Empress Game 2

by Rhonda Mason

  Instead he followed Corinth off the bridge as the boy nearly stepped on Tia’tan’s heels to get to the hatch. Natali met them in the corridor. Her gaze clashed with his for a second before he ducked his head, unable to look at her. She’d glanced away even quicker. In that moment she’d seemed pale and haunted and furious, as if the scream that endlessly raged inside him, clawing its way out, was on the verge of bursting forth from her. She was armed—he hadn’t seen her unarmed since escaping from Dolan—and she fell in line with the group the same way she did almost everything these days: wordlessly.

  Natali was taller than Tia’tan, almost as tall as Kayla, and better trained thanks to being three years older. At least, she had been better trained, before five years of torture. Her light blue ponytail was pulled so tight it must have been giving her a headache, and her hands clenched and unclenched, clenched and unclenched at her sides as she walked stiffly down the ship’s corridor.

  Shame and guilt and self-loathing burned in his chest and he had to stop and place a hand on the wall to even catch a breath. It was galling. It was pitiful. Tia’tan glanced over her shoulder as if she sensed something. Her lavender eyes held a moment’s compassion, more than he could stand. She half-turned as if she would come back for him and he shook his head hard, once.

  It’s over, he told himself again. Over.

  It would never be over, not for him, not for Natali, and not for Uncle Ghirhad, no matter that the man laughed like he wasn’t just as broken.

  Vayne pushed himself off the wall and followed the others to where Noar was entering the sequence to unlock their side of the hatch.

  “Wait, shouldn’t some of us stay back? What if it’s not safe?”

  Too late.

  The hatches opened, and standing inside, with a huge grin on her face, was the pilot he would have recognized anywhere. She wore the regulation black jumpsuit, complete with Yari mission patches, and her thick sea-green braid fell over her shoulder all the way down to her thigh as she gripped the hatch’s edge and leaned sideways toward them. “Hullo!”

  “Captain Janus?” Vayne froze in place. He’d clearly gone mad. That last session with Dolan had knocked something loose in his brain and he was very, very not okay.

  The captain of the Yari laughed, matching sea-green eyes twinkling. “Heard of me!” She gave them a wink and gestured for them to come inside.

  He felt a hand slip into his. Corinth.

  ::Isn’t she dead?::

  So he wasn’t insane. A slice of ancient history really just winked at them.

  ::It was five hundred years ago, she should be dead.::

  Vayne shrugged a shoulder. “Guess not.”

  A grin broke out on Corinth’s face. ::Come on!:: He pulled Vayne through the airlock and into the past.

  Only it wasn’t the past… was it? Nothing in Vayne’s recent memories led him to believe they had somehow achieved the impossible: time travel. What, then? Had the Yari leapt forward? That made as little sense.

  Dazed, he followed the Ilmenans and their smiling host. She was saying something to Noar, her archaic Ordochian dialect hard to follow considering the light-speed stream of her words. Noar thanked her for destroying the rooks and Captain Janus gave a little “whoop!” and a slap-clap that made everyone jump.

  “My shooting not that time, you can thank Benny. His shoot fine.” She gestured to her throat as she barreled them along, then mimed speaking with an extravagant wave of her arm. “Used to it soon, indeed. The other Ordochians perfect translate already”

  Other Ordochians?

  “Wait, Captain Janus—” Vayne started, cut off by her laugh.

  She looked over her shoulder at him as she walked. “Calls me that no one. You will call Ida.” She winked again and turned her attention back to Noar. Vayne could only follow, his head abuzz with the impossibility of it all, swept along in her bubbling wake like everyone else.

  ::The ship:: Corinth said, eyes scanning the curving walls of the nearly cylindrical corridor. ::Can you believe it?::

  Not at all.

  Even in this utilitarian section of the great ship the walls were lined with molychromium, the pink-gold shimmer visible despite the low light. A standard shipbuilding material at the time, today the metal was so rare it would have been cheaper to line the corridor with hundred-creds. Layer upon layer of them.

  He reached out and ran his fingers across the slightly rough surface. It felt real. Then again, what was real? Dolan had convinced him a million things were real that had never been. He pulled his hand back.

  If he was insane, then they all were.

  The Ilmenans, for all they seemed to have been expecting the ship, still glanced around with awe. He wasn’t the only one to touch the molychromium, or look at Captain Janus—Ida—as if she weren’t quite real.

  She spoke in an endless stream as she swept them along. Something about a shipment? And someone named Cinni was coming? Apparently that pleased the captain. And Benny, they were going to meet Benny. By the time they reached the observation deck she had been apparently leading them to, he’d gotten a better handle on her inflection, but following the archaic sentence structure was still tricky.

  “Benny!” Ida waved at a stocky Wyrd male who stood on the far side of the observation deck, staring out the windows. “I’ve found!” She came to a stop, encompassing the entire group with a sweep of her arm, looking like a child presenting a birthday present.

  Benny, wearing a ship jumpsuit identical to Ida’s, turned to meet them with a raised green-blue brow. “Needed so many? And new ones this time? I’ve enough of common ones, now more new?” He looked at them uncertainly.

  Ida smiled at them. “Is Benny.”

  By “Benny” she meant Abenifluis Strokar, the Yari’s main gunner, the man destined to fire the first ever shot from the massive weapons platform, a shot that had never happened.

  Not in the history vids, at least.

  He’d come from a very wealthy noble family, and had been known as the biggest stickler for rules, regulations and rank. And now he’d been demoted to simply “Benny” by his commanding officer.

  Well, it was to be supposed that five hundred years would breed some familiarity.

  Benny stared at them as if deciding whether or not to acknowledge them or treat them as a nuisance to be ignored. He finally offered a bow. “First Weapons Officer Abenifluis Strokar, your service.” He glanced at Ida, then gave a sigh. “And, you will call Benny. Ida is not denied frivolity with new ones.” The look he shot Ida said, “You owe me.”

  She grinned and said to the group, “Welcome Yari to you.”

  Vayne had a million questions. He was here, actually here, on a ship that had disappeared five hundred years ago. Everything was just as the schematics had indicated. The observation deck—the top one, based on its layout—was a double-height room, viewports reaching floor to ceiling all along the front wall. There was structural bracing where they met the ceiling, then another set of ports covered the ceiling, allowing for a ninety-degree vertical view of the Mine Field. From here he could see where their ship was locked onto the Yari, and the path they must have taken out of the field.

  Molychromium shone on the back wall, the bare bones of the ship visible everywhere except beneath their feet, where a thin layer of decking tread had been laid down. The furniture was no more than a few hard benches soldered to the floor. The Yari had been constructed in wartime, as quickly as possible, and launched for weapons testing before interior construction had even been finished. It was a military ship with one desperate mission—end the war. There was little thought given to comfort, and huge sections of it weren’t habitable when it disappeared.

  Still, it was magnificent.

  Corinth looked like he wanted to start taking the thing apart and study every component. Tia’tan stood close to the viewports, scanning space in all directions as if searching for something.

  “Any word from the Radiant?” she asked, and Ida shook her head, e
nthusiasm dimmed for a moment.

  “But,” Ida said, her smile returning full force, “soon!”

  Benny came forward to join them. “Have to forgive Captain her excitement. Here with us nothing more as company, we bore after a time.”

  “Never!” Ida protested, but the way her eyes sparkled proved her delight. She impatiently flicked her long braid over her shoulder. “Come now.” She linked her arm through Benny’s and towed him toward the far end of the observation deck. “To the command room!”

  Vayne drew close to Tia’tan as they followed the captain through another set of corridors. ::What the frutt is going on?::

  Tia’tan glanced sidelong at him, and spoke in mind voice as well. ::I know it’s a lot. Finding the Yari was always a gamble. I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure.::

  ::What are we even doing here?:: Not that here wasn’t mind-blowing. ::Why are we anywhere near this damn Mine Field and not on our way to Ilmena, as you promised?::

  ::We were never supposed to be here. Our mission was the Empress Game and, well, you. It was the Radiant’s mission to rendezvous with the Yari. When we never heard back from them, though, we had to come.::

  ::How did you even know this ship still existed, that it was here?::

  ::We didn’t, actually. Your people found it.::

  His people? What the—

  Tia’tan continued. ::The rebels on Ordoch came into contact with the Yari. That’s how we knew it existed. We didn’t know where it was in Imperial Space until we got the coordinates for the Mine Field from Dolan.::

  ::Wait. There are organized rebels on Ordoch?:: Unbelievable. His people hadn’t organized for anything in a generation. Not anything to the general good, at least.

  ::Not all Ordochians are content to hide out the occupation in safety.:: She kept her gaze straight ahead as she issued that challenge.

  Despite a lifetime’s discipline in modulation, his mind voice turned into a growl. ::I have earned the right to peace.::

  She inclined her head. ::Forgive me. You are right, of course. I’ve been part of the movement to free Ordoch from imperial rule from the beginning and I can’t imagine any pure-blooded Wyrd not being enraged by the occupation.:: One hand curled into a fist. ::An inferior race, with the audacity to usurp the rule of one of our planets—:: She cut herself off. He could practically hear her teeth grinding.

  I don’t give a damn about that, he wanted to shout at her, shout at them all. The imperials could raze the planet and be welcome to it. All he wanted was escape.

  Not all, his mind whispered. True. He wanted his ro’haar back. Kayla was untainted by Dolan. Her solid presence would keep him sane, protect him, hold back the demons.

  And you left her behind.

  The bare metal of the corridor walls streamed past as he walked, trapped in his own thoughts. Minimal lighting on this level gave it the feel of walking through cave tunnels. They reached a lift and split into two groups for the ride to a lower floor. Vayne crowded uncomfortably close to Tia’tan in the small space, recoiled, and bumped first into Luliana, then his uncle. It was all he could do to hold still amid the press of bodies for the ride.

  He burst out as soon as the doors opened. It wasn’t the close space that bothered him—it was the people. He couldn’t stand for people to touch him without his consent. He’d had enough of that in the last five years. Hands, bodies, skin, close, touching, unable to escape, unable to resist…

  Benny led them down a better-lit section of the ship. Here the bulkheads had been covered with some kind of plastic board, and the entire thing, rounded walls and ceiling, was covered in an intricately painted mural that seemed to spiral on forever down the corridor. Benny indicated a vibrant panel with a smile. “Ariel’s.”

  They made it to the command room, a large circular room filled with display units, monitors and control stations.

  “Brought new ones!” Ida said, to the two people in the room. “They are not to eat.”

  She laughed, but a dour woman sitting at a station with her feet propped on the console frowned. “No joke, that.”

  Ida waved a hand her way. “You will call Ariel. Grumpy is her lot.” She smiled to soften the words, then turned to a cheerier looking man at another monitoring station.

  He got to his feet, looking almost as excited to see them as Ida had been, and offered a short bow. “New people have made it! Most welcome. You will call Tanet.” He bowed again. “Most welcome.”

  It was then that Ida wound down enough in her speech to actually ask who they were. “We had expect Radiant. Skeleton crew.”

  An emotion passed across Tia’tan’s face that Vayne couldn’t read. She didn’t comment on Kazamel’s disappearance. Instead, Tia’tan introduced their party, explaining where they had each come from. Benny seemed to unbend during the introductions. He moved to clasp Natali’s hand when she was introduced as the true ruler of Ordoch. Natali stepped back quickly, eyeing Benny as if trying to decide whether he meant to harm her. Benny seemed not to take offense, thankfully. Instead he laid his hand on his heart and offered her a bow.

  ::When can we meet the rest of the crew?:: Corinth asked the whole room.

  Ariel—Navigations First Officer Navriel Entar—glowered at the question. “We are this. All, with Larsa and Gintoc.”

  Vayne blinked, certain he’d misunderstood. “Six? A crew of over one hundred and there are six of you left?”

  Tanet chuckled. “Now Gintoc is half here. I say we count five point five.”

  “No joke that either,” Ariel reprimanded. She looked somewhat fierce with her frown, her muscular arms crossed over her chest, and her short, spiky aqua hair. “If Gintoc turns stepa at es we lose mechanic of the competence most.”

  Ida waved that away. “Pha. Gintoc won’t turn. Solitary is only.”

  “If that is your say so,” Ariel answered.

  “Stepa at es?” Tia’tan asked. Her understanding of ancient Ordochian sentence structure would be even worse than Vayne’s.

  “Consumer of self?” Vayne asked.

  Ida and Benny exchanged a look. “Is close. Here, now. You have this need.” Ida turned away from the subject to rummage through a drawer, one of a set built into the far bulkheads. She returned with a handful of thin necklaces. A chip encased in glass, no bigger than a grain of rice, was attached to each.

  “RFID chip so that open doors for you, lock some, and of course, we not to shoot you.” She winked and started handing them out. Vayne got the sense she was only half-joking about the not-shooting part.

  “How are there six of you?” Vayne asked. “Or five point five? How have any of you survived this long at all?”

  The Yari crew looked at Tanet. Physicist, if Vayne remembered correctly. The man’s full name escaped him.

  “Is two parts,” Tanet said. “One: time eddy.” He made a stirring motion with his finger. “There is ‘normal’ stream of time we ride. Then—wormhole, and Yari pulled through to here. Shunted to edge of time stream, Yari whirl around in eddy of the normal flow, time there almost none. Then, whoooosh!” He shot his arm forward. “We pulled back into normal again. I decide we eddy years around two hundred.”

  At Vayne’s skeptical look Tanet put his hand out and wobbled it. “Is theory, but, time I have had to think.”

  “What about the other three hundred years?”

  “Two: so simple is boring.” Tanet shrugged his shoulders. “Cryosleep.”

  Vayne made eye contact with Tia’tan, and he could tell she was thinking the same thing as him. Cryosleep science had been very primitive at the time the Yari was built. The number of possible malfunctions, the loss of brain function… Unsophisticated cryosleep chambers, used for long periods of time, could wreak havoc on a person.

  Which might explain a few things about the crew.

  “And now here you are, to help!” Ida said with a smile. She bounded to a display and brought up what looked to be schematics of a hyperstream drive. A massive hyperstream drive. �
�Here and see, it is repairing!” She pointed rapidly to several different points. “New, new, new and here. Plus, parts today arrive.” She glanced over her shoulder at Ariel. “Communicate to Gintoc that Cinni brings to us?”

  Ariel nodded, for the first time looking a little less bellicose. “He could not be pleased the more.”

  “Good.” Ida returned her gaze to the schematic. “Gintoc has an understanding thus, it makes a sense to him in a way not I.”

  “Not sense to any of us,” Benny agreed.

  With every word that came out of the crew’s mouths, Vayne felt less certain of what was going on.

  Ida turned to Tia’tan with what looked like hope. Or was it resignation? The emotions looked the same to Vayne these days.

  “Fuel is carried on your ship as well?”

  Tia’tan shook her head. “Not nearly enough. That was… that is the Radiant’s mission.”

  “Ah. Well.” Ida offered Tia’tan a big smile and clapped her on the shoulder. “Soon is to be here. Truth. And we are repairing still! Time is enough, time is enough.”

  “Captain cannot be kept down,” Benny said, with something that sounded like exasperation. “Not hundreds years later.”

  Something beeped at Ariel’s station. She sat up abruptly. “It’s time.” Her fingers flew through a pattern on the console, then she was on her feet and out the control room door. “Benny, preflight,” she shouted from down the corridor.

  “Make certain has brought food!” Benny shouted back, before taking over her station and calling up a dozen reports on the screen.

  “Cinni comes,” Ida said. “See in your watching with me.” She headed back to the lift and all they could do was follow.

  I could stop right here, Vayne thought. I could stand in this corridor like a stone, refusing to move until I had answers, and still Ida would barrel me along with encouragements and enthusiasm. The captain’s momentum was invincible.

  Ida led the group to a different observation desk, with a more limited panorama. Several comfortable chairs had been dragged here and placed in front of the metal benches. The viewports provided the perfect view of black space, the wreck of the Mine Field and—