by Aimee Ogden
“That’s not the same thing at all!” Triz protested. “Ceebees are more machine than human.”
“Are you saying you think that anyone with mods—” Casne closed her eyes for a moment, then shook her head. “No. Let’s not. We’re here to celebrate, not fight.”
Lanniq cleared his throat. The crowds had begun to flow back in the directions of the eateries and bars and tea rooms. “I’m going to go save our table. You all coming?”
“I definitely am,” Saabe sighed. “The artigrav on this Hab is too shitting high, I need to sit down again.”
Triz peeled off from the group as they squeezed through the doorway of the bar. “I’ll get another bottle,” she said. Obviously, she’d ruffled feathers, but maybe she could smooth them down again if she poured enough spicewine on.
“You sure?” Casne plucked at her sleeve. “Is Quelian paying you so much you can afford to keep three Fleeties in booze all night?”
“I said another bottle, not all night.” Triz laughed, and Casne let her break free with a lopsided grin. She looked around; the steward was nowhere to be seen, but a small crowd packed in around the door to Edillo’s storage rooms. Triz edged forward and wedged herself in between a pair of bodies. “Excuse me,” she mumbled, as the Fleet officer she’d bumped turned to face her.
It was Kalo, because of course it was Kalo. He was embedded in among a knot of Fleet folk, with a few civilian hangers-on mixed into the mess. When he saw her squeezed in next to him, his face folded into an embarrassed smirk, and he raised a glass of something smoky-green. Shitting stars. Not for the first time, she wished he wasn’t so easy to look at. Wavy black hair, sleepy dark eyes, and crooked front teeth, just so he didn’t look quite too pretty to be real. “Make yourself at home. What’re you drinking?”
“Poison, with any luck.”
His gaze flicked to Casne and her other Fleet friends in the corner, then back to Triz. “To your health, then.” He slugged the smoky-green drink and turned into the crowd of Fleeties and civilians packed around him.
Triz managed to flag down the steward and swapped a fob-scan for a bottle of Simek green wine: decidedly a lesser vintage than the first round. The steward got an earful of Triz’s disapproval, mostly because she was annoyed Kalo had somehow scored actual drinking glasses while she was stuck drinking from the bottle like a slob. She slouched back toward the cushioned corner with her second-rate prize tucked inside her elbow.
If the reduction in beverage quality disappointed anyone, they didn’t mention it. Whatever awkwardness Triz had woken on the Arcade washed away under a sticky-sweet green tide. By the time the bottle had run dry, Triz was laughing herself sick over Saabe’s story about how e had tried to smuggle Roian leather out of a planetary Arcology only to discover e had bought a living, oozing, two-foot-long Roian hideslug.
“I’m wiped,” said Casne in Triz’s ear, once she could breathe normally instead of whooping for air. “I’m ready to head back to your place. How much longer do you want to stay?”
Triz leaned into Casne, turning a private word into a kiss on the back of her neck. “My place? Oh, are you not heading back to the quadhome?” That got her a rude noise in response, and she hid a smile against her sleeve. “Then let’s get out of here.”
They bid goodnight to Lanniq, and Saabe, who wore a knowing grin of eir own, and stumbled out of the still-packed bar and onto the Arcade. Triz still had a half-bottle of green wine in one hand, but no one waited at the door to scold her for breaking flammable liquid regulations tonight. The air out here was cooler and fresher, and Triz gulped down a welcome breath in the hope it would sober her up a bit. She wanted to remember this tomorrow and the next day—and the next and the next. Casne slung an arm around her neck, and her brandy-scented sigh roll hot and wet down the side of Triz’s cheek, and Triz thought sobriety might not be all it was cracked up to be.
“Captain Casne Vivik Veling?”
Heads cracked together, Triz’s temple to Casne’s chin, as they turned to take in whatever sycophant wanted a photosnap or an autograph. A pair of uniforms stood side-by-side under the Arcade’s bright lights. “Some other time,” Triz said, but when she went to tug on Casne’s arm, it had gone stiff inside her sleeve.
“Officers.” Casne sounded cool and formal in a way she never did with Lanniq and Saabe, who were officers too, after all. Triz looked at these two again and noticed their uniforms, though cut to Fleet standard, were a pale brown color rather than the casual gray Casne wore. “How can I help you?”
The taller of the two, with a female-denotation epaulet on one shoulder and a commander’s on the other, stepped forward. Triz’s gaze ratcheted downward from the officer’s epaulets to the sidearm holstered at her left hip. “Captain, I’m going to have to ask you to come with us.”
“Of course,” Casne said flatly. “I’m happy to assist the Interior Watch any way I can.”
“Interior Watch?” Triz’s belly lurched, and not from all the drink she’d downed. The Interior Watch served as the Fleet’s military police. Like PubWel, but with shocksticks. “Casne, what’s going on?”
“Lieutenant,” the female officer said, and her junior stepped up with a pair of restraints.
“Hey—no. No!” Triz grabbed the restraints and tossed them over the side of the Arcade. Below, a few surprised voices yelped before the noise of the celebrations swallowed up any dismay. The junior officer took a few steps toward her, then stopped and glanced at his superior. Triz took advantage of the pause to jab a finger into his shoulder. Inside her own chest, her heart hammered out of kilter like a TR-39 with a misaligned nozzle. “You can’t arrest her! Don’t you know who she is? What she’s done for the Fleet? This is all a misunderstanding, Casne is a common enough name—”
“Triz.” Casne’s voice was still eerily level, but the ice in it thawed around Triz’s name. “I need you to tell my parents where I am in case this isn’t all straightened out by the time they wake up tomorrow. I need you to keep a cool head and ask the right questions. Can you do that for me? Triz?”
Triz swallowed hard. Casne’s brown eyes, usually so warm and soft, were now diamond drill bits boring into her. Instead of pounding, her heart slowed enough to fit a lifetime between each beat. “I—I can. Shitting stars. Yes, of course.”
A crooked smile cracked the hard lines of Casne’s face. She bent over to press a kiss between Triz’s knitted eyebrows. And then the Watch officer was locking her wrists into the closed cylinders of a second pair of restraints and guiding her forward through a crowd that parted before them. The noisy banter and clatter of bottles receded, falling away into shoes scuffing on the plastic floor and uncomfortable muttering.
Casne would never have done anything to merit this kind of treatment. If she’d ever broken a rule in her life, it was the stupid kind of rule, the ones that needed breaking.
People didn’t get hustled up to Justice because they spilled spicewine on the sleeve of their dress uniform. Triz felt very small and entirely useless watching Casne march along that human hallway. She didn’t realize she’d dropped the bottle of green wine until it bounced off her toe.
“Nine arms of Swalen, what’s going on?” And then there was Kalo, intercepting the Watch officers before they could hustle Casne out along the Arcade for the rest of the Hab to gawk at. He grabbed the senior officer by the arm hard enough to spin her around. “Is this your idea of a bad joke?”
The Watch officer jerked her arm out of his grasp. “This is none of your concern, Lieutenant.” Casne stressed his rank as she straightened the black stripes on her shoulder: a hint even Triz could read.
But taking hints had never been Kalo’s strong suit. “You’re not going anywhere with her.” He brandished his wrist fob in the junior officer’s direction, making him step back. “I’m calling Commander Escoth. And Admiral Savelian. Whoever I have to get down here to get this straightened out.”
“It was Admiral Savelian who issued the order.” The junior Watch
officer’s lips stretched over his teeth: not really a smile, not really a sneer. “Stand down, Lieutenant.”
Kalo surveyed the bigger officer for just a moment. Then he hauled back and punched him square in the mouth.
Triz lurched forward with every intention of throwing herself into Kalo’s fight. Even if the enemy of her enemy was also her enemy, he had the right idea.
“Kalo.” Casne’s voice cracked out like a lancet gun, killing Triz’s resolve.
Triz guiltily dropped her hands.
The officer’s arm locked around Kalo’s neck, as the flyboy strained to break free, but Casne’s voice pulled him up short. Kalo’s arms fell limp and the Watch officer let him slide to the floor.
Lanniq stood just behind the officers, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Behind him, Saabe leaned around for a better view. Casne shook her head at them, an almost imperceptible movement.
Saabe skirted the Interior Watch officers to put a tentative hand on Triz’s shoulder. She wanted to shrug off the touch, and she wanted it to stay, too. Casne was the one who deserved comfort now. But she stared straight ahead, stone-faced and straight-backed, without catching Triz’s eye to offer a wink or head-shake or some kind of shitting reassurance this was going to be all right. Triz’s head spun with shock and alcohol alike, but Casne’s face was steely and sober.
“Are you at least going to tell us what all this is about?” Kalo asked, still on the floor at the junior officer’s feet, one arm wrapped protectively around his belly. Triz didn’t think she’d seen a blow come from the junior officer, but her mind was reeling. Her finger bones groaned under the strain of her fists. Kalo spat a thick wad of blood but missed the officer’s boot. “I know the Watch likes to keep its secrets. But if the Admiral sent you—”
The Watch commander’s chin jutted out. “Check the channels in the morning and read all about it with the rest of the Hab.”
So Triz would have to wait to find out alongside Casne’s family.
“It’s all right.” Casne’s voice pulled Triz’s eyes up to her. The steadiness of her gaze put the gravity back in Triz’s world, took all the upside-down and set it back on the ground—albeit in a jumble. She unpeeled her stiff fingers one at a time from her clenched fists. It hurt, but that helped steady Triz too. The Watch officer nudged Casne’s shoulder and hustled her forward, but she craned her neck to look back. “Triz. We’ll get this figured out.”
Triz nodded. She found herself sandwiched between Lanniq’s broad shoulders and Saabe’s narrower ones while the Watch officers checked Casne’s restraints and marched her away into the Arcade. Into the minilift, and up. To Justice. When she disappeared from sight, Triz’s breath hitched, and she doubled over. Saabe said, hesitantly, “Do you . . . do you want company for the walk home?”
Saabe’s hand froze her arm where Casne’s would have warmed it, but she appreciated eir presence anyway. E pulled Triz gently toward the lift. She stopped, unable to believe what had just happened, how they had just left the safety and warmth of Edillo’s. She realized Lanniq had left her side. He was standing outside the bar, head bent, listening to another Fleet officer with captain’s stripes. Triz didn’t recognize the captain’s face, but she knew all too well the look of doubt and dismay on Lanniq’s. When the captain turned and walked away, Lanniq looked around, then followed. That was odd. Why did they need him specifically, but not Saabe, who served directly alongside Casne? Maybe Triz could track him down later to find out. Maybe he’d even tell her, Fleet secrets be damned; he was Casne’s friend, too.
As for Kalo, he leaned up against the doorway of the bar—divested of admirers, he kept company with one of Edillo’s rags pressed to his nose.
“Thanks,” Triz said, and very nearly meant it. But the noise of the Arcade swallowed up the quiet word.
Only Saabe heard, and gave her elbow a reassuring squeeze. “Hey, no problem. How far downhab do you live?” Triz let em lead her to the lifts and tried to focus on the spicewine spinning in her head. Maybe this was all just a lousy bottle-dream.
Chapter Three
Should Triz wake Casne’s family? The thought nearly brought up the spicewine still churning in her stomach. She couldn’t go tell them what was happening when she had no idea herself. Instead, she spent most of the night lying awake on every flat surface in her rooms: her bed, the hard line of her cheap fold-down sofa, squeezed on the floor next to the toilet. Sleep fled from her. Every time she closed her eyes the image of Casne in a cell flooded her thoughts.
The Watch officers took Casne uphab, to Justice—the same place where the Ceebee leaders brought back from the fight at Golros were stashed. She’d be safe, wouldn’t she? Triz thought of Casne sharing a cell with none other than Rocan Melviq, the Unquenchable Scythe, and shivered. No. The Watch was Fleet, and they’d see to it Casne wasn’t thrown in with the same people she’d just helped capture. Triz pressed her fingers against the cold plastic of the bathroom floor and tried to make herself believe that.
Long before the full dayshift station lights came on, Triz made herself stand and pulled a clean worksuit from the drawer under her bed. She stared at her ghastly face in the mirror and dragged her fingers through her snarled hair a few times, but gave up before it could be honestly described as “combed.” The lights in her rooms switched off as she shut the door behind her, and her boots sounded too loud in the empty hallway between her place and Casne’s parents’.
Her wrist fob opened the door. Casne snuck her the passcode access years ago, back when Triz was still just a stupid teenager sneaking in to fool around with her girlfriend. And to enjoy being in a real quadhome—not that the Tolvian creche a few floors downhab was bad, but . . . a wallport you could watch whatever you wanted on? A food printer that would give you sugarpips if you asked, not just on holidays but whenever you asked? It had seemed like heaven to a wide-eyed creche brat.
It still seemed pretty nice, compared to Triz’s current quarters. Hers were big enough to share with Casne now, or Nantha, or Casne and Nantha, if they both got leave at the same time—but only just. When Triz had been old enough to ask for her own place from PubWel, they’d stationed her just a few rooms down in a pairhome on the same level. Tiny though the pairhome might be, it was still nice to be close to Casne’s family, though Triz was glad to have at least a few doors of distance right after Cas upturned the quadhome’s life by running off to enlist. Bad enough to drudge alongside Quelian all day in the ‘works those next weeks; worse still putting in overtime as a disappointing daughter-substitute at the family dinner table once a week.
Inside the quadhome, the lights were low, in tune with their residents’ biorhythms. When Triz settled onto the nest of floor cushions by the wallport, a local light obediently brightened that corner. She preferred to sit in the dark, but it didn’t matter. She raised her fob, then hesitated. It would be nice not to have to hear bad news alone. But it would be nicer to hear it and get herself in check before she had to explain everything to Casne’s quadparents. She turned on the wallport and slid the volume down.
The first few channels were playing, respectively, a documentary about the construction of Centerpoint Station, an old astronautics display featuring half a dozen retired XL-8 Starslicers and a lot of fireworks, and the latest Astral Noise concert from Croelo Hab.
Triz had just started to convince herself last night’s events had all been a bad dream—a dream, somehow, despite having not snatched a single scrap of sleep all night—when her fob finally scanned over to a newschannel.
“—responsible is reported to be Captain Casne Vivik Veling,” the newsreader was saying. The footage shook and wobbled: probably shot from a targeting camera in the belly of a Skimmer or some other starfighter. Explosions in red and gold lanced over the wallport screen. The blasts looked too much like the astronautics celebration, except instead of playing out against a background of black, they rippled over the cracked face of an Arcology, one of the little dome habitats that studded the surfac
e of Hedgehome. Tiny dolls spilled from the wound in the plastisteel surface. Not dolls at all, though. Dying planet-siders. Triz’s fist ground against her lips as she swallowed hot bile.
The newsreader went on: “Previously hailed as one of the heroes of the battle at Golros, the captain is being held by Fleet Admiralty pending an investigation on charges of war crimes. On the line with us now, we have Mer Dustald-1 Alderly, CFS Vice Admiral, retired, who served with Strategy during the Cluster Campaigns, to discuss what this means for the Fleet. “
“Tactics like these do not represent the Fleet I served in.” Mer Alderly’s voice cracked, with age and with the strain of her agitation. “Maybe it’s a little easier to clear a defense installation in record time when you’re willing to weaken its base by destroying the friendly civilian habitation downlevel. Those people had suffered enough already at the hands of the Ceebees. The Fleet should have arrived as liberators. Instead this upstart captain made us murderers. And for what? A shot at an early promotion?”
“Vice Admiral, do you believe that when the charges are read tomorrow, we’ll learn wh—”
Triz slammed her wrist fob against the wallport and the screen went black and silent. She rested her forehead against the wallport for the space of a long, shuddering breath, and when she sat back, another light had gone on in the quadhome.
Quelian stood in the space between the portlounge and the galley. Already dressed for the workday, in a gray worksuit nearly the twin of Casne’s uniform, the rich undertones of his skin, the copper and bronze of exposed wires, had bled away; he looked like his own ghost. He’d always been a small man, practically a miniature next to his statuesque spouses and daughter, but now he’d all but shriveled away. “We ate with her last night,” he said. “She didn’t say anything about this.”