In the face of another glare, Liam took a careful sip. “Not bad.”
Cordelia drained her glass in one gulp before Edwina could gloat. “I’m off to the keep. Find me after your date. I want to hear all about your damsel’s disappointment.”
“Fuck off,” he said, their usual parting words.
Cordelia sighed and stretched as she took the road to the keep, her steps heavier than when she’d marched into the swamp. All that stood between her and a restful evening was a damned report. Face-to-face meetings with the captain were the only drawback to promotion.
She passed under the crest on the keep’s bailey, a mailed fist clenching a lightning bolt, and climbed up the first staircase. Off to the right of the entry hall, the barracks were a warren of closets and cubbyholes. Lieutenant Jen Brown leaned against Cordelia’s cubby, arms crossed, and a frown so deep, her face would stick in that pose if someone thumped her on the back.
Her dark eyes narrowed as Cordelia gave her a languid smile. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Afternoon, Brown. Pissed-off looks good on you.”
“Don’t give me that half-assed-compliment crap. You were wasting time in the pub with Carmichael the younger, weren’t you?”
“You know, he really hates it when people call him that.”
“Honestly, Ross—”
Cordelia undid the clasps holding her breastplate together and set it on a bench with a small thump. “I am all of two minutes late, Brown. Lighten the fuck up.”
Brown pulled the armor toward her and adjusted the buckles. “This thing smells like a sewer.” Cordelia helped her give it a quick clean, and then she donned each piece, adjusting them for her slightly shorter frame.
“Take care of yourself out there, Brown, you delicate flower.”
“I will bust you in the mouth, Ross, Storm Lord be my witness.”
Cordelia snorted a laugh as she dressed in loose-fitting trousers and a plain shirt. Brown hustled out the door, muttering to herself, though Cordelia didn’t know why she was in such a hurry. Her partner wasn’t even there, knowing how late Liam tended to be. Cordelia turned the slug over to the quartermaster, then handed him her sidearm for recharging. He held the slug between two fingers and raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t ask.” But as Cordelia climbed farther into the keep to the captain’s office, she almost wished she’d lingered in the barracks. Captain Carmichael was intimidating enough on her own, but she also talked to the Storm Lord on a regular basis, and someone who spoke with God had to have nerves of liquid steel.
The aide’s desk outside the captain’s office stood as empty as ever. Carmichael said she didn’t need a buffer between her and her people. No one started up those stairs without a reason.
“In!” her voice called when Cordelia rapped on the door. She sat at her small, plain desk, writing in long slashes on a piece of parchment. She glanced up with the same green eyes as her son but without any of his easy joviality. “Sit.”
Cordelia dropped into a chair, and Carmichael finished writing within moments, dropping her pen into a ceramic inkstand.
“Report.”
“Fourteen boggins dispatched. One shot fired.”
Carmichael leaned back in her chair. “My son?” When Cordelia nodded, Carmichael stood to pace. “That boy will never learn.”
“He thought he was saving my life.”
“From a handful of boggins? You’ve never had any trouble before.”
“Squall is so close to the swamp, and these boggins seemed…”
“Yes?”
Cordelia fought the urge to squirm. “Smarter.”
Carmichael stared at her for a few long seconds. “Where is Lieutenant Carmichael now?”
“Um, I’m not sure where he is at the moment, Captain.” Probably the bar, but maybe with the damsel.
Carmichael sighed. “I don’t want to know. It’s not your problem, anyway.”
Cordelia tried to think of something that would get Liam off the hook, but before she could figure it out, Carmichael barked, “Dismissed!” Cordelia fled, happy to not be drawn into a heart-to-heart with God’s mouthpiece.
CHAPTER TWO
Carmichael let out a long breath after Lieutenant Ross departed. She had a brief thought about sending someone to find out who her son was fucking this time, but she had too many other problems to handle first.
Augmented boggins in the wild, attacking her people. How many times had she warned the Storm Lord about that, asking over and over what would happen if his goddamned science project got loose? She grumbled to herself as she locked her door and lifted away a section of disguised wall, revealing a hidden space behind. Sitting inside like a prog about to pounce was one of the last functioning pieces of tech on all Calamity.
The transmitter, always ready to wake and crap all over her day. To think, she’d been happy when her predecessor had picked her to be the next captain. She had the brains, the intestinal fortitude. A good fit for the job, old Captain Pendell had said. But he’d given her a look of such pity. That should have been a clue.
He’d shown her the transmitter, and while she’d stared like a first-year grunt with a new helmet, he’d sighed. “The Storm Lord is human,” Pendell said, “just like us. He has these powers, is all. And you’ll have to communicate with him regularly, arrange to pick up the godsends when he dishes them out.”
She’d just kept staring. “He’s a human, not a god?”
“Might as well be a god. And he does give us clear skies and things we need.”
“But.” So much didn’t make sense: The length of time the Storm Lord had been alive, the variety of gifts he’d given them, and not just tech. Their super-powered assets, the yafanai, were a gift from the Storm Lord, too. “How?”
He’d shrugged; the weariness in his shoulders seemed to grow the longer the hidden door was open. “You’ll be contacted at least once a month, always near dusk. It’s best not to ask too many questions. If you’ve got a problem, send him a signal, but it better be big. He’s got some scheme in the works, supposed to put us ahead of the game.”
“What kind of scheme?”
Another shrug. “Metal.”
And she’d latched on to that. They all knew the stories. They’d seen the paladin recruitment vid, the artifacts of the first landing. On another planet far away, humankind had achieved incredible wonders, but metal was so scarce here, though the other resources were plentiful. Her head had danced with visions of skyscrapers and spaceships.
And now they had smart boggins, and relations with the drushka were always tenuous, despite the ambassadors and the trade agreements. At any moment, the drushka might again decide that they wanted humans the hell off their planet, and now humanity would have two intelligent species to fight if things turned nasty. She sat down next to the transmitter and keyed it on.
*
Dillon stared out the window, forehead resting on the cool slope of the Atlas’s wall. He was so bored these days. Living for three hundred years had taught him some patience—he could sit and stare at the planet for hours—but as soon as he realized he’d been sitting and staring for hours, he got so depressed.
But his own special chunk of Calamity was just now rotating into view, so he settled against the bulkhead again, not liking the look of the clouds heading toward his people. A little focus, shift the electro-magnetic current, pull like to like, and voila.
The clouds spiraled away to become a hurricane on some other shore, but who cared about other shores? His people would get the rain they needed and no more, and he got…
What? A little less bored?
The comms on his desk pinged, and he stared at it, thinking the sound might be an artifact from his power use, but no, there it came again. Someone on the ground was signaling him, and only one person knew where he was.
“Well, well.” He scooted over to his desk, leaned back, put his feet up, and tapped the receiver key. “This is Papa.”
On th
e other end, Captain Carmichael sighed. God, she was so much fun. “Storm Lord?”
And she loved calling him that; he could hear it. “Speaking.”
“Your experiment, sir. Something’s gone wrong.”
For a moment, his brain had to catch up. “Right, the swamp creatures.”
“Boggins, sir.”
“Did you get word from the research station, Captain?”
“No, sir. My officers report boggins using unusual tactics, and I thought—”
“But no word from the station?” He rubbed a spot of dust off his desk. They were in fucking space; how was there still dust?
“Not in a few days, sir, and I thought…”
It was probably dead skin floating around. Lazlo could regenerate all of them, but that didn’t stop the shedding. “Yes?”
“Well…”
The only one who wasn’t shedding anymore was Lessan, out there orbiting the planet just as they were, unless the gravity well had gotten her. “You want me to lead a squad into the swamp for you, Captain?”
She sputtered, and he bet she hated stumbling over her words, hated that she couldn’t come out and say she wanted to cancel the whole boggin thing or that she hated his guts. She’d been reluctant from the beginning, but his people needed metal, and they needed help to get it. She knew that.
A knock came from the door.
“You’re a soldier. If there’s a problem, handle it.” He disconnected. Only one person knocked on his door. “Come in, Marie.”
She stalked into his suite, her plump cheeks purple with anger. She’d cobbled together some flight suits into a huge, cleavage-baring dress that showed off her lovely curves but still made her look like a weather balloon.
“Contessa,” she said. “I know you haven’t forgotten.”
He pointed past her. “How come you never use the chime, Marie?”
“You call me Contessa, and I call you Storm Lord. That’s the deal.”
“We don’t have to be so formal when it’s just the two of us, sweetheart. We’ve seen each other naked and upside down. What’s a first name here or there?”
She went even redder, and he wondered if a person could choke on her own rage. She’d never forgiven him for not giving her any respect as the requisitions officer. She should have learned that he didn’t give anyone on this shit-ship more respect than they deserved.
She took a deep breath, and his gaze strayed south. “Too many supplies,” she said in a lower tone. “You’re sending too much to your pets.”
“Only what they need.”
“My people manage with very little.”
“Five people live on the Deliquois Islands, and they’re all related.”
And back to purple again. “Just because you’re not a telepath and have to use tech is no reason why your people should get more gifts than ours!”
“We can’t use half the stuff I send.” He raised the pressure in the room just a little, filling it with the scent of ozone.
She stiffened, and her eyes narrowed. “Power cells are useful no matter their form, and other tech can be cannibalized for its useful parts.”
He splayed his hands along the metal surface of his desk, little arcs of electricity jumping from finger to finger. “Oh, I don’t think we’re to cannibalism just yet.”
She laid her palms on the desk as if daring him to shock her. “I’ll go to the others.”
He nodded behind her at the door, and she stormed out as huffily as she’d come in. He could fry her, space her, and be done with it, but the others would turn on him, all the breachies she bullied into her way of thinking. So far, Christian, Marlowe, Dué, and Lazlo had ignored her, but if any of them turned against him, it could be lights out.
Well, not Lazlo, never him. And Marie would never get Dué to participate in some petty scheme. Dué never participated in anything except cackling to herself. God, she freaked him out. Her one eye was always tracking things no one else could see, and if you caught sight of her empty socket, it flared with light, some telepathic trick. She spouted prophecies, moved random shit around like Marlowe could, and once, she used pyrokinetics like Christian’s to burn all the oxygen out of several compartments; no one knew why. She had telepathy like Marie and some of the breachies, like Marlowe and Christian, too, and sometimes she replied to thoughts, spying like the rest of them had agreed not to. Lazlo didn’t have to regenerate her; she did it herself. The only power she hadn’t yet displayed was Dillon’s. Of course, no one had Dillon’s power. He was unique, a special fucking snowflake.
Of course, Dué was the only one on the satellite with the gift of prophecy. She’d once turned to Marie in the middle of the mess hall and said, “You’ll die wearing something red.” That had shut all of them up for days. After Dillon’s electrokinesis, prophecy was the rarest gift. Only one of his yafanai had it, and from what he’d heard, she used it for some kind of fortune telling, a way to make some money for the temple.
More power to her.
His comms pinged again, the internal line this time. With a sigh, he answered, sounding just as Captain Carmichael had earlier. Served him right, he guessed.
“The Contessa has been here,” Christian and Marlowe said, talking on top of one another.
“So?”
“You know what she wants.”
“Again, so?”
They sighed in unison, and he felt a prickle along his scalp as they pinpointed his location with their telepathy.
“I’m in my office. Stay out of my head.”
The tingle stopped. “Just cut back on your drops.”
“Because a fucking breachie said so?”
“For the peace.” The signal cut out.
Dillon glanced over his shoulder again, out the window at the planet. Leading an expedition into the swamp sounded better and better.
*
Lazlo lost himself in the plants, the life flowing through stalks and stems. The botanical habitat was filled with the scent of them, the perfect communion of root to soil. Without thoughts, without reasons, they could just be together.
Across the room, a minute cry of almost-pain made him doubt that philosophy. The yafanai-makers. Again. The plant that enabled Dillon’s followers to have their own powers was his forever problem child. He sent out a tendril of power and soothed away the corruption.
Luckily, he didn’t have to deal with each plant long. He’d harvest their blooms, distill those into the sticky, gritty paste that Dillon called the yafanai drug, and then send the drug to the planet. The plants tended not to live long after that, and he’d start a new batch. Dillon had asked why he couldn’t send seeds so the yafanai could make their own drugs, but Lazlo didn’t like the idea of the ground dwellers messing with something they didn’t quite understand. He was always tweaking his formula, trying to see if he could predict what powers a person might manifest. So far, it was a crapshoot between telepathy, macro- or micro-psychokinesis, pyrokinesis and prophecy. Only Dillon had developed electrokinesis through the accident that had given the bridge crew and the breachies their powers. Prophecy and pyrokinesis were also pretty rare, though some on the surface had them. Telepathy seemed the most common, though people differed in range and strength and whether they could send thoughts or simply receive them.
It was enough research to last a lifetime, several lifetimes. Lazlo stared at the plants and wondered if such studies could sustain someone for all eternity. God, that was a miserable thought.
Feet pounded down the stairs from the lift, and even without the micro-psychokinetic powers that let him manipulate matter on a cellular level, Lazlo knew who it would be, the only person who ever came to see him between regenerations.
Dillon ranted about the crew, sprinkling his tirade with fucks and goddamns and sons-of-bitches. Lazlo had to smile, even after all these years. He was just so entertaining, and anger made his eyes sparkle, though Lazlo told himself not to go there again.
“Did she talk to you?” Dillon asked.
“Who?”
“Marie fucking Martin, who do you think?”
“No one comes to talk to me except you.”
Dillon had said that the others claimed Lazlo made them uncomfortable, though Lazlo didn’t know why. He wasn’t Dué. One of the men, Kenneth, had even shared his bed on occasion, though such occasions were few and far between. Maybe it was the fact that he kept them all alive that unnerved them.
“Are you listening to me, Laz?” Dillon’s hand rested on his shoulder, and Lazlo resisted the urge to lay his cheek on it.
“No one talks to me,” Lazlo said. “I haven’t told anyone about your schemes. I haven’t told anyone about the plants or the yafanai.”
Dillon drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “They’re going to find out someday. They’ll pry into my head. They won’t be able to help themselves.”
“Not everyone is obsessed with you.”
Dillon flashed a smile that made Lazlo’s insides lurch, no matter how many times he told them not to. “Why don’t you wear your glasses anymore?”
“I fixed my eyes a long time ago, and then you made fun of me.”
“What can I say? I’m a dick. Everyone knows this.”
Lazlo snorted a laugh and let a little tendril of his power wander over. “Your cells need redoing soon.”
“That time again?”
“Anger uses you up faster.”
“Better pencil me in for every other day, then.”
Lazlo reached out with his power, scanning for weak spots, old cells, degeneration. He repaired or replaced the flaws, delighting in the corridors of a body he knew so well, at least from this angle.
Dillon closed his eyes, a dreamy smile on his face. “That’s some good shit, Laz.”
A blush was unavoidable. “Nice to be appreciated.”
“Anyone who doesn’t is a fucking moron.” He clapped Lazlo on the shoulder and squeezed, violence and tenderness in one act.
CHAPTER THREE
Cordelia stumbled home late to a summons pinned to her door. The captain wanted her in the morning, an urgent meeting with Paul Ross, the mayor of Gale—who happened to be Cordelia’s uncle—and the drushkan ambassador, Reach, who happened to be a pain in the ass. Well, they were both pains in the ass, but it was more socially acceptable to think it of Reach.
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