by Blaze Ward
Kam triggered the hatch open and the four of them poured out onto the concourse. Erin took a moment to lock everything, just because, and stopped cold when she turned back.
They had a visitor Erin had missed when she stepped out.
That, or A’Alhakoth moved faster than a jack rabbit.
The blue youngster was standing directly across the way, like maybe she had been waiting more or less behind a pillar for a while and stepped out now.
Erin hadn’t been paying that close of attention to the woman before, beyond her face and bones, so she took a moment to register the clothing. Plain. Almost drab. The sorts of pants and tunic you got from the remainder bin if you were lucky enough to find two unmatched that fit you.
Erin remembered those days.
A’Alhakoth was in a black that had been washed enough times to fade to gray. The belt was brown leather and didn’t match anything, but looked like it might be an heirloom anyway. Possibly the only thing she had left from home as things wore out.
Poverty in deep space was a grinding, unforgiving bitch. That the Mbaysey had crawled far enough out of it to hire a personal chef was just a measure of the luck and patient skill of Kathra’s and Yagazie’s dream.
Erin started walking directly across, towards the newcomer. Behind her, she heard Iruoma shush the other two and then the three were probably in her wake. It was hard to tell over the usual background noise of any station: voices, footsteps, and music playing quietly in a vain attempt at soothing savage breasts.
Erin got close enough that they could talk, without getting right down in the tiny girl’s face. And she was tiny. Only a meter and a half tall. At least half a head shorter than either Daniel or Ndidi, so that made her possibly the shortest adult person Erin had ever known. She’d been taller than that when she was eleven.
“Evening,” Erin said companionably as she came to rest.
The girl didn’t look as flighty today. Maybe had enough time to think about her options, and realize they were probably all bad from here.
Deep space was like that.
“Good evening,” A’Alhakoth replied in Spacer in a voice somewhere between diffident and tough.
Little of both, maybe.
Erin studied her, waiting. The young woman had come to her, after all.
“Are you still recruiting?” the periwinkle pixie asked.
Erin had a hard time seeing someone that tiny as truly adult. Being blue didn’t help.
“We are,” Erin smiled wryly. “Still interested?”
“I am,” the woman said. “What are the requirements?”
“Tonight, you go to dinner with us,” Erin said, gesturing to the three women behind her and laughing to herself that Stina had come at the last moment.
She was the only Anglo in the comitatus, and one of only three who weren’t old school Mbaysey from Tazo, before Yagazie had gotten the tribe off the reservation and into space. Central African Diaspora from Earth.
A’Alhakoth started to say something, but Erin cut her off.
“My treat on food,” she said simply. “We’re celebrating and having a little fun before we have to go back to work tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” the woman said carefully.
She wasn’t dressed like the rest of them, so she would stand out, but at least there was a mix of skin tones tonight, like they would have with Daniel here. And he never wore anything remotely colored like the comitatus, cognizant that he was an outsider.
Even if he wasn’t, anymore.
The girl’s legs churned to keep up with the rest of them, since Stina was the next shortest and still had nearly thirty centimeters on her.
Erin kept them going through the darker areas and up to the nicer parts of the station. The tourist zones, where things were painted regularly. Plants and flowers in pots every three meters. Smiling faces.
At least she could tip someone under the table tonight and feel good about things.
Steak.
Daniel was fantastic at what he did, but they rarely got something like a good steak on WinterStar, even as the comitatus. Kathra had better ways to burn her money than that.
The woman seating them looked a little askance at the group of them being armed, but didn’t say anything. Only half the people in here had obvious weapons, and Erin was planning on drinking somewhere else anyway.
“First things first,” Erin said as the waiter took drink orders and left menus. “I know more about you than you are aware, because I have a really good spy who found out things about you nobody should.”
Those huge eyes got bigger as Erin watched. Girl stopped breathing as well. The others knew what was up, but everyone here was sworn life and soul to Kathra.
That included keeping a lot of secrets from outsiders like A’Alhakoth.
“Okay?” the young woman finally managed, grabbing her water and taking a drink to maybe wet a dry throat, and maybe to buy herself some time.
“So if you hadn’t passed that check, you wouldn’t be here now,” Erin continued. “And that’s saying a lot, because all of us are part of Kathra Omezi’s comitatus. Her warriors.”
“What does that mean?”
“The Mbaysey used to be economic slaves, back in the Sept Empire days a generation ago,” Erin explained. “Kathra’s mother got enough folks engaged that they changed the law and freed the slaves, but my grandma Ezinne still has this same mark on her face from where the masters tattooed her. Then Yagazie got the tribe to buy an old cargo starship and get into the trade business. Most of the menfolk had gone off to join the army or work in factories in those days and never came back, so the tribe was all women. Fifteen years ago, Yagazie Omezi had enough ships to move the entire tribe off the reservation at Tazo and we’ve never been based on a planet since.”
“Are all her warriors women?” A’Alhakoth asked, looking around the table. “You had a male human with you before.”
“He’s actually Kathra’s personal chef,” Erin laughed along with the others. “But he’s also a pretty good spy, you would just never understand that to look at him.”
“Why are you telling me this?” the woman was twitchy again.
“Because he passed you,” Erin said. “And I did as well, with what I learned from him. You’re safe because you are honest. And a warrior in your own right. And in need. We might be able to help.”
The kaniea woman blinked rapidly when surprised. Erin filed that away for future reference.
Too-Good-To-Be-True. That was the look she could see in the back of those navy blue eyes.
“What do you know of my quest?” the young woman asked now.
“Almost nothing,” Erin replied, which was technically only a small lie, but she wanted to see how much the youngster would share with this group.
“My kind, the kaniea, are only recently space-born, having been uplifted by the anndaing four generations ago,” she said with a nod to herself. Probably getting her ducks lined up for the first time in a while. “The culture is a complicated mix of iron age superstitions and galactic age technology unsure how to get along. In the old days, warriors were only admitted after they had undertaken a quest to prove their worthiness.”
“Or to weed out the weak and stupid,” Erin agreed. “We’ve seen that sort of thing ourselves.”
“Just so,” A’Alhakoth said with a nod. “The old woman told me I was to leave the world and seek my destiny, as it wasn’t on Kanus.”
“Are you a warrior?” Iruoma leaned in now and focused on the girl. Nobody had a scowl like Iruoma when she wanted to use it. The shaved head and cranial tattoos just amplified the effect.
“So I was trained, but I have four older brothers and a sister, so I will never inherit the title or the land. As best, I might be married off to a powerful nobleman if I proved myself worthy.”
Erin joined the others in making rude noises at the thought of relying on a male for status.
What woman ever wanted to be kept?
“We
don’t bother with men,” Erin said. “Except for the occasional tumble to scratch a weird itch. Eight tenths of the tribe are female. The four of us are warriors who protect the rest.”
“Does your Commander Omezi need more warriors?” A’Alhakoth asked carefully, pressing her lips against each other when she was done.
“That’s why we are having this conversation, A’Alhakoth ver’Shingi,” Erin smiled at her. “You seem to have the heart. Do you have the skill and stomach to join us?”
“What do you do?” she asked, straightening now that they were all on something of a level ground. And apparently missing the part where Erin knew her full name, despite A’Alhakoth never sharing it.
Good spies, and all that.
“We serve Kathra’s will,” Erin said. “How we do that is what makes us warriors. We fight on the ground as well as fly combat Starfighters called Spectres, usually on patrol to protect the Tribal Squadron, and occasionally to fight with pirates or other fools.”
“Would I even fit in a ship designed for someone your size?” she asked.
Erin laughed. Adanne Eguminyo could be convinced to modify a Spectre around a kaniea. All Erin had to do was bet her that is was impossible.
Engineers were the same, anywhere she’d ever been. Adanne would move the stars to prove her wrong.
“If you got to that part of your training, I have no doubt that we could make it work,” Erin said. “Kathra only has twenty-two women plus herself in the comitatus right now because she is unwilling to relax her standards enough to allow others. How are you in ground combat?”
Those big blue eyes got cagey now. Back on safe ground, maybe.
“Sword, hammer, stick, poniard, bow, and six forms of unarmed combat,” she smiled, as if challenging any of them to step out onto the dojo floor with her.
Erin had already decided to let Nkechi and Elyl have the first round at the woman, after watching memories of A’Alhakoth training.
Kaniean men were pretty much broad humans, which was weird considering how tiny this woman was, and she was largely representative of that gender.
“Firearms?” Kam asked now.
Kam was the deadshot in the comitatus. Erin only ever needed to hit close enough to center that a human would go down, dead or not on the first shot.
“Beams are extremely uncommon on Kanus,” A’Alhakoth replied. “Gunpowder-charged slug-throwers were easier to make with our previous industrial base and that has remained with us even today. Above average as a hunter stalking large game. I’ve never had to kill someone with a gun.”
Which suggested that she had killed people other ways, but neither Erin nor Daniel had spent that much time looking. Wasn’t that important, once they understood the important parts about the youngster.
And if she could chase down large ungulates, or whatever equivalent Kanus had, she had to be good enough to stalk intelligent game, too.
The waiter returned now and distracted them with the food porn of describing all the different ways they could take their steaks and improve them, to the point Erin was positively drooling, but she had what she needed to know about A’Alhakoth ver’Shingi.
And where they were going, having a scout who had already traversed that same terrain outwards would be helpful.
There were likely to be some nasty customers in those sectors.
Twenty-One
Daniel had never asked for these powers. Never wanted to be anything more than a chef. Still didn’t want anything to do with them today, except there was nobody to give them away to.
Kathra or any of her comitatus would have taken them gladly, and done a better job than he could, but the power was gendered. Only males could use it.
The suit had continually reset itself to fit him as he had lost the last of his spare tire and gained leg muscles from working out more and having less stress in his life. He wore it pretty much continually now, under whatever pants and long-sleeve shirt the day called for.
Since Kathra kept the temperatures comfortable for her, he had to adjust the suit using the gem, and had added an extra piece of cloth so that the white light was not visible.
At least he was doing some good. More than just ending Urid-Varg as a conqueror and rapist of random women, as good as that was for the rest of the galaxy.
Each and everyone one of those little ships he had inherited on the Star Turtle were going to be sold, if they could, and the Mbaysey were reaping the rewards. They would be free.
Daniel wasn’t sure he would ever be welcome back in the Sept Empire, even if he wanted to go back, since they would know who he had worked for. Worse, they might know that he controlled the Turtle, except they had not sent any assassins after him.
At least none he had recognized.
Something more than his imagination had touched him on three separate occasions now, so he couldn’t just mark it down as paranoia or wishful thinking. Someone with a gem like his, only much smaller. Weaker, for lack of a better term.
Since Daniel didn’t know how the mind magic of that salaud worked, he couldn’t guess, except that they would not be able to take the Turtle away from him, if it came down to a contest of wills.
Assuming he fought them.
Whoever they were.
Daniel didn’t know where Urid-Varg had gotten the Turtle. The oldest ghosts stayed deep in the darkness, unwilling to venture forth to talk to him. They just stared at him with damned, haunting eyes, as if daring him to banish them.
If he could…
Were Urid-Varg’s enemies finally coming for him, unaware that he had died in the most embarrassing way possible? Who wanted to walk up to the gates of hell and explain that they’d been beaten to death by an angry cook with an empty fire extinguisher?
Nothing else made any sense, though. Hopefully, they would confront him at the end, rather than just launching a massive assault designed for the greater power Urid-Varg had been able to wield when he still existed on that damnable jewelry housing. If they would listen to reason, they might just turn out to be gendarmes, or something.
Or angry husbands, perhaps, considering some of the nightmares/memories Daniel had learned.
People with justification to do violence, even if they were aiming it at the wrong people.
Person.
Him.
Daniel looked around his quarters. Nothing had changed. He usually spent most of his time in the kitchen, or out front, feeding people or translating ancient books and memories into technical manuals and histories.
Even the addition of A’Alhakoth ver’Shingi to the crew didn’t really change anything. He even knew where her kind came from, using newer memories than the K'bari who had fared so badly at Urid-Varg’s hands.
Had he killed the K'bari, or just broken their will? Daniel couldn’t tell from the memories, and some things simply did not translate from the culture of that ghost into terms Daniel could explain, let alone understand.
It was enough to know that the K'bari were no more as an organized nation, and possibly not even as a species, and that the timing coincided well with Urid-Varg’s K'bari ghost.
How many xenocides had Daniel fallen heir to by taking Urid-Varg’s place? Many of the ghosts would not talk to him, and he could not compel them without the conqueror’s mental matrix and extra power behind it.
Just as well.
He didn’t want to become a Mad God like that salaud.
Daniel took a deep breath and laid down on the bed. He had turned the lights down to a single notch above sleeping, so as to not distract, but to keep him awake as he worked. He stripped his pants and shirt off now, leaving only that annoyingly bright bodysuit that somehow acted like an organic spacesuit.
He sighed, remembering the first time he had awakened with memory of the power.
His gloves were on the end table he used as a nightstand. Those got pulled on, since he was intent on doing serious work tonight.
If someone was going to cause he or Kathra trouble, it would happe
n soon. The bulk of the tribal squadron had departed for points not discussed with outsiders. They would go off and do their harvesting in a little-known system for another week or three, until Kathra called them for a Concursion, once she got her new warship.
Tonight, he needed to search for other ghosts.
He could not listen for aliens. There were too many here, plus species he (and Urid-Varg) had never encountered. Such was the level of crossroads that Tavle Jocia represented.
The Sept might send an assassin to kill him and steal the gem, if they learned anything about how it worked. He didn’t think Ugonna had told them. She hadn’t known much at the point where Kathra had executed her. But the Sept were and always would be a risk.
The Free Worlds were a less organized place. They might have dealings with the sorts of pirates and criminals that would love to lay hands on a Star Turtle.
And someone with powers like his was hiding somewhere in this system. He had to find them.
Daniel closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. Some of his ghosts came out and watched. Most of them had quieted down, once they seemed to understand that he was the opposite of Urid-Varg in every way he could be.
Anything not to fall to the seductive call of evil.
But he needed power tonight. A good meal. No wine to dull the senses. Not even a warm, beautiful woman lying next to him from which he could draw solace.
Areen might be a tough bad-ass outside this room, but he’d never lain with a better lover. And that said a lot, considering some of the groupies a top-rated chef encountered in his time.
Daniel opened his mind to the cosmos.
He wasn’t trying to find anyone. There was nobody there, as far as he knew.
But they might leave holes he could locate.
He just had to push.
Nearby space was cold to the touch, but alive with the energy of the nearby star. Solar wind howled in frenzied, ionized tracks across the world around him. Gas giants answered in the distance. Space ships and stations yammered constantly on various radio waves.
