Women of War

by Alexander Potter

  “Ree-Lin, I have decided to pursue the arts of the bodyguard.”

  This took the Geiko by surprise, “Are you sure, little sister, perhaps you are—”

  Jerio interrupted, “I am sure. The contract on your life will not be over, and now Misa and I will be affected by it too. I want this guild of assassins eliminated,” she said as she straightened up.

  How different she sounds.

  Jerio continued, “I will not allow my family ... or my province to be terrorized by a society that cares only about profit and a misguided sense of honor. And no one is going to change my mind. I won’t let them harm you ... or my family ... or me ... I won’t let them harm anyone.”

  Ree-Lin considered this for a moment. “I believe you.”

  Jerio sobbed once more, but gained hold of her emotions and then leaned into Ree-Lin with a hearty hug. She sat on the edge of her bed and held her hand then said, “When can we get started?”

  “Whenever you are ready, little sister.”

  “I am ready.” Jerio replied with solemn dignity.

  Yes, you definitely are, the Geiko thought with pride.

  SHIN-GI-TAI

  by Robin Wayne Bailey

  Robin Wayne Bailey is the author of Talisman, Dragon-kin, Night’s Angel, and Shadowdance. His short fiction has appeared most recently in 2001: The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Future Wars, Thieves’ World: Turning Points, and Revisions. He’s also edited Architects of Dreams: The SFWA Author Emeritus Anthology and Through My Glasses Darkly: Five Stories by Frank M. Robinson. He’s the current chairman of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, an avid book collector, and student of Ryobu-kai karate. He lives in North Kansas City, Missouri.

  SHAARA ITOSU sipped from her glass of bourbon, growing more impatient by the minute as she studied the constant stream of officers and civilian contractors making their way through the entrance of Café Mas Mundos. Outwardly calm, she ran one hand over her shaved scalp, and then folding her hands on the table before her, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  A delay of a minute or two, even unintentionally, was poor manners. To be five minutes late was extremely rude, yet even that could be forgiven if the offered apology were sufficiently abject. But to keep someone waiting for an hour, especially someone of her rank and status, could only be considered a dire and deliberate insult.

  Itosu felt a presence near her shoulder, smelled the mixtures of beer and liquor and sweat mingled with breath mints, heard the gentle clink as a fresh bourbon was placed on the table before her. “Sobre la casa, Commander.”

  Itosu didn’t open her eyes. She knew the proprietor’s scents as well as she knew his voice and recognized the easy tread of his squeaky shoes over the noisy din. “Thank you, Pablo,” she answered. “You’ll go broke the way you supply me with drinks.”

  “Drinks I can afford,” he said in a low whisper. “Remodeling is expensive.”

  Itosu allowed a brief smile as she listened to Pablo’s retreat. His comment bordered on impoliteness, and yet the subtle brazenness of it amused her.

  A heavier, booted tread drew her attention. The conflicting odors of starch, cologne, anti-perspirants, and breath fresheners assaulted her senses. The chair opposite hers scraped on the floor as someone sat down. Her table lurched. The bourbon splashed over the rim of her glass.

  “You are Itosu?”

  Two insults. It was bad enough to be so late, but to neglect her rank as well required a response. Itosu opened her eyes, betraying no emotion as she studied the Tindaran officer who addressed her. He was tall, powerfully muscled beneath his crisp gray uniform. He might once have been handsome, but his face seemed frozen in a permanent sneer. He leaned forward on the table, sloshing her drink again, as he interlaced his fingers.

  “I’ve heard much about you,” he continued. “You’re something of a legend. ...”

  Rising from her seat, Itosu drew her sword, and in one smooth, lightning-swift motion she severed the newcomer’s hands from his wrists. With a modest flourish, she flicked the droplets of blood from her steel, resheathed the blade, and sat back down.

  Pablo appeared at the tableside. With a towel he swept the hands onto a tray and made a curt bow. “Qué es su gusto, Caballero?” he said to the Tindaran with practiced aplomb.

  The Tindaran stared gape-mouthed at the stumps of flesh sticking out of his sleeves. A red pool spread over the tabletop, smeared somewhat by Pablo’s towel. Yet already the flow of blood was stopping, and the wounds were beginning to seal. With a controlled sigh, he looked up at the proprietor. “Brandy,” he ordered. “With a straw, please.”

  Pablo rolled his eyes as he shouldered the tray and walked back to his bar. “Please,” he muttered with barely concealed exasperation. “Now el hombre remembers his manners.”

  The Tindaran lifted his arms to study his wounds. “My compliments, Commander,” he said. “A very clean cut. Swift, too. I didn’t even see the stroke.”

  Itosu rose without a word, repositioned her sheathed sword on her hip, and left the table. She felt the wary gazes of the bar’s patrons on her as she lifted her head and strode out of Café Mas Mundos and into the corridor beyond.

  The corridors of Station Ymanja were bare steel polished just brightly enough to cast back distorted reflections of the constant shuffle of people moving through the passages. Most passed by with downcast eyes, unwilling to risk offense with a direct gaze. No one spoke.

  Always alert, Itosu watched their hands, noting the weapons that every officer, technician, and civilian carried. An armed society was a polite society, but it was a suspicious and dangerous one, too, especially in times of war.

  And especially on a diplomatic station like Ymanja where Humans and Tindarans mixed and mingled and struggled to sort out their differences.

  The thin carpet muffled her footsteps as she stepped into an officers’ lift and ascended to level seven, which was reserved for diplomats and upper ranks. As commander of the dreadnought Katana, she rated. Itosu brushed her hand over the bio-recognition lock. The door slid open and then closed behind her as she entered.

  Her quarters were spartan. That was the way she preferred them. No chairs. Only a thin futon upon which to sleep. A small, delicately carved table held an artful floral arrangement.

  The centerpiece of the room was a low teakwood altar. A golden Buddha sat in the center, and before it a shallow bowl of sand with a few polished pebbles. Some sticks of unlit incense stood on either side of the altar. Other quarters on Ymanja provided more amenities and were more lavish, but these suited her and offered a sometimes-welcome change from her quarters aboard the Katana.

  Placing her sword upon her altar, Itosu slipped out of her uniform, folded it neatly, and set it aside. Naked, she knelt down before the Buddha and exhaled a soft breath. She clapped her hands once, and the incense sticks began to smoke. Then she closed her eyes.

  Mokuso. A period of meditation. A time to order one’s thoughts, to consider patterns of behavior, and to calm the heart. Each morning, Itosu began her day before her altar, and each evening she ended her day the same way.

  Yet tonight the still mind eluded her. Drawing a deeper breath she strove to set aside her doubts, her many concerns. Her fears. There was a word she didn’t use often. Shaara Itosu feared almost nothing.

  Almost.

  Opening her eyes briefly, she met the placid gaze of the Buddha. Guide me, she prayed. Help me to see the rightness of my path. The incense rose, filling her quarters with the scent of jasmine. Turning her palms up, she studied her hands, the fine criss-crossing lines, the strong fingers. Then, taking another breath, she closed her eyes again.

  In her unstill mind, she saw more hands. A tray full of hands. Tindaran hands.

  A soft chime sounded, alerting her that someone stood outside her door. Itosu’s lips drew into a taut line, and her brows pinched together as she rose. Disappearing into a side room, she emerged again in a short kimono of red silk. Retrieving her she
athed blade, she went to the door.

  She spoke in a quiet voice to the flat surface. “Reveal.”

  The door emitted a faint glow, and a holographic image appeared before her. The Tindaran with a pair of bodyguards. “Open,” she said. The hologram vanished, and the door slid back.

  Crossing his wrists, the Tindaran bowed deeply. Already his hands had begun to grow back. Thin tendrils of flesh would soon become fingers. Straightening, he glanced at Itosu’s sword, then brazenly into her eyes.

  He grinned. “I hope, Commander, that I’ve paid my pound of flesh?”

  Her response was icy. “I didn’t weigh them to be sure.”

  “Commander, I politely request an audience,” he said with a slight incline of his head. “I feel that our previous meeting was ...” He hesitated, and then his eyes lit up with a twinkle. “Cut short.”

  Itosu struggled to control the emotions that surged inside her. Her hand trembled on her sword, and she fought the urge to lick her dry lips. His bodyguards watched her, one with an expression of distrust, the other with open animosity. Both kept their hands too close to their holstered laser guns.

  “You may come in,” she answered. “But your beautiful boys may not.”

  The bodyguards bristled at the insult. It surprised her a little that they recognized it. Beautiful boys. Yaoi. Effeminates. Fingers curled around a laser pistol butt. Her sword slid one inch from its sheath.

  The Tindaran snapped a command. “Return to the ship,” he ordered his escort. “Can’t you see the altar? I’ll permit no violence here.”

  The bodyguards glared with barely concealed contempt before they spun about and marched away. The Tindaran waited beyond the threshold until they were gone and then stepped inside. Itosu set aside her sword as the door closed behind him.

  “You take too many chances,” he said.

  She stopped his words with her mouth. Wrapping her arms around him, she drew him close, pressed her lips to his, and kissed him with a shivering need.

  “This entire venture is one huge chance,” she answered when she finally broke the kiss. “One massive gamble.” She caught his wrists and lifted them up to study the reforming lumps of flesh. Her eyes misted as she kissed each one. “I’m so sorry, Michael,” she whispered. “So sorry! That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life!”

  Michael shook his head. “You played your part exactly as we planned,” he answered. “In a few days, I’ll have new hands.” He smiled down at her. “Although it’ll take a little longer before I regain my old dexterity.”

  Michael put his hands inside her kimono. His regenerating flesh felt hot against her breasts. “I’ll help you with your motor control,” she promised, as she led him to the futon.

  When the door chimed again, they were dressed in their uniforms, he in his gray and she in jet black, and sitting formally on bent knees at either end of her altar. The wall behind the altar was now a viewscreen that revealed a blazing vista of stars and the thinnest edge of planet Oxala, around which Station Ymanja orbited.

  Neither of them moved at once.

  “We have so little time left,” Michael said in a soft voice. “I love you, Shaara.”

  Itosu bent forward slightly at the waist. “I love you, Michael Cade.” Her lip trembled as she ran a hand over the length of the sword she now held balanced on her lap. The lacquered sheath felt cold and unfamiliar, as though she’d lost her bond with the weapon. “I don’t know if I can go through with this.”

  He held up his hands. The fingers were already beginning to take form. “It’s too late for doubts, Little Storm.” That was his nickname for her. She winced as he spoke it, but she also smiled. “We can end the Endless War, you and I. Save millions of lives.” His eyes sparkled as he regarded her across the swirls of incense.

  Itosu saw the Buddha in his gaze. “I am Star Samurai,” she answered finally, shamed to have shown weakness in the presence of his strength. “Though it’s hard, I know my part.”

  “You’re half-Irish, too,” he said with a low chuckle. “That makes you a little bit daft.” He winked at her. “I’m not sure which part makes you more dangerous.”

  The door chimed again. Shaara Itosu looked across the altar at Michael Cade, and then closed her eyes briefly, locking the immediate image of him deep in her heart and in her memory. Then, opening her eyes again, she called to the door. “Reveal.”

  Michael’s two bodyguards had returned. A third Tindaran officer stood between them. His head swiveled back and forth as if he was surveying the corridor. Finally he stared straight at the door. His expression was angry and impatient, and the hallway light gleamed on the star clusters pinned to his stiff, gray collar.

  “Admiral Brin,” Michael informed her. Not that it was necessary. Itosu had studied the files of every known Tindaran of officer rank, and she recognized the man on her threshold.

  “Open,” she said. The hologram faded as the door slid back. Brin didn’t wait for an invitation. With a scowl, he stepped inside with the guards close behind him.

  Itosu rose with slow grace, exposing three inches of her sword without drawing it completely. “Mannerless pig,” she said in a cold voice. “You enter my quarters without waiting to be invited, and worse, you bring your lapdogs along to sully my floor!”

  Brin glared. “Don’t threaten me, Commander.” His voice was as cold as hers. “Your sword is no match for our pistols.”

  Michael Cade remained on his knees with his gaze fixed on the Buddha. “There’s a saying among the commander’s people,” he said calmly. “It’s not the weapon—it’s the warrior.” He turned his head to regard his superior officer and held up his regenerating hands. “Trust me, Admiral. The commander is quite capable of killing all of us before our fingers find our triggers.”

  Admiral Brin’s scowl deepened as he looked Shaara Itosu up and down. Then he licked his lips and seemed to relax somewhat. “I know your reputation, Commander,” he said. “The only human woman in Earth’s fleet to command a dreadnought.” His gaze lingered on the sword she held as he continued. “The Katana, no less. Named specifically for you. I hear its armament is unmatched, state-of-the-art.”

  Itosu pushed her blade back into the sheath. “As Captain Cade has told you,” she replied. “It’s not the weapon—it’s the warrior.” Returning to her former place at the altar, she knelt and sat. Then, with a motion of her hand, she indicated a place for Admiral Brin. “Irasshai! Welcome to my quarters, Admiral,” she said with a slight bow and in a polite tone. She placed her sword on the teakwood before the Buddha. “If you’re nervous, your men may sit by the door.”

  Admiral Brin scowled again. The subtle insult was not lost on him, yet he made no further point of it and ordered the guards into the corridor. When only the three of them remained in the room, he looked around in consternation. “Have you no chairs?” he demanded. Michael and Itosu both stared at their hands and said nothing. At last, the admiral folded his legs and sat clumsily down in cross-legged fashion. Frowning, he waved a hand at a wisp of jasmine smoke that swirled past his nose.

  Brin turned a harsh look on Michael. “I grew concerned when you failed to return to the Surtur with your guards, Captain.” He studied the buds of flesh that soon would be Michael’s hands and fingers. “I see I had reason to be concerned.”

  Michael tilted his head. “The fault was mine, Admiral,” he explained. “I violated courtesy by keeping the commander waiting for over an hour.”

  The admiral chewed a corner of his lower lip as he glowered at Itosu. “And you dared to cut off my officer’s hands?” His stern look melted as he gave a chuckle and slammed his fist on the teakwood. The incense sticks wavered like grain in a wind. “By the stars, I have new respect for you, Commander!”

  Itosu was not amused. “This isn’t a coffee table, Admiral, nor a bar. It’s a place for meditation and reflection.”

  Michael leaned toward the admiral. “That’s her way of saying don’t do that again, or she’ll
cut off your hand, too.”

  Admiral Brin reddened as he put his hands in his lap. “You Humans!” he said to Itosu. “You prize manners and politeness so highly that it’s made you soft. That’s why Tindar is winning the war and why our forces are practically parked on mankind’s doorstep!”

  Itosu raised one eyebrow as she regarded the admiral. Tindarans had been Human once, and Tindar had been an offshoot colony on the farthest reaches of Humanity’s push to the stars. But a trick of science, an experiment gone horribly wrong, had changed them, mutated them into—something different.

  Tindarans no longer thought of themselves as Human. They thought of themselves as Humanity’s successors, its heirs. And they wanted everything Humanity had.

  Shaara Itosu was prepared to give it to them.

  Reaching across the altar, she smiled softly at Michael, and he placed his regenerating hand in hers. Her heart shivered again as she felt the warmth of his touch. At the same time, she felt Admiral Brin’s gaze upon them. He was studying her, studying them both, wondering whether or not to trust her.

  Releasing her lover’s hand, Itosu rose and turned to the viewscreen. The entire wall was one grand stellar panorama, so real and so three-dimensional that it seemed as if there was no wall at all and she could walk off the edge of the floor and drift away forever. Indeed, the idea had a sudden powerful appeal, and with Michael at her side she might even be willing to take such a step.

  But she sighed. She was a Star Samurai, a follower of bushido, and the way of the warrior was never the easy way.

  “Show the Katana,” she said to the viewscreen.

  The stellar vista dissolved, and a new scene took its place. The gray, cratered world of Oxala floated with grim majesty against a new backdrop of stars. It filled the viewscreen with its lifelessness, rotating at a sad and weary pace, pockmarked and jagged, yet beautiful in a harsh, cold way.

  Then, around its nightside edge came the Katana. The warship was immense, awe-inspiring even with its star-drives turned off. Its lines were clean, powerful, and its metal skin gleamed as it orbited into the light of Oxala’s sun.