But Now I See

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “He is the reason you have spent the last four years learning everything you could about Erium.”

  “And the Homogeny,” she shot back. “For very good tactical reasons,” she added. “We need to know and understand the enemy.”

  “We’re trading with the blasted enemy!” he cried. “You just escorted the enemy’s sister to our best berth!”

  “Strategic contacts are vital,” she countered. “Relationships win wars.”

  “Relationships started this one,” Ruh reminded her bleakly. “The Valerianus would not have been in Karassian space if its bloody captain hadn’t been so hot to seduce the last Karassian princess.”

  “No one knows what really happened to the Valerianus,” Tatiana said. She sighed. “I’m not holding you back, Ruh. I know you think I am. I just want to have the ship in a good, strong position before I leave. That’s all.”

  “We’re supposed to be free staters,” Ruh said. “We’re supposed to stay out of their war. You’ve got us wrapped up tight in the middle of it.”

  She shook her head. “I stay informed. There’s a difference.”

  “Then how do you explain the Eriuman woman in the cabin, two decks down?”

  “You’re being tiresome, Ruh. I’ve already explained myself to you, which is more courtesy than I would extend to anyone else onboard.”

  “But—”

  “No,” she said sharply. “Enough is enough. Go work out your petty jealousy in the exercise suite. I won’t dignify it any further.”

  He held still, staring at her, his eyes unblinking.

  “Now, Ruh.”

  He dropped his arms, stalked to the door and slapped the controls. He didn’t look back.

  Tatiana let out a breath that shook. There was a hard tension in her chest and her gut roiled. Had Ruh hit issues she didn’t know she had? No, it was ridiculous.

  She was working to preserve the family, that was all. Just as Maximilian Cardenas had been doing.

  Tatiana got back to work, for there was always plenty to do. Null space transitions were great for getting a lot of mundane tasks done, while they were cut off from everything. She dealt with crew issues, pay claims, promoted the cook, reviewed engineering reports and environmental reviews, put everyone on a cleaning rotation and scrubbed her own cabin, too. It was all good, hard work.

  If Ruh was more argumentative than usual, she put it down to the tension of having the Eriuman woman on the ship. However, Bellona emerged from her cabin only to eat occasionally. She had printed herself a more practical outfit of trousers and shirt and a light jacket and a pair of the high leather boots spacers preferred. She was polite but remote when she spoke to the crew. From Tatiana’s reading and study about Eriuman culture, she arrived at the conclusion that Eriuman women were docile, obedient and focused upon improving their appearances and domestic skills, both of which would net them a more advantageous marriage. Bellona was living up to her assessment.

  Tatiana spoke to her only twice, the second time for a few minutes in the dining room, while Bellona mechanically ate a small bowl of roast beef. Both conversations left Tatiana puzzled by the woman. She offered absolutely no hints about her personality. She shared nothing. She was also just as polite and opaque with the rest of the crew, even with Yammicka, the well-built engineer with broad shoulders and twinkling blue eyes, who could charm stars into going nova.

  Tatiana knew the stillness and lack of engagement couldn’t last. Bellona would have to react to her circumstances sooner or later. She was Eriuman and she was human, too. It would catch up with her. Tatiana briefly considered forcing the issue. Having the human equivalent of an unexploded bomb on board was bad for morale.

  Then, two days after Bellona had come aboard, the engines cut out without warning, dropping the Hathaway into normal space, right in front of a Karassian cruiser.

  * * * * *

  “What happened to the engines?” Tatiana yelled as she hurried as fast as she could onto the bridge. “Ruh, talk to me! Navigator, locate us!”

  Yammicka looked up from the dashboard he was leaning over. “There’s nothing wrong with the engines! We dropped out of null-space for no reason we can find.”

  “Then get us the hell back into null space!” Tatiana cried. “Before the Karassian cruiser lines its sights up on us.”

  “It will take three minutes to recalculate the jump,” Ruh said.

  “We can’t jump,” Yammicka replied, his normally melodious voice high with strain. “The navigation AI is rebooting.”

  Tatiana looked at him, floored. “Rebooting?” she repeated. She couldn’t remember the last time a computer had spontaneously reset itself. “Do we even know where we are?” She looked at the navigator, Jaime, who was bent over the table.

  Jaime shook her head. Her eyes were huge.

  “There’s a Karassian cruiser on our port bow,” Ruh said. “I think it’s safe to assume we’re in Homogeny territory.”

  Yammicka and Jaime looked at her, waiting for directions. There were only the four of them on the bridge. Everyone else would be in the engine rooms, fighting to get the null-space engines up and running once more.

  And the navigation computer.

  Tatiana swallowed. “Run,” she said and her voice came out in a high squeak. “Turn and run, as fast as we can.”

  Ruh leapt to the helm controls and swiped his hand over the board. “The cruiser is faster than we are,” he said. “It’s the Ralston out there,” he added and prodded the go button.

  The Hathaway lurched. Tatiana braced herself, gripping the edge of the navigation table.

  Only, the expected inertial drag didn’t happen, even though the maneuvering engines screamed at full throttle. The sharp stench of ozone sizzled in her nostrils, grabbing the back of her throat. The decking vibrated under her boots.

  Yammicka hung his head.

  “Tractor beam,” Ruh said bitterly and slapped the helm dashboard once more.

  The engines cut out.

  The silence was almost total, broken only by the ticking and beeping of dozens of alerts and notifications on everyone’s dashboards.

  Bellona emerged from the main corridor, almost running. She looked around wildly, her thick, shining coils of hair bouncing off her shoulders. “What’s happening?”

  Tatiana pointed at her. “Yammicka, get her out of here. Hide her, somewhere the Karassians won’t think to look.”

  “You’re not going to dress her up as a waiter?” Ruh asked dryly, referring to the way they had hidden their Karassian passenger in plain sight of the Eriuman boarding party, four years ago.

  “That won’t work with Karassians,” Tatiana said, as Yammicka grabbed Bellona’s arm. “Appearance is everything to them. You think they’ll fail to notice her?”

  Bellona pulled back against Yammicka’s grip. “Karassians?” she repeated.

  Overhead, a coupling gripped the hull with a muffled magnetic kiss. They weren’t going to even try to use a door.

  Tatiana waved Bellona away. There was no time to deal with jittery passengers. Yammicka hauled her toward the corridor.

  “You said it was the Ralston?” Tatiana asked Ruh.

  “The passive scanners extrapolated the size. They only have one ship that big. It can’t be anything else.”

  The Ralston. The Karassian flagship. “Yishmeray is the captain,” she added.

  “The monster?” Jaime breathed. Her face paled.

  “He’s enhanced,” Ruh corrected.

  “A cyborg,” Jaime said.

  “Biobot,” Ruh qualified.

  “No, he’s a biocomp,” Tatiana said firmly.

  “A human computer,” Jaime concluded, for all the crew had taken rudimentary studies on the structures and cultures of the two enemies.

  Overhead, the hissing and vibrations from the Karassians cutting through grew louder. Tatiana looked up at the ceiling. The inner lining was showing signs of blistering, the white extruded sealant bulging. Tatiana stepped back out of
the way and waved everyone else out of the danger zone, too.

  “We have to do something,” Jaime whispered.

  “What would you suggest?” Tatiana asked her. Calmness spread through her. “Even if we had the power to pull away from the tractor, they’ve broken through the hull, now. We’ll be exposed.”

  Jaime swallowed and Tatiana gave her the best smile she could manage. “We may still talk our way out of this.”

  “Only…if they just wanted to talk, wouldn’t they have used one of their screens?” Jaime said, voicing what had been bothering Tatiana since the grapple had attached itself to the hull. She had listened to other captains tell their adventure stories for years, across dinner tables and bars, in ships’ dining halls and dirt-side family rooms and gatherings too numerous to mention. Even the most aggressive Karassian vessels paused long enough to establish malfeasance before opening fire, yet Yishmeray had asked no questions before sawing his way down to them.

  Tatiana looked at Ruh. He was watching the ceiling just as everyone else was. He looked as scared as everyone else, too.

  The lining gave way with a pop and a fizzle of chemicals that filled the bridge with thick, eye-watering smoke and an acrid stench that made them all cough and wave their hands to clear the air.

  Tatiana leaned over and hit the controls on her dashboard to fire up the air scrubbers to maximum. The scrubbers hummed into action, sending cold fingers of air over them. She shivered in response.

  Figures in dark brown uniforms dropped down through the widening hole in the ceiling, to land heavily then straighten up. Every soldier carried a ghostmaker. As they spread into a circle to shield the others as they landed, they looked around the bridge with their bland, brown-eyed gazes, sizing up Tatiana’s crew.

  Tatiana’s heart was working hard, despite her calm. Eriumans were ruthless about maintaining the law of their lands and the territories they annexed. They were disciplined and efficient, yet they could be reasoned with. Not so the Karassians. Especially Yishmeray, if what she had heard about him had not been exaggerated for the sake of the story.

  When a dozen soldiers were fanned out around the bridge, ten of them moved forward simultaneously, as if a silent command had been given. The muzzles of their ghostmakers swung back and forth as they poured through the bulkhead doors into the main corridor and moved deeper into the Hathaway.

  The last two soldiers separated, bracketing the opening, above.

  Then a third dropped down to the floor, landing so heavily the deck trembled. Slowly, he stood up from his crouch.

  He towered over the other two soldiers. He wore a sleeveless shirt to accommodate the silvery hawsers running from his massive upper arms to connect with the thick forearms. Augmentation tendons. Where they emerged from his arms, the pale Karassian flesh mounded around the thick metal tendons like lips. Inside the open neck of the shirt, more metal tendons ran from the outer edges of his collar bones, up to his neck.

  The rest of his body was hidden beneath the oversized brown uniform. His hands were also metal and made to look like human hands, but thicker and, Tatiana presumed, stronger. A heavy forehead jutted over the giant’s narrowed eyes. He had blond stubble for hair, so short it was barely there. He looked around the bridge, taking in everyone, scowling.

  “Hell and damnation…” Tatiana breathed.

  “Hayes!” came a call through the ragged, steaming hole.

  The monster—for this really was a monster of a man—reached up into the guts of the hole. He lowered down another man in a Karassian captain’s uniform, holding him by his upper arm as if he was moving a toddler around. He put the captain down. The captain brushed himself off and tugged his tunic back into place, then patted Hayes’ arm in casual thanks.

  The smoke was clearing now and Tatiana could see Yishmeray clearly. He had white blond hair, cropped short and Karassian brown eyes so light they were almost colorless. His face was gaunt, all angles and planes. His neck was heavyset above the brown collar.

  Deeper inside the ship, Tatiana could hear Yishmeray’s soldiers thudding along the decking, shouts from her crew and the sound of carnage—things breaking, being toppled and busted open.

  She met Yishmeray’s gaze.

  He tilted his head, the chin lifting. His gaze shifted from her, just to one side. He paused. It was as if he had been suddenly struck by a thought. Then his gaze moved back to her. “Captain Tatiana Wang,” he said slowly, with a thick accent that was far uglier than the Eriuman one.

  “Captain Yishmeray,” she acknowledged.

  Unexpectedly, he smiled. The expression was bright, cheerful and unnerving. “I almost forgot,” he said, digging into a pocket on his tunic. He pulled out a metal stick the size of his finger and waggled it, so the silvered casing flashed in the deck lights. “Payment, where payment is due.” He tossed the stick at Ruh.

  Ruh caught the credit stick in one hand. It was an auto-response to having something thrown at him. His gaze was on Yishmeray. Horror built in his face, then his eyes moved to Tatiana. His hand lowered.

  Tatiana curled her hands up into tight fists. “No,” she breathed. “Ruh…not you.”

  Ruh lowered his head.

  “You hated Max that much?” Tatiana whispered. “We jumped to null space so quickly…did you even pause for breath before selling us out?”

  Yishmeray was full of good cheer. “Oh, Ruh has been helping me for far longer than this little venture, my dear captain. He has been quite the assistant for years now.”

  Tatiana flinched as the truth settled into her bones. She looked at Ruh again. Her brother was watching her now. She could see the anger in him, lifting his shoulders, making his eyes narrow.

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “You said it yourself,” Ruh said. “Tactical alliances will save the family. Except you kept them all to yourself. I made one for me, instead.” He shrugged.

  “With Yishmeray?” Her voice rose.

  Yishmeray chuckled. “Oh, Ruh didn’t know it was me, exactly. That’s why I thought I would come along on this jaunt. Introduce myself and sort things out. It’s hard to resist the lure when a high-value Eriuman is dangled in front of one.”

  A scream rang out. Ghostmaker bolts sounded. Then more shouting and the sound of running feet.

  “Sounds as though they’ve found the Eriuman,” Yishmeray said happily. “Hayes, go and settle it, will you?” he added in Karassian Prime.

  Tatiana backed out of the way as the monster plodded across the bridge, his boots landing heavily. He ducked into the corridor and moved down it.

  Her movement put Tatiana right next to her command dashboard. She didn’t look at it or draw attention to it.

  Yishmeray glanced around the smoking bridge, with all the red alert lights flashing silently. “It is very small,” he said, his tone distant. “Given your reputation, Wang, I expected a much bigger ship.” He turned, taking in every angle, although he stayed behind the two sentries, who hadn’t moved or lowered their weapons.

  Ruh had moved, though. Tatiana didn’t know when he had, yet he was much closer to the helm dashboard now than he had been a few seconds ago. He was within reaching distance.

  They both jumped when another scream rang out.

  “Ah…there we go,” Yishmeray said, sounding jolly once more.

  It had not been a woman making that sound, though. Tatiana fought to keep her face still and blank, while she ran through the range of possible actions.

  From the corridor came the sound of more struggling. Grunts and panting. Shuffling footsteps.

  Hayes appeared. He held Bellona by the arm, almost carrying her along, while she struggled and pummeled at him with her fists. He dropped her to the decking in front of Yishmeray and brushed off his huge hands with slow movements.

  Bellona propped herself up on the deck and rubbed her arm, scowling.

  “What have we here?” Yishmeray asked curiously. He looked at Ruh. “High profile?” he asked, sounding doubtful.

/>   Lie! Tatiana urged her brother, even though he couldn’t hear her. Don’t tell him who she is!

  Ruh licked his lips, looking from Bellona to Yishmeray.

  “I hope you didn’t bring me all the way out here for nothing, Ruh,” Yishmeray added, all the sunniness evaporating from his tone.

  Ruh wouldn’t meet Tatiana’s eyes. Her heart sank.

  “She’s the Cardenas’ daughter,” Ruh said.

  Yishmeray lifted his chin and looked away again, for a second or two. His eyes grew unfocused.

  Tatiana realized he was communing with the vast computer intelligence built into his body. She didn’t know in detail how it worked with his kind, but did know the computer implants enhanced a biocomp’s mental functions and increased the speed of thought and the clarity of those thoughts, as well as giving the biocomp vastly larger memory capacity, with perfect recall.

  “Bellona Cardenas Scordina de Deluca,” Yishmeray intoned. He squatted down to match her level. “How delightful. Ruh, I take back all my doubts about you. This truly is a prize.” He lifted the coiled locks of hair on her shoulders, holding it up for inspection, held between his fingers. “The daughter of the Cardenas himself. Oh, how much fun we can have with you!” His voice took on a crooning quality, dropping in tone. His eyes glittered. “The usual questioning at first, I’m afraid. Boring, yet necessary. Then…mmm, the possibilities are endless. How much would your naval officers do to get you back? How much would Reynard make them do, to have you returned, I wonder?”

  Bellona wrenched her head to one side, yanking her hair out of his grip. She looked him in the eye. “I have no intention of being anyone’s leverage,” she said, her voice low and clear.

  Tatiana’s heart leapt. This was the first time she had seen anything like animation in the woman’s face.

  Bellona threw her head forward, smacking Yishmeray in the face with the top of her forehead. Tatiana heard the sodden crunch of bones and winced.