by Kate Elliott
“What are we going to do when we get to Forsaken?”
“Distribute the Formula.” She frowned and, finally, shifted her head to look at him. “I’m going to invite what’s left of Central’s forces to run with us.”
“Are you really?” He grinned, quick and delighted with the audacity of it.
“Short of force, it’s the only way I can figure to get supplied for that long trip given that we’ve got no credit to buy with.”
“Get in trade for a better future,” he murmured. “I wonder if it will work.”
She shifted her legs on the bed, crossing her ankles in the opposite direction. “Do you want to go back?” she asked, softly.
“Lily, my heart,” he said, as slow as it was deliberate. “I don’t care where I go, as long as—” He stopped and thought better of revealing his hopes, and fears, too plainly to her.
But her gaze, on him, was clear and suddenly acutely comprehensive. And without judgment against everything that she knew he was. “No, I don’t suppose you do.” She looked at him a moment longer before she sighed and turned her head once more to stare up at the ceiling. “I’m not sure I like this job,” she muttered, sounding cross.
For a moment he was taken aback. Then he understood that she meant, not him, but the job of being captain of the Forlorn Hope.
She did not seem to need an answer, so he did not give her one. He just lay, enjoying the intimacy of their mutual silence. And in the slow seep of air through the vents, the measured rise and fall of her respiration, and the complex bouquet of her that he took in with each breath, he realized that he was content. It was a feeling he had not known since his childhood, before his mother and her clan had been forced by every good reason—none of which he could blame them for—to exile him to his father’s kin.
She knew the truth, and she had not rejected him or used it to control him.
He smiled. He thought of leaning across to kiss her, but there was time enough for that. Patients who needed and benefited by his care awaited him in Medical. Next to him lay a woman who was perfectly happy and perfectly comfortable—and perfectly passionate, at the proper time—when she was with him.
He could not imagine any greater happiness.
3 Fount of Blood
THEY TOOK THEIR TIME, circling in, and broadcast their arrival across a wide band so as not to startle the undoubtedly nervous inhabitants of Forsaken and its twin orbiting Stations.
“I’ve got a go-ahead from Station Alpha for docking,” said Finch at comm as they entered orbit.
“Start docking countdown,” replied the captain, expressionless in her chair.
“Hold on.” This from Yehoshua, on scan. “I thought there were only two military ships here. I’ve caught a third in Station Omega’s shadow.”
“Can you get readings?” Lily asked sharply. “Give me what you’ve got.”
A pause while Yehoshua transferred coordinates.
“And we’ve got movement,” he added suddenly. “I don’t like this.”
Lily cursed, hard and abrupt. “Weapons bank up,” she snapped. “Full alert. That’s the Boukephalos. Why didn’t we pick up any comm-traffic from them?”
“They weren’t broadcasting!” Finch protested. He paled, but quickly regained his color when it became apparent that the captain accepted his explanation.
“Weapons bank at full,” said Nguyen from his console. “But I’m registering considerable power drain on our reserve power.”
“We try to bluff,” said Lily. “Open channels, Finch. I want a standard query to the Boukephalos.”
“Hold on.” Finch punched his channel focus and made adjustments. “I’ve got comm coming in. Switching to speaker.”
“This is Comrade Vanov commanding the Boukephalos.” The voice came loud and brassy. Finch hastily adjusted the volume. “We are in control of this system. You are in illegal possession of a government vessel. Surrender into our custody immediately.”
“Vanov?” muttered Yehoshua. “I don’t remember any Vanov.”
It took Lily a moment, but as the silence lengthened—the Boukephalos waiting for a reply—she suddenly recalled a short, heavyset man with too-small eyes. “Hoy,” she said in an undertone. “He’s the one who killed Senator Isaiah and threw Robbie’s body in the ocean.”
“Killed who?” asked Pinto sharply, startling her because she had not thought he could hear so well, strapped into the pilot’s console. Mercifully, Finch did not repeat her comment to him.
“We’re down forty percent on weapons,” said Nguyen from the bank. “At this rate we’ll lose either our engines or the power to do any damage.”
“Cut weapons to minimum coverage. Finch, tell Jenny to get her troops in gear for possible boarding.”
“Another incoming,” replied Finch.
“Forlorn Hope. If you do not reply to this broadcast, we will be forced to fire on you. Who is in charge?”
“Pinto, give us a course that will allow us to drift right under them without their being able to catch us. Mule, we need the nearest window. We’re going to bluff and run. Finch, relay the message to the Boukephalos saying that we are prepared to surrender and asking for terms. Make it as long-winded as possible.” She tapped the com for Engineering. “Blue. We’re leaving the system. How much power do we have?”
“But Captain”—Blue’s voice came back sounding nervous as well as tinny—“by my calculations we can only accommodate two vectors safely. And a third—I wouldn’t risk it.”
“Get us one now, Blue.” She tapped off. “Pinto, Mule. Can you get us a vector that tight and unexpected? If it comes to a real chase, we can’t outrun them.” She fingered the com again, reaching her cabin. “Bach, I need you on the bridge.” Flicked it over even before hearing the robot’s whistled assent.
“I’ve got their conditions,” said Finch. “Surrender of the vessel. The following persons to be taken into custody by Comrade Vanov: Lily Heredes, the physician Hawk, Eugenie Keos Amharat and her biological son Gregori, and Quincina Aliasing Feng. All other mutineers to be judged on a case-by-case basis. Eugenie? Is that Jenny? And Feng? Isn’t Senator Feng the praetor of the Senate?”
“Finch.”
He stopped talking.
“Any other condition?”
“Weren’t those enough?” he asked testily.
“Captain,” broke in Yehoshua, “I have a detach from the Boukephalos. A large shuttle, I believe.”
“Course?”
“Looks like it’s headed this way. I can’t estimate intercept time yet. It’s broadcasting on a scrambled code in our direction.”
“If they fire on us, it’ll be from the Boukephalos. And I don’t believe they’d risk losing the Hope by breaching it. Keep monitoring them, Yehoshua.” Lily studied the screen on her console arm. “Do we have a vector yet?”
“Two hours to the closest window,” hissed the Mule, “but Station Omega is refusing us coordinates.”
The bridge door swept aside and Bach floated in, singing a three-note query.
“Can you make do with Bach?”
The Mule glanced at her. Its crest raised, just enough that she thought it found the challenge amusing. “I can guarantee nothing.”
“I can guarantee that Comrade Vanov is not a man we want to surrender to.” Lily whistled a quick command to Bach, and the robot sped over to plug into the navigation console.
“Without Forsaken Station’s coordinates, the risk to vector is great. Surrender is sometimes preferable to death.”
“In this case,” replied Lily, grim, “for most of us, I suspect surrender is death. I’ll take the vector.”
“Ah.” The exclamation slipped smoothly from the Mule. It turned back to the console and began to calculate, Bach singing softly next to it.
Gregori had found a corner in Engineering where Blue would not stumble across him. Paisley knew he was there, of course, but Paisley understood him. And the technician who had stayed on after the mutiny was a quiet
and dutiful worker, not one to question the movements of the ranking mercenary Commander’s only son.
So the boy watched them at the great consoles that controlled the Hope’s engines. He didn’t like Blue much, but he respected Blue’s ability to understand engines. It seemed to him little short of miraculous, considering Blue was so young and so ill-tempered and touchy. He especially disliked the way Blue treated Paisley: with a contempt tempered only by the fact that he had no one with which to replace her. Outside of Engineering, of course, Blue merely ignored her, being smart enough to realize that more public derision would not be well received by the captain. As far as Gregori knew, Paisley had never complained. Her ability to brush off Blue’s scorn he found more miraculous than Blue’s genius for engines.
“What are you doing here?” Blue’s harsh voice startled the boy out of his reverie. “We’ve got an emergency. Now get out!”
Gregori got. Paisley cast him a brief, taut smile as he scuttled past her toward the door, but it was all she had time for before Blue appeared, scolding her as well.
The door sighed shut behind Gregori, cutting off Blue’s words, and left him in the hush of iron deck corridors. It was especially silent down here, because virtually no one except the Engineering techs, and the occasional mercenary patrolling the shuttle bays, ever came down this far. Even the ghosts, who seemed to Gregori to haunt the ship’s corridors, were scarce here, finding more to occupy, and recall, higher up.
When he saw a figure slip hurriedly past a far intersection of corridor, he thought at first it might be one of the ghosts. After all, Hawk knew about them as well, so it could not be entirely his imagination. They were like faint presences, not seen so much as felt, and a few of the stronger ones he had given names to: Happy, who lived mostly in Medical; Fearful, whose path disappeared frequently into the Green Room, where Gregori was not inclined to follow; and Grumpy, who Gregori quite liked because he seemed to leave a trail of laughter behind him.
But he had never actually seen one before, so he padded quietly after it, careful to stay unobtrusive.
It led him to the bay left empty by the forced departure of Machiko and crew on one of the shuttles. It wasn’t until the figure paused outside the door to the control overlook, looking almost comically furtive before it opened the door and vanished inside, that Gregori realized who he was following.
Under any other circumstances, he would have been more cautious, but he simply walked boldly in behind her.
“Lia,” he asked as he came through the door, “what are you doing?”
She gasped and spun around, but by then it was obvious: the great hold doors were parting to reveal the airless black of space and one shuttle, brilliant in the sun’s reflected light, poised to enter. The light on com began to blink a furious red, but Lia ignored it.
“But who’s that?” Gregori asked. “Blue said we had an emergency. Have they come to help us?”
Lia did not answer. Instead, she began madly tapping override commands into the console, and even manually locked the overlook door that led into the corridor. Then she extended the hatchway that would attach to the shuttle, which had angled precisely in and settled on the hangar pad.
Intrigued, Gregori reached out and tapped the ship’s com.
“—who the hell is down there?” came the captain’s voice, tight and angry.
“We have all entrances covered, and have manually locked all cargo doors from the outside. But the overlook is sealed. I am concentrating my people there.”
“But Lia,” said Gregori, “that’s Momma out there. Shouldn’t we let her in?”
“No.” It was all she would say, and delivered in such a cold voice, so uncharacteristic of Lia, that he did not care to argue. The set, frightened, and yet resolute look on her face scared him. He retreated to a corner to wait her out. She could not possibly remain so utterly changed forever.
She shut off the com and linked up the hatchway. Within moments troops emerged, too many even to all stand in the overlook. One stripped off his face gear. He had tiny eyes in a round face, and his expression terrified Gregori.
“Is this your way of betraying us?” he snapped at Aliasing.
She shrank before him, looking even more unsure of herself and yet still determined.
“No, Comrade Vanov,” she said, so quiet Gregori could barely make out her voice. “I would never betray Jehane.”
The way she said the name had a flavor, a passion, that confused the boy, because he had never heard her speak so ardently about, or to, anyone, not even his mother.
“Well, we’ve been monitoring ship’s com,” replied Comrade Vanov, mocking her, “and there’s a tidy selection of mercenaries outside that door, nicely set up, I’m sure, to rip us to pieces as we come through.”
“Who’s this?” asked one of the other soldiers, a woman with a mild face.
Both Vanov and Lia swung to stare at Gregori.
“Who is it?” barked Vanov. His interest petrified Gregori.
Lia began to speak, stopped, wrung her hands and turned away. “It’s Jenny’s boy,” she whispered.
“Good work,” said Vanov, not making it much of a compliment. With abrupt speed, he reached out and grabbed Gregori and yanked him in tight against his uniform. Drawing his pistol, he pressed the muzzle against the boy’s temple.
“Let’s go,” he said. “They won’t fire on us if we have hostages. Trey.” He nodded at the woman who had first noticed Gregori. “Take the woman.”
“Vanov,” protested Trey. “You can’t put a child at risk like that. What if they shoot him?”
“Are you disputing my command?” His tone was harsh and challenging.
“No, comrade. Of course not.”
“You said he wouldn’t be hurt!” exclaimed Lia.
“I think it unlikely anyone will fire on him,” replied Vanov. “I’m only doing this to make sure there’s as little bloodshed as possible. Surely you understand?”
Lia looked uncertain. Comrade Trey looked skeptical.
“Very well,” snapped Vanov, impatient with this delay. “Form in order. We’re going out. Disarm and detain their mercenaries, sweep for crew, kill if you have to, and merge on the bridge. Is that clear?”
Everyone nodded. Vanov waited an extra moment, eyes tight on Comrade Trey.
“Yes, comrade,” she replied, expressionless.
Gregori was too shocked, and too horrified by Lia’s betrayal and the hard circle of the pistol pressed against his hair, to fight or even to ask why.
Hawk understood that things had gone quite bad when Jenny came over com to say that she would retreat without firing because the boarding party had somehow managed to get Aliasing and Gregori as hostages. Her normally imperturbable voice held a definite tremor.
Hawk wondered for a moment if Lily was going to order Jenny to fire anyway, but the captain only made the cryptic reply: “Lock coordinates to Engineering.”
Securing all patients, he then went into the lab and locked away his supplies of the Hierakas Formula. And because he always, at any place he spent more than an hour’s time in, identified a bolt hole, he hid himself there and waited. Touched briefly each of the weapons he had stored there. All were operational.
He scented Jenny’s mercenaries first. They smelled scared and confused as they retreated higher and higher up. Jenny he did not detect.
Then the first wave of Jehane’s troops, herding those few of the crew who had been left unarmed: Blue and the tech from Engineering, and UnaDia Wei from the Main Computer banks. Soon enough they passed through Medical and collected Flower.
It was easy enough to wait them out and then follow after they’d left, thus giving Lily the backup she’d need. Except that they held a wild card that he did not expect. Eight came in, Lia with them.
“Then he must be here still,” she was saying to a stocky man whom Hawk quickly identified as Kuan-yin’s crony from the Boukephalos. “If he wasn’t in the captain’s cabin. I don’t want anyon
e to get hurt. Gregori once said he had a hiding place here.”
“Spread out and give yourselves cover,” ordered Vanov to his soldiers. “We’ll just wait him out.”
Hawk did not bother to dwell over how Gregori had come to discover the bolt hole. The boy knew the ship very well. He did calculate the amount of damage he could do, but Vanov’s soldiers were well trained enough to cover each other as well as the room, and Vanov left with Aliasing before he could make a choice.
So he stowed the weapons farther back and surrendered himself. As they marched him up to gold deck, and the bridge, he wondered what Gwyn would have done in the same situation. But Gwyn had been the best, and whatever Hawk’s skills as a saboteur and terrorist, which were not inconsiderable, his real expertise had always lain in healing.
It was no relief to discover, on reaching gold deck, that they could have used Gwyn. Whether through the shock of Lia’s betrayal, or the use of hostages, or because of his sheer ruthless efficiency, Comrade Vanov had taken control of the bridge. As Hawk was herded in, he was disposing of the prisoners.
“All the tattoos in one detention block. Just seal them in for now. But leave the ones in Engineering and in Computer until we get replacement crew. The two Engineering techs, the computer tech—we’ll need them later.”
Hawk smelled blood, but he had to look around to find Jenny prostrate on the floor by the nav console. She had blood on her face, and one of her arms was lying at a bad angle. She stirred, but did not moan; she was still conscious. On the opposite side of the bridge, Aliasing stared in horror. Gregori, held by a rough-looking trooper, looked paralyzed by his mother’s injury.
The bridge cleared somewhat as the people named by Vanov and their guards left, revealing Lily standing isolated by the captain’s console, a soldier on either side of her. She looked unhurt. Her expression, when she saw Hawk, did not change: it was emotionless now.
