Oaths of Legacy

by Emily Skrutskie

  The look she’s throwing me just worsens the furious heat rising in my face. It walks the fine line between genuine concern and bald-faced pity, as if Wen—who can’t even pass muster in this sham of a military—thinks I’m not capable of everything my blood has fated me for. But then, confusingly, she lets out a sigh, her eyes go soft, and she says, “Ah, Gal. You’ll figure it out eventually.”

  Wen turns off her treadmill, leaving me uselessly spinning on mine as I try to process what cleverness she thinks she’s just pulled off. As she retreats for the showers, I catch her eyes in the mirror, and she lifts her chin. “I’ll trade you. If you want a gym buddy, you’ll have to help me learn all that shit they drilled into you at the academy. Sound good?”

  I nearly trip off the treadmill mid-stride from shock, but I recover just enough to give her a firm nod in reply. I should be holding back a grin—she’s just handed me exactly what I came here for.

  But there’s something in her knowing smirk that makes me worry. Something that makes me feel like I’ve just given her an upper hand.

  * * *

  —

  The change is almost instantaneous. At first, I’m arrogant enough to take sole credit for it, but the more I work with Wen, the more I realize that it’s something that rests almost entirely on her shoulders. Given the proper supplemental material and a dedicated tutor, Wen is learning at a truly prodigious—and somewhat frightening—rate.

  She would have been an unholy terror at the academy, a thought that has me wondering what that could have been like. Aboard the Torrent, Wen has no company her own age apart from me. How would she have meshed with our peer group? Clearly she and Ettian would have been neck and neck for the top of the class in flight sims, but I already knew that. Her engineering knowledge would have her fitting right in with Rin and Rhodes, her mischievous spirit would definitely endear her to Ollins, and watching her help direct a flight drill from one of the Torrent’s outer command decks, it’s clear she and Hanji would have been split complementaries.

  The ships Wen’s conducting are barely glimmers against the stars in the massive window that sweeps along one wall of the deck. I keep getting distracted trying to pick them out from the blackness when I should be paying attention to the readouts on her station, which paint a much clearer picture of the formations weaving and twisting together. The lieutenants running the drill are laid out in a row of command stations, with the higher-level officers lined up on the tier behind.

  “Group One, execute third maneuver,” Wen announces into her comm, moderating her volume so she’s loud enough for the colonel supervising her to know she’s called the next stage of the drill but not loud enough to be picked up on the mics of the subordinates in her bank running the other segments. I watch the result of her call play out on the readouts, resisting the urge to nudge her when one of her pilots overshoots the turn’s arc by a few degrees.

  “Black Eight,” I murmur through my teeth instead. I’ve been given a seat next to her, my hands properly cuffed for peace of mind—though really, there isn’t much mischief I could manage from here. I spare the room a quick glance as Wen corrals the errant pilot, checking to make sure no one’s noticed.

  My eyes meet Adela Esperza’s. I’ve been so focused on the drill that I failed to notice the commodore has slipped in to observe her protégée in action. A flush of paranoia washes through me as the corners of her lips tilt into a smirk. She could be smirking for any number of reasons, I try to remind myself. She smirks a lot.

  But I can’t shake the feeling that she’s noticed what I’ve been up to. Esperza’s certainly seen the effects of my tutoring in Wen’s rapid improvement, and I wouldn’t put it past her to immediately divine the source of her sudden upswing. And instead of yanking me out of reach, she’s meeting my eyes. She’s smiling about it.

  If one of the most shrewd strategists in the uprising is endorsing my behavior, what does that say about my strategy? Have I gotten away with anything, or am I just genuinely helping Archon? Or maybe this is her plan: instead of confronting me directly about what may very well be my corruption of her apprentice, she’s just going to make me doubt myself until I stop all on my own.

  I drop my focus back to Wen’s readouts, trying to quell my misgivings. Whatever Esperza thinks is happening here, I’ve come too far to tear it all down and start over. Being Wen’s tutor has given me a way into Archon operations, and I’ll be damned if I give up that ground.

  Even if it’d be damning me anyway, to help the Archon cause.

  CHAPTER 12

  It becomes easy, after months of captivity, to mistake complacency for patience. To mistake a few calm weeks positioned at the rear of the front for the experience of war.

  To mistake the frantic drums pounding through the halls of the Torrent for the usual morning round.

  I nearly sleep through it—a minor miracle, given how I used to tense up every time I heard drums beating when we stayed at the Archon resistance base on Delos. I awaken not to the harsh snares rattling through the corridors but to the clatter of Wen storming through our quarters as she scrambles to dress herself.

  “Whasshappening?” I groan, flopping halfway off my bed.

  “The rust do you think is happening?” Wen shouts, slamming another drawer closed. “We’re under attack.”

  But I’m here, I almost protest, as if that’s going to turn around an Umber assault. That excuse works for when they’re toting me around in a small craft, where one well-aimed bolt can take out the ship and everyone inside it. Safe inside a dreadnought command core, I’m all but untouchable, even if they manage to tear the outer layer of the ship to shreds.

  I consider not bothering with dressing—just staggering onto the bridge in bare feet and sleep pants. But I’ve spent the past weeks carefully trying to blend into the background for the soldiers surrounding me. I’m not about to undo that on a day this dire. Wen’s hurry and her significant head start means I have no time to tie my boot laces and barely enough to tuck in my shirt. I scramble after her as she blows out the door of the suite, trying my damnedest to get the collar of my jacket to lie flat.

  The corridors of the command core are choked with soldiers all moving in the same direction. I stick as close as I can to Wen without tripping her, nervous about the proximity of so many people who might want to take a swing at me. Even if they have more pressing matters at hand, I’m not letting my guard slip for one second.

  The pressing dread seeping into my blood only gets worse when we pack into an elevator that speeds us toward the bridge. Usually a dreadnought sleeps in three eight-hour shifts, so my perception of the population is cut by a third. Seeing absolutely everyone up and about—and packing into a crowded elevator with them—just drives home how wrong all of this is.

  If it were a more minor skirmish, we could probably let the outer layers of the ship handle it and sleep soundly through the night. The fact that the whole ship is snapping into action means the threat is dire.

  So it’s no surprise when I step onto the bridge and see another dreadnought laid out in enemy orange over the captain’s screens. Deidra con-Silon sits in the strange cradle of her chair, muttering a steady stream of orders that she doesn’t bother projecting. Her directives must contain a header and footer phrase that will get them channeled to the correct sector of her bridge, a measure that maximizes the capacity of her voice and therefore her ability to maintain command throughout the coming engagement. Even with an officer who outranks her on the ship, Silon remains the only one qualified to helm the Torrent in a time of crisis. Watching her work, it’s clear how much training it would take for any other person to step into her shoes. Wen’s expression matches my awe as we approach. At the academy, I saw footage of these kinds of moments, but seeing someone performing the feat in person is once again stunning.

  I spot Esperza a second later, though Wen’s already set a direct vec
tor to her. The commodore’s been relegated to a desk space adjacent to the captain’s, where she’s feverishly sorting through communications from the rest of the fleet. I peer over Wen’s shoulder at her screens, tuning out the unnecessary chatter of her report for duty.

  The Torrent’s position at the rear of the fleet formation has us distant enough that we’re not easily defensible by the other dreadnoughts. It seems the Umber assault calculated our position and dropped from superluminal at our rear. This dreadnought has a battery back there, but it’s also the position of our most powerful engines, and maneuvering a cityship like this into a complete turn is going to take time that we might not be able to spare.

  In this moment, I understand Ettian a little bit more. He once told me that he’d rather fly than take a command position, and I saw genuine panic in his eyes when I tried to keep him from fleeing the academy with the suggestion he was bound for a dreadnought’s helm. Even though Silon’s calling the shots in every department, essentially treating the Torrent as one massive extension of her body, her fate is committed into the hands of her subordinates. We live and die by the choices made by others, by their reaction times and their skill at their posts. When you’re in a Viper, it’s you and you alone who decides.

  And if we’re up against another dreadnought, the command core is nowhere near as safe as I first assumed. The forward batteries of this incoming ship could punch clear through the outer hull. It hasn’t identified itself yet, but it bears the telltale signs of a newer ship—one likely constructed from the belts mined out in the Archon territories.

  That in itself carries a heavy implication, one that hits so hard that for a second I feel like I need to grab on to something. It’s been months since the rebellion started. Months since Maxo Iral revealed my capture to the galaxy. More than long enough for the Imperial Fleet to move into the Archon Core.

  But no reckoning has come from my mother.

  I don’t understand. We’re on the warfront now, where the majority of Archon’s military assets are concentrated. Wouldn’t she set out to decisively crush them? Could it be that she’s holding back? Maybe she’s running the newer ships up against Archon first, keeping the true treasures of her war fleet in reserve. Letting Berr sys-Tosa’s assets take the heavy damage to punish the governor for his betrayal and then sweeping in to pick up the pieces.

  The thought leaves me feeling a rising, difficult-to-quash panic. The Imperial Fleet would work with precision to extract me—of that I’m certain. But I’m not certain that this dreadnought is even aware I’m on board the Torrent. Even if they were, Berr sys-Tosa’s never been particularly careful with my life before—what if he’s happy to let me get caught in the crossfire?

  And my concerns don’t stop with just my own safety. My whole life I’ve been told that power means nothing if you don’t wield it. That the proper way to confront a problem is to strike and strike hard. Knightfall. The whole War of Expansion. Why is now any different?

  But the second that question comes to mind, the answer arrives just as readily. At the heart of the Archon war machine, I can see it for the organized rebellion it is, founded on both a bloodright claim that will win the hearts and minds of the people and the military prowess necessary to reclaim the systems we conquered. I’m surrounded, day in and day out, by the way these Archon soldiers see themselves. But what does Iva emp-Umber see from the outside?

  She sees a scrappy force of refugees who’ve managed to commandeer a dreadnought through tricks that won’t work now that the rest of the Umber fleet expects them. A leadership that isn’t sure whether it should be taking cues from a seasoned general or the blood-proven heir to these systems. Limited resources spread across already depleted worlds. Why send a fleet when Berr sys-Tosa should have no problem uprooting the infestation in a matter of months? It’s like using a war hammer to kill a fly—it just makes you look like you’re overcompensating.

  And if she rushes in like a weepy parent trying to snatch her son back from the jaws of danger, well, she wouldn’t be the fearsome Umber empress who’s bent the galaxy to her rule.

  I’m still trying to decide what that means for me when the drums switch to a new rudiment. This one I know—I heard it pounded into the bulkheads of the Ruttin’ Hell as we turned our nose and plunged headfirst into the terror of an active field on the day the Archon resistance stole the Torrent. This is the rhythm that spurs ships down launch tubes and into the black, that gunners chug their clips to match. This is the Archon call to battle.

  Once again, I search for something to hold on to.

  On Silon’s displays, a matrix of green-lit Archon craft spew from the Torrent’s rear decks. A precise layer of covering fire cuts between them from the adjacent batteries, preventing any nasty surprises from slipping down the launch tubes before they have an opportunity to seal again. The sight of the battle sketched out in miniature unmoors me, and for a moment I tense, forgetting that all of this is happening miles away. It’s only the sharp jab of Wen’s fingers in my side that brings me back to the bridge. She gives me a significant look, one I interpret to mean Stay close, then steps up to Esperza’s station.

  The commodore glances up, passing Wen a tense smile. “Looks like Umber’s finally decided to take a swing at us,” she says, her fingers flying over her workstation as she sorts through communications. “Well timed on their part—they caught us inert with our backs turned.” She points at the fleet’s formation, tapping the engines of each Archon dreadnought tersely.

  All of them are pointed away from us, making them nigh impossible to maneuver onto a vector in time to address the attack. One of them seems to be trying, though it’s almost impossible to distinguish its rotation. Turning a miles-long spaceship under pressure is an agonizing affair.

  “We’ve got twenty corvettes inbound, with a hundred in reserve,” Esperza continues. “Half of those are standing by for evac if things get dire around here, but given that this fellow hasn’t punched a hole in us yet, I’m optimistic about our chances against a single ’nottie.”

  “Where’s Ettian?” Wen asks, and I glance sidelong at her in warning. This is a habit Esperza’s been trying to break her from with little success. A habit that might be partially my fault. An obstinate prisoner with the same title can call the emperor by his first name. A lieutenant most certainly cannot.

  “The emperor,” Esperza replies firmly, “is secured. I need you to handle comms from the incoming reinforcements. Pull up a chair.”

  Wen sets herself next to Esperza’s workstation with nervous stiffness. Her hands falter over the displays, fumbling as she pulls up the data she’s supposed to be managing. I stand behind her, gritting my teeth.

  Over the past month, our system has settled into place. After the moment I’m certain Esperza caught me, I try my best not to openly advise Wen in the sight of her superiors—even if it’s occasionally agonizing to watch. Instead I build up a list of every grievance I register during the day, and at night we review them in the privacy of our rooms.

  It’s been a mess, for the most part. Often we find ourselves arguing because I’m approaching something from a pragmatic point of view, which she flags as being so Umber-minded that her mentor will immediately call her out on it. Or because she’s interpreting something with a degree of leniency that’s almost laughably Corinthian and has no place in any military, Umber or Archon. Occasionally we’ll get stuck in an argument only to realize that neither side we’ve chosen is one that meshes with the Archon values she’s meant to be upholding. At the end of those, I’ve taken to giving her a look she knows well, one that all but screams, Why are you even doing this?

  That system worked fine for her training. Better than fine—she was improving like a prodigy. But now the war’s gone hot around us, and Wen, whom I’ve seen fly gleefully in a ship that might as well be held together by prayer, is unsteady at the conn. This matters to her so much that i
t’s got her hands shaking.

  And I can’t be caught helping her again.

  I’m not sure what else to do with myself. I want to do something to help make sure I don’t get incinerated by that ship, but this isn’t like helping with flight drills. Any action I take here would aid Archon directly, to the detriment of my own empire. Then again, if I don’t survive this engagement, it’s an Umber loss either way. I have to do something, but I don’t even have a place to sit on this bridge. I’m sure I’d get snapped at the second I tried to plant my ass anywhere, so I take a cautious step up behind Wen, just enough to brush her shoulder in warning.

  She stills, stealing a glance at me. “Not a good time, Gal.”

  “I’d say it’s as good a time as ever,” I mutter, pitching my voice low enough that it falls beneath the general chatter flying back and forth across the bridge. “Sort your comm lines by auxiliaries and attack ships,” I tell her, resisting the urge to reach over and do it for her.

  “I know which is which.”

  “It’s not about knowing—it’s about being able to reach over and grab your auxes all at once.”

  An incoming message flares on the screen. Wen taps it, selecting the option to transcribe the communication, and leans forward to read it. Don’t let them see you mouthing along, I almost snap at her, but now is not the time. With my life on the line, I’ve got to let her do whatever helps. “Ma’am, C-32 is detecting targeting coming from the ’nottie.”

  Esperza nods sharply. “Give all corvettes clearance for superluminal evasive.”

  I gulp. I’d forgotten this old standby of Archon battle strategy, deemed too dangerous by Umber to ever put in use. It’s one of the only effective ways of getting out of a dreadnought’s path, and relies on an engineering team that can react on a hair trigger. The ships cruise with the superluminal drives hot and a secure escape vector keyed in. The instant they detect a dreadnought about to fire, the captain punches in the jump. It catapults the ship to safety a few light-seconds away, but that’s far enough to take them out of the battle completely until the drives cool enough to safely fire again. I was always taught that it’s too drastic and too risky. A short-range superluminal jump is a nightmare of physics I don’t even want to think about, to say nothing of the shitshow that’d ensue if a ship with a spun-up drive took a direct hit from a dreadnought battery. Or what might happen if they miscalculated their escape vector and tore clean through another ship in their formation. On top of that, it’s a serious blow to the forces you have out on the field.