WinterStar

by Blaze Ward

  “Daniel?” she asked quietly as he lay there.

  All the women were poised for violence.

  “Where am I?” the chef’s voice came from an extremely distant place.

  “Are you back?” she pressed.

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “I remember talking to Kathra and Areen, and being cold, and now a very cold deck. What happened?”

  “You were sleep-walking, Daniel,” Areen said. “I couldn’t wake you up and didn’t want to leave you so that I could get more help.”

  His head turned that way and Erin felt the flinch pass through his whole body.

  “Why are you naked?” he asked in a much more nervous voice.

  “I will explain it to you another time,” the woman replied in a tight tone.

  “Okay,” he said. “I think I’m okay. Could someone wake the Commander up?”

  “Already did,” Erin heard Ndidi call from the hatchway.

  “Thank you,” Daniel said. “Who’s on top of me?”

  “I am,” Erin replied, sliding her weight backwards off his hips so that she could stand and step to a side before he could kick at her.

  Not that she didn’t trust the chef, but she wasn’t sure who else might be in there with him right now.

  Daniel moved slowly. Not carefully, like he was surrounded by armed warriors, but gently, as if tired and sore. When he was on his back, he just lay there for a moment, looking up at them.

  “You okay?” Areen asked.

  She watched him ogle the warrior’s nudity for a moment, but he remained horizontal.

  “I’m afraid to ever go to sleep again,” she heard the man whisper.

  Erin could understand that concept.

  “You stay put and rest,” Erin ordered him. “Kathra will be along shortly.”

  “Yes,” Daniel said. “I have to kill that violeur. Or you do. Somebody. Soon.”

  It didn’t make any sense to Erin, but she didn’t think it made any more to Daniel, and he had to live with it.

  Kathra and Iruoma arrived at almost the same instant, pounding down the corridor outside and only stopping to turn the corner.

  Erin saw the Commander smile as she crouched down next to the chef.

  “Finally discovered your place in life, groveling at the feet of every woman you meet?” she teased lightly.

  Interestingly, that only got a half-smile from the man. He must be well down the path now.

  “Maybe,” Daniel finally said. “I’d like to get up, if you think it’s safe.”

  Erin reached out a hand and pulled the chef to his feet. He was a little woozy, but held himself close and tight. It helped that every woman in the room was at least his size.

  He turned to face the boxes that Erin had supervised storing on the various shelves along the side wall, without moving his feet at all.

  “Big one is the body,” Daniel said, pointing. “Gray box with the red paint splotch holds the suit he was wearing. Small box at the bottom of the top stack on the right is the gem. Round bin with the green lid holds Urid-Varg himself.”

  He turned back to them with eyes that looked a million years old.

  “You can hear him,” Kathra said.

  It wasn’t a question.

  “I can,” Daniel said. “Salaud had an insurance policy in place for all this, but never imagined that he would need to use it. Nobody had ever resisted him before.”

  “Why were you able to?” Kathra asked.

  That brought the first smile to his face that Erin had seen all day.

  “You,” he laughed and gestured at the room. “The mighty and dangerous Kathra Omezi. Commander of the Mbaysey and her deadly comitatus. He never imagined you would actually have a male on your ship, so he didn’t bother to look for one when he cast whatever spiderweb he was using to hunt. Since then, he’s been trying to get me to replace his last host, and you all have saved me time and again. Now I want to kill him. Want you to kill him. I can’t do it. In fact, you’ll probably have to hurt me to stop me, when you go after him.”

  Erin didn’t hesitate or ask. She slipped behind the man and wrapped her arms under his and up to his neck, where he couldn’t do anything except maybe kick backwards at her shins. To stop that, she pressed down, putting her weight forward into his, so that if he lifted a foot, she’d be able to drive him face-first into the deck in such a way that he probably wouldn’t break his neck.

  If they were all lucky.

  And she cared.

  “Good,” he said, unresisting. “I have to say this fast, so listen, and then ignore me later when I change my mind. You have to crush the platinum setting, and later melt it. If you do that he’s…”

  Erin felt the man suddenly stiffen for a moment. A growl escaped his lips, along with the sound of grinding teeth.

  “Hurry,” Daniel whispered.

  It felt like two men fighting over one body as she kept him pinned and helpless.

  Kathra moved, pulling the bin down to the deck at her feet and ripping the green lid off to fall somewhere behind her.

  Erin had put the thing in there earlier, resting on a towel with several centimeters of breast bone still attached around the edges. The smell wasn’t bad, because they had washed it, and it had already been a brittle mummy at that point.

  Daniel tried to move forward. Or Urid-Varg. Whoever.

  “No, you must not,” a different voice emerged from the man’s mouth now. Deeper. Louder. Desperate. “I will give you anything you wish, but you must not.”

  Kathra looked up at the chef for a haunting moment, like perhaps she was considering the offer from the undead creature that had stolen her cook.

  “Such as?” Kathra asked in a voice like a puma waiting in a tree.

  “Power,” Urid-Varg offered, perhaps relaxing. “Wealth. Whatever the Mbaysey need to defeat the Sept, or conquer them. It shall be yours.”

  Urid-Varg might have been a mighty warrior, but he had still chosen a small human male as his vessel. Needs must when the devil drives, Erin supposed.

  She felt the body tense.

  Erin lifted Daniel bodily off the floor so suddenly the alien voice squawked in surprise. She shook him once or twice as he seemed to be about to do something that probably wasn’t going to be friendly or even polite.

  Kathra drew her particle beam pistol and fired several shots into the bucket as fast as the mechanism would cycle. Urid-Varg screamed in a bass so deep it was almost inaudible, except for where Erin felt it in the bones of her chest as it tapered off to nothingness.

  He slumped in Erin’s arms and relaxed.

  “Did you get him?” Daniel asked quietly after a few moments.

  “I did,” Kathra said, looking down at the remains of the bin at her feet. “Is he dead?”

  A particle cannon accelerated a packet of ionized plasma inside a magnetic pinch at a target, where it ruptured on impact, imparting heat and, more importantly, kinetic energy.

  The bin had ruptured. Pieces of it had been shattered all over the floor, along with bits of bone, metal, and what looked like ceramics.

  “Yeah,” Daniel gasped in shock. “God, I haven’t felt this good all day. It was like that shit was sitting on my head, tapping me with a hammer constantly.”

  Kathra holstered her pistol and nodded at Erin, apparently convinced that her chef was back. Certainly, he was a lot tougher than Erin had ever given the man credit for, and he had stood up to her more than once.

  Maybe all men weren’t such weak and easily-swayed creatures. Color didn’t seem to factor in, as the Anglos, Spanics, Rabics, or Asian men she had known had all been wimpy little homemakers.

  Or Sept soldiers intent on reclaiming the Mbaysey back into the Imperial fold if Kathra would let them.

  Erin set Daniel down and let go of the grip on his neck, stepping back and to one side to look the man in the face.

  His eyes had changed. There had been a cloud in there earlier, recognizable now only because it was gone.

  He leane
d back and pulled a huge breath into his lungs, like he hadn’t been able to breathe for hours. Maybe he hadn’t, she wasn’t a good judge.

  But he was good at fighting it off. Urid-Varg had apparently never run into someone stubborn enough to say no to him. It. Them. Whatever they were.

  Her own head had cleared, so Erin was sure that the creature was dead. It had been trying to control them, but without the gem, he had just been an annoying gnat flying around. Perhaps his power was gendered, as Daniel had said earlier, so he couldn’t ride a female. Not that any of these would have allowed it, but he wouldn’t have known that.

  Kathra Omezi and her comitatus. Even the Sept knew fear at that name.

  Daniel turned in place, surrounded by all these warriors, and Erin was willing to include Ndidi in that group, as she had been standing close enough to help, but not get in the way.

  He stopped when he was facing Areen.

  “Are your clothes in my cabin, and I have no memory of it?” he asked diffidently.

  Areen smiled and tilted her head at the man.

  “Apparently, it just wasn’t that good?” she teased him, comfortably nude and almost close enough to touch the man.

  “I would love to rectify that oversight,” Daniel shrugged. “But not now. Could someone give me a sleeping pill and set an alarm clock for spring?”

  Kathra nodded at them and Areen took Daniel’s arm in hers leading him presumably to medbay. Ndidi recovered her coffee and took off forward to handle breakfast for the warriors. Erin left Joane here just in case, while she followed Kathra up and forward to the bridge.

  “Now what?” Erin asked as they crossed over into the central hull and floated finally without gravity.

  Or listeners.

  “Now we figure out if anybody can do anything with that damned turtle, with its master dead,” Kathra murmured back.

  “You think Daniel’s up for it?” Erin asked.

  It was obvious that the chef was going to have to be central to whatever they attempted.

  “If I thought he would swear the oath, I’d add that man to my comitatus, Erin. Just to show the rest of you what tough really is,” Kathra grinned.

  Erin grinned back.

  Who imagined a cook had that in him?

  Part III

  Conqueror

  21

  He hoped it was spring when he opened his eyes. That had been what Daniel had requested. He was in his bunk, in his cabin, just from the smells before he opened his eyes.

  Daniel laid perfectly still under the covers and let his senses reach out. He didn’t seem to be sharing the inside of his head with anyone, for the first time in… (was it days?). He was wearing a T-shirt and briefs, but nothing else. WinterStar was always warmer than he had ever kept his flat, but he had learned to sleep at this temperature. Instead of a heavy comforter and maybe a quilt, he usually just had a thin blanket and a shirt to sleep in, and that kept him warm enough to sleep.

  The women of the comitatus controlled the thermostat on this ship.

  Daniel was on his left side, facing the hatch. Someone had left the lights one setting above dark. Not enough to read by, but enough to see colors. He opened his eyes, looking on the floor or the chair for Areen’s clothes.

  They had indeed been there when she led him back to his cabin after…that.

  Daniel knew that every man and a number of the women he had known would have been jealous, to see him with such a beautiful, athletic, naked woman on his arm like it was the most natural thing in the world, but he had had nothing at all left when they got back.

  Chuck the pill into his mouth and swallow it dry. Strip off his pants and crawl back into bed while Areen watched. He couldn’t hear her breathing behind him, so he reached one hand back tentatively, but he was indeed alone in his bunk.

  Probably for the best.

  Daniel took a deep breath and rolled onto his back. At some point, they would make him get out of bed. Or his bladder would. Ship-time said mid-morning when he finally turned to look at the clock.

  Not spring, but also not early enough to fix breakfast for his charges. Ndidi could handle that for one more day. Or three. Maybe forever. Daniel wasn’t sure how long he wanted to remain on this ship.

  Or if he could actually leave.

  Another deep breath. His body was awake now, warming up to the point that the blanket would have to go shortly.

  And his bladder was going to win anyway. Daniel sighed and pivoted, putting his feet down on the deck and sitting upright like he was afraid his head would fall off.

  Except it didn’t hurt this morning. There was nobody trying to get in or out with an icepick. He had almost forgotten what that felt like.

  Another sigh. It might have been better to wake up next to someone, although he was pretty sure he could never tell anyone that. Especially not these women, and Kathra kept him largely isolated from the staff-side of the crew.

  He was certainly over Angel now, to the point he had to stop and remember what she looked like. And who that Daniel Lémieux had been, once upon a time.

  He wasn’t even the same man that had first set foot on this deck so many months ago.

  More sleep? Didn’t sound rewarding. Wherever he had gone with the drugs in his system, they had washed out now and he was back to the land of the living.

  Or the undead. But he was pretty sure that Urid-Varg was gone. Hopefully that salaud didn’t have any other backups over on that turtle, waiting like trapdoor spiders for whoever came along. Because Daniel knew that Kathra Omezi was going over there next, and would probably be expecting her chef/assassin to join her.

  Third sigh. Daniel stood up before it decided to become a habit. His cabin was actually a suite, tucked off from his kitchen but not directly connected, so he could come and go without having to participate in breakfast with everyone this morning. It also meant that he had his own bathroom without leaving. That was good.

  He stripped and waddled carefully into the bathroom, unsure at what point he would come apart like a marionette with its strings cut. Morning ablutions and such took longer, but that was because he just stood still under the hottest water he could stand and let it wash as much of the last few days off as he could get without a wire brush.

  That might be necessary later.

  Out into his cabin and dressed, he looked around, as if seeing everything again for the first time. He had been a bachelor for so long that everything was put away or latched down. Spaceships were unforgiving places, as were kitchens, so you learned early to keep everything organized. Not necessarily spotless, but such that you could find anything in total darkness, and not have problems in gravity field failures.

  Bon.

  He approached the main hatch and just stood there for several seconds, staring at the inside of the thing like he could see through it. Or maybe it was a djinn who would come alive and explain everything to him. Perhaps what this silly shit needed right now was a good narrator to explain all the strange parts to latecomers. There were a lot of strange parts.

  Yes, it was going to be that sort of a day.

  Daniel reached out to key the hatch open. Nothing happened, but he wasn’t particularly surprised.

  He wouldn’t trust him either, right now. Instead, he reached for the comm line to the one person he would have to convince. Of his sanity. His reliability. Whatever.

  “Hello, Daniel,” Kathra replied. “How are you feeling?”

  22

  When there are no trained doctors within light-years, you learn to invest in the best medbots you can afford, and keep them up to date or replace them when something better comes along. Thus, Kathra knew almost to the minute when Daniel should awaken, based on the dosage Areen had given him.

  She had slept. Eaten. Prepared.

  The Star Turtle had not moved one bit, except as gravity and solar wind played on the hull. Spectre Twenty-One had gone and met up with the tribal squadron, updating them on all the news since they had fled. Kathra would s
end another messenger in twelve hours or so, once she knew where they were headed.

  She had a responsibility to the entire tribe, and not just her warriors. While she had inherited tribal leadership as a result of being her mother’s daughter, and her own fire, she could lose it again quickly enough if she was foolish.

  Or unlucky. The Mbaysey had just come within however many minutes of perhaps being eradicated, but for the random luck of her chef, and his willingness to go above and beyond. But a good leader makes her own luck. And Kathra Omezi was in the business of manufacturing some today.

  “Thinking about your chef?” Erin asked, seated across the desk from her and sipping some more of Ndidi’s wonderful coffee.

  The comitatus didn’t really have a uniform, like the Sept militants they had escaped, but Kathra was responsible for dressing and equipping the women that had sworn their lives to her. Loose pants in cotton, usually a color that split the gap between gold and red. Almost the heart of a good fire. Pull-over shirts with three-quarter, raglan sleeves, fire on the torso and whatever color someone felt like wearing that day for the shoulders.

  If they had to visit a TradeStation, or one of the ClanStars, a jacket might be added, depending on how cold those fools decided to keep their environment. Kathra kept WinterStar warm because that was how she liked it. And it wasn’t like her warriors needed to train for planetary assaults. The whole tribe—every child, woman, and elder, including the poor males—couldn’t take and hold a small TradeStation, to say nothing of a small town on the surface of a planet.

  No, they lived their lives aboard the ships, and occasionally had to chase off pirates and fools. Cold weather gear was generally unnecessary, and they could always strip down to shorts and tank tops if they had to go someplace warm.

  “My chef?” Kathra asked with an arched eyebrow. “Our chef, unless you were planning to retire from flying and take up weaving or something.”

  Erin laughed.

  “I wouldn’t have hired him,” she said with a smile. “None of us would have. Male, Rabic, and cook? No. He was yours. And we would all be dead or enslaved again today without him, so nobody will argue with keeping hm. Will he stay?”