Shrouded Loyalties

by Reese Hogan

  “This way,” Blackwood got out, waving her hand ahead and to the left. “Past the officers’ quarters and through the tank yard. There’s a back gate.” She straightened, wincing as she moved her arm.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” said Klara Yana.

  “That storm in there messed with me somehow. I’m weak. Cold. But we can discuss that later.” She started forward, her gait considerably slower now. “If anyone asks, we’re running an errand. Don’t walk too fast, or too slow. And don’t look around too much.”

  “Yes, CSO.” Klara Yana stuck close to Blackwood’s shoulder. She pulled her fingerless gloves from her pocket and slid them back on as she walked. She didn’t check the gun she’d discreetly nabbed from Doctor Zurlig, while Blackwood was looking the other way, but she could feel its comforting bulk at the small of her back, beneath the thigh-length uniform jacket. It wasn’t until they’d passed the officers’ quarters and were heading past a metal warehouse that the sounds of pandemonium behind them dimmed, and Klara Yana dared to talk. Even then, she kept her voice as quiet as possible.

  “What’s the plan, CSO? You’re running?”

  Blackwood glared ahead like she intended to charge through the distant wall without stopping. “What happens if I stay, Holland?” she said, her lips barely moving. “You saw what they wanted to do. Now, after this… it’ll only get worse. They don’t have answers. And Zurlig – the things she told me – that’s not something I can ask about. There’s only one place we can hope to figure this mess out.”

  “Where’s that, ma’am?”

  “My parents. They left a couple boxes of notes behind. Zurlig mentioned a connection. There has to be something there. I’ll never get a chance to lay eyes on them if I report in now. I don’t like it, but this is the way things are.”

  They were experimenting on Onosylvani. Klara Yana had heard that much. She had also heard Zurlig’s dying warning. She was Dhavnak. Even if Blackwood hadn’t gotten the hint yet, it was clear as the wind to Klara Yana. Whatever had happened in that Belzene lab had happened because there had been a Dhavnak present. And Zurlig believed a Dhavnak was connected to their current situation as well. Was it true? Would Blackwood never have – what? Been given strange powers otherwise? If that’s what had happened? And what about me? Though her palm tingled with an almost painful self-consciousness now, pulling lightning from thin air seemed impossible. But Klara Yana had seen it. Blackwood’s mounting anger, the tightening of her fists, her unbridled focus. And now there was her unexplained weakness, as if the very act had taken more energy than she had to give. That mark was connected somehow.

  A human weapon. Something the Dhavnaks would be overjoyed to have. But the thought of telling them what she might be able to do filled her with as much dread as it did Blackwood. More.

  And there was another issue, even more uncomfortable. Blackwood had done it for her. If those scientists hadn’t been ready to sacrifice Klara Yana to their experiments, Blackwood might very well have cooperated. Now… it was a debt. And Klara Yana wasn’t in a great position to be indebted to a Belzene. It’s part of my job. Whether she saved my life or not. No such thing as debt when you’re gathering intel. She’d been doing the job a long time. The old words helped. Not a lot. But some.

  “You don’t have to come, Holland,” said Blackwood.

  Klara Yana suppressed a sigh. There it was again, that strange tendency of Belzenes to discard their comrades and strike out on their own. Where was the loyalty, the camaraderie? “I have a mark too, ma’am,” was all she said.

  “I could get in a lot of trouble for this. It’d be a shame to drag you down, too.”

  “I’m sticking by you, CSO.”

  Blackwood glanced at her, eyes flashing. Klara Yana knew she was remembering Zurlig’s accusation of her holding dekatite during the submarine accident. She would have to address it, and soon. But it wasn’t worth losing this chance to look at old pre-shrouding research – or letting Blackwood out of her sight.

  They passed into a yard of tanks, all of which were torn apart or damaged almost beyond repair; a tank graveyard, filled up before its time during the frequent invasions. Tracks with missing links dangled heavily over metal wheels. Turrets sat precariously unattached to the bodies, taken apart and left in disrepair. Armored plates were blown free and blackened, leaving motor compartments exposed. The reinforced helio-cells, normally shielded during combat but exposed now, hung skewed or detached, though very few had shattered. Bullet holes riddled the steel around them, though – huge, jagged tears as big around as Klara Yana’s fist. Most of them were of a height with her, or a little taller, with the bodies of the tanks at shoulder level. Blackwood strode around the broken tracks and side skirts with confidence, for all the world as if they had a right to be there. Her breathing seemed to have recovered, at least to Klara Yana’s ears. Maybe her mission had given her purpose.

  The back gate Blackwood had mentioned was in the far south wall. There was a single pair of guards on it – one Belzene, and the other, Klara Yana noticed with a start, Dhavnak. Well, Dhavnak-Belzene, no doubt. Klara Yana wondered if he’d been treated as badly as she had by people like Vin and Zurlig, or if he’d been employed long enough that folks had stopped noticing his pale skin and light hair. Maybe Belzen was diverse enough that they’d barely noticed to begin with. But somehow, she doubted it.

  The Belzene guard touched a radio at his belt as Blackwood and Klara Yana approached. Blackwood stopped and pressed her right fist to her left shoulder.

  “We were sent in response to the ongoing riots, sir,” she said. “Apparently, there’s another rise-up a couple blocks from here.”

  “Without weapons?” the guard said, a frown creasing his narrow face.

  “We’re meeting a team there. Please, sir. Time is of the essence.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Sergeant Lerner,” said Klara Yana quickly, stepping forward. “He’s busy dealing with whatever happened at the complex this morning, but said he’d send someone.”

  “What happened at the complex?”

  “I don’t know, sir. But it’s chaos that way. Far easier to head out here.” The two guards looked at each other. One picked up his radio. The other opened the gate and waved Klara Yana and Blackwood through.

  “That thunder, I told you,” she heard the Dhavnak say. Unlike her, he had an accent, giving a melodic hint to the staccato Belzene language. For just a second, Klara Yana’s step faltered. She almost turned back just to hear more. But the gate closed behind them, and his voice was gone.

  Blackwood immediately turned to the left, hands deep in her uniform pockets. “Who’s Sergeant Lerner?” she asked.

  “The one who drove us here yesterday, ma’am. The one who wouldn’t stop talking.”

  “He gave us his name?”

  “It was on his uniform.”

  “Huh. Good eye there, Holland.”

  Shon Aha was straight overhead now, and Bitu Lan an echoing sphere off to his right. Not a cloud to be seen, and hotter than her home country of Dhavnakir had been in its entire history. Klara Yana resisted the urge to fan her face; Blackwood seemed perfectly fine, as did every pedestrian they passed. Less mobies were out than the day before, despite it being midday. A pair of planes droned by overhead. People stopped to watch them, faces apprehensive, but Klara Yana knew by the quieter rumble that they were helio-powered Belzene models, rather than Dhavnak.

  She didn’t even glance up. She kept her eyes straight ahead, focused single-mindedly on fleshing out Deckman Kyle Holland’s character. Saying anything at all about the dekatite would be a huge risk. But if she didn’t, Blackwood would wonder from then on out if she was hiding something. Klara Yana knew she had to nip this doubt before it grew, or the operation would be tanked. Young and unsure of myself. Thrown in over my head. But with a dark secret.

  The sound of the planes receded to the south. Klara Yana walked with her left hand clamped around her right wrist behind her bac
k. It would take her half a second to twitch the long coat aside and pull the pistol should the need arise.

  “CSO,” she said, and her voice came out steady, if a bit too breathy. Perfect. “I made a mistake. A big one.”

  Blackwood looked at her now – not just a glance, but a searching stare, as if her dark eyes could penetrate her.

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t make me ask,” she said with a small nod. “Please. Continue.”

  “I was thirteen. I woke up in the middle of the night and heard my mother…” she swallowed, “…screaming. Crying. Fighting someone. I got up. Ran into her bedroom. There were two men in there with her. Pale skin, light hair. She was naked. Bleeding. She yelled at me, ‘Kyle, go back to your room. Now!’ But there was no one else there to help. I pulled a big framed picture off the wall – wide as my outstretched arms – and smashed it over the closer guy’s head. He didn’t fall. Just got mad. He shoved me back into the wall. Mother screamed again. I didn’t see much. I fell, and there was a big shard of glass by me. I grabbed it up, slashed at the guy’s throat. Blood sprayed. He hit me again, hard. And I… that was it. It went black. When I woke up again…”

  She allowed her voice to falter, but the set of her jaw was real. Parts of the story were true, but not all. She had never run in to try to stop her step-apa’s brutality. Instead, she’d lain in bed, hands tight over her ears and sobs wracking her body. She’d been much younger than thirteen.

  Blackwood was still watching her, but a slight crease of her brow betrayed an emotion lurking beneath. Sorrow? Anger? Revulsion? Klara Yana wasn’t sure. She kept her own face as hard as possible, the way a man would if he was forced to share a childhood story like this.

  “When I woke up again, my mother was gone. All that was left was blood. Hers. Theirs. And – and one other thing. A necklace. The string was severed, cut when I sliced the Dhavvie’s throat. I took off the pendant. I’ve kept it with me ever since. To remind me of what they took. What they’re capable of.” She thinned her lips. “What I’m fighting for.”

  “And the pendant is dekatite,” Blackwood finished.

  “Y- Yes, ma’am.”

  “You were told before you got on the submarine, weren’t you?”

  “I…”

  “Weren’t you, Holland?”

  Klara Yana, expecting this, made herself flinch. “I knew the rules. But I kept it with me at the academy, and I always thought if I got assigned to a shrouding submarine, I’d have time to find somewhere for it. But that morning, with everything so crazy, it completely slipped my mind. It wasn’t until you mentioned it just before the attack that I remembered.”

  “And what, exactly, stopped you from saying something then?”

  “I’m sorry,” Klara Yana said. “I was afraid I’d be expelled from the navy. I thought…”

  “You could have killed the entire crew!” Blackwood’s face was reddening with anger now, her jaw tightening. Klara Yana couldn’t help but remember the way she’d slammed Vin against the submarine wall. And Vo Hina’s mercy, what about that lightning? If she could strike Doctor Zurlig on a whim…!

  She held a handful of fabric between her finger and thumb, right hand half-open to grab for that gun.

  “I’m sorry, CSO,” she said again. “I am so sorry.”

  Blackwood didn’t answer right away, just stared straight ahead as she walked, drawing in a series of deep breaths. Her lips moved around her clenched teeth. Klara Yana pretended to watch her feet, but was very careful not to look away.

  “What about Vin’s chain?” Blackwood finally said.

  “I don’t know the first thing about Vin’s chain. I’ve never put the pendant on a chain or cord of any kind.”

  “But you were happy to let him take the fall.”

  “I’m not proud of it, CSO.”

  “And you were holding the pendant in your hand? Why?”

  Finally. A truth. “I thought to somehow get it off the boat. To appease the monsters before they killed us.”

  “Were you successful? Is that why we were left alone?”

  “No, CSO. I still have it.”

  “Show it to me.”

  Klara Yana forced herself to unclench her hands and bring them to her front. Blackwood stopped in the road and let a bicycle maneuver around them. She held out her hand. Klara Yana reached into the inside pocket of the uniform jacket and pulled the pendant out. With great reluctance, she laid it in Blackwood’s palm.

  Blackwood looked for a long time at the shape of the eye inside the glittering circle, with its pupil shattered into sharp edges. Klara Yana stood stiffly in front of her, fingers twitching with the effort not to snatch it back. She was fully aware Blackwood might confiscate it. Might hold it until Klara Yana faced trial. It would be used as evidence, kept in some Belzene officer’s desk alongside his old paperclips and ration cards.

  “The Broken Eye,” said Blackwood softly. “Your mother’s attacker worshipped Vo Hina, the Informer. I can’t quite fathom that.”

  “Isn’t Vo Hina their… their evil god? So maybe, I don’t know, some sort of cult worshipper?”

  “It’s not that easy,” said Blackwood. “I’ve long assumed that any Vo Hina worshippers would have to be female, since very few Dhavnak men would look up to a woman, divine or otherwise. And a rapist would clearly not fall into that ‘very few’ category.”

  “Maybe he stole it from another victim of his?” Klara Yana said.

  “And wore it around his neck?” Blackwood handed it back, her face tight. “The way Dhavnak men are… Guess you never know,” she said, a slight hint of disgust to her voice.

  Klara Yana felt a surge of irritation to hear all Dhavnaks lumped together so casually. Yes, men like her step-apa were bad, but surely there were men like that in Belzen, too. Every country had them. Dhavnakir had plenty of good men as well. Foreigners like Blackwood just assumed all women were miserable there. They didn’t see how integral a part Dhavnak women played in raising and educating the next generation, or how in Dhavnak society, a child would never have been left to raise himself at the age of fifteen. They didn’t see how those solid communal foundations had made them stronger as a country. They only saw what they wanted to. Enemies and persecutors.

  Klara Yana took the pendant and tucked it back in her jacket. Blackwood resumed walking, and Klara Yana joined her. Several long moments passed before the chief sea officer spoke again.

  “Your story,” she said. “It doesn’t add up.”

  Klara Yana’s heart jumped. I really am going to have to kill her.

  “You told me this morning that at least ten years had passed since your mother disappeared. So how old were you really when you cut that man’s throat?”

  Right. Blackwood probably had her pegged as a boy of twenty-one cycles, if not younger. “Nine,” she said.

  “Xeil’s grace,” muttered Blackwood. “Well, I guess this explains why you were so adamant that your mother wasn’t from Dhavnakir. And why you were willing to chase a Dhavnak sniper into a dark building.”

  “Yes, CSO.”

  “I won’t report this, Holland. But I am putting in your record, as soon as I get the chance, that you are unfit to shroud, ever again. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, CSO. Clearly.”

  “And if anyone had died on that boat, you better believe I’d be hauling you in this second.”

  “Yes, ma’am. If anyone had died, I’d have brought myself in by now.”

  Neither of them mentioned the scientists. It was a connection they weren’t openly acknowledging yet. Klara Yana finally allowed her breath to come easy again. She had gambled, and it had paid off.

  Silence hung heavy between them until they turned onto a side street a good hour’s walk from where they’d started. Klara Yana blinked in surprise to see the street name on the skewed plate at the corner. Bellamy Road. They were close to Cu Zanthus’s drop site. Very close.

  Blackwood stopped at a brick townhouse with five concrete step
s leading up to a green-painted door. Both steps and paint were in poor repair, though the house itself was a nice one, judging by the scrollwork on the steel railings and fancy ironwood shutters.

  Klara Yana started to follow Blackwood up. Blackwood turned. “Wait out here.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “My brother and I aren’t on great terms. And he has a weird attachment to these notes. I’m not sure yet how this’ll go.”

  “Didn’t you say you wanted me to meet him?”

  “Yes… maybe. But not like this.”

  “OK, ma’am,” said Klara Yana, backing down the steps. “How long should I give you?”

  Blackwood glanced at the front door again, and Klara Yana saw how much she was dreading the coming encounter. “No idea. If everything goes well, we can both stay here a few days while I search ’em through. But if Andrew gets unreasonable…” She shook her head, chuckling humorlessly under her breath. “If. Ha.” She turned back toward the door, waving her other hand to the side of the steps. “Just hunker down, Holland. I’ll let you know soon enough.”

  “Right, CSO.” Klara Yana retreated to the side of the house and lowered herself to a crouch under the embossed number twenty-three. She peered up, watching Blackwood pound on the door with her fist.

  “Andrew! It’s me!” Blackwood called.

  There was no immediate answer. Klara Yana allowed her eyes to scan the other houses in the neighborhood. Twenty-eight, twenty-eight… The one half-fallen across the street had a twenty-nine. She frowned.