Hearts and Swords: Four Original Stories of Celta

by Robin D. Owens

  “No!” Immediate denial, then thought followed. “The government issued an order confiscating our ships for the good of the nations. We outran that. But I don’t see any government giving up something it wanted, even”—he swallowed—“centuries later.”

  “It’s an option.” Her smile was a travesty, her eyes seemed to have sunk into her skull. “The crew doesn’t have the experience with the USTATES government and the mobs they directed against psis, like we do. They don’t believe in the mission. The mutineers think we’re liars.”

  She blinked rapidly.

  Too much data for his fuzzy mind to sort. Kelse straightened. If he leaned back, he’d fall asleep.

  “Let’s do this statement. It’ll be preliminary. With morale down, we’ll need to generate a sense of purpose, get the majority believing in the mission again.”

  Chloe let out a quiet sigh that seemed to deflate her thin body, but this time her smile was real. “And I believe in you. If sheer determination can get us through, you’ll do it.”

  “Damn right.”

  She went to the closet and pulled out a long cape. It was red. With gold epaulettes.

  Kelse stared.

  “You must look authoritative.”

  He supposed so, and the bathrobe and his hairy brown and gray chest wouldn’t do it. But he hated military trappings. Too many of them had tried to kill his friends, him, and Fern. He could do this for Fern.

  Chloe draped the cape around him, showed him how to access the vid programs and recording. He’d recalled that vocal orders should have been available, but that was an extremely low-priority issue.

  He tapped the console to record, stared a few seconds at his own grim and scarred face on the screen in front of him. His image was surrounded by the golden aura that resulted from the mix of his psi and the cryonic drugs. “Greetings. I am Kelse Bountry, duly appointed by Exec Officer Hernandez as the new Captain of this ship. I am saddened to report that Captain Kiet Moungala was murdered and the security force is missing and presumed dead.

  “I will find those who killed Captain Moungala and Security Officers Moncrief, Rye, and Beranik and bring them to justice. I will not tolerate violence on my watch. Anyone who has information about the deaths of Captain Moungala and Security Officers Moncrief, Rye, and Beranik, please contact me. Investigations are under way and progressing.” He drew in a breath, had on his fighting face so was impassive. He hoped he looked scary. “Men and women wishing to apply for the posts of security officers should present themselves to me—”

  “The day after tomorrow, MidAfternoonBell, Gym Two,” Chloe murmured. He didn’t want to wait that long, but saw no way around it, so he repeated what she said.

  “I will brief you again within the day, and will be touring the ship.” He ignored Chloe’s noise of protest, struggled to find a good closing, recalled their new culture. Wiccan.

  “We still Wiccan?” he whispered to Chloe.

  She nodded.

  “Blessed be,” he said, then cut the vid stream.

  “You did very well, under the circumstances,” Chloe said. For a moment her face tightened, then her shoulders slumped. “We have to get back on mission, Kelse.” Walking over, she patted his shoulder. “I know you’ll get us out of this mess. We will find our planet and our future.”

  Kelse nodded. It was the only thing he could think to do.

  With a last wave that was partial salute, she pushed the door button. It opened and she stepped into the hall.

  Then the door slid shut and he was alone.

  Alone in a room he didn’t know, in a ship going nowhere he knew.

  In a life he no longer understood. All he wanted was to go back to the cryonics bay and look at Fern. Wake her up and hold her in his arms.

  But his muscles were stiffening into stone, he couldn’t sit for long. His whole body was . . . off. He’d been active all his life. He’d had to be, fighting the corrupt police of NJNY, fighting the mobs the government incited. But now his body wasn’t how it should be. Too much to think about.

  Too much to feel if he let his emotions out of the inner box he’d stuffed them into the last hour.

  Some tendons made popping noises as he stood. The map on the black glassy console had shifted to a real-time map of the Captain’s Quarters and the hallway outside it. No one was around.

  The conspirators had gotten Moungala to open the door, killed him, but there was no vacuum of power for them to fill. Thanks to Chloe, Kelse had already taken command. The conspirators’ plans must be trashed.

  Leaning on the desk he studied the mainspace with enough room for visitors. There was a small bathroom. His shoulders were tense and he rolled them. Then he realized his legs were trembling, so he shook them out. He turned toward the bed. And stared at a large marmalade cat who sat on the mattress. The cat tilted its head and scrutinized him with light green eyes.

  Greetyou. You are the new Captain, once a sleeper.

  Kelse heard the words in his head and fell against the desk, propped himself up. Not many of their community could use telepathy. He’d never heard such a strong projection, and something in the tonal quality was odd.

  There was no one around to speak with him. Was he overhearing someone? But who? Where?

  He glanced at the cat. It had lifted its white forepaw and was grooming it. Before he could quite turn his head back, he heard another sentence.

  You look like a tough man.

  Kelse froze, stared at the cat. Are you talking to me?

  Who else would I be talking to, Kelse Bountry? You have the psi power, the magic, the Flair to hear Me.

  Flair?

  The cat twitched his white-tipped tail. Psi power. Is too long to always say. Some call it magic, most call it Flair.

  “Flair,” Kelse said aloud.

  A ripple rolled down the cat’s body. We Cats have Flair, always have, but now We can talk to humans. We have changed in that way. You, who lived in the-then, are stronger than many who live in the-now.

  This had to be the strangest thing that had ever happened to Kelse. He didn’t know how much the cat knew, how intelligent it was, but figured he’d need every ally he could get.

  Though many humans in the-now are getting stronger in Flair.

  “One of the best qualifications for crew members for the journey was psi power, or genetic indicators of psi power. Why are you here and what can you tell me about the conspiracy?”

  I just wanted to see you. To see if you would talk to Me. Maybe we will talk again when I know you better.

  “Yeah?” Kelse said. He was supposed to be flexible, able to think on his feet, even after being blindsided by fate or circumstances or a stick to the temple. But a telepathic cat?

  We are Fam animals.

  “Fam animals.”

  Familiar Companions to humans.

  Kelse still grappled with the telepathic part. “I see.” A good, common answer.

  You don’t, but you may, said the cat. It sauntered toward the door.

  Kelse noticed it was a male.

  The cat looked back. Yes. I am as male as you. My name is Peaches.

  Kelse nodded. Right.

  At the entrance, Peaches’s ears flicked and rotated. You may open the door for Me. Quickly, there is no one in the hall now. I don’t want to be seen with you!

  Kelse hesitated, needing more data. But when did a cat ever do anything a human wanted? He leaned over the desk, propping a shaking arm on the glassy surface and swiping the door control.

  The cat shot from the room and was out of sight before Kelse thought to ask who Peaches was a companion to. Kelse’s gut told him it was important.

  He staggered to bed, leaving the cape in his wake, flopped onto a different surface than he’d experienced for two and a half centuries.

  He didn’t want to sleep, struggled to marshal the facts of his new situation, but finally sleep sucked him into a hole of darkness and threatening dreams. Worse than the cryogenics tube.

 
; He awoke to a shrieking alarm.

  Three

  He leapt from bed. Stood a few shaking seconds getting his bearings. Warehouse? No. Wait, the tube . . . No! Ship. Captain of the ship. Hell.

  He ran to the console. “Ship, report on the alarm.” The noise sent pulsing knives to his ears. “Ship?” Hadn’t the ship answered before?

  Two and a half centuries before, maybe. Slapping his hand on the console top, he ordered, “Pinpoint the alarm.” Nothing. Dammit. He banged his fist on the desk.

  A flat, generated voice said, “Security breached in the cryonics bay.”

  Adrenaline flooded him.

  “Show all routes from here to the cryonics bay.”

  Instead of the top clearing to show the map, a projection beam widened and focused beyond him.

  On the glassy wall that was a porthole he hadn’t looked out, he saw a map of the ship. The drawing showed a fast trail with two turns down the main corridor, a snaking path the way he and Chloe had come last night.

  “Status of security of cryonics bay.”

  Numbers flickered on. All sleepers’ health indicators were fine. A frisson of a hunch skittered between his shoulder blades.

  Kelse yanked on a pair of pants he’d found in a drawer and exited by the emergency access hatch, locked it behind him. Running lightly along the path he and Chloe had taken the night before, he reached the emergency door to the cryonics bay and keyed himself in. Again he locked the panel behind him.

  There was no banging against the door, and the security lights looked just the way he’d left them. Two green and three red. He strode to the security station on one side of the room. That was familiar, something he’d worked with before. He checked everything. All seemed secure.

  Which meant the alarm in his room was fake, the voice sent to his quarters false . . . to lure him out? Maybe.

  His blood was slowing. He walked to the main doors. Still no sound outside them. Rolling his shoulders, he stretched, then set his hands against the doors, braced himself, and sent his psi energy into the shields. Once again he noticed they weren’t only tech, but also psi, and the psi had layers . . . from the very first Captain to himself. He spared as much energy as he could, then staggered back. The door lights now showed f our green and one red.

  Good enough.

  Panting, he scanned the room, dimmer and cooler than his first memories. A few of the sixty tubes were empty. Some of those would have been the previous Captains. He needed to study the history of the ship, its current culture. There was only so much he could do relying on his own memories of a past time and society.

  His feet took him to his old tube, and Fern’s. His tube was dark, decommissioned, giving him a gut jolt. He couldn’t go back. What the hell, he wouldn’t trust anyone to put him back into the cryogenic stasis.

  For one year or another century, he was stuck. Unless he died.

  He’d make sure the ships got back on track. He could focus on only the future, holding the image he planned on making come true; he’d learned that a long time ago. If he considered failure, he was already lost. Sweat dried on his chest and back, itching.

  Turning to Fern, he watched the fog swirl in her tube. This time he was allowed a glimpse of her lips and her neck, and he couldn’t stop from remembering their kisses, the scent of her as he nibbled along her jaw. How she smiled. He waited to see her eyes but it didn’t happen.

  There was a creak, he dove for a tool cart where he’d noted a long steel wrench. Rolled, came up with it in his hand.

  To see Chloe entering the room. Her frown eased at the sight of him. “I went to your quarters. Heard the alarm.” Her lips tightened. “The mutineers grow more bold and clever.”

  Kelse put down the wrench where he’d found it. “Did you have any trouble on the way?”

  “No. I am seen as an ineffective flunky.”

  Grunting, Kelse said, “Seems to me that you’re the real Captain. You run the ship.”

  Her mouth quirked in amusement at the compliment. “We gained some time; most Awakened need at least a full seventy-two hours before they can function well. You should still be in your bed.”

  He considered that. “I don’t think I looked too well in that speech to the ship—”

  “You looked like hell. You could have been propped up in your bed with Moungala’s cape around you.”

  “Or I could have been sitting in the command chair, having walked from here to the Captain’s Quarters, as I did. Maybe the alarm was a test to see how recovered I am. Easy to guess that one of my main priorities would be protecting the cryonics bay.” He thought of the cat, wondered how discreet Fam animals were. Did Peaches let something slip? Lady and Lord, another subject he’d have to learn about.

  Chloe’s gaze went to the security hatch, then returned to him. Her glance held reproof and her eyes narrowed as she noted his weariness. “I’m sure the mutineers have a tech who is monitoring the status of this door.”

  “Well, now they know it’s been reinforced.”

  “You need food,” Chloe said. “The other Captains have been notified of Moungala’s death and want an inter-ship conference in half an hour.”

  She turned and stepped back into the dark hole.

  The other Captains, Julianna Ambroz and Umar Clague. Kelse’s pulse picked up again. He’d probably be junior to both of them now. Julianna had been younger than he, Umar a few years older. Strange times.

  Kelse walked by Fern’s tube. Once again mist parted and showed him her lips, her unsmiling mouth. He ached to kiss her.

  Too many things prevented him.

  He touched the forceglass surrounding her. “I wish you were with me, Fern Bountry, able to give me your advice. I’ll always need you.”

  Her lips parted, and he thought they formed, Kelse, then love. Fog enshrouded her face again, and he knew he’d imagined her words because it was what his heart wanted.

  When the ship-to-ship video revealed the faces of his compatriots, Kelse kept the surprise of seeing their aged faces behind an impassive mask. Every hour a new shock.

  Julianna Ambroz of Arianrhod’s Wheel smiled at him. She was wearing a dress of natural fabric with an embroidered front. He envied her. He was dressed in some slick material. Couldn’t find any nice-feeling shirt in the closet. Most of them had insignia, and he wouldn’t wear that.

  Clague appeared sour.

  “Good morning, Julianna, Umar,” Kelse said.

  “Greetyou, Kelse.” Julianna’s smile became wider. Inside Kelse, a sliver of hope began to bloom under a pile of detritus that they might be able to pull off the mission.

  “Greetyou, Kelse,” Umar Clague said.

  “How close are we to finding a planet?”

  “We’re close. I’m hopeful about the two systems with fourteen good-looking habitable-type planets,” Julianna said. “Good odds.”

  Kelse didn’t think so. “And we can definitely make these with the fuel we have?” he asked.

  Julianna hesitated.

  Umar grunted.

  Julianna’s gaze dropped, then lifted. “We on Arianrhod’s Wheel have modified our solar sails and have deployed them. We have the power.”

  He should have felt good knowing that at least one ship would make it. But it wasn’t the ship that Fern and he were on.

  “Umar?” Kelse asked.

  “We need food and energy. We are on strict rationing and our solar sails were damaged in the wormholes. We repaired them, but the repairs are failing.”

  “Julianna, can you ferry something over to Umar?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, we don’t have shuttles. Both our crews have tried to figure something out, but it would burn more energy than provide.”

  “Nuada’s Sword has shuttles.” Kelse was sure of that.

  “Nuada’s Sword has life pods and fighter dagger ships,” Umar said. “But if you’re like us, you don’t have the energy to spare for them or trained Pilots.”

  Kelse glanced at Chloe. F
ace set into a melancholy expression, she shook her head.

  “Do we have any solar sails?” he asked her. “Any food we can dropload?”

  Her fingers swept over her computer console. She frowned, but when she looked up, hope glittered in her eyes. “Nuada’s Sword doesn’t use solar sails, but we have some in storage, and they can be fitted to Lugh’s Spear. That was the reason we bought them. We also have grain and seeds we can send.” She made a face. “And two tons of subsistence sticks, guaranteed to last for three hundred years.”

  “Better than nothing,” Umar snapped.

  “Our relative coordinates are such that we could drop cargo that you can intercept,” Chloe said.

  “Can I check those figures, please?” Julianna asked.

  “Transmitted to you both,” Chloe said.

  Julianna opened her hand to show a shiny pink square. “They look good. What do you think, Umar?”

  His eyes flickered as he scanned the data. He swallowed hard enough that Kelse noted it. “Looks good.” His voice cracked. “I’ll shoot you the specs needed for our ag sector.”

  “We’ll get something to you, Umar,” Kelse said. “Chloe will coordinate with you.”

  Umar stared at him. Then his video went black. He said in a choked voice, “Thank you. You think you can?”

  “Good chance.”

  “Best drop time is in a couple of hours,” Chloe said. “I’ll oversee it. We have enough loyals to stock and pack the dropcube.”

  Umar’s video came on. His face appeared damp, he was blinking spiky lashes. “You know, Kelse, I don’t think I ever appreciated you before.”

  “Thanks.” He looked back at Julianna. “Is there anything closer than those two systems?”

  “The wormhole,” Umar said.

  “You want to take our chances with another wormhole.” Kelse kept his voice expressionless.

  “No!” Umar and Julianna said at the same time.

  “No!” Umar’s face contorted. “If we reached civilized space again, they would take my ship. They would take my wife and the other sleepers for who knows what. Experimentation. They’d shoot me.” He reached for his glass with a trembling hand, and Kelse knew it was from fury.