To the Victor

by R Coots

  Jossa urped and leaned to the side, leaving a trail of stomach contents on the deck. He growled and scooped her up in one arm, Delfi in the other. It didn’t help very much, except that they weren’t trying to move and vomit at the same time. Jossa bit her lip to keep her mouth shut on the rest of her stomach’s rebellion. There wasn’t anything left down there but bile. Maybe not even that.

  “You two always get like this when you foretell?” He was almost conversational about it, damn the man.

  Delfi croaked a negative. Jossa shook her head. “Not in a long time. Cryo probably had something to do with it. We’re out of—Wait. You didn’t have that before.” Forgetting her stomach, the alarms, and the fact that she was so much baggage to the man carrying her, Jossa squirmed around and pulled at his shirt. He growled and tried to drag her away, but the hall was too narrow for him to do much more than make her reach a little further.

  “Get the fuck off or I’ll drop both of you.”

  A bare foot caught Jossa in the ribs. Delfi. Her sister was climbing the man like a tree. Jossa wished she’d thought of that. On the other hand, she didn’t exactly want to go wrapping her legs around him so soon. While he was busy trying to detach the bipedal shellfish he’d acquired on the one side, Jossa reached up and yanked on his collar.

  She was right. The seven-ringed gas planet of a mechute, with a unit number under it, stared back at her from the skin over his carotid artery. He snarled at her and let go. She hit the deck with a thud and a yelp, scrambled to her feet, and went limping after him. “Why do you have that now when you didn’t before?” she half yelled at his back.

  “Maybe you just weren’t paying attention,” he snarled over his shoulder. How he was making any forward progress while trying to get Delfi loose was a mystery, but he was managing. Oddly enough, his emotions were still locked under heavy shields. Jossa tried to touch Del’s mind to see what her sister might be picking up, but Del was focused on the warlord. Nothing Jossa could do would get through to her.

  “I’m not some Edgeworld commoner. I was practically chewing on that spot. I would have noticed if you had tha—Del! Look out!” The warlord turned and rammed himself backwards at the wall. Del, who’d worked her way around to his back and was trying to pull his shirt out of his pants, dropped just in time.

  Before she could pop back up, he spun, picked her up by the shoulder, and turned her around to face him. “Take a look at your sousi then.” Before Del could wiggle away or fight back, he pulled her hair to the front, exposing her back, and shoved her towards Jossa.

  Jossa felt her jaw go slack. She would have never believed it was possible if the proof hadn’t been staring her in the face. But there it was.

  Jossa reached out a trembling hand and traced it down Delfi’s spine. She felt a distant echo of triumph ring in her head as the warlord’s shields slipped. But she couldn’t take her eyes off what had happened to Del.

  ::What did he do?:: her sister asked, her voice more subdued than ever before.

  “Your maruste,” Jossa whispered. She’d seen this pattern. How long ago? On one of the concubines in his quarters, maybe? Yes, that seemed right.

  “Did yours too. Memorize them. Don’t take all day about it. Then get dressed. Your clothes are in your bunk. Next set of alarms means they’re about to board.” With that comforting remark, the warlord left them there in the hallway.

  Delfi managed to stand still for all of two seconds before spinning around and pawing at her sister. Jossa let her, still trying to process the implications. Now she understood why she felt like someone had plugged her into a generator and cranked the power up to eleven. She’d been erased. In one of the most basic ways possible. He’d taken away her identity. Her history. And given her an entirely new one. It was sacrilege of the worst sort. It was a blessing of the highest order.

  In all the years they’d run, she and Del had never managed that. They’d used every other method of disguise they could think of. But how hard had they tried to actually change their maruste instead of camouflaging it? Could they have found someone with the technology to do so? Obviously, it existed. He had it. How did he have it? How did he just have it lying around? He’d been with Fleet for . . . years, at least! How was this possible? How long had it been possible? Had it existed before they’d got into cryo? She could have stayed with Rui. They could have just vanished. Could have kept running. If only they’d had something like—She should have looked for more ways to hide. Then she would never have had to—

  “Joss!” Panic again, burning its way through her skin like acid. And then calm. Cool hands on her face, a slight pulling sensation, and the swirling thoughts settled. Laid themselves out in an orderly fashion. Became themselves again.

  ::Joss.:: Delfi crouched in front of her on the deck, holding Jossa’s face in her hands, forehead pressed to hers.

  “I did it again?” Jossa said, lacing her fingers with Delfi’s. It wasn’t a question that needed answering. “I’m so glad you’re awake, Del.”

  ::Maudlin.:: Del kissed her on the forehead, then stood. ::Come on. He’s planning something. But he’s still shielded. And if we’re about to be boarded by Imperial forces, you need clothes.::

  Jossa flushed as she remembered that she’d run right out of their bunk and up to the warlord without a stitch on. Without even checking to see where her clothes were. She’d forgotten how disorienting the translations could be.

  Then she noticed that the insides of her thighs were sticky all the way to the knee. Right on the heels of that came the awareness that she stank like a whorehouse.

  She opened her mouth to ask Delfi if she remembered where the head was from their previous exploration of the ship, then stopped.

  ::What?:: Del asked, tugging on Jossa’s hands.

  Jossa let herself be pulled to her feet, still thinking.

  “Joss . . .” Even accented in He’la, Delfi’s voice was equal parts amused and exasperated.

  “I need a rag,” Jossa said. “Fast, before he notices we’re taking too long.”

  >Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jossa

  A masker doesn’t work on empty air and dreams. To rewrite someone’s life history, you need to splice in the parts you want to replace. In short, you need new DNA. Blood works best. Easiest to get and to test.

  -advice to a young recruit

  Jossa and Delfi found clothes in a battered travel bag in their bunk. Jossa hadn’t realized how much she’d missed pants. Even though she didn’t have any underthings. No rags either. Delfi sacrificed the hem of her shirt and Jossa did her best to clean the mess of drying seminal fluid from her legs. Ancestors be praised, Delfi’s clothes had pockets, although Jossa’s didn’t. Del frowned as Jossa tucked the sticky rag into one of the hip pockets, but didn’t try to get away. ::That’s just gross,:: she muttered through the mind bond.

  Jossa grabbed her sister by the wrist and dragged her out the door, heart pounding with fear. Any second now he’d be back, wanting to know what was taking them so long. He’d realize they were hiding something. She couldn’t let him figure it out. Nobody could know.

  ::Not even me?:: Del yanked her hand away from Jossa, but trotted to keep up with her sister’s longer stride. ::Or are you going to let me flail around in the dark?::

  They stepped into the bridge and Jossa felt the reply fly right out of her brain. She halted mid-stride, barely noticing when Delfi barked in surprise and stumbled into her. Grumbling and rubbing her nose, Delfi elbowed her way around her sister and onto the bridge.

  The warlord had a blood-sample tube stuck in his arm.

  “Took you long enough,” the warlord said. No—Syrus. She had to remember his name was Syrus; he wasn’t Warlord here. He pulled the needle free, not bothering to put pressure on the vein he’d been drawing from. Popping the tube loose from the syringe, he laid it on the console, where two others already lay.

  Jossa snagged Delfi by the back of the shirt before she could go poke at the tube. Know
ing her, she’d destroy them, just because she could. Syrus looked up from bending the tip of the needle against the control panel in time to catch the motion and laughed. “Wouldn’t mess with those. You get her to cooperate with the plan yet?”

  It took Jossa a second to realize the last bit was directed at her. “I haven’t had the time, what with the vomit and the panic,” Jossa said faintly, pushing ::Wait, wait, wait:: down the bond at Delfi. She couldn’t deflect Syrus and explain to her sister at the same time.

  “Do it fast. They’ll be locking on in a few minutes.” He dropped the damaged needle in a refuse slot in the wall and rolled his shirt sleeve back down. “You’ll want to put up whatever shields you can. Looks like fucking someone’s brains out anywhere within half a solar system of the Barbican’s guard base is enough to have their Feels send out the scouts.”

  It wasn’t until the wave of smugness hit her that Jossa realized she hadn’t been able to find him with her sai since she’d entered the bridge. Not ten feet away, and it was as if he wasn’t even there.

  The ship-to-ship beeped, cutting off any reply Jossa might have made. It was just as well. She was so busy gasping in fury that the next thing she said might have brought her death instead. Delfi knew what to call him though. The things she muttered in He’la were enough to turn the air colors.

  Jossa put her hands on her hips, knowing she looked the farthest thing from threatening. He might have his emotions contained so she couldn’t read them, but she could still push her’s at him. He’d feel something.

  He did. His body stiffened and his hand clenched on the back of the pilot’s chair, but he kept his face relaxed. “Running out of time here. Jossa made a deal.” He gave her a look that could only be described as hungry. “You were knocked out.” He turned to Del. “Might want to reconsider your temperamental inclinations, if you don’t want them to find out who you really are and stuff you in lockup till they find a high bidder for your ovaries.”

  “Zhuzhu helao wehsiae kashyj,” Del snarled. “Ohkshuae nih.”

  Syrus raised an eyebrow. Jossa glared and translated for him. He laughed. “I do know big words. Oughta get paid extra for the syllables too.” All humor left his face. “You gonna cooperate or what?”

  Delfi told him she’d rather muck out dragonets’ stables.

  Feet on toes made for a horrible weapon when you were trying to distract someone as oblivious and angry as Del was, but Jossa gave it a try anyway. “Shut up,” she hissed. Just because the warlord didn’t understand, it didn’t mean Delfi was helping the situation any.

  “Look, told you before, I can improvise here,” the warlord said, apparently ignoring Delfi. She’d moved on to less far-fetched and more practical insults. Jossa was glad the tirade was in He’la. If Syrus got some of that in his head, he might actually follow through.

  Oblivious to Jossa’s worries, the warlord kept going. “It’ll be shittier and it’s not part of the plan, but step one of improvising is to kill the two of you and tell them you panicked. Couldn’t be helped.” He held one hand over the call button and the other over one of the hilts clipped to his belt. His teeth were white in his face, but he wasn’t smiling. His face was a rictus of death.

  Jossa shifted her weight to the balls of her feet. Next to her, Del shut up and followed suit. If Syrus thought they’d go down without a fight, he was highly mistaken.

  His mockery of a smile stretched wider. “Or the two of you can keep quiet and think of why you ran from the Empire in the first place.”

  Jossa dropped back on her heels, staring. Ancestors behind, he was right. She kept getting caught up in dominance games with this man when she should be thinking of how best to escape as soon as they made it to this base.

  Apparently, he took her lack of reply as agreement, because his hand hit the call button.

  Del reached out and slipped her hand into Jossa’s, squeezing so hard her bones creaked. ::Now’s a good time to explain,:: she said, her mental voice flat.

  Jossa squeezed her sister’s hand and leaned in to lay her head on her shoulder. The encrypted garble on the viewport cleared, revealing a man’s face, smooth and young. Dimly, Jossa heard something about time and not enough of it, but she wasn’t paying attention. ::Look at me,:: she said, opening up the bond so Delfi could see into her mind. ::Look at why I kept the rag. He’s Imperial. Remember. Blood opens all doors.::

  >Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Syrus

  Stay out of the Uvlaku quarters. They’re animals. The only reason they’re here instead of dead is because the high-ups think turning berserker killers loose on the enemy is ok, so long as we hide the unit inside the command structure and deny it ever existed.

  -advice to a young recruit

  Syrus stood in front of the hatch, waiting. He’d stripped himself of weapons, piling them on the deck by his feet, and held the tubes of blood out away from his body. Jossa’s and Delfi’s in one hand, his in the other.

  None of the prep work would matter if the soldiers on the other side of the airlock couldn’t get the fucking thing open. He must have cut things a little closer than he’d thought in that mock battle against Oona’s vacuum jockeys as they’d left the Fleet. Or else the fighters had been putting more effort into the ruse than they were supposed to. Either way, he hoped the damage to the airlock hadn’t made it completely inoperable. The Jikujoj class fighters covering the patrol cruiser would blow the whole ship to bits rather than let him near the base without verifying his identity.

  Not his. He had a handle on himself. The women, though. He turned to look. They stood behind him, holding hands and doing a passable impression of terrified children.

  He didn’t trust them for a moment. If they waited more than half a second after the hatch opened to scream for help, he’d be surprised. Shoulda just killed them once they came to their senses and started digging in their heels. Hell, shoulda never brought them along. He’d known it was a risk. Quinn and Iira and Oona had been right. They could blow this whole thing out into vacuum.

  Why the fuck had he even pulled them out of cryo in the first place? Stupid soft-hearted pity. He might as well have overripe fruit for a brain, as much good as it did him.

  Too late now. There were people right outside. Having the hatch open on a couple of dead bodies would move his execution date up from "sometime soon" to "right the hell now". Definitely not what he needed. He’d just have to—

  On cue, the last of the manual overrides kicked in and the damaged machinery of the ship’s airlock ground and squealed its way into motion. He winced at the noise. The women behind him went from worry to alarm. And then, of all things, humor. He twitched. The cool, bubbling feeling was beyond bizarre. He locked himself down again before his surprise could escape the shield he held over himself.

  Luckily, he expected the guns the soldiers aimed his way.

  He raised his hands, making sure the man saw the three vials of blood. And waited. If he hadn’t known Jossa and Delfi were capable of their own brand of mayhem and mental destruction, he would have believed the terror radiating off them as they squeaked and edged closer to him. Quick on the uptake, those two. And well trained, to be able to fake emotions so well that another Feel would think they were for real.

  “Mechute, sar,” said one of the soldiers. Respect to a ranking officer in High Imperial, as was proper. That would change here in a minute. “Turn around and remove your shirt please, sar.”

  “Someone better take these first.” He held the blood samples out to the soldiers. “Me.” He waggled his right hand. “Them.” He jerked his chin at the girls and tipped his left hand. “Don’t drop them. Had a hell of a time getting them to sit still long enough to make the draw. They got issues with needles.”

  One of the men reached out carefully and took the samples, then edged back and passed them off behind him. Someone else took them, then vanished around the corner. Leaving Syrus with nothing to do but turn around and take off his shirt.

  Well, i
t was going to happen sooner or later.

  Reminding himself that he was the one who’d come up with this plan in the first place, knowing full well that it would come to this, he eased his arms up over his head as he turned slowly on his heel.

  The women watched him, still holding on to their masks of terror. But now he knew them a little better. Much better than the soldiers behind him. Speculation hid in Jossa’s eyes. Delfi had both arms wrapped around her sousi and her face hidden in Jossa’s shoulder. But they knew something. What had they picked up? When?

  He clamped his shields tighter and pulled his shirt off. Then stood there and waited. One of the soldiers behind him inched forward and pressed the muzzle of his weapon to the back of Syrus’s head. A heartbeat later, the other one touched the cold tip of an activator to his neck.

  The air lit up a deep orange.

  The soldiers behind him went from closed and guarded, seeping just a bit of suspicion, to full-blown contempt. Then their training kicked in and they clammed right up again. Jossa flinched. Delfi’s eyes narrowed. He glared at them, daring them to say anything, even in He’la. He’d know it. There was one He’la word that everyone knew.

  It hovered in the air over his shoulders. Brighter and larger than the two bond-contracts, the only other marks he’d been given. The word overrode anything else his nanites, his blood, would have shown.

  Nehkeh. Savage. No family lineage. No House, adoptions, or background. Nehkeh didn’t get their histories activated in childhood. No. They got the loopy, fucked-up scribble the Foreseers used. It told everyone exactly what he was. Animal. Non-human. A gutter rat thrown to the military when it was decided he was too dangerous running around loose. The rank and unit number on his neck weren’t points in his favor, either. Everyone in the Uvlaku came from the same place as him. All the rejects, sent to die together.

  Jossa and Delfi’s eyes grew bigger, if it were possible. Their false fronts were getting shaky.