by J. J. Green
“We’ll take this one,” she said uncomfortably.
She set off down the remaining passage, Bryce trailing a step behind.
The first door they encountered opened as they approached, revealing a storeroom holding stacks of folded textiles and large printer. After quickly checking around the shelves, they moved on. The next room was also used for storage, though this one held electronics: mostly interfaces and comm devices.
Carina was mildly bemused. The rooms were not secured in any way, so it was clear that the ship’s passengers were free to take whatever they wanted from them. It was yet another phenomenon she hadn’t encountered before on a commercial or military ship. The Bathsheba was more like a vast but privately owned vessel.
At the next door, a security panel on the wall indicated it would not be so easy to enter. The door didn’t open as they drew close to it.
“Does it require a code, maybe?” asked Bryce.
“Maybe.”
But Lomang hadn’t mentioned anything about codes to be used inside the ship.
The panel’s screen was a flat, black enigma.
“Looks like we won’t be going in there,” said Bryce.
She was reluctant to risk triggering a trap too, but she’d spotted something.
She squatted down and peered at the line between the bottom of the door and the floor. Reaching out, she pushed her hand against the line, and then she realized she was right—a tiny bit of light was spilling out from the rest of the gap, made more obvious when she’d blocked out a section.
Whatever lay on the other side of the door, the lights were on in there, which meant someone was inside.
“Shit,” Bryce said, also staring at the light.
“I’m going to Open it,” said Carina.
“How?”
She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “I’m going to Open it.”
“Oh.” He took a few steps back and raised his pulse rifle.
She moved to one side, sipped elixir, closed her eyes, and Cast.
As she waited for the result, she tensed.
The door slid open smoothly.
She exhaled and peered through the doorway.
In the space that was revealed to them, the lights were not on. Not any artificial lights, at least.
A high dome overhung a wide interior. The dome was transparent, and beyond it was…space.
Military starships and even many commercial vessels rarely featured windows. They were a weak spot in a ship’s hull and therefore an unnecessary risk during battles, and most transportation companies deemed them a needless expense. As a consequence, space travel generally allowed passengers few opportunities to look at the view. During Carina’s days as a merc, she’d only seen the stars occasionally, when she happened to be planetside during an assignment.
Here, within the inter-sector ship, starlight bathed the room, glistening on every surface. A thick, shimmering band comprised of millions of brilliant specks set like tiny jewels in rich, inky velvet gleamed from above.
Carina exhaled deeply and walked through the doorway.
“Whoa,” breathed Bryce as he joined her.
Then someone shot him.
Chapter Ten
All Carina saw was the flash of a pulse round and, from the corner of her eye, Bryce toppling to the floor.
“NO!” she yelled, and dove down beside him.
Another flash flew over her head as she dropped.
Crouching, she lifted her rifle and returned fire.
“Bryce!” she comm’d. “Bryce! Can you hear me?”
A second offensive pulse flew out but missed them both. She glimpsed someone ducking behind cover.
She heard no reply from Bryce, but he rolled onto his side. The pulse had hit his left shoulder and chest. He reached feebly for his weapon, which had fallen from his hands, but there was no question he was out of the game, perhaps dying.
She had to make a decision lightning fast: Heal Bryce or fight off their attackers?
Before she even knew what she chose, she was hammering out shots. Then she was up and running, zigzagging randomly in the direction of the enemy. There had been no real choice to make—in the time it would have taken to Cast Heal on Bryce they would both be dead.
A pulse hit her visor, taking out her HUD and turning the shield opaque. She ran into something, a sharp edge ramming into her calf, and she spun head over heels, her back slamming into the deck.
She opened her visor. The cold ship’s atmosphere rushed in, and the starlight dazzled her.
Her fall had winded her. As she sucked in air in a whoop, a dark figure loomed, black against the stars.
Though she’d fallen, she’d maintained a firm grip on her weapon. She raised it in one hand and shot the soldier square in the stomach. He slumped to his knees, clutching his midriff. Carina pushed the muzzle of her gun against his helmet and was about to fire when a voice called out,
“Stop! Don’t kill him!”
The soldier entirely collapsed and sprawled on the floor face downward.
Moving her rifle so that the muzzle remained in contact with the wounded soldier’s helmet, she sought out the voice’s owner.
A small woman in armor emerged from behind a reclined seat and stepped toward her, empty hands raised.
“In front of me,” Carina ordered as the woman reached her, transferring the muzzle from the man’s head to her back.
She drove her captive forward quickly, guiding her over to Bryce.
He was still breathing, she saw with relief.
“Stop,” she commanded.
Taking a drink of elixir, she knelt down, maintaining the pressure of her gun against the woman’s back. After closing her eyes, and placing her hand on Bryce’s wound, she Cast Heal.
As she opened her eyes, she noticed the prisoner peering over her shoulder. Carina jabbed the gun against her kidneys. “Eyes forward!”
After a pause, the woman obeyed.
“Bryce,” she comm’d. “Are you okay?”
“Uh…” He moved the arm of the shoulder that had taken the hit. “Yeah. Thanks.”
He sat up. “Suit’s lost atmosphere, though.” His visor opened, and he looked up at the woman. “Who’s that?”
Carina was wondering the same. Her captive was very small for a soldier, which implied she wasn’t a soldier at all.
“That thing you did…” said the woman, facing the darkness “…can you do it for my man as well?”
Carina glanced at the soldier she’d shot. He hadn’t changed position.
“Why would I do that?”
“To save his life, of course.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Bryce had stood up. “Carina, maybe you should…”
“You remember he nearly killed you, right?” she asked acidly.
“He’s just a man doing his j—”
“You don’t know that.”
“While she’s clearly something else,” Bryce finished.
Carina had formed the same opinion, and she had a good idea of what kind of something else the woman was.
She sighed. “Okay,” she grumbled. “If he’s still alive. Cover her.”
Leaving Bryce guarding their captive, she returned to the stricken man. With some effort, she rolled his bulky form over. He didn’t make a sound but his arms and legs moved a little. The close-range pulse round had done its work. Gray-blue guts gleamed wetly through burned gaps in his armor.
Swallowing bile, she turned her face away and sipped elixir.
Moments later, after sending out the Heal Cast, she looked back at the soldier. New, pink skin had grown over his intestines, though they were still faintly visible. He would live, though he would probably need time to fully recover.
“Get up,” she ordered.
He squirmed, appearing to make an effort to stand.
“Come on,” she urged, “or I’ll change my mind about allowing you to live.”
The soldier�
��s movements became more urgent. He struggled to his feet.
“Over there,” said Carina, “with your commander.”
Weaving as he walked and with both hands clutching his stomach, the man made his way toward the woman and Bryce. In the half-light of the starscape, the two were shadowy shapes in the darkness.
There was no doubt in her mind that the woman was Lomang’s wife. She didn’t look, move, or act like a soldier, and she’d referred to her companion as ‘my man’, so she was clearly his superior.
As Carina approached them, she comm’d Cadwallader. “I’ve picked up two of the enemy.” She didn’t want to let on to the woman that she knew who she was.
Let her sweat a while.
“Where should I take them?”
“Where are you?” the lieutenant colonel asked.
“In some kind of viewing dome.”
“Right. So, it’s just two of them? What were they doing in there?”
Shit.
Cadwallader had made a good point. What had Lomang’s wife and her companion been doing in the dome? It was only by chance that she and Bryce had found them. Had they been hiding? That didn’t make any sense—they would have been cut off from the rest of the company from the destroyer, and eventually they would have been found.
And it was hardly the time or place for a romantic assignation.
The enemy soldier had reached Lomang’s wife and Bryce. He was managing to stand, but he was hunched over.
“Take off your helmets, both of you,” Carina ordered. She didn’t want them to be able to comm each other.
They complied, though the man moved slowly.
The woman’s hair was thick, black, long, and wild. She brushed it away from her small, delicately featured face, and regarded Carina narrowly with dark eyes.
The man looked similar to the men in Lomang’s crew she’d seen aboard the Zenobia: he was wide-mouthed, his head was large and bony, and his beard was carefully styled.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “What were you doing?”
Lomang’s wife’s eyes narrowed further and she tossed her head haughtily, flinging her long hair over her shoulder.
The man only looked down.
Carina clenched her jaw. “Look, I don’t have time for a conversation. You know how I Healed your man? Well, I can do other stuff too. In the blink of an eye I can move you from where you’re standing to out there.” She pointed to the starry expanse beyond the dome. “And we can all watch you die.”
The woman remained silent, but she began to look doubtful.
“She can do it,” said Bryce, “and she has.”
Two tense beats passed, then Lomang’s wife said, “I’ve heard something of your powers. At first, I thought the report was only the babbling of a fool, but then I saw what you did to him.” Her gaze flicked to Bryce. She breathed in deeply, and then exhaled. “I believe you.”
She continued, “If you look over there you will find an explosive device.” She indicated a spot on the other side of the room. “I planned on blowing a hole in the hull, in here where it’s weakest. In the resulting confusion and distraction, my forces would be able to retake the ship.”
Carina’s chest tightened. “Is the device about to go off?”
The woman’s eyes flashed and her nostrils flared, as if she were barely keeping her emotions in check.
“Answer!” Carina pushed the barrel of her rifle into the woman’s chest, causing her to stagger backwards.
“No,” she muttered. “I hadn’t set it when you came in.”
“Bryce,” said Carina, “go and find the explosives and check they aren’t dangerous, but be careful. I’ll watch these two.”
In spite of her natural enmity toward Lomang’s wife, Carina felt a modicum of respect. The woman’s plan could have worked, and it was something she herself might have done in similar circumstances.
“What’s your name?” she asked her.
Lomang’s wife drew herself up to her full height, which was about the level of Carina’s shoulder. “I am Mezban Kabasli Noran, Procurator of the Majestic Isles, Member of the Encircling Council, and your nemesis.”
Chapter Eleven
Aboard the Duchess, all was chaos. Mercs pounded the corridors, and the same acrid gases of battle Carina had perceived on the Bathsheba permeated the atmosphere.
She’d sent Bryce to the sick bay to get checked out, reluctantly allowing the enemy soldier to go with him. Mezban Kabasli Noran was on her way to the brig, Carina’s gun at her back, though navigating the ship through the racing mercs was proving difficult.
Cadwallader and Atoi weren’t answering her comms, and she didn’t want to stop anyone to ask what was going on. There seemed to be fighting somewhere aboard the ship, which was odd. She’d thought the main battle was over. Maybe the Black Dogs had captured some enemy soldiers and they’d broken out of confinement.
She hadn’t decided whether to put Mezban in the same cell as her husband, but it looked as though the question might have been decided for her. If some of the woman’s soldiers were also to be held in the small brig, Lomang and his wife might have to be reunited, whatever the consequences.
Judging from Mezban’s previous behavior toward her husband—forcing him into a tiny shuttle and ejecting him from his ship—the consequences for the smuggler would be dire.
Yet when Carina arrived at the brig, its only occupants were Lomang, Pappu, and Calvaley.
The reactions of the smuggler and his twin were something to behold: Lomang’s eyes widened until his irises were islands in a white ocean, and his mouth fell open so far he seemed about to dislocate his jaw.
Pappu, on the other hand, looked the most frightened she’d ever seen him, and possibly the most frightened she’d ever seen anyone. He darted to the rear of his cell and spreadeagled himself against the wall, facing Mezban with features full of terror.
Carina became seriously concerned the gigantic man might wet himself.
“Not in this cell!” he pleaded. “I beg you. Not in here. Put her in with the old man, or take me out!”
By contrast, Lomang flung himself at the transparent cell wall and pressed his face against it, flattening his nose and smashing his lips until they were flat, pink pancakes.
He moved his head away just long enough to say, “My love! My sweetest darling! We’re together again at last.” Then he squashed his face against the surface again, as if trying to push through the solid barrier to reach her.
Mezban murmured something indistinct. She continued to talk, her voice becoming louder, and Carina realized she was speaking the foreign language the smuggler had used to speak to his men. She spoke louder and faster, and her face began to twist with fury. The woman’s delicate olive skin flushed deep red, her eyes grew fiery, and as she—apparently—cursed and scolded Lomang, spit flew from her lips.
Her tone rose to a crescendo, and she tried to wrench her arm from Carina’s grip, raising it in a gesture of fury. She struggled to break free and when that failed, she attempted to drag Carina toward the smuggler’s cell.
Lomang’s eyes shone as he watched her, his face wreathed in admiration and, Carina noticed with disgust, what looked like lust.
She curled her lip. The display from the married couple was both hilarious and disturbing.
“I think you’d better go in here,” she said, hauling the furious woman over to Calvaley’s cell.
The old man looked up in alarm as he understood what was happening.
“No, no,” he said, standing up from his bunk, “I don’t believe…”
She asked the guard to unlock the cell door, and then pushed Mezban inside.
As she walked away, the sound of Lomang and Mezban’s voices, one conciliatory and adoring, the other impassioned and enraged, followed her down the corridor.
After a second failed attempt to comm Cadwallader and Atoi to find out what she should do next, she decided to pop in on the kids and check they were okay. She also wanted to m
ake sure Parthenia had returned to their shared cabin too. She was worried her sister might have gone to fight in the skirmish that seemed to be going on.
But when she arrived at the cabin, it was empty.
She stood in the entrance, taking in the vacant bunks and discarded clothing.
Her pulse began to race. Where had they gone?
She comm’d Bryce.
“Hey, are the kids with you?”
“No, it’s just me and—”
“Do you know where they are?”
“No, sorry. Have they—”
She closed the comm.
Her mind was spinning.
The situation aboard the Bathsheba remained dangerous, and some kind of engagement was going on in the Duchess. If any of her brothers or sisters got tangled up in either operation they could be hurt or killed.
Dammit!
Her thoughts flew to Parthenia. The stupid girl had wandered into a full-on battle, had she dragged her siblings into something similar? If she had, Carina would never forgive her.
She stepped quickly to a bunk and picked up a pajama top. Holding onto the thin material, she took a drink of elixir and Cast Locate.
In her mind, the Duchess was a black, gray, and white landscape in a lifeless void. A single figure shone out among the many others moving around on the ship.
Nahla!
The clothes she was holding belonged to her youngest sister, but finding the girl didn’t help her. If Carina Sent to non-mage Nahla, she wouldn’t hear her.
Attempting to steady her panicked breathing, she grabbed another top. She was sure this one was Oriana’s.
After swallowing more elixir, Carina tried the Cast for a second time.
Once more, she perceived the shadow of the Duchess’s interior, like a splicer’s scan of a person. Suddenly, Oriana gleamed out, clear and shining.
Thank the stars!
Now she could find out where the kids had gone and if they were all safe.
Before she had a chance to Cast Send, however, the cabin door flew open.
“Carina!” yelled Darius, rushing in and launching himself into her arms. The force of the little boy almost knocked her over.
