“Thank you Captain,” said Jokono with a pleased smile, and left.
Trace lingered after the door had closed. “How are you doing?” she asked sombrely.
Lisbeth, she meant. Once, Erik might have found the question intrusive. Now, he heard only the concern of a friend. “I’m okay,” he said quietly. “I’m glad to be busy.”
“Story of my life,” said Trace. “Speaking of marines impressed by non-marines, Lisbeth is very good at people and politics. She’d never make a marine, but I think she’d be a top spacer officer, if she wanted. She’ll probably cope where she is now better than any of us would.”
“She’d be wasted on a ship,” Erik disagreed with a sigh, returning to his tiny bathroom to fetch his shaver. He turned it on, while Trace leaned by the doorway, watching him shave. “She’d be better off in the family, running one of the business arms. Someplace she could really use her brain.”
A month or two ago, Trace might have protested that casual cynicism, directed at Fleet. Now she smiled. “Well if she ever needs a reference for a job,” she said. “I’ve never been in a position to write one before, for a civilian. Not that she’ll actually need one, being a Debogande.”
“In your case I think she’d take it anyway,” Erik assured her. “Not that a character reference from someone whose primary skill is mayhem should really recommend anyone for a peaceful civilian job.”
Trace’s smile grew broader. “Did she tell you about her boyfriend?”
“Which one?”
“The most recent one. The one your mother disapproved of.”
“Well, I gather there’s been a few of those.” Erik frowned at her. “What about her boyfriend?”
“She told me that she’d thought it was quite serious. But that recently, she realised she’d barely thought of him in weeks. And that maybe Mother had been right, and that he wasn’t the right sort of boy for her at all. Funny what events and perspective could do, she said. Takes you outside of what you thought you knew.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Erik murmured. “She didn’t tell me that.”
Trace shrugged. “You’ve got a ship to run. And I share quarters with her. We all live in our bubbles. Phoenix was the thing that popped her bubble. And maybe she was the thing that popped mine. I don’t think I’ve had a single civilian friend since childhood. It’s good to be reminded what else exists in the world.”
Erik gazed at the little square mirror. It had a smudge on it, semi-permanent. Months ago, he’d never have allowed it, would have cleaned and polished until the reflection was spotless. Now, the smudge distorted the reflection of his face, dark, sombre and so much less innocent than before. So much less perfect and shiny than the immaculate Debogande caricature had once held him to be. He recalled the obsessively detailed young man who had once leaped to remove every imperfection, and wondered what on earth had possessed him.
Trace squeezed his shoulder. “One day she’ll be ranked so highly we’ll both be saluting her,” she assured him. “Civilian rank or otherwise, you watch.” Erik nodded bleakly, thinking only of the little girl in his dream. Frightened and lonely.
Trace gave him a brief hug, head to his shoulder, then left. Erik watched her go in astonishment. Not long ago she’d been trying to stomp all the softness out of him. Now she was volunteering hugs? She must think I look miserable, he thought. She’ll be worried all the crew will see it. He pulled himself up, straightened his shoulders, and adjusted his collar. Damn, he had let standards slip. The smudge on the mirror angered him, and he reached for the ever-present cleaning cloth in his breast pocket, and began polishing.
“Captain, the meeting on Tantotavarin seems to be breaking up.” Lieutenant Angela Lassa’s voice in his ear, above the pounding of feet on treadmill, and the gasp of air in his lungs. “Sir, we’re getting a message from Admiral Janik’s people on Kanamandali. They say he needs to speak with you. They request that you come and visit Kanamandali by shuttle in…” a brief pause as she translated tavalai taka into human minutes, “…fifty minutes time.”
Erik was breathing too hard to talk, but he could formulate internally, on uplinks, as he did in heavy G. “Tell them Phoenix’s Captain cannot leave the ship under conditions of threat. If they protest that there is no threat, mention Toguru.”
Another pause, as Lassa did that. Of course, if she were admitting that Phoenix knew what Toguru had been saying, when Toguru first burst into the system shrieking threats and accusations… well. All the tavalai suspected, and denying it would gain no advantage now.
“Captain, they insist.”
“Don’t reply,” Erik told her. “We’ve made our answer, our position is not negotiable. Ship security is paramount.”
It was a small rebellion, but a necessary one. Even trapped in a corner, Phoenix was no easy target. If attacked she’d be destroyed, but would take others with her, especially at this range and negligible relative-V. Like a prickly prey beneath the nose of a hungry predator, Phoenix’s best hope of survival lay in appearing as painful and unappetising a meal as possible. Good manners and obedience to tavalai commands was not going to do it.
A minute later, Lassa’s voice again. “Captain, they say they will come to Phoenix. Same time.”
“Tell them yes, Lieutenant.”
“Aye sir.”
On his AR glasses, Erik blinked on an icon that took his visual to a pre-set channel — Aristan’s quarters. The camera was mounted high in a corner, seeing the whole room with fish-eye lense distortion. On the small bunk by a wall sat a slim figure in black robes, unmoving. Barely breathing, if room environmentals were to be believed. As Domesh, Aristan practised a stillness of mind that few of his species could attain. And his species was physiologically more suited to such things than humans.
The robes had become a part of the issue. Erik, Trace and Private Krishnan had found recordings from Drakhil himself, in the hidden minor temple on Stoya III. Styx had vouched for their authenticity. But Drakhil, in those recordings, did not dress or comport himself as Aristan’s many teachings dictated he should. For Aristan, it was a crisis. Erik was no expert on the surviving old Earth religions, but those who still followed them would surely have been similarly upset to receive a video recording of their various saints and messiahs, offering visual and audio proof that they were not the figures that all the teachings proclaimed.
Erik stopped running, gasping air, then went to a vacant punching bag, pulling on some light training gloves. The situation was terrifying, because on Aristan’s fragile psyche rested Lisbeth’s safety. Erik had done what Aristan asked, had given him access to the information he so desperately wanted, and instead of making Lisbeth safer as Aristan had insisted, it had increased her jeopardy. Now his fear and helplessness was giving way to fury.
Erik punched the bag hard, with technique that had improved considerably in the last three years, in close proximity to Phoenix Company marines. He imagined it was Aristan’s face before him, being smashed by his fists. He recalled striking the State Department ambassador, Jelidanatagani, on the Tsubarata, and seeing her fall limp. He’d never punched anyone in the face before, outside of combat training, and certainly had never knocked anyone out cold — male or female, human or alien. Punching women was certainly not the way he’d been raised, but he did not regret it for a moment. Anger felt considerably better than fear. Anger could get things done. Anger moved forward, with purpose and direction. Trace had always told him, ‘no more Mr Nice Guy.’ And he’d tried, if only to please her… but now he truly felt it, and didn’t give a damn if Trace approved or not.
After gym he took a fast shower, changed to his usual spacer jumpsuit and jacket, then paid a visit to Medbay One. Ensign Arvind Kadi was here, unconscious behind drawn screens, hooked into tubes and blinking displays. Gunnery Sergeant ‘Woody’ Forrest was sitting with him, with no particular hope that he’d wake up soon, just sitting as he’d sit with another member of Alpha Platoon, so that someone would be there when his eyes
finally opened. It told Erik everything he needed to know about what had happened on Konik, and how the usually chauvinistic world of the marines had expanded to include the young Ensign from Engineering.
Erik had no time for more than a few words, then moved on to Corporal Rael from Trace’s own Command Squad, who had on a mask with a tube down his throat, and was swathed in micro-environment bandaging beneath the sheets, to repair skin burned in the hellish atmosphere of Kamala. Rael couldn’t talk, but his uplinks let him formulate… he’d be okay in a week or so, the doctors said. And on duty perhaps another week after that, Major Thakur allowing.
In chairs alongside, his squad buddy Private Rolonde sat with little Skah, and helped him to read a story aloud. Skah looked very tired, as it was early for him, and the boy liked his sleep. One big ear drooped, adorably, and he barely glanced at Erik, finding the story more interesting than the now-familiar Captain.
“Gets real boring lying here staring at the ceiling,” Rael explained, his synthetic-replica voice remarkably close-to-life in Erik’s inner ear. “I told Jess to bring Skah’s lessons in here. He’s a good kid.”
Despite the brave face, there was something desperately vulnerable about the Corporal’s request. Having nearly died, and now facing a lengthy recovery, he wanted to be around activity and people, and not be left alone with his thoughts. Ed ‘Cocky’ Rael had the distinction of being one of the most handsome men in Phoenix Company, with sandy hair and a boyish gleam in his brown eyes. Sitting with him for the few moments he had to spare, Erik saw not one of Trace’s most hardass marines, but a young guy coming to terms with just how close he’d been to dying, and finding it harder than he’d like to admit.
Erik grasped Rael’s hand, and leaned close. “We’re going to Cason System because of you, Cocky. That’s where the data-core is, I’m on my way to see Romki right now, he’s figuring it out. And when we get that core, we’ll have what we need to defend humanity from the deepynines. You did that, and one day everyone’s going to know it. And if these fucking tavalai try and stop us, we’re going to run them over.”
2
Lisbeth swam. She was barely more than an average swimmer. She’d expected to spend some considerable part of her adult life offworld, where swimming pools were exceedingly rare, and so had played quite a bit of squash and basketball, two sports for which facilities could be found on stations. And of course, she’d liked to ride horses at the family stables in Greenoak, not far north of the Debogande house in the hills overlooking Shiwon. There weren’t many horses in space either, her father had teased her.
They’d all doubted whether she could really survive in the hard world of spaceship engineering. Little Lisbeth, youngest of Alice Debogande’s five children, known for late mornings and a leisurely approach to assignments and homework. Oh, her grades had been good enough — first rate, in fact. But in truth, she’d coasted, not finding anything especially difficult, and knowing she could always pull an all-nighter and scrape in with a B-plus on the little assignments that didn’t matter so much, and save the day with a big A-plus on the ones that did.
She did love space travel, and the ships that plied the great FTL routes between stars. She’d memorised the names of the Debogande-affiliated fleet, and pestered her parents for frequent trips up to station, to see the great steel beasts at dock, and be introduced to their captains and crew. But her enthusiasm had not quite matched the passion of her next-eldest sister Cora, who’d been painting and sculpting well beyond her age as a toddler, and who could walk the halls of the Shiwon Gallery of Fine Arts at age ten, and name the artists of many major works without reading the labels. Nor had Lisbeth matched the passion of the much older Deirdre, who’d graduated from Edwin B Bannerjee School of Law at the very top of one of the toughest classes in all human space, and had been known as a young girl to burst into tears at anything less than a straight-A. And to say nothing of Katerina, who had been groomed for the leadership of all Debogande Incorporated at her mother’s side, and who, family legend had it, had requested for her eighth birthday to be given a stock trader’s licence.
Nor had she quite matched the passion of her only brother Erik, who’d had his eyes on the Academy, and Fleet, since the first moment his father had explained the family tradition of Debogande men serving in uniform. It wasn’t hard to see how it all came about, Lisbeth concluded now — this Debogande habit of picking a field young, and then overachieving wildly. Home had been a place of work for as long as she could remember. There was plenty of family fun and relaxation too, but always there was business, with secretaries and assistants walking in at all hours, and servants serving meals at precisely assigned times, and Mother and Father always on call, always being interrupted mid-meal or conversation to attend to some new demand from another of the business empire’s many sprawling arms. Everyone in the family was good at something, and the portraits of brilliant men and women gazed down from the walls of every hallway — Debogandes long-passed, women in business dress and men often in uniform, captains and admirals, managers and directors, ministers, magistrates and senior politicians.
Lisbeth had felt the weight of expectation as they all had, and even though her parents had refrained, from extended family the questions had come thick and fast — what are you going to study, little Lisbeth? What will you be when you grow up? Which is going to be your portrait, gazing down from these high walls upon future generations of awestruck young Debogandes?
Until Erik had joined the Academy, she truly hadn’t known. But she’d missed him terribly, even though the Academy was only kilometres away on the opposite side of Shiwon, and she got to see him in person every few weeks, and on the vid screen far more often than that. She’d only been six, and it hadn’t occurred to her immediately, but by Erik’s third year she was turning eight, and long tales of Erik’s studies to become a Fleet officer had convinced her that she loved spaceships. Mother was displeased at the notion of her daughters joining Fleet, and so Lisbeth had decided that if she couldn’t wear the uniform, she would help build the ships that all those uniformed heroes like her brother would serve on. And fortunately for her, Debogande Incorporated had a particularly successful arm of industry that did exactly that.
She’d announced her new passion proudly to her parents and elder sisters, which had earned her several long inter-system trips on family business, on or as close to school holidays as could be managed. That she’d enjoyed those trips, and had loved her tours of the spaceships she’d received along the way, had convinced her family that she was serious, and that she might one day become a spaceship engineer, perhaps even the head of the shipbuilding arm of Debogande Enterprises. But still there had remained the suspicion that little Lisbeth had only really grown to love spaceships because Erik did, and that truly it was Erik’s passion that she had adopted, and not something of her very own.
It was probably even true, Lisbeth thought now, as she stroked through the cool water. But then, wasn’t Katerina’s love of business and management really their mother’s passion first? And hadn’t Deirdre’s interest in the law been first stoked by her closeness with favourite Uncle Calvin, who had at the time been on the bench of the Homeworld Court of Appeals? Lisbeth did not think it was particularly fair that she should be singled out for such things, just because she was youngest, and not quite as keen on homework as her sisters had been. Or endless hours of hard work and study in general. At least, she thought as she pulled handfuls of water with aching arms and gasping breath, she did not have that problem now.
She touched the end of the pool, folded her arms upon the poolside tiles, and breathed hard. She’d wanted to go running, but had been assured by her ever-present security that the vast expanse of Kunadeen courtyards was not safe. The swimming pool was a little less than a human-sized length, and narrower than most, designed for the use of important individuals, not large groups. It was open to the air beyond the Domesh Temple, enclosed on one side by a lattice that made small, hexagonal holes
through which the morning sun speared upon the glittering surface of the pool in her wake.
Lisbeth counted that she had done fifteen laps, and gestured for her robe. Fifteen was rather more than she’d once have achieved, even though there was certainly no pool on Phoenix. Time amongst the marines had made her self-conscious of her weakness. ‘Just get fit’, one of the sergeants had told her with a smile, when she’d asked her for tips on what exercises she should be doing. All quite condescending, at the prospect of what levels of fitness she might achieve. It had made Lisbeth want to get crazy-fit, just to show her, but that was stupid. She wasn’t a marine, nor even a Fleet spacer. But she was an engineer, and she’d acquired her mother’s head for politics just as she’d acquired her father’s head for reaction drives and jump fields. What was more, she was a Debogande.
Her parren maid, Semaya, arrived with a robe, and Lisbeth climbed quickly from the water to shrug it on. Most parren swam naked, and had no concept of this human thing called ‘swimming trunks’, regarding the wearing of clothes in water as somehow barbaric. The one exception were the Domesh Denomination, in whose temple she currently lived… but Lisbeth’s personal staff were not Domesh, but Togreth, who served all House Harmony irrespective of denomination. It meant that she had no choice but to follow their lead, and wrapped the light robe thankfully about her bare skin, padding to a small, round table upon which a light breakfast had been arranged. All of the staff present were female, and Lisbeth was thankful that parren also found decorum in the same separations of gender that humans did.
Through gaps in the lattice, Lisbeth could see the Kunadeen complex from perhaps a hundred metres up — a huge, patchwork expanse of paving, broken by erratic lines of garden, green trees and half-hidden water features. In the middle distance, more temples, trapezoid rectangular boxes that tapered as they rose. They cast vast shadows across the pavings, which at this hour of morning were full of parren, some doing calisthenics, others martial arts, or other activities Lisbeth couldn’t identify. But always organised, the parren, and always in ranks and lines. Music rose from different parts of the complex, a tangle of ill-matched tunes. Some banners trailed in the light morning breeze, marking out the identity of one group or another. As with so much of parren society, the details continued to elude her, like a computer-generated fractal pattern that only became more complicated as she magnified the image.
Defiance: (The Spiral Wars Book 4) Page 2