Claire nodded and studied the nobles with an academic eye. This is too new for her. She's spent too much time away from the real universe that she's forgotten the rules.
Suddenly Chris felt a brushing past his leg and a child darted out into the path of the warriors. He collided heavily with the leg of the large man with the black and red hair. The child rebounded in a heap to the floor. The Commonwealth knight, caught mid-stride, stumbled for a moment, appeared to be about to collapse, but recovered with a militant swiftness.
The crowd, already silent, caught its collective breath.
“Stupid, ignorant little bastard!” The Commonwealth knight raged, finding the child trying to scamper away through the capes and cloaks of the bodyguard. He caught the child by the shirt and dragged him out from behind Sir Aaron. He couldn't have have been more than eight, dressed as a spacer mechanic's apprentice and covered in the oil and grease that marked the profession. His slick apparel allowed him to slip through the big knight's fingers, drop to the floor and hurry into the crowd where he found refuge behind Chris' leg.
The knight followed, stomping like some terrible giant.
“Move peasant,” he hissed at Chris. The boy tightened his grip around Chris' legs and the crowd backed off, except for Claire who immediately closed ranks and stood shoulder to shoulder with her brother.
Maybe it was the sudden confidence of the backup or just a momentary lapse of common sense, but Chris didn't budge. “He's just a child, surely no threat to you, sir,” he said.
The huge knight's fist appeared for just a fraction of a second before it collided with Chris' face with a sickening crunch. The blow lifted the young spacer off the floor for a moment before he collapsed. Chris hit the deck hard and rolled slowly to a sitting position. His ears buzzed and his eyes completely lost their focus. His vision swam and he felt like he was going to be sick. Dimly he was aware of a huge shadow looming over him.
“Pitiful,” he heard. Claire was clinging to the knight's arm, preventing him from swinging again and he shrugged her off with a shake of his wrist. He reached for Chris when the big knight was suddenly jerked backwards.
“That's enough, Slader,” the knight in the blue and green said calmly. He grabbed him by the arm and tried to haul him away.
“Do not touch me, mix blood!” Slader sneered at him, catching his feet and reaching for his blade. The guards worked quickly to surround the knights, but hesitated in trying to break up the dispute.
“Go back to your ship,” Sir Aaron ordered.
“Why do you protect these pitiful underthings? They are not worth our blood.” Slader spat a huge globule on the floor then turned on his heel to storm out of the gallery his guard beating hastily at his heels.
“You really ought to be more careful,” Sir Aaron said flatly to Chris before following the route Sir Slader had taken from the gallery as the crowds slowly began to disperse. Some lingered to point Chris out to those who missed the spectacle and whispered intensely to each other.
“Chris?” A strangely familiar voice asked.
The third knight, the one in the Evers colors, halted and looked down at him.
“In the name of Amrah, it is you!” He reached out a hand and hauled Chris to his feet.
“Ian!”
Sir Ian Evers, the knight who'd bought him the MacCleod in thanks for his help at the university, hugged him tightly, somewhat mindful of his wounds. His sandy brown hair was brushed up perfectly groomed in the Evers' style, his face was still soft, despite his military upbringing. He hadn't seen real combat, yet.
“And Claire! I haven't seen you in years,” he said.
Claire smiled thinly. She offered him an awkward hug that seemed lacking in warmth. Claire looked away after stepping back. Ian cleared his throat.
Chris raised an eyebrow for a moment, watching their childish interaction. I haven't seen blood that bad since the Manderheim Rebellion. It might even have resulted in fewer casualties.
“How's your head?” Ian asked Chris.
Chris tenderly touched his face and winced. “I got hit by an expanding cargo panel on the Cleod once that hurt less.”
Ian laughed. “How's she doing?”
“Well enough. We've been in station for a month, but we're taking off for a job tomorrow. What brings you here?” Chris asked, looking at the other knights' retreating forms. “With them?” He added.
Ian shrugged. “They wanted me to introduce them to Ojressi, the legate. I guess they're looking for someone, but wouldn't tell me who. Privileged information or something. That Slader fellow is a real piece of work.”
He turned again to Claire. “What about you? Been following him all over the Goteborg Duchy?”
Claire swallowed and considered her answer. “I've been away for a few years. Doing my own thing.”
Ian chuckled awkwardly. “You always did prefer doing your own thing.”
She nodded.
“When we get back you should join us sometime on the Cleod,” Chris said. “It's been too long.”
Ian tried to smile, but seemed weighed down. “Yeah. If I can get away. We've been on high alert for months. Ever since Haberton fell. Maybe things will calm down by then?”
“I hope so.”
“In a few weeks then?” Ian asked, holding out a hand.
Chris took it warmly. “We'll be here.”
“I hope you'll join us, Claire,” he said with a curt nod.
“Okay.”
Ian paused, clearly hoping for a better answer. When he got none he said, “I gotta go. Stay safe, guys. Walk with Amrah.”
Sir Ian hurried after the other knights, his bodyguard rattling in tow.
“You could be nicer to him,” Chris said.
Claire shrugged then inspected his wounds. “What happened is done with. Now let me see.”
He pushed her away in his embarrassment, but she held firm. “I'm a doctor, now stop it.”
“I don't need a doctor,” he whined ineffectively.
After a few moments she announced, “I don't see any missing teeth, but a few look like they're broken. We'll need to fix that when we get back to the ship.”
“Later. I need a drink,” Chris grunted, leading her away from the gallery and into the deeper sections of the station he refused to take her to earlier.
Nickalaus
First Officer of the MacCleod
19 February, 23,423
Garda Station, Goteborg, Magdeborg Commonwealth
______________
Nick stirred his drink slowly, only half listening to Claire as she explained how the death ring had worked on the Starfield prisoner last week. As Claire detailed some complex neurological reaction he didn't understand, his thoughts turned to the agreement Chris made with Drayton. The meeting had played over and over in his mind as he watched his best friend throw away his allegiance to his state. They hadn't spoken much since then, but Chris' angry call demanding his presence at the bar concerned him.
He found the twins here nursing Chris' bruised face. Claire recounted his run in with the knights and showed him his bleeding face. If Chris was harboring any second thoughts about Pershing and turning his back on the Commonwealth, he certainly wasn't any more.
He didn't know Chris to be cruel. Ambitious, yes, even pushing himself to the limits and beyond, but this was outright treasonous. He'd been avoiding addressing it directly with his captain, afraid that Chris might block him out of his inner circle. They'd been friends for over a decade, having met in primary school and remaining close all the way through their collegiate studies. As they debated more and more throughout their intensive education, Nick had become an ardent nationalist. He had reasons for his stances, but none he could actually reveal to Chris. They were too deeply personal, too much a part of who he was that he could use them as any sort of logical argument.
Chris relied far less on emotion to make his decisions. He seemed much more in tune with the study of power and logic in general. He had been trained as an interstella
r relations political scientist and it showed in his beliefs. His assessments were about numbers, favors and potential earnings, real measures of power. Realpolitik. Perhaps his studies had numbed him to the cold reality of interstate politics. Life out here is brutal, nasty and often short. Didn't Chris say that once? Wasn't he quoting someone?
Merging that philosophy with the self-aggrandizing economic system that governed human space resulted in what should have been a ruthless entrepreneur. Why Chris chose to remain loyal with the bumbling Drayton continued to confuse him to this day. It was like he was afraid of his own potential, as if he were making up for past failures by taking the safe path.
When Chris excused himself to get another round Claire smiled at him, bringing him back to the conversation. “What's wrong with you, Nick? You've been weird all evening. Is it what happened to Chris?”
He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Must be the drink.”
Claire snorted. “Please. You've hardly had any since you got here.”
Here happened to be a bar somewhere in Garda's lower levels. Chris selected it despite Nick's protests claiming that it suited his mood. It advertised itself as a sort of business bar, but the mega corporations never came here. This was the territory of the small firms and contract pilots looking for work. Most of the people here weren't exactly on the right side of the law either and it showed. They wore dark clothes, spacer gear, and talked quietly in booths, constantly glancing over the clientele of the establishment just in case a rival happened to walk in with his buddies looking for trouble. In fact, there were so many spacers with SESE tattoos here that the dark room glowed a strange green-blue that made Nick's muscles tense in unease.
In the booth next to them, a knight of House Evers and a few sergeants were murmuring quietly. Across from them were a drunk spacer and a female who seemed to be trying to get him back to her bunk for an exchange of services. At the bar itself, two men argued loudly, hands on their weapons, drawing looks from the Evers soldiers. Station bars were the graveyards of many spacers and this one was no exception.
“Maybe it's just the execution. It's not every day you see that,” he said, finding an excuse not to talk politics with Claire. He picked at the chipped wood table as thousands of others before him had done. It was pock marked by fingernails and gashed here and there by a bored spacer's knife.
“You're also a horrible liar. I found that out pretty quickly when we were dating,” Claire said, the smile vanishing then reappearing.
Owch, he thought. Not that mess again.
He lowered his voice appropriately and steered clear of that subject. Politics was looking like a better subject than that fiasco. He came clean. “The contract then. Transporting Dominion prisoners of war is not only against Commonwealth law, but the Azuren won't appreciate it either.”
“Why are you so worried about what the Commonwealth thinks?”
“Because we are subjects of House Evers and we owe them everything we have. It's a minor miracle that Lord Damien has kept the Dominion at bay for as long as he has. I don't think releasing his most dangerous enemy is really how one repays a war hero.”
Nick stopped talking as two spacers walked by him and took a seat at a booth a few feet away. One wore some sort of combat vest over his flight suit and was obviously armed. The other was smaller, dark haired and full bearded and wore a flight mechanic's garb. They both kept a clear eye out in the crowd and a hand near their weapons. Their tattoos glowed in swirls and circles like some sort of bizarre maze.
“We need the money, Nick. Whatever happens afterward won't be our problem. Let Lord Damien handle it. Maybe he should have killed Pershing in the field rather than allow him to surrender?”
“That's not really a fair question. You've never been in combat,” Nick grunted. “You sound just like your brother. You sure you didn't take any of those economics classes of his while in school?”
“I don't know about war, but I do know about survival,” she said tapping her finger on the table. Her blue eyes sparked with intensity.
“I don't see how this is survival. We're not that desperate,” Nick finally said.
“The Dominion is getting closer and closer to Goteborg, which means the business is going elsewhere. The only contracts left will be those related to the war. It means we have to play this game or else we're going to be out of a job,” she said.
“But transporting Pershing? He's a murderer! He slaughtered House Mercer and thousands of other Commonwealth warriors. It isn't right,” he snapped.
“It doesn't matter what he's done. The nobles play their war games and we just have to try to avoid the gunfire and falling bodies.”
“That's cold.”
“It's reality. I don't like it either, but I'm starting to understand how things work around here.”
“Is it because of what happened to you today?”
She took a breath, thinking that one over. “It just encapsulates the bigger problem. The nobility doesn't care.”
“So you're with Chris on this one?”
She nodded firmly. “Now can we talk about something that isn't work?”
Chris arrived back at the table carrying three bright pink drinks. He handed them out and slid in next to his sister.
“What in Ixith are these?” Nick asked grumpily.
“Arsyth Fusionaires. Apparently,” Chris said, sipping one and cringing. “Barkeep said they were made from ship grease and I'm not so sure he was joking.”
“So you instantly thought the rest of us would want one?” Claire asked, poking his ribs.
Chris shrugged and took a few more gulps.
Nick leaned back in his chair abruptly, trying to swallow his frustration and the vile liquid. The movement caught the attention of the two spacers nearby who both looked in his direction sharply. Nick realized he violated an unspoken rule in these types of places – no sudden moves.
Slowly, he returned to hunch over the table to address Claire. “So then what do you want to talk about?”
“Like when are we going to find you a girl, Nick? You can't babysit us forever,” she said slyly and took another drink.
Back to this then?
Nick cracked a smile at the unexpected turn. “Not here, that's for sure. In any case, I'm sure I'll manage just fine thank you.”
Claire laughed, a sweet sound that seemed completely out of place among the trash that found it's way here. It reminded him of better times between them years ago.
He was confused and more than apprehensive to see her return. With her grades she could have gone on to more education or gotten a job wherever she wanted. Maybe even with Harding or Biometrics or somewhere doing government research. She vanished for five years and suddenly reappeared with no explanation and no desire to discuss her activities. She accuses me of babysitting, but I wonder why she came back. Her attachment to her twin? Me? I wonder what she thinks she'll get out of staying with the MacCleod. She deserves better than a spacer's life.
“A brief liaison with a college girl like me is hardly what I'd call managing, sir,” she said, half mocking him, perhaps a bit drunkenly.
Chris rolled his eyes. “Speaking of awkward, we ran into Sir Ian just now.”
Claire visibly soured and gave her brother a look that could melt destrier armor.
“I'm sure that was fun,” he said. “I wouldn't have expected to see Sir Ian here.”
“He was with Sir Aaron Mercer-Sten and Sir Slader Sten talking to Ojressi for some reason. Looking for someone, I think,” Chris said. “Probably more Starfield Theorists.”
“Maybe,” Nick said scratching at his face. “How was it to see him again?”
“He's doing well,” Chris said. “They're gearing up for the fight.”
Claire ignored him and focused on her drink.
“He's going to be in danger, you know,” Nick said. “With Pershing back-”
Chris waved his hand. “He'll be fine. He's a good fighter, remember? That's how we met.”
Claire had heard enough. “Come on, Chris. I have to fix your broken teeth.” She left her empty glass on the table and stood, pulling at Chris' jacket.
“Haven't you been drinking?” He asked, his face melting in concern.
“Not enough to deal with you as a patient,” she snapped as she pushed him towards the exit. “Aren't you coming?” She asked Nick.
“In a minute.”
As they turned to leave, he noticed the two spacers nearby watch them go. It wasn't unusual for Claire to turn heads, he remembered, but these guys weren't interested in her in that manner. They wanted something else. Instantly, Nick's head cleared of the alcohol and he focused more on the spacers. He didn't remember seeing them around here before and there was something with their tattoos. They didn't quite hit all the spots best suited for muscle and brain pads. Nick also couldn't remember any mechanics who wore the tattoos. After a lapse of piloting, spacers' tattoos had a tendency to fade, but the mechanics were just as bright as any others indicating they were active and frequent pilots. They didn't fit the role.
Nick got up and left the bar. The halls were fairly empty. It would be easy to follow someone. He did not follow the twins back to the MacCleod. Instead, he made a different turn that would take him in a roundabout course back to the bar. His suspicions were rarely wrong and these spacers seemed out of place. They were wary and on edge like any other of the bottom feeders in Garda, but they were trained. It was obvious in the way they looked at people. Their eyes didn't linger on Claire as a male's normally did – although Nick would once have angrily intervened if they had – but they searched in the way you were checking for threats: hips and thighs for weapons, shoes and sleeves for hidden blades. Eyes revealed intent, Nick had been taught.
Nick watched the crowds walk by, more spacers, mercenaries and even a few likely drug dealers and arms smugglers. Even the occasional Evers soldier walked by, trying not to look out of place. They ignored him for the most part, only a few cursory glances went his way to make sure he wasn't a threat to them. On Garda, debts and grudges weren't settled like they were by knights on the battlefield. Rarely, in fact, did debtors even know the debt was being settled until they were already on death's doorstep.
Schism of Blood and Stone (The Starfield Theory Book 1) Page 9
