Warchild

by Karin Lowachee

  I might have thought it a joke if I didn’t hear the matter-of-fact tone in his voice. Accusations about striviirc-na treatment of POWs were somewhat of an hypocrisy.

  Azarcon didn’t miss a beat or a blink. “The drop points and caches he turned over will take some time to verify. In the meantime, drag his memory for codes. He didn’t mention any of those. Nor did he go into detail about his exact role on the ship. Plaything, obviously, and general errand boy. But I know pirates. He might have been someone’s protégé and is still too afraid to signal us. That type of indoctrination doesn’t willfully come up.”

  Half the time he seemed only an arm-length from Falcone’s command style. But in so many other things he wasn’t anything like Falcone.

  Like his tolerance for throwaways. His invitation here and then his distance. As if kindness was something you gave without expectation.

  He said, “Between your memory and Evan’s late dealings, we have more on Falcone now than we’ve been able to dig up for years. And I’ve been digging. So tell him he can stay so long as he’s forthcoming.”

  Azarcon was a strit killer. But he seemed to have a personal vendetta against Falcone, or at least a strong sense of duty to rid the Hub of the pirate.

  And the cube. It sat smooth and warm in my hand. Was this why his crew was so loyal? He went out of his way for you, once he trusted you. Or was it set up for something he’d later cash in? Maybe trust had nothing to do with it.

  “No more questions, Mr. Musey?”

  Many more, but none I could ask him now. He wanted me to leave. I looked at him and he let me know it, a polite dismissal with one stare.

  Nothing more.

  It didn’t comfort me. He commed a senior jet to escort me back to lower decks. When the hatch buzzed I stood, saluted and left his quarters. The man was still a mystery.

  * * *

  XXXV.

  On my way back to q I snuck into the jet wardroom to nose around in brig records. The Shiva crew interrogations weren’t listed or even compartmentalized. It figured. It was just like Macedon to question off the record. Any files had probably gone from the brig straight to the captain. I tried diving into Dorr’s personal files, but he had a bomb shelter worth of code around his accesses. I’d need an hour at least to decipher them, which was nearly impossible. Jets came in the wardroom and I had to shut down.

  In quarters I read the cube. It contained information from Mukudori’s initial registration by Captain Kawakami, right to its last scheduled run before the attack. The files held the dates and dossiers on all of the crew, births and deaths and marriages, hires and dismissals and those who’d just simply left.

  I couldn’t find the breath to speak past the sudden ache in my throat. I manually poked the links, as if I moved under water, weighted by depth. I typed in Musey.

  A picture came up, with birthdate and biography. A different picture from what was on my image disk, earlier in date. Musey, Kevin Joslyn. My father. He didn’t look more than twenty. Married to Wen Young, 2176 EHSD. I moved the images side by side. Together they were me. I was in my mother’s dark hair and my father’s dark blue eyes. My mother’s nose and mouth, and the shape of my father’s jaw. In her cheekbones. In his smile.

  They were me.

  All of it. Inside me. Flowing through me until it spilled from my eyes and I no longer saw my face in them.

  But I didn’t want to. They were dead.

  * * *

  XXXVI.

  My duty was Evan. I would’ve preferred to scrub the deck, but when Kris came in to quarters I made Evan the excuse to leave before Kris saw my red eyes. I went to the head and washed my face. Maybe Azarcon’s gift of those files hadn’t been generosity at all. Maybe he’d wanted me to see what I no longer had and what was left. Maybe this was his way of telling me to forget Falcone. They were all dead, one way or another.

  Maybe he’d only wanted me to have it, like Niko had.

  Except Azarcon wasn’t Niko. Azarcon didn’t care about me, not when he had six thousand other people to command. Azarcon cared about his information and his missions and killing strits.

  Except Niko wanted to know—was that really all?

  I had to discover that by letting the man into my space, when every nerve wanted me out of his quarters, away from him, a stranger to him if I could. He’d taken me there on purpose, knowing what I would think in his presence, knowing my year on the Khan. Standing there in his living space while he sat on his couch looking at me, defenseless, I could have killed him if those were my orders; I could’ve ended his missions against the striviirc-na and the sympathizers, if Niko only said the word. I could’ve ended it so easily, and he’d never ask me into his space again.

  Except Azarcon wanted Falcone too. And he’d let me alone.

  Evan had answers. Evan was my duty. So I went there, my thoughts wrapped in a black fog.

  One thing at a time.

  Once inside, with Evan’s cigret smoke crawling into my eyes and down my throat, I took a shallow breath and watched him watching me, the stares of two animals forced to share the same territory.

  “You look disturbed,” he said, with a bored drag on his cig.

  “I told the captain you wanted on ship.” I stayed by the hatch.

  Evan sat with his feet up as usual, in rumpled fatigues, his nest of blankets all around him. At least he looked like he was showering regularly, though his eyes remained bloodshot. Faint stubble had started to show on his chin and jaw, blond scrub.

  “So what’d he say?” he asked.

  “He wanted to know why and then he wanted to know what you could offer us for it.”

  I wanted to know why I suddenly felt dirty for asking. Evan was a pale panic.

  “Didn’t he get what he wanted? I gave him what you wanted!”

  “Codes. Know any?”

  His eyes flared. “Yeah. Here’s one: strit.”

  I stared at him. “Evan, my captain wants information. I’m going to give it to him. I’m starting not to give a damn what happens to you or what you could possibly say, which is a bunch of bullshit. Are you reading me? Go talk to that jet outside. Do I care? Falcone fuckin’ blew our ship!”

  He flinched. And made for the door.

  I grabbed him by the shirt and threw him on the bunk. His fists flailed but I knocked his arm down and seized his other wrist.

  He yelled.

  The hatch opened. Behind me the jet said, “What’s going on?”

  “Get out!” I glanced over my shoulder, nudging one knee into Evan’s gut to keep him down.

  “You aren’t supposed to kill him.”

  “I’m interrogating him. On the captain’s orders. Now get out.”

  The jet wasn’t a fool. He knew I was there at Azarcon’s behest. He knew I talked to Azarcon on more than one occasion. He knew Dorr was my squad leader.

  The hatch shut.

  I looked down at Evan. He was breathing so hard he barely had strength to struggle. “I want him, Evan. I want your boss’s head on a platter. I’ll go through you to get it.”

  “He’s not my boss, Musey!”

  “Then what? Tell me everything.”

  He began to cry. It was a strangled sound. My anger shrank back at the sight of it. I released him, moved back to the opposite bunk, and sat on my hands. They shook. His face flushed red, high on his cheeks and all down his throat. He wiped his face furiously with his sleeve but it didn’t do much good.

  “I’m not protecting the pirates, Jos. I remember when they blew the ship. I saw them shoot my parents. And Shane. I saw them shoot yours.”

  My voice broke. “Codes, Evan.”

  But he wasn’t listening. “I went to engineering. I don’t remember why. I was bugging Shane. Then the ship was attacked. And things happened so fast. Your parents came in with guns. Shane put me up on the rampart, you remember that place? We used to fly down airplanes when Jules let us, on off-hours.”

  “It’s over, Evan.”

  “Th
e pirates came to engineering first. Our parents were supposed to help protect it. But they couldn’t.” He brushed his face again with a sleeve but it stayed slick, red, rubbed raw. “I saw them die, all of them—”

  “I don’t wanna hear it, Evan!”

  “You should! You wanna know about me and pirates. I hate them, Jos. How can you think otherwise? How can you even ask me? I don’t know any codes! I don’t know anything more! I need to stay here, Jos. You’re here. I don’t know anywhere else but on their side.”

  “How do I know you’re not on their side? How do I know you’re not just trying to make me trust you—with this talk about our ship—”

  “I know what they did to make you think that way,” he said.

  “I don’t think any which way. I think you were six years with them and learned a few things.”

  He didn’t answer that. But for a moment the twelve-year-old swallowed the eighteen-year-old, and it was the face from the Khan staring back at me, when I’d been hauled from the room that first time and taken to Falcone.

  He hadn’t wanted to let go of me.

  “I need someone here, Jos. Please.”

  I couldn’t move.

  “Please.”

  My heart thudded like a frantic drummer. “No.”

  This didn’t need to be part of it. I was here because of Azarcon, who just wanted information. I was here because of Niko, who might’ve known about symps and pirates bedding down, but until I knew for sure, I was here for him too, and Evan didn’t know anything. Evan couldn’t tell Azarcon.

  Evan wouldn’t tell Azarcon if I gave him reason not to.

  I was here alone and Evan wasn’t going to protect me. He never had. He wanted things from me, like everyone else. But those things were never just what people said with words. Everything about it, instead, was meant to manipulate you to feel something you wouldn’t otherwise feel, and screw up your steady, rational thoughts. You didn’t just offer your body like that unless you expected some return. Some kind of insurance.

  But that wasn’t my voice in my head, like it wasn’t my body that felt the heat of Evan’s stare. My hands were numb, yet I pushed myself from the bunk and out of the quarters, like an animal in retreat.

  * * *

  XXXVII.

  I sent what I hoped would be my final report to Captain Azarcon about Evan, the fact Evan claimed to know nothing more. I was sure Azarcon would still persevere with the Shiva crew in brig, and it would be up to him whether Evan was going to stay aboard or not.

  It was out of my hands. Gladly.

  The duty roster at the next shift showed my name on guard duty of the Shiva prisoners. That had to be the corporal’s idea of a joke, considering my last visit to the brig. I checked my personal messages and sure enough, Dorr had sent me a small note: Don’t kill any of them—yet. And, See you in shotokan class.

  They remembered me. The cells were unusually quiet for the duration. Sometimes I escorted one of them out, cuffed, to a separate room nearby where Dorr and another jet usually waited. When the time came I escorted the prisoner back to the brig. They never looked quite the same.

  This went on for a week.

  Azarcon let Evan walk to mess for meals now, under guard. Evan started to lose some of his nervousness and pallor. He’d been the Shiva captain’s favorite, the decoration on her arm, her status doll and her trainee. He’d kept his eyes and ears open and kept his mouth shut. And waited. Betrayal was nothing to him now that he knew Azarcon wouldn’t dump him. If he could’ve, I knew he would have offered another kind of favor to the captain. That was how he translated gratitude. I avoided him when I could. When he wanted to talk he went straight to the captain.

  It gave me time to do other things. Like work out in the gym at the end of shift, which I could do alone and with concentration that nobody thought to interrupt. Except Sanchez, who hadn’t forgotten that damn gauntlet run. He and his cronies Ricci and Bucher sidled up to me as I kicked at an exercise bag.

  “Your little buddy’s sure racking up points with Cap lately,” Sanchez said.

  “He’s not my buddy.” I kicked the bag hard enough that Bucher had to step back.

  “Out of all the pirates we got, he’s the only one walking with a captain’s pardon.”

  “With a guard.”

  Ricci said, “We’re watching you, mano. You and your fellow pirate prince. We don’t care what Cap says, or how many breaks he gives.”

  “Or how many times you go to his quarters,” Bucher put in.

  I stopped kicking, looked at him. So they had eyes on command deck. “Why don’t you take that to Azarcon? Let him hear you.”

  “Because Bucher’s a coward,” Kris said, walking up behind the other jet from the gym entrance. We traded glances. Kris kept out of Bucher’s line of sight.

  “Shut up, Rilke,” Sanchez said. “The only reason you don’t bitch about D’Silva is ’cause you’re already tradin’ sweat with squeaky Mouse here.”

  I launched at Sanchez and knocked him onto his back before he had time to react. His head smacked the floor. I went for his throat but a hand grabbed my tank and hauled me back. I drove my elbow into somebody’s face, heard a muffled cry. The hand released me and I spun.

  Kris had Bucher on the floor, a knee in his back and a fist in his hair. Ricci was holding his nose and swearing at me.

  Then Corporal Dorr appeared in the hatchway, a black shadow. “What the hell’s goin’ on?”

  I knew better than to move, hearing that tone. Kris released Bucher and stood slowly.

  “I asked a question,” Dorr said.

  Sanchez got to his feet, a little dazed but spitting fire. “Your bitch is in heat.”

  The corporal strode in, right up to Sanchez without pause, and backhanded him, lightning fast. Sanchez staggered, swore.

  Dorr gazed at him levelly. “What was that, mano?”

  They were of equal rank. But Sanchez stared only a second before backing up, raising a hand. “Forget it.”

  Dorr glared at him, then gave equal attention to Bucher and Ricci. “I don’t think I will. Keep away from my team or I’ll remember I got a gun at my disposal.” His eyes cut to me and Kris. “As for you two—get your butts to the wardroom. We got a mission.”

  * * *

  XXXVIII.

  The laser bolt thudded by my ear. The flash of it nearly blinded me. I dodged in reflex, a desperate dive to the station deck, my world suddenly, deafeningly quiet from my entire right side outward. I breathed harsh, the sound echoing through my skull, and squinted up against the sparking, smoke-obscured lights of the dock far above. Kris stood over me, yelling something and firing into the enemy. Tiny flashes of light burst from his pulse pack as shot after shot spewed from his rifle. Corporal Dorr appeared in my view, his hair-tail whipping around his shoulders as he barked at one of our team. I saw his mouth move and his rifle jerk as he lay fire, but the sound remained muted.

  Kris dragged me by my webbing behind one of the fallen girders. I struggled to sit up, orient myself. Kris slapped my cheek lightly to get my attention. His sweat-flushed face appeared in view, hair stuck to his cheek beneath the helmet and eye shield.

  “Are you hit?” he yelled.

  I shook my head. I pressed a hand to my right ear, then adjusted the helmet. The pain lanced all the way to my brain.

  “Close one,” he said with a relieved grin, then rose slightly from his crouch. I heard him lay down an arc of fire at the pirates across the dock. They were barricaded against the inner doors. We’d been trying to remove them for the last five minutes. Five minutes? Longer, maybe. Their numbers depleted rapidly but they still held to their position. They knew the moment we broke that barricade the station would be ours.

  I struggled to my knees and peered over the girder. The battle sounds were reduced to distant cracks and thuds, intermittent now as the pirates’ ammo ran out and they waited to choose their targets. All across the wide dock jets crouched behind insect-shaped loaders, tossed
containers and supply bins. A few jets lay in the open, dead or too injured to move. Inside the small station core were the weapons. Mountable howitzers, crates of LP-150s and modified LF-89s—hull-breachable cutters with flame capability. Jets called them Jaws.

  The load was meant for the symps and strits, who were supposed to rendezvous here. Evan had fingered the cache and the schedule; his information panned out. In his head was a veritable timetable of pirate activity in the sector. Our sister ship Archangel took care of other leads near the DMZ, by Ghenseti’s sector. Right now I wanted a strit or a symp to question.

  I transferred the pickup to my left ear where I could actually hear the teams. In space the Chargers, hunter-bombers, and hunter-killers swept by the station bays to make sure nobody cut and run. Macedon was tangling with a striv assault runner, out of short-range comm. The runner had come for the cache. We had to assume Macedon would win or else we were stranded with the Chargers.

  “Dorr, on the right flank,” Hartman said through the pickup. I watched as fire team two’s grenade barrage created a hole in the barricade of metal and plastic junk the pirates had erected.

  Dorr barked an order and Kris and I dashed forward toward that hole as our people spat cover fire into the enemy. Footsteps followed behind us as the other jets came up in waves. I knew it was Dorr and Madi at my six without having to look.

  The inner doors cracked open and the few remaining pirates fled through them, the bite of our bolts against their heels. Our backs hit against the doors. I checked in fast for retaliation. Nothing rained out. I dodged in, weapon sweeping the right hand of the murky corridor as Kris covered my left flank. They’d shot out the lights or cut them from the mains. The backups glowed dully overhead, sickly yellow. I glance-flicked my eye shield HUD to swap over to night scope. Sharp green glow washed through my sight, illuminating wall angles and the narrow emptiness of the rundown corridor. I advanced cautiously.