Queen

by Timothy Zahn

  “Was that your plan?” Justice shouted up to her, getting to his feet as the burst of extra water that Nicole had set up ran dry and the roar of the flood subsided. “To try to drown us?”

  “My plan was to talk to you,” Nicole said. “It still is.” Steeling herself, she walked around the platform to the ocean side of the bluff.

  It was as intimidating a sight as she’d ever seen. Thirty-five of the thirty-six Koffren down there had drawn up into a battle line facing her, standing well back from the river mouth and any attempt Nicole might make to send another flash flood in their direction. The thirty-sixth Koffren, the one Misgk had shot with the paralyzing liquid they’d taken from the drones, lay motionless and probably unnoticed on the sand behind the battle line, the edges of the now quiet river swirling around him. His greenfire weapon, also unnoticed by the rest of the Koffren, lay in the wet sand beside him.

  Not that the enemy needed it. The other seven greenfire weapons were pointed straight at Nicole, and several of the Koffren had also drawn their swords, though what they thought they could do with them at that distance she had no idea. The Shipmasters, for the most part, were lying or kneeling at the ocean’s edge, still shaken from Nicole’s attack.

  The whole thing was like a bad dream from all the gang confrontations she’d witnessed back in Philly. Two rivals trying to intimidate and threaten each other for whatever stakes of honor or territory or revenge were the day’s reason for fighting. In nearly all of those clashes, the threats and bravado had eventually given way to violence and death.

  Once, such standoffs had been terrifying. Later, Nicole had come to see them as pointless and even a little sad.

  Here, somehow, it mostly seemed just plain sad.

  Such a waste.

  “You don’t have to fight me,” she called to them. “You don’t have to fight any of us. You want to take over the Fyrantha. I get that. But it’s not going to happen. The flight mechanisms, the Wisps, the Shipmasters, us—none of it is under your control. None of it will ever be under your control. Accept that, let me send you home, and it’ll be over.”

  “You’re a fool, so-called Protector,” Justice said, spitting out the words. “You think that”—he jabbed his sword toward the river mouth—“is going to intimidate us?”

  Nicole shook her head. Just plain sad. “No,” she said. “I never thought I could intimidate you.”

  Justice’s helmet tilted slightly. Trying to read her as he suddenly realized there might be more to her plan than just a flood?

  He was still staring silently as the bindings tying Jeff to the two Wisps snapped open as the dissolving fluid Nise’s arrow had delivered to the spider goo finished its work. Pulling away the last strands, Jeff rolled across the sand toward the greenfire weapon.

  Maybe Justice heard something over the river noise. Maybe he caught a hint of the movement out of the corner of his eye. Abruptly, he spun around, snatching out his sword as he saw Jeff going for the weapon. “Koffren!” he snapped, twisting his arm into position to throw his sword.

  Jeff got there first. Snatching up the greenfire weapon, he spun it around and pointed it toward Justice. “Freeze!” he snapped. “All of you—freeze!”

  “All of you die!” Justice retorted. “Koffren—kill them all!” Ignoring the weapon pointed at him, he raised his sword a little higher. The other seven greenfire weapons twitched as the Koffren shifted their aim to the Thii and Nicole.

  Justice might have seen it coming. Of all of the Koffren he was the only one facing the right direction. But he was focused on Jeff, and on vengeance, and his eyes and rage were directed elsewhere.

  So it was that not a single one of them noticed the ocean suddenly boiling up with a line of monster waves, rolling majestically toward the shore. Even as Jeff sent a flash of brilliant green into Justice’s chest, the wave broke, its top curling over in cascades of white foam and slamming down on the line of Koffren.

  And behind the wave, rising from the depths of the water like sharks moving to the kill, were Kahkitah and his army of Ghorfs.

  The Koffren never had a chance. A few were able to recover from the hammering waves fast enough to turn to the unexpected attack. But even those few were still stunned and off balance and fell quickly to the Ghorfs and their improvised weapons. Most of the Koffren probably never even knew what had hit them.

  Thirty seconds later, it was over.

  By the time Nise and Misgk got Nicole down the bluff and onto the beach the Ghorfs were moving systematically among the bodies, collecting swords and greenfire weapons, pulling off helmets—the Koffren were ugly and startlingly baby-faced at the same time, Nicole noted—and checking for survivors. A few Ghorfs were working the water’s edge, rescuing Shipmasters who’d been dragged out to sea by the huge wave and bringing them to safety. Most of the latter seemed shaken but unhurt: the wave the Ghorfs had carefully engineered had expended most of its force along the Koffren line and had less effect on the inward area where the river had pushed most of the Shipmasters.

  Kahkitah himself brought Jeff in from the waves.

  Jeff was sitting up when Nicole reached him, Kahkitah kneeling beside him with a supporting hand behind his back. The two Wisps, Jessup and Lehigh, had taken up positions nearby.

  “Hi,” Jeff said as Nicole hurried up. “Nice job. Always great when those one-two punches work out.”

  “I’m glad you liked it,” Nicole said, trying to force a casualness she didn’t feel. There was something wrong with Jeff’s right leg … “Sorry I couldn’t tell you about it ahead of time.”

  “No, no, that was the right thing to do,” he assured her. “We all knew there was a good chance I’d be taken hostage, and a prisoner can’t tell the enemy what he doesn’t know. I was supposed to grab the greenfire gun after you got me loose, right?”

  “You were supposed to live through all of it,” Nicole said, dropping down on one knee beside him. Up close, the bruising on his face looked far worse than it had from the bluff. “Anything else was just bonus.”

  “Good,” Jeff said. “I really wanted to nail that bastard.”

  “Well, you did,” Nicole said. “Come on—Kahkitah and I will help you up.”

  “No, don’t,” Jeff said, waving her back. “Standing up hurts. A lot. Sitting up isn’t as bad.”

  “Oh, God,” Nicole breathed. “What did they do?”

  “Well…” He paused, a flicker of pain crossing his face. “There’s this thing some people do to horses called hamstringing. The muscle and tendon in the back of the knee … well, we don’t need to go into details. Let’s just say walking is going to be a problem for me for a while.”

  “Can it be fixed?” Nicole asked. “Wait—you were walking earlier, weren’t you?”

  Jeff shook his head. “Jessup and Lehigh were carrying me. I only moved my legs so that…” He shrugged.

  “So that I’d think you were okay and wouldn’t go berserk,” Nicole said. “Oh, Jeff. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he assured her. “Allyce can probably fix me up. If not, hey, I always wanted to sit around all day doing nothing. Now I’ve got the perfect excuse.”

  “Glad I could help,” Nicole said, blinking away sudden tears. “Let’s get you back to Q4. Jessup, Lehigh? Come here.”

  “A moment,” a voice called as the two Wisps started forward.

  Nicole turned. Wesowee was walking toward them, half pulling, half supporting one of the Shipmasters. As they got closer, the alien turned his head and she saw it was Fievj.

  “This Shipmaster has urgent news for you,” Wesowee said.

  “Fievj,” Nicole said, keeping her voice steady as she thought back on her earlier conversation with Kahkitah. The Shipmasters had done horrible things, and if Fievj was looking to make a deal he’d come to the wrong place. “What do you want?”

  “You’re in danger,” Fievj said, his voice even weaker than his unsteady legs. “The Koffren—more Koffren—are coming.”

  �
��They’re going to have a job of it,” Jeff said. “The teleport’s out of service, remember?”

  “Not by Wisp and teleport,” Fievj said. “They’re coming by ship. They’re coming by warship.”

  Nicole’s breath froze in her chest, her mind flashing back to the space battle she’d seen from the top of the Fyrantha. “When?” she asked.

  “Six hours,” Fievj said. “Perhaps sooner.”

  “Can the Fyrantha withstand their attack?” Jeff asked.

  Fievj closed his eyes. “No.”

  twenty-four

  For a long moment the only sound was the soft roar of the ocean waves. “Okay,” Jeff said. “Sounds like a good time to run like rabbits. How fast can we get this thing moving?”

  Fievj sighed. “We cannot,” he said. “The Koffren … they ordered us to this spot in space and then disabled the stardrive.”

  “Wait a minute,” Nicole said. “You saying we can’t move at all?”

  “We can move through space-normal,” Fievj said. “But even at maximum thrust six hours would barely suffice to move us even part of the way across this solar system. The approaching warships would find us at their ease.”

  “Then we fix the stardrive,” Jeff said. “What did they do, pull a few components?”

  “No,” Fievj said. “They removed an entire bank of asymmetric capacitors. Even if you discovered where they hid it, it would need to be completely rewired back into the system.”

  “And we can’t do that in six hours?” Jeff persisted.

  Fievj shook his head. “Not even in twelve.”

  “Fine,” Nicole said, marveling at how calm she sounded. “If we can’t run, then we’d better get ready to fight.”

  “Did you not hear me?” Fievj said nervously. “I said the Fyrantha cannot withstand such an attack.”

  “We’ll see,” Nicole said. “Okay. First item of business is to get Jeff back to the Q4 medical center so Allyce can take a look at his leg. Second item—”

  “Whoa,” Jeff put in. “First item of business is to gather our people together for a council of war. And if you think I’m leaving before that happens you’re sadly mistaken.”

  “Jeff—”

  “No, he’s right,” Kahkitah said. “We need a conversation, and he needs to be part of it.”

  “Agreed,” Nise said, coming up behind Nicole. “He is one of the Fyrantha’s few truly experienced warriors. We need to hear his words and advice.”

  “All right,” Nicole said, feeling a fresh twinge of pain as she looked at Nise. Of the four Thii only Misgk was walking alongside him. “Iyulik and Sofkat?”

  “Iyulik gave his life for the Protector and the Fyrantha,” Nise said. His voice was steady, but she could hear the quiet pain beneath it. “Sofkat is tending to him. Who else do we need?”

  Nicole took a deep breath. There would be a time to mourn the young Thii. But not yet. “Wesowee, get the other Ghorfs over here,” she said. “And find Nevvis and any of the other Shipmasters who are in any shape to talk. Kahkitah, do you know where Iosif is?”

  “Beneath the ocean with Levi and Tomas, monitoring the wave equipment,” Kahkitah said.

  Nicole felt her eyebrow twitch. Levi had told her earlier that Tomas was still mad at her and had decided to sit this one out. Apparently, he’d changed his mind. “Are Firth and Hagert still with them?”

  “The two Wisps? Yes.”

  “We can fill them in later when we fine-tune the plan,” Jeff said. “Right now, we need to hammer out the basics.” He jabbed a finger at Fievj. “You. What kind of weapons and defenses does the Fyrantha have?”

  “I know nothing of weaponry,” Fievj said, shrinking back from Jeff’s glare. “When we … obtained … the ship from the others it had already been converted to the zoo you see around you. I assume any remaining weapons were removed.”

  “You’ll forgive us if we don’t take your word for it,” Jeff said. “Nicole, would the Caretaker or Oracle know?”

  “I’ll ask,” Nicole said, pulling out her inhaler.

  “Whoa,” Jeff said. “No inhaler. We can go up later and ask them in person. What about defenses?”

  “There’s a shield,” Fievj said. “It’s … mostly functional.”

  “How mostly is mostly?” Nicole asked.

  “There’ve been some problems.” He gave Nicole a sharp look. “In fact, I believe it was you who fixed a section once, wasn’t it?”

  “When was that?” Jeff asked.

  “When you’d been taken prisoner by the Cluufes in the Q4 arena,” Nicole said. “When I ducked out on you. A Wisp caught me and took me up to the top of the ship.”

  “And you fixed the Fyrantha’s shields?” Jeff asked.

  “I was lucky,” Nicole said. “It turned out to be a bad component. I swapped out a few of them, and the shield came back on line. Fievj, do you have a list of the sections that aren’t working?”

  “I can obtain one.”

  “From where?”

  “The main control room.”

  Nicole nodded. It was about time someone from their group got a look in there. “Good. Kahkitah, take Fievj and go take a look. Grab Levi and Iosif on your way.”

  “Should I also take a Sibyl?” Jeff asked.

  Nicole had almost forgotten about the Sibyls locked away in the arena hive. “Not yet,” she said. “Once you all head out I’ll go talk to them and tell them what has to happen. Wesowee, I need you to send the Ghorfs back to their work teams and do the same.”

  “They won’t believe us,” Wesowee warned. “We’ve all played the clown for a long time.”

  “I think I can fix that.” Nicole looked up at the ceiling. “Fyrantha: Protector says to send me fifty—no, make it a hundred—send me a hundred Wisps. Send them to the Q1 arena.”

  “Good idea,” Jeff said. “Nothing spells authority like having Wisps do what you tell them.”

  “Are you going to turn control of the Wisps over to us?” Kahkitah asked, his bird whistles sounding surprised.

  “Why not?” Nicole countered. “Anyway, I pretty much have to. The damaged sections are likely to be spread out all over the ship, which means the repair teams will have to be, too. You might need a Wisp to fiddle with power levels or get more modules or something, and you’ll certainly need them to ferry you across the heat-exchange ducts.”

  “Yes, but—” Kahkitah looked at Wesowee. “You’re the Protector, Nicole. Shouldn’t ultimate authority be yours?”

  “It will be,” Jeff said firmly. “We—all of us here—will make damn sure she stays the one in charge.”

  “We’ll certainly try,” Kahkitah said, still sounding uncertain.

  “If I’m not worried about it, you shouldn’t be,” Nicole said. “Topic closed. Okay. First step is to get the shield fixed. For that we need a list of jobs we can hand out to the repair crews and Sibyls. So that’s covered. Second step—” She looked at the line of Koffren, a few of whom were dragging themselves up to sitting positions under the watchful eyes of the Ghorfs. “Actually, first step is to put the Koffren and Shipmasters somewhere out of the way where they won’t give us trouble.”

  “All the Shipmasters?” Jeff asked.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Nicole said. “Why, do you think we’ll need them?”

  “I think it wouldn’t hurt to keep a couple of them around to show us how everything works,” Jeff said.

  “I don’t know,” Nicole said, looking at Fievj. “I get the feeling they’d be more trouble than they’re worth.”

  “Not at all,” Fievj assured her. “Our lives are at risk, too. It’s in our best interests to work with you, not against you.”

  “Okay,” Nicole said. “But not all of you. You, Fievj, and one other. Let’s make it Ryit.”

  “Nevvis is our commander,” Fievj said. “He knows the most about the Fyrantha.”

  Nicole raised her eyebrows toward Jeff. “What do you think?”

  “I like the second part of that,” Je
ff said. “The part about knowing more. Not so crazy about the part where he’s the commander. People like that can be very bad about handing over power to someone else. Let’s go with the other Shipmaster you said.”

  “Okay,” Nicole said. “Fievj and Ryit it is, then. Take it or leave it.”

  Fievj muttered something. “Very well.”

  “Good,” Nicole said. “Now about the rest of them. Do you have a—what’s it called, Jeff?”

  “A brig,” Jeff supplied. “If you don’t, maybe those animal treatment cages up on level 10 might work.”

  “We have no brig,” Fievj said. “There was one once, but it was repurposed and can no longer be locked.”

  “Then we’ll go with something that can,” Nicole said. “Wesowee, before you send the Ghorfs back to their teams, gather up all the Koffren that survived and lock them in the Q2 arena. I’ll get you the code to get in. Just make sure none of them sees you punch it in.”

  Wesowee gave a low rumble. “They’re our enemies,” he said. “They’ve already brought death to the Fyrantha, and hope to bring more. Shouldn’t we just dispose of them?”

  Nicole hesitated. First Bennett, now Iyulik … “If you’d killed them in battle, that would be one thing,” she said. “But we can’t just kill them in cold blood.”

  “They’re our enemies.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Nicole said. “If one of them makes a move against you while you’re taking them to Q2, you’re welcome to beat his brains out through his ears. But not until and unless that happens. You hear that?” she added, gesturing to the nearest Koffren. “You’re either prisoners, or you’re corpses. Your choice.”

  For a moment the Koffren sat silently. Then, he inclined his head. “You will pay for today’s carnage,” he said. “But not yet. Soon, but not yet.”

  “Fine,” Nicole said. “Just bear in mind that the Ghorfs aren’t going to give any of you a second chance.”