WinterStar

by Blaze Ward

  “Okay, Daniel, leave this line open for now,” Commander Omezi said. “Ife, just record everything and monitor for now. We’ve found a bay full of old ships that we might want to fly over to WinterStar later, but we’re going to explore a bit more first.”

  “Very good, Commander,” the woman said.

  Daniel reached out with his mind and made sure the light remained on. Or something.

  He still didn’t even have the start of a working vocabulary. It was almost like promoting the dishwasher to prep cook and having to patiently explain everything to him three times.

  You had to be prepared to do it three times, because they wouldn’t understand anything the first time. Then they would get most of it only partly right. After three, they either had it reasonably down, or didn’t have a future in the kitchen anyway, and it was best to let them go quickly.

  He felt like he should just go back to washing dishes right now, but that wouldn’t help the Commander. She had a plan, it seemed. And access to valuable things, now.

  Daniel shook his head carefully, afraid it might fall off, and followed her as the women headed deeper into the guts of a Star Turtle.

  Always, the fear that the salaud was waiting for him, just around a corner.

  27

  Just monumentally, freaking weird.

  Erin couldn’t nail down the right profanities that covered this craziness, even adding Daniel’s French to the mix.

  Past the flight deck, they had wandered ancient, empty hallways, stopping to look into side chambers occasionally. The chef was so twitchy that Erin had quietly warned the other two women to keep the horseplay to a dead minimum, so as to not give the little male a heart attack.

  They still needed him, even if just to get back out of this ship later.

  But if they could loot even a fraction of the stuff they had seen…

  At one point Daniel had led them through a forest. Arboretum was probably a better, technical term, but she had never seen an indoor one with hundred-meter-tall ceilings, nor one that covered sixty or eighty hectares, with hills, ponds, streams, and even birds flying around.

  He had assured them that there were no predators larger than housecats, so Erin hadn’t felt the need to walk around with a pistol in her hand. She could always quickdraw even faster than Kathra in an emergency.

  The weird part about all the trees was how few of them she recognized, but how many were bearing fruit right now. It was as if you had the perfect conditions, the perfect climate, and the perfect soil, across hundreds of trees.

  Wouldn’t feed even a ClanStar, but Erin could see harvesting this place regularly for fresh fruit to trade with the other ships. And Creator knew what else there might be.

  Enough salvage to build more ships? Expand the tribal squadron finally? Escape the Sept for good, or at least push them back?

  Erin had let flights of fanciful avarice consume her briefly as she trailed the group.

  That had turned out to be a wise choice, because the next stop had been a hall of trophy skulls, embedded into the walls like an ancient catacomb. Each stripped of flesh as if left for the ants for a year, and then polished and sealed in.

  Daniel had started out almost proud, explaining that they represented all the people that Urid-Varg had ridden as mounts, stored here as memories.

  About midway down the hall, the chef had choked on his voice and fallen silent.

  The skull had looked like an Upynth, maybe. Minus the cute little unicorn horn in the forehead, and with a longer snout and bigger eyes. Definitely equine in nature, rather than the simian ancestry of humans.

  Turned out there were six of them, where the conqueror had previously only retained one example of each.

  “Z’lud,” Daniel said in a very quiet voice. “The second empire. Briefly.”

  He had fallen silent, apparently trapped in internal memories so intense she thought she heard sniffles coming from the man. But he was a male.

  After that, they passed deeper. Through other trophy halls filled with things she could only barely identify, and those few were obviously weapons of some sort, which followed a universal physics. One room held land vehicles so ancient they still rolled on wheels, with about half pulled by various animals, to hear the chef try to explain it, and the others powered by a variety of internal engines representing technology of some level.

  Again, places so weird, and so apparently distant, that they might never have heard of humanity itself, to say nothing of the Sept Empire or the Free Worlds.

  Eventually, the group found the bridge.

  Daniel was utterly white by then, so faded from his normal dirt-brown that he looked like someone had drained all the blood from an animated corpse. In response to Kathra’s question, all he would say was that they were in the turtle’s head.

  The space was the same green as the rest. Not metal, but perhaps an organic plastic with similar properties. It wasn’t large, but felt that way with a high vault to the ceiling above and nothing at all in here except a chair Erin could only classify as a throne, surrounded on all sides by empty space.

  The throne itself faced a blank wall, rather than being up on a platform where the king could be seen and worshipped by his followers. Assuming he had any.

  Urid-Varg had lived as solitary an existence as possible on this ship. They had seen a chamber where he could sleep, with a small bathroom attached. A place where he could prepare food.

  Nothing else.

  No libraries. No salons. Just an endless stream of forests and trophy rooms, without any dust or insects anywhere.

  “Are we in one of the eye sockets?” Joane asked as she looked around the room.

  Daniel had frozen just inside the door.

  “Non,” he muttered. “Those are weapons. Just as the maw is designed to bite asteroids and comets for raw materials.”

  “Weapons, Daniel?” Kathra asked as Erin moved closer.

  “Oui,” he said, perhaps a shade louder. “Powerful beams. Urid-Varg feared nobody.”

  Erin shared a quick glance with Kathra.

  Enough to chase off a Septagon? Damage one, perhaps?

  Those beasts were the largest ships Erin had ever even heard of in space. At least until the Star Turtle appeared.

  What could they do to push the Sept Empire back, the next time one of those naupati decide to throw his weight around? That many Ram Cannons on a Septagon were enough to destroy WinterStar, to say nothing of the Axial Megacannon that was the basis of Sept power.

  “Daniel, is this really the bridge?” Areen asked. Looking around.

  “It is,” he said glumly, eyes locked on that throne sitting in the middle of the room.

  Looked uncomfortable as a place to sit for more than two minutes. Mostly square, as if carved out of a block of that green hull plating with a laser, but without any thought to human shape.

  Of course, the creature Daniel had killed hadn’t been human. Nor had any of the other skulls he had shown them, embedded securely in the walls of that other trophy room.

  “How does it work?” Kathra asked.

  Daniel looked like he was on the verge of tears right now, but as he had said earlier, if he didn’t do everything now, he might never find the courage again.

  “He liked to sit here,” Daniel had moved a few steps closer to the throne and pointed at it now. “He would commune, I suppose you would call it, with the turtle, and could see in all directions, almost as if he was the turtle, in ways I cannot understand. Like so much else.”

  “Blank walls?” Areen asked, stepping close enough to the man that Erin figured he might be able to feel the warmth of her body.

  Perverts.

  The chef looked around for a second, but he wasn’t actually seeing anything. That much was clear when she looked in his eyes as they passed.

  “Need is will,” he muttered. “Hear me.”

  Erin felt her hand stray ever so slightly to the butt of her pistol, but Daniel had turned away from her to look at
the wall where the throne faced. He didn’t sit, but the wall did something.

  It wasn’t like the shields on WinterStar’s bridge retracting. These walls seemed to fluoresce briefly, and then turn transparent. Erin could see stars and darkness out there.

  That almost felt like home out there.

  “WinterStar, this is Daniel,” he said in a bleak voice. “The turtle is going to move now, but that’s me. Please do not be concerned.”

  Kathra caught her eye now. As did Areen and Joane. Could he really control all this power? What then?

  “Understood, Daniel,” Ife replied. “Standing by and scanning.”

  “Thank you.”

  He turned to Kathra with a pained face and hollow eyes. The muscles on his jaw stood out from where he was clenching them enough to probably give himself a headache in a few hours.

  Kathra nodded once at the man.

  It felt wrong to Erin. No, just bizarre. The male had all the power in this situation, but none of the will. Oh, he was a stubborn, opinionated shit at times, but they all were. He was frozen by indecision.

  Daniel was afraid. Of them?

  Perhaps of himself as well?

  What might someone do, when suddenly granted the power of a god?

  She watched and listened as he took an immense breath for such a small body, and then closed his eyes.

  “Putain,” Joane muttered under her breath.

  She had moved to look out the portal into space.

  Erin watched aghast as WinterStar came into view, spinning quietly out there in the darkness like a child’s top as the turtle turned. They didn’t come all the way around, where the beak and the eyes might be lined up with the flagship, but enough that everyone on the bridge could see the vessel.

  She even saw the quick flinch that passed through Kathra’s frame, but only because she had moved around to the back of the room already.

  Yes, what could they do with Daniel as an ally?

  And how did they keep their hold on him?

  28

  Because it was still technically his kitchen, Daniel had turned the lights down in here. Everything on the Star Turtle had been extra bright to the point that his eyes and head hurt.

  But he was home now.

  Maybe.

  Back on WinterStar, at least.

  He focused his entire attention on the bowl in front of him on the counter and stirred with a wooden spoon. The rolled dough had risen, so now he just needed to finish mixing up the sugar, melted butter, and cinnamon to spread over the half of the dough awaiting him on the counter.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Ndidi asked quietly.

  Daniel felt angry eyes lock onto the young woman. She wasn’t close enough to bite, and that was probably good right now.

  “Sit down and shut up?” he offered in a dark voice. “Take notes.”

  He had returned to WinterStar and taken a shower. All that salaud’s clothing was still in his cabin, waiting for him like a plague vector, quiescent and lurking. Right now, he was wearing his old gray pants, an older blue T-shirt, and the black apron that would hopefully shield him from the rest of the day.

  Yeast, water, scalded milk, sugar, shortening, salt, flour, and an egg. Together, they formed that most magical of things, a dinner roll. He had gone sweet with this batch, doubling the sugar because he was making cinnamon rolls instead.

  The current mixture got slathered over the rolled out dough and sprinkled with raisins. Roll the sheet up and pinch the ends. Slice with the sharpest knife you have into three centimeter disks, lay flat on a baking sheet.

  Ndidi had fallen so silent that he’d forgotten she was there for a moment, glancing up in surprise that she was watching him with an intensity perhaps a notch worse than Erin considering if she should draw and shoot the chef when he wasn’t looking.

  “Notes?” he asked.

  “Long half cup white sugar. Quarter cup melted butter. Long teaspoon and a half of cinnamon. Third of a cup black raisins at the end, just before you roll and seal.”

  Merde, he had forgotten Ndidi had a near-eidetic memory. If the Mbaysey believed in the sorts of genetic engineering that some other renegades from the Sept did, they would have fixed her eyes when she was young, and the woman would probably have ended up challenging Erin for place in another few years.

  Maybe Kathra Omezi needed to broaden the definition of her comitatus. Ndidi’s brilliance was wasted, living in a kitchen.

  Well, not wasted. Any more than Daniel was. But she would be a good leader at some point, if the Commander found a place for the young woman.

  Daniel grunted and realized that he was taking all his self-hatred out on her and she had done nothing at all to deserve it. He handed her the spoon and stepped back from the counter.

  “You do the other half,” he said, trying to find a calmer voice.

  Something that sounded closer to human.

  “You sure?” she asked, holding the spoon but not moving.

  As if it was a trap. Or a test. Almost the same thing, at least in Daniel’s kitchen.

  “This is my grandmother’s variant on a recipe older than starflight,” he said simply. “I need comfort food and comfort cooking right now. The women will not mind getting the leftovers after I have eaten two and you have had yours.”

  Ndidi smiled and nodded. Daniel expected her to grab a clean bowl, or wash this one, but she just grabbed measuring cups and went to work right into this one as he watched.

  And judged.

  “Should I replicate your batch perfectly?” she asked as she started to stir.

  Yes, she probably could, having watched him do this thing.

  “Oui,” he replied. “Then you will have the proper baseline against which to make your own variant next time.”

  She nodded once and focused with an intensity that might have made the bowl glow with light had he been standing there. Her hands moved with a precision that only the best chefs and cooking robots ever achieved, so he let go the breath that had been trapped in his chest and tried to work on the knot between his shoulder blades.

  Another tube of dough turned quickly into a layer of disks on the second baking sheet.

  “Now what?” she asked, looking at him with penetrating eyes only mildly hidden behind those glass lenses.

  “Now they rise for twenty minutes,” Daniel said. “Then we will bake them. The stove is already set, so you will make a double batch of simple frosting, but only frost half of them.”

  “Which half?” her face grew serious.

  “Half of each,” Daniel’s voice turned conspiratorial. “Then mix them up on serving plates and see if any of the women can tell the difference.”

  She snickered quietly as she moved this bowl to the sink and grabbed a new set of weapons.

  Yes, it would not be his kitchen much longer, but these women would be in exceptional hands. Daniel didn’t know what he would do next.

  Cooking was a social thing. He could cause the Turtle to create a kitchen for him. Liberate a few pots and pans and utensils from WinterStar so he could cook. But if he was alone over there, he knew he would never rise to the level of cuisine without great effort.

  Quickly, Daniel would fall into simple comfort foods. Gratin Dauphinois. Ratatouille. Onion soup. Ragout. Perhaps a Cheese soufflé.

  Nothing of art.

  And yet, he knew that the Commander would be counting on him to help her loot the Star Turtle. Perhaps to somehow add it permanently to the tribal squadron, providing the Mbaysey a guardian hound that not even the Sept could brush aside.

  To do that, he would have to live aboard the turtle all the time, without a chance to return to WinterStar and cook for his favorite fans. His friends.

  Solitude, at the moment when he had discovered that just perhaps he liked people, after all. Some of them, anyway.

  He should have known that God would enjoy visiting Her black humor and wit upon a simple cook like him. What better way to keep a man humble, when
he had perhaps come to believe the silly things that gastronomical journalists were wont to write about him?

  “Daniel?” Ndidi suddenly broke his reverie.

  “Oui?”

  “I asked if we should consider moving the comitatus to live aboard the turtle,” she apparently repeated. “So you could keep cooking for them? At least as much as Kathra allows you the time.”

  Hopefully, he hadn’t been muttering out loud in front of Ndidi. Kitchens were normally noisy places, so his apparent habit would normally go unheard. Hopefully unremarked. Some probably even considered it a mark of his genius.

  Morons.

  He ran a hand down his face as if that would wipe away the dark things that wanted to cling to his flesh.

  “We can ask, but would that mean you’d have to remain behind?” he focused more of his attention on the woman.

  “On the contrary, m’sieur,” she smiled serenely. “I’m sure she’ll keep you going so hard that you barely get to cook one meal in five. She’ll need me running the kitchen the rest of the time.”

  He laughed, and felt his shoulders finally come down. Yes, hopefully the Commander would listen to this dangerously-brilliant young woman. He couldn’t call her a child, for all that he was about old enough to be her father.

  She was not his equal in the arts of cuisine, but that was just a matter of time, not talent. He hadn’t known his ass from a hole in the ground when he’d first started.

  No, she was certainly his peer. The youngest he had ever known, but that just made her a Commis Chef, learning everything at once, even as she was also Chef de Tournant, filling in at all stations as she learned those few things still outside her grasp to become Sous Chef when he was around, and Chef de Cuisine when he was not.

  He supposed he still had a few things to teach the youngster, at least until they opened a restaurant on a planet or TradeStation together and she had to learn the interesting bits of running a successful bistro. The business side.

  Here, at least, Ndidi knew what fish were coming, what meat was next in the freezer, and what vegetables she could call upon on short notice. She would need a few years in Nice or perhaps Brest, up north in Brittany, to become truly a master, negotiating with farmers and fishermen who could just tell her to piss up a rope if they wanted, something yet out of the reach of the leaders of the ClanStars providing Kathra Omezi her food.