Kisa shook her head. “Okay. I don’t . . .” She trailed off as she put some of the pieces together. “You’ve run into each other before, right?”
Fiametta nodded.
“Quite a bit, for a while there,” Candy said.
Kisa sighed. Fiametta had a reputation for chaos and a cavalier attitude toward law, order, and other people’s property. She had spent quite a lot of time in Alliance space before and after the Sundering War. Kisa had no doubt that Candy had cleaned up many of those messes.
“Okay, okay. Look.” She snapped her fingers and stepped between the two women. “Hey, eyes on me.” Kisa waited until she had their attention before she continued. “You two need to either get a room or get over this. Whether we like it or not, we’re all stuck together on this trip. We need to get along even if we don’t like each other. Is that clear?”
Candy nodded at once, and Kisa believed her. After all, the Alliance Security would have forced her to work with people she didn’t like. The Doctrine had tried and failed to do that with both her and Fiametta. Kisa glared at Fiametta until she finally nodded, her expression as sour as if she had swallowed a frog.
“Good, but remember, we don’t just have to play nice for this one. We need to actually work together.” She fixed her eyes on Fiametta for the last part. “Can we do that?”
“Yes,” Fiametta said, and Candy agreed.
“So you two need to either fight this out or work this out. I kind of don’t care either way,” she said, pointing out the viewport on the airlock, “but one of them will happen on the inside of that airlock and the other will happen on the outside of it. I’ll let you figure out which is which.”
Both women hesitated and then relaxed slightly.
“Fair enough, captain,” Candy said with a shrug. “It’s all in the line of duty for me, and while I don’t appreciate it,” she snapped the words out at Fiametta, “I understand it.” She softened her expression and extended her hand.
“Huh,” Fiametta replied, her eyes widening a bit in genuine surprise. “Unexpected, but I guess I can’t ask for fairer than that.” She shook Candy’s hand and looked her square in the eyes. “Just don’t think this forgives everything.”
“Not a chance,” Candy replied, her smiling coming back. “But to be honest, I’m happier to be working with you.”
Fiametta thought for a second. “Yeah, that we can agree on.”
Kisa huffed and scuffed her foot on the decking. “Rats. And here I was looking for a fight.” They glanced at her, and she laughed. “Come on, miss Alliance Security. Let’s get you settled.”
“Cool,” she said and indicated the cypher beside her. “This is Cola. He’s a good time and a good hand in tight places. Also, before we go too far, I brought some luggage.”
She shooed the Doctrine women back to clear a wide area on the floor. Blue-white esper swirled around them, mixed with motes glowing bright orange, pink, and green, and a huge, sleek machine materialized with a whoosh of displaced air. Even compact and clearly folded for travel, the device took up plenty of space.
“Got room for this?” Candy asked.
Kisa whistled.
Fiametta shook her head. “That’s new.”
Candy shrugged. “New-ish. I haven’t seen you in a while, so you two haven’t had the pleasure.” She laid an affectionate arm on the machine. “Found this little beauty buried in the back of a noh dragon ship just taking up space. Cola lead me right to it. Seemed wrong to not take it.” She rapped her knuckles on the metal. “I never leave home without it.”
“Cute,” Kisa said, smirking. “Welcome to the relic club. Not feline enough for my tastes, but to each her own. We’ll find space somewhere.”
“Okay,” Candy said. “My people want me to head to the Star Nebula, but I’ve got the leeway to go elsewhere if needed. That work for you?”
Kisa nodded. “Good enough,” she said, and grabbed a floating cargo mover.
Candy put her hands on her hips and cracked a lopsided grin. “So, anyone want to take a guess at what’s so all-mighty important that they sent an accomplished Doctrine practitioner and two Relic Knights to take care of it?”
“Actually, I’m afraid to guess,” Kisa said and patted the relic. “Let’s stow this, get underway, and try and figure it out.”
Chapter 6
Hydra’s Will, Dragon Fleet To flagship, Elesso system (dead world)
High Priestess Zineda stepped sinuously through the heavy smoke. The long prayer scrolls hanging from the noh priestess’s shoulders, hips, and horns swirled the haze filling the room. Pungent incense laced with stronger hallucinogens drifted from the six small fire pots around the enormous warrior kneeling in the center of the round room. The clouds lost their potency almost immediately but hung in the air to dim the amber lights and obscure the ring of softly chanting priestesses.
The ornate floor tiles beneath the warrior’s knees seem to writhe and move like the serpent coils they resembled. Zineda crouched beside the man and passed her clawed hand over his sweating red skin with the lightest touch. He was beautiful, possessed of the raw, brute power of noh males tempered by the discipline of the Hatriya warrior order. An embodiment of her species’s ideals. His sweat dripped onto the slave-embroidered strips of rich cloth that gently draped her voluptuous form and mixed with the thin lines and splashes of blood.
“Do you see?” she whispered to the warrior.
He gasped, his tusks quivering. Zineda turned slightly and ran a finger across the chest and shoulder of the human slave behind her. The woman moaned softly at the touch, and she whimpered like a weak kitten when the high priestess’s claw pierced the flesh just above the collarbone. Blood trickled down the noh’s long fingers to pool on her palm. The slave mewed but only had the strength to roll her head, smearing blood across the floor.
Zineda ignored the human to whisper over the blood in her cupped hand. She lifted it to the warrior’s mouth. “Drink,” she whispered. “Drink, my love, and see.”
His eyes still closed, the warrior parted his lips, and she poured in a trickle of fluid. She watched him shudder as the esper-infused blood burned through him. His hand flashed out, gripped her arm, and pulled it close. His tongue slid across her skin to lap up the last of the offering, and the tonnerian-skin prayer strips that hung from her wide horns danced around her face as she shivered.
“What—” She paused to wet her dry lips. “What do you see? What does our god say?”
His grip relaxed, and she pulled free to step back and watch him. The warrior shook for a long moment more. Then his eyes snapped open, and he surged to his feet. The energy and motion proved too much, and he sagged, nearly falling before Zineda grabbed his shoulder. Other priestesses moved in to extinguish the incense pots and help guide the warrior to a side chamber. As the ship’s circulation began to clear the haze, the scents of cleansing water and purifying oils drifted to them from the antechamber.
On the threshold, however, the warrior shook off the others and turned to Zineda. She felt an instant of trepidation as he took her and lifted her to meet his still distracted, vacant gaze. Only when his eyes cleared and focused on her did she see that her love, Mamaro To, Grand Warlord of Dragon Fleet To, had indeed returned to her.
“I have seen it,” he said in a hoarse, harsh whisper. “The Source. It has appeared, as our god promised it would. Just as the Pale Herald said.” His gaze drifted for a moment, and he swayed, but his raw strength held them both up. “Nozuki showed me where to begin our search. We will find it, claim it, and no power—not even the Herald—will stop us.”
She smiled wide, her fangs bared, as the great warrior set her gently down. “And when we do,” she said, guiding him into the side chamber, “all the universe shall fall before us.”
***
Zineda lead her entourage of six senior priestesses into the embarkation chamber. She wondered for a second at the number of Hatriya warriors arrayed across the room. It seemed too few, but s
he dismissed the concern—she had not had the vision, after all. She directed her cadre to their place between the warriors. The ceremonial prayer scrolls draping their bodies swirled sensuously against and across the warriors’ ornate heavy armor. For all the impressive display of noh power and physicality around her, Zineda could not long keep her gaze from the towering figure of the warlord at the head of the assembly. She frowned slightly when she recognized the aged ambassador of Dragon Fleet Ki speaking to Mamaro To in a low voice. As she approached, the elder noh bowed to the warlord and high priestess before withdrawing. Her glare followed the soot-painted councilor as he departed.
“What did that crafty old raptor want here?” she asked.
Mamaro To, resplendent in his finest armor and imposing with his massive tesubo slung from his back, shrugged as he moved to the head of the column. “What we must undertake here is rather more delicate than how Dragon Fleet To is accustomed to behaving.” He noticed her sharp look but shook his head. “The vision was quite clear on a few points. We must not try to command or force what happens next; the situation is too delicate. We seek assistance this time, not dominion, so I sought advice.”
Zineda’s frown only deepened. “I dislike this course. It clashes too much with our ways.” She reached out as he turned to her and ran a clawed finger gently down his heavy jaw. “Do not mistake me. We serve the Endless Hunger as he dictates, and sometimes we must learn new ways.” She shrugged, the prayer scrolls swirling enticingly around her. “But I long for blood and slaves.”
Mamaro grinned. “And you shall have them, my love. The vision was also very clear on that.”
They took their places and faced the rift generator. Spite, Zineda’s cypher, coalesced in a puff of scented, esper-heavy smoke and settled onto her shoulder. She grinned at the impish creature and reached up to stroke her face. Spite purred but kept her gaze fixed on the rift anchor point.
Zineda watched the slaves and noh wayfinders adjust the rods and discs that made up the huge rift generator. Gifts from their hydra god, the rift generators opened tears in reality and created bridges across dimensions to let noh raiding parties, war bands, and even whole dragon ships move instantly across the stars. For a group so large, however, even the more robust portable generators were inadequate, but Zineda’s own travels among her people had rarely let her see the function of one of these larger, fixed devices.
A nod from Mamaro sent the half-dozen slaves scurrying to activate the arcane machinery. It thrummed and rasped and chuckled and a gauzy haze appeared shimmering in the air before them. Zineda grinned slightly and studied the vague shapes in the smear of air before them. Used carefully and with low power, the rift generators could create a sort of window onto the selected location, though it took skill from the wayfinders and care from the slaves. This limited its use for scrying but had proved invaluable for raiding; the noh had long ago learned to look before they leapt.
Zineda stared through the filmy haze as if trying to look through a piece of thick paper soaked with grease. She saw a simple room, clearly space for food preparation, and several beings within. After a second, she realized that it was on a starship of some kind. A huge, vaguely furred creature with four arms and an incongruous tall hat stood before an array of stoves and ovens, clearly preparing several dishes at once. A marmod, Zineda realized, though she had never seen a living one before. A lithe, auburn-haired woman wearing an eyepatch and the ostentatious regalia favored by corsairs paced behind the marmod and gesticulated broadly to punctuate her tantrum. Zineda sneered, and she felt Mamaro’s discomfort beside her.
“So these are our allies,” he muttered.
“Tools,” she hissed to him as the rift began to solidify. “They are tools of convenience, nothing more.”
The priestess paused, her guard going up, and looked around as the rift gained form. An instant later, with a blast of ozone and a sound like ripping flesh, a wound opened in the universe, and Mamaro To lead the high priestess through to the pirate’s ship.
Zineda immediately noticed the lack of the familiar warmth and humidity common to all noh ships. The musty, poorly scrubbed ship’s air had the scent of astringents rather than blood and fear. The woman had drawn a pistol and triggered an alarm, and the marmod brandished a two-handed frying pan, but Zineda refrained from anything more than casting a cool glance at them. When Mamaro To did not draw his great weapon, the woman lowered her pistol slightly and signaled her companion to hold.
“I am Grand Warlord Mamaro To, leader of Dragon Fleet To,” the warlord beside her said. “You are the pirate called Calico Kate.”
Kate nodded, clearly still assessing the situation, but responded with a bravado Zineda had not expected. “That’s Captain Calico Kate,” she said steadily, her pistol still aimed squarely at Mamaro’s chest. “Or Pirate Queen Kate, if you’re being formal.” She smiled and glanced past the warlord and high priestess to the intimidating line of monsters behind them. “I’m not seeing enough of your friends to make a good fight, so is this a social call?”
Zineda was impressed despite herself. Spite hissed but only half-heartedly
“We have come to speak.” Mamaro slowly lifted his left hand and removed his mask. “Our god Nozuki, the Endless Hunger, has given me a vision. The Calamity has come to this last galaxy, and I have seen that an artifact of great power lies within our grasp. He has commanded me to seize it.”
Kate looked at him like he grown another head. “Well I don’t have it,” she said, and then seemed to remember her confidence. “And even if I did, jumbo, what makes you think I’d just hand it over at the asking?”
“If it lay in your possession,” Zineda said, barely hiding her irritation, “we would not have come to talk.”
The marmod brandished the frying pan again, but Kate nodded slightly, accepting the point.
“But you do know where it lies, or more accurately, with whom,” Mamaro To said. “One of your servants acquired it very recently.”
A flash of realization crossed Kate’s features, but she schooled her expression quickly. “Can you be more specific about this artifact? We’ve picked up a lot of things just of late.”
“The vision was not clear,” the warlord said, “but it is not a thing. It is a person of great power—a woman.”
Kate ground her teeth and swore too softly for Zineda to hear. “Harker. That scheming, back-stabbing, stuck-up—” She spit. “It has to be Harker.”
Mamaro frowned. “Captain Augustus Harker?” the warlord asked.
“Aye, that’s the bastard,” Kate agreed, clearly still distracted. “What’s more, I know what—or who—your artifact is.”
Zineda managed to keep her face composed, but Mamaro To gaped.
Kate nodded, apparently angry enough at this Harker to gloat. “We hit a starliner less than a week ago—at Harker’s suggestion, of course. He said that Princess Malya was aboard, and then he scarpered off just before the paladins turned up. No princess anywhere to be found,” she sneered. “Now where did she run off to, do you suppose?”
“She fled with Captain Harker,” Mamaro muttered, lost in thought.
“What I can’t figure is why,” Kate went on. “Kidnapping and ransom’s not his style. If the vids are to be believed, the princess is no stranger to keeping low company but only of her choosing. He must need her for something.”
“Or he wishes to keep her from something,” Mamaro To growled.
Something about the story struck Zineda as wrong, yet she could find no fault with the thinking as far as it went. They could not be certain, of course, but Kate would know her captain better.
Spite nuzzled up to whisper in her ear. “We have met Captain Harker before. He dogged our ships in the galaxy we called Korrketi.”
Zineda’s eyes narrowed, and she glanced at her cypher. “So he has tracked us, studied us.”
Spite nodded. Zineda moved toward Mamaro To, but the warlord spoke before she could say anything.
“You wil
l tell us where to find Captain Harker, and we shall take this princess in our god’s name.”
Kate’s eyes snapped back to the huge noh. She scowled. “No chance, big red. Harker’s my man, and any of his plunder is mine to claim, not yours.” She pursed her lips. “And I’m not sure where he is, more’s the pity. He’s got several bolt holes and out-of-the-way ports that he favors, but I’ve no notion of which he’s chosen.” She smirked. “If I did, I’d already be tanning his hide for new boots, make no mistake. But I’d still not turn his plunder over to you just because you asked so nicely.”
Mamaro To rumbled, the muscles of his massive arms rippling like a coming storm, but Zineda quickly put her hand around the warlord’s wrist and stepped forward.
“But you would be wise to reconsider that,” she said with casual ease.
Kate turned her contemptuous gaze on the high priestess, and it took all of Zineda’s self control to let the affront pass and keep her voice calm.
“We have mutual interests, you see. We seek this artifact, nothing more, which is only of value to our god. You would claim your due portion, or more, of your rebellious subordinate’s treasure.”
Kate nodded reluctantly, and Zineda spread her hands as if the solution was obvious.
“Then we both want to find Captain Harker and claim our separate prizes. We both stand to gain from cooperating.”
Kate wagged a finger. “No, no, pretty lady, it’s not that simple. Whatever that sweet princess may be to you, she’s worth a lot to me in ransom. She’s the Crown Princess of Ulyxis, the last Forum World and, thus, capital of the United Planetary Alliance. Her father will pay a fortune to get her back.” She laughed. “For all I know, her father paid Harker to bring her home.”
Zineda shrugged to show that this objection meant nothing. “You misunderstand me, Captain. You see, I do not wish to chase Harker. We could search the galaxy and never find him. But we may bring him, and her, to us.” She smiled a predator’s grin at Kate’s confused look. “We can draw them out. You’ve said that she is most likely not a prisoner.”
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