" Vasiht'h said. "Lisinthir... you're good at what you do, I'm sure, but you said it yourself. These people are professionals. Shouldn't you be leaving it to them?"
"I would, arii," Lisinthir said. "But I can't. They are professionals, yes, and trained to it. But the Chatcaava are not soldiers: not without significant molding, and they are a people who resist molding. They are hunters, and so am I. And in the beginning this will be a hunter's game." He smiled whimsically. "Besides, I'm one of the few who knows the language and the only one who understands the culture. Much of our success hinges on the reduction of their numbers in this first phase. The fewer we have to fight on their ground, the better." He looked down at Vasiht'h. "Does this explanation satisfy you?"
"I can't say I like it," Vasiht'h answered reluctantly. "But I can see the sense in it, yes."
Lisinthir nodded. "Good. Because I have a request to make." He met Jahir's eyes. "I need you to remove the nerve block."
Silence. Even in the mindline: Vasiht'h was speechless, from mouth to heart.
Jahir said, "Tell me why."
"I am grateful for the comfort you've given me," Lisinthir said, careful of the words now. "Deeply so. But the block makes it difficult for me to tell when I'm hurting. And I am going to need to know that soon."
"The block's what's keeping your nausea managed," Vasiht'h said. "Your headaches. The gut cramps. For all we know it's helping with the seizures...."
"I know," Lisinthir said. "I know, ari
i. But I can fight through pain. I have before. And if you keep me insulated from my body, you'll impair my responses. Worse, I might take an injury I can't feel until my body fails me at the wrong moment."
"But if you leave it in place, you might get farther because you won't be crippled by your weaknesses," Vasiht'h said, fur bristling down his back. "Isn't that worth the risk?"
Jahir had been watching his cousin's face, his movements, the flicker of emotion in dark eyes. Vasiht'h was an expert judge of bodyspeech, and even did well with Jahir himself, who'd been trained to protect himself from the most careful scrutiny. But the Glaseah had not grown up among Eldritch, and Jahir doubted his partner could see what he did now.
In their tongue, he said, "You're hiding something." Black on every word, cutting them sharp, uncompromising.
Lisinthir met his eyes.
"You will tell me," Jahir said, low, and that was command. "You will tell me."
"And if I don't want you to know?"
"You'll tell me anyway," Jahir said, never looking from his eyes. "Because I am the one who will willingly go to your cruel hand and kiss it for gratitude, and you will deny me nothing."
That stilled his cousin's breathing, just for a moment. Yes, this was power: he had it, after all, even in his yielding. He was the healer and the servant both, or maybe there had never been any separating them. Gentler now, "Tell me."
Lisinthir said, low, "I want to kill them." A pause, then with a shudder that looked like desire, eyes closing, "I enjoy killing them. And if I can feel the pain of the injuries they deal me, then I might rise into rapture and I will no longer need your nerve block, because my own body will flood me with ecstasy." His cousin looked at him then, pupils swollen and lips wet. "Do you see? This beautiful state you come to by trusting another with your safety... I reach by opening throats and feeling the blood surge over my hands, hotter than fire."
So much in that admission, so much that he wanted to sink into; the therapist in him cried out for time, for the treasure of it, the trust. Here was the shadow side of Lisinthir's confidence, the fear that he had become unfit for any normal life, the vestiges of their acculturation trying to disease him. This was the whisper of their childhoods, bearing tales of cruel mages and tyrants, sociopaths without any tether in a civilized society.
This was his cousin's own cry: look at what I've become and how can it be right.
And of course, it came when they had no time to address it. But then, when had Lisinthir ever responded to words as easily as acts?
Jahir reached for Vasiht'h. /Hold me fast, arii./
Vasiht'h's misgivings tasted bitter under his tongue, like a too-steeped tisane, but the Glaseah joined hands with him and answered, /Here./
His long breath in brought serenity, and from that center he moved outward, cupped his cousin's jaw and breathed out into him, flowing through, flowing in, past the mind and all its thoughts and memories down into the underneath where snatches of song guided him to his own handiwork. One by one, he unraveled the knots that were holding the pain in check, hearing the music as they fell open, and this time he thought of singing as he worked, purposeful. Into Lisinthir and out of him again, tasting the acrid awareness of pain and nausea as they poured back into his cousin's body... and as he left, he felt Lisinthir steeling himself against them, the surge in confidence and the heightened alarm like the cry of a siren: danger – danger – ware –
Lisinthir bowed his head and Jahir left his hand on his face, an indulgence that nevertheless brought him the evidence of his cousin's gratitude. When Lisinthir looked at him, Jahir said in their tongue, polishing it in silver, "One does not admonish the wolf when it hungers to be slaying monsters."
"And when there are no more monsters?" Lisinthir asked, subdued.
"May we live to see the day," Jahir said. Something in him twinged, whispered of patterns too large to be grasped save in the briefest of glimpses. "But we will not."
Lisinthir sighed and turned his face just enough to kiss Jahir's palm, and the warmth of his breath on skin brought him back admirably from that uncanny place. "Thank you, Healer."
"Ambassador—" Jahir paused, then thought better of it. He met Lisinthir's eyes and said, "Imthereli. We have our duties. Let us go to them."
Startled, Lisinthir stared at him. Then with a flex of his mouth that was almost, but not quite, a smile, said, "Far be it from me to gainsay you, Galare." Switching to Universal, he said, "We are wanted in the gym."
"We're with you," Vasiht'h said, the mindline stiff with his resolve.
Lisinthir nodded and led them out.
/What was that all about?/ Vasiht'h asked once they were moving. /I caught impressions, but not enough to be sure of what I heard./
/A great deal happened to him, and he did a great deal in response,/ Jahir said. /Some part of him still fears that he's wrong and that he really is broken./
Vasiht'h was silent for so long Jahir thought he wouldn't reply. But he did. /Broken by whose standards?/
It seemed an inappropriate time to be laughing, but he did anyway, and hid it in the mindline where it wouldn't distress anyone else.
Cory handed him the telegem, and with it the brief caress of her mind, focused so intently on the fight that he drank it like wine. Lisinthir almost closed his eyes along with his fingers, feeling the points of the gem digging into the flesh of his palm. The pain was good, familiar; mingled with nausea and hunger, it brought him back to the peak of awareness that had been his world for months before he'd been ejected from the Empire. He was ready for this, was trembling with eagerness for it. The Chatcaava could not come fast enough.
"Ambassador?"
"I beg your pardon." He touched reality again, smiled at her. "You were saying?"
"Hook it on your ear," Cory said. "I'll be able to direct you from there if anything changes."
"Right." He seated it, careful.
"They've come alongside," someone said from behind her.
"Looks like it's about show time," Raynor said. "Triona, Reya, you good to go?"
"Ready, sir."
"To the Ambassador, then." Looking at Lisinthir, "If you need to deviate, tell us."
"This first wave should be quick," Lisinthir said. "It's the ones that come after that will be telling."
"Get on out," Cory said. "I need to seal the compartment so the scrambler can do its business."
"Right." Lisinthir glanced at Jahir, crouching with his back against the wall. The Glaseah was sitting beside him with claws showing at the tips of his toes. He flashed them a grin and then said to the women, "Let us greet our guests, aletsen."
Triona's growl was perfection. He liked these two, liked the healer's ferocity and the Asanii's edged sarcasm. They'd both volunteered to help him lay bait for their prey, and they looked handy enough with their chosen weapons; here in the roomy corridors and cabins of the Alliance vessel their palmers would be useful. There would be time enough for close-in fighting when they crossed over. The door shut on the gym and sealed; looking back at it, Reya said, "And that's that."
Triona said, "We'll be back there soon enough."
"Time is wasting," Lisinthir murmured, and led them through the darkened halls. As they swept toward their first staging area, the telegem in his ear whispered a muted tone.
"We've got five in the engine room."
He tapped it to acknowledge, flashed three fingers to the women to tell them which of their traps he wanted sprung, felt them peel from his side to attend to it.
Lisinthir drew one of his swords and went hunting. He had not spent long on the ship, but the days he had been here had been enough to acquaint him with the sound of footfalls on padded carpets, the sense of the lights and the shadows they cast, the way noises echoed when the corridors were empty and when they were busy with bodies. He was not Fleet. He had never been trained in the kind of combat soldiers could expect to see. The lessons in fighting he'd learned to defend the honor of his family had acquainted him with the
use of a sword, but in a formal field and against single foes. He'd learned to improvise in order to assure his own victory, but that had been instinctive, not trained.
But before any of that--before the Empire, before Ontine palace and the dueling fields there—Lisinthir had spent decades maintaining and using the hunting lodge at the edge of his mother's family lands. He'd supplied the meat for more than one table in Nase Galare, tracking and killing everything from elusive ice deer to aggressive thicket swine. Those were the skills that woke in him now as he prowled from corridor to corridor, straining his senses for the Chatcaava... and it didn't take long to find them.
Five Chatcaava, hissing laughter to one another, for all the worlds as if they already owned the ship and everyone on it. He longed to kill them all himself... but his Pelted comrades were owed their own blood.
He stepped in front of them, smiling lazily.
For a moment, stillness.
Then Lisinthir lunged and put Imthereli's steel through the first one's neck, a fan of blood sheeting from the cut. On the backswing he caught a second through the wrist and then lunged back. "Pathetic freaks," he mocked, their language quick and hard off his tongue. "Come for a piece of the Emperor's catamite? You're not even good enough to soil my steel."
That worked. They vaulted toward him and he fled. As he expected, they gave chase. They would never gun him down when they could catch him and keep him. They hurled abuse at him as they sprinted after him, but as swift as they were they could not outrun him, and they didn't know the terrain. Lisinthir darted into the mess hall and jacked to the right.
The Chatcaava poured into the room, straight into Triona and Reya's fire.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," Reya said, nudging one of the bodies with a boot.
"There will be plenty of time for excitement," Triona said. "What do you want to do with these, Ambassador?"
"Your palmers can cut, can they not?"
"Yes?"
Lisinthir nodded. "I want you to cut all the horns off them. The claws as well. Reya-alet, if you will come with me? There is another body, we should disfigure that one also. We can leave them where they are once we're done."
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