The Mind Field

by Blaze Ward

  Javier wondered when the ambush was coming.

  “So, Ms. Teague,” the Captain broke the silence, “If you are set on traveling to New London, that represents another complication. We aren’t likely to be in that sector any time soon. The closest we are likely to get in the next six to nine months is Meehu. Once in the near future for supplies before we return here to A’Nacia, and then again after a second trip.”

  “I can work for my passage, Captain, both here and after I make it to Meehu” she said quietly. “It won’t be the first time. Ships are always looking for good crew. I have several degrees, including accounting. And, after a time to return to proper form, a strong back. I can learn most things quickly.”

  She took a sip of her coffee and glanced sidelong at Javier. He fought a losing battle to keep the grin off of his face.

  “One other thought,” she trailed off.

  “Yes,” Captain Sokolov took the bait.

  “Javier tells me that you don’t currently have a Ship’s Chaplain.”

  He smiled. The looks on both of their faces was worth every bit of what was going to be coming to him for this.

  Part Twelve

  Zakhar tried to hide his surprise.

  Djamila stomping into his office was a new experience. She was the most professional soldier he had ever known. Yet here she was, practically gnashing her teeth, assaulting the floor plates with her boots.

  Starting with breakfast, today was just turning out to be all sorts of special. Zakhar could only imagine what fun Javier would bring, at this rate.

  Before she even stopped moving to salute, he pointed at the chair. “Sit.”

  As she did, Zakhar experienced some level of juvenile payback, watching her realize that the chair had already been adjusted to her height. The look on her face was priceless.

  Normally, the first thing she did when her butt hit a chair was manipulate it for her so–much–longer legs. She was the tallest person on the ship. Nothing fit.

  Unless you knew she was coming.

  Zakhar refrained from smiling at her. Command face.

  He let her stew for a few moments, composing herself from being knocked off kilter.

  “I have a problem,” he opened the bidding strong. Jacks or better.

  Her eyes got that cagey look that told him far more than just responding would have done. She really was up to something. And Javier was involved. Helping, perhaps.

  Perfectly crazy.

  He waited, but she had closed down and was happy to call. At least this round.

  “I have found a lost kitten by the side of the road,” he continued, watching her like an owl might observe said kitten.

  “Yes. Kitten,” she replied, all clammed up.

  Apparently, this was not how she had expected the conversation to start out. Probably wouldn’t be the conversation she expected to have. Tough.

  “Normally,” he continued, drawling out the syllables, “I would happily add such a kitten to the list of trade goods for sale at the next station or land–fall.”

  The way she flinched said far more than words. The chair actually creaked with the stress of her suddenly gripping it with one hand.

  He dangled that last part for an extra moment.

  She wouldn’t take the bait.

  “I have the impression, from more than one crew member on this vessel, that people would prefer that I make an exception to the normal rules, at least in this case.”

  She nodded slowly, warily.

  It dawned on Zakhar that his Mistress of Close Combat had learned some useful things about political maneuvering over the last few years. Probably from watching him. The Djamila who had joined his crew, once upon a time, would not have been able to hold her tongue right now. She would have been ranting at him, as was her style, in the privacy of his office, never a word whispered about it later.

  This new woman had gone quiet, reserved, poised.

  What the hell was going on?

  “So,” he continued, “should we get out of the business entirely?”

  He left it hanging.

  “There are times,” she whispered, finally breaking her silence, “when it is appropriate to bend the rules.”

  WHAT?

  For a moment, Zakhar was nearly convinced that he had a doppelganger sitting in his office.

  This woman embodied a life following the hardest rules and order. It provided her context, and, often, solace.

  He took a sip of coffee to prevent the absolute shock spreading across his face at her words.

  “For her,” he finally said, after he could swallow his shock and his coffee.

  “For her,” Djamila replied, barely above a whisper.

  What the hell was going on?

  “What about others?” he said warily. “Javier Aritza, for example.”

  The open palm slamming onto the top of his desk was loud enough to make him nearly jump clear out of his chair. Zakhar made a mental note to check the surface for a dent, later.

  He would have broken his hand, hitting something that hard. She probably hadn’t noticed.

  “That little punk had it coming,” she hissed savagely. “Still does.”

  Okay, then. That settled that question. For a moment, Zakhar had been afraid that the two of them had patched things up and secretly started dating. Crazier shit had happened in the last seventy–two hours.

  “So the rule is generally sound,” he nodded, drawing the words out, “but not in this instance?”

  She nodded back, dropping back into her quiet place, breath still a little ragged. He watched her fight her heartrate back to normal.

  Between Javier getting serious and Djamila getting flexible, Zakhar wasn’t sure the vessel wasn’t completely overrun by Aritza’s pixies. It made about as much sense. Perhaps more.

  “Why?” he said flatly.

  He was still the Captain. This was his deck, his vessel. But it only worked with a good crew. And something had changed.

  It was like an infection, brought aboard by the Shepherd, without her ever saying a word.

  And he would have never believed it, had he not been there.

  Djamila took a deep breath, held it, released.

  He wondered, briefly, if she would even tell him. Something was going on with her and Javier. And two less likely co–conspirators he had a hard time imagining.

  The pause stretched. He could see the thoughts and words racing around in her eyes.

  “Djamila,” he said quietly. “It’s not enough, even for you. I need to know why.”

  He heard her breath catch. The room had gotten that quiet.

  “Opportunity,” she whispered back, so quiet that he might have not heard it, had he not seen her lips move.

  He fixed her with a quizzical stare, unwilling to speak and break whatever spell had taken this warrior woman and suddenly made her…something. Not vulnerable. She didn’t do vulnerable. Human, perhaps? Had he ever seen her merely human?

  “I’m here because you gave me a chance, when Neu Berne was done with me,” she continued, still barely audible. “Andreea had run out of chances with the Balustrade Navy. For others, it was the same way. Aritza is working off his debt–bond, but even then, he has had an opportunity that he wouldn’t have had, if we, if you, had sold him to some colony as slave labor.”

  “And Wilhelmina Teague?” he asked into that vast gap that had suddenly opened between them.

  Djamila paused, composing her thoughts. For moment, her guard was down.

  The look in her eyes was almost pain. From a woman who prided herself on being tougher, harder, meaner than anyone else. Always.

  “When she’s little,” she said in a tiny voice, “her daddy takes her on his knee and tells her stories about princesses and dragons. And she grows up with those fairie tales. Sometimes she remembers them, and wonders what her life could have turned out like if it hadn’t go down the particular path it did. How it might have been different.”

  Zakhar sat quie
tly, marveling at a side of Djamila Sykora he had never imagined existed. He sat perfectly still, unwilling to break the spell that had come over her.

  “And Wilhelmina is a magical princess, sleeping for centuries and then awakened.”

  The image of Javier Aritza as the dashing hero waking the princess with a kiss almost made him laugh out loud. Being the Captain was enough to hold it in.

  What the hell was going on?

  “We,” she said quietly, “you, have the opportunity to do something from a fairie tale. You can rescue the princess like the fairy godmother, or put her back to work scrubbing floors, like the evil stepmother.”

  Zakhar had been called many things in his life. Officer and Gentleman. Captain. Warrior. Pirate. Other things less savory, sometimes only in the voices he heard when he tried to sleep.

  He had never been an evil stepmother.

  For a moment, the silence just hung. He seriously considered actually hiring that woman as Ship’s Chaplain, if for no other reason than to see what Storm Gauntlet might turn into. He had already seen sides to Aritza and Sykora he never dreamed he would.

  What other surprises might the future bring?

  Zakhar realized that Djamila was hanging on pins and needles, watching him.

  Again, not vulnerable, but human. Perhaps vulnerable. Especially if she suddenly saw him as a fantasy king and Javier as a heroic prince rescuing damsels.

  He nodded to her.

  She breathed out and deflated a little.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly, solemnly.

  She nodded and rose. After a moment, the spit–and–polish Sykora made her appearance, ramrod straight and perfectly poised. She snapped off a salute, pivoted, and exited the room, once again every inch a recruiting poster Dragoon of a pirate ship.

  Nobody would ever believe him, even if he had someone he could tell this story to.

  Zakhar keyed the comm built into his desk. “Kibwe Bousaid,” he said, activating the system to locate his aide, wherever he was on the ship and beep the nearest comm.

  “Bousaid here,” the voice came back after a beat. Rich, warm. A man with a background in radio. How had he ended up on Storm Gauntlet? What was his story? Zakhar realized that he had never asked.

  He never did. They were pirates. Some things were better left unknown, and the rest were frequently far more mundane than esoteric.

  “Sokolov. Please locate Ms. Wilhelmina Teague and ask her to join me in my office.”

  “Will do, Cap’n.”

  Zakhar leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands.

  How had any of them gotten here?

  Some time passed before a knock at the hatch. He opened it, expecting his aide and Teague.

  Javier stood there.

  “Two minutes?” the man asked hopefully.

  Zakhar nodded and watched the next round of craziness ooze into his day.

  Javier sat without asking, as was normal with the man.

  The look of surprise on his face was almost as good as it had been on Sykora’s.

  “So she’s already been here,” the Science Officer said as he adjusted the chair.

  Zakhar nodded. This round was going to be two of a kind or better to open, and Javier was a better player than Djamila. Let him start the bidding.

  “Did she get an answer she liked?”

  Zakhar had to pause and deconstruct that question. It made no sense. Unless the two of them were up to something.

  The two of them.

  Together.

  What the hell was going on?

  Zakhar cocked his head sideways and looked at the man before him.

  “Why?” he asked, every inch the Captain right now. He felt the deck threatening to slide out from under him.

  “I have two speeches prepared,” Javier grinned back at him. “Didn’t want to waste your time rehashing things if you had already made that decision.”

  Whatever it was, Zakhar was suddenly unsure if he should keep Teague around forever, or get rid of her immediately.

  The ship had changed. He wasn’t sure it was a good thing.

  “She’s a most amazingly interesting woman, when you actually get to know her,” Javier said, apropos of nothing.

  Zakhar paused, considered, studied.

  “Teague or Sykora?”

  Javier gave him a frog–faced grin that made his eyes almost disappear.

  “You spend time talking to someone like her,” the Science Officer continued, “and learn things. Sure about her, but also things about yourself you have forgotten over time. They come back and you remember them again from when things were good.”

  “I see,” Zakhar said, unwilling to commit to more just yet. He didn’t, but it was a useful placeholder until he did.

  “I remember a quote,” Javier said, again wandering off on another tangent that made no sense. “We do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

  “And what would be the hard choice here, mister?” Zakhar growled quietly, two old Bryce Academy school chums having lunch.

  If only.

  Javier grinned.

  “It’s not that hard, really,” Javier replied. “Teague already knows her ship is salvage, and she’s okay with that. You send her to Meehu with the ship when it goes, and she makes her own way from there. She’ll be fine.”

  “And what’s the hard choice?”

  Javier paused and swallowed. His eyes got very cold.

  It was a look Zakhar was familiar with, from his own mirror. A man making hard choices.

  “When you sell her ship, the crew will get their shares, the officers theirs. And I’m betting you’ll find a very happy buyer, since we just did the impossible and found a working ship five centuries old, with a fantastically awesome story. Am I close?”

  “Close enough, mister,” Zakhar said.

  Javier studied his face for a moment.

  “I would like Wilhelmina to get my share.”

  Zakhar’s stomach felt like it had been punched. He would have bet that Aritza couldn’t have topped Sykora today in surprising him.

  And lost.

  Moments passed. Two men staring at each other across a desk.

  “Why?”

  “Something she said made me remember who I always wanted to be when I grew up.”

  “Teague or Sykora?”

  But Javier just smiled at him.

  Impasse

  A knock at the hatch.

  Zakhar had a chime, but it was rarely used. People preferred the tap. More personal, perhaps.

  He pushed the button to open the hatch.

  Aritza stood in the door with a clipboard in one hand and a mug in the other. He entered and plopped down in the chair without invitation.

  Zakhar looked up at him silently, waiting.

  “The other ship is away with Wilhelmina and Sykora aboard,” he said. “Just made their first out–system jump en route to Meehu. Should take Piet about eight days to arrive there. Are they really going to hire a big freighter to come back out here?”

  “They are,” Zakhar nodded. “We’ll use the same trick to get the freighter inside the minefield as we did to get the other two ships through.”

  Sykora was likely to get good at the technique of killing mines by hand. If he didn’t get her killed. Or she decided to kill both he and Aritza for making her do it.

  “Why not hire a minesweeper?” Javier asked.

  “I don’t want to share my toys, mister,” Zakhar growled across the desk. “After I’ve taken everything I want out of there, then maybe we’ll talk about hiring a minesweeper. Right now, like you said, it’s a haunted ships graveyard.”

  He watched Javier shrug and take a drink before set the mug down on his desk. It was an old battered porcelain mug from a bakery on Merankorr.

  “Where’s your fancy mug, Aritza?” Zakhar asked. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen the man without it in some time.

  Javier looked down at the mug for a moment, and then l
ooked up at him with a smile.

  “I sent it with Wilhelmina,” he said, “as a memento of her time here. Wanted her to remember all this in a good way.”

  “I see.” Zakhar craned forward to look into the mug. “Is that coffee?”

  “Yup,” he said, taking a sip. “Trying new things.”

  Javier stopped and looked extra serious for a moment.

  “I also wanted to thank you for sending Wilhelmina off with enough money to do something good with her life.”

  “It might have been enough to buy out your contract, you know,” Zakhar said quietly.

  He watched the man shrug eloquently.

  “It wouldn’t have been enough to ransom my chickens and my trees.”

  Zakhar smiled a tight, tiny smile. “Figured that out, did you?”

  Javier rose with his own smile and made his way to the door.

  “You people won’t get rid of me that easily,” he said as he departed.

  Zakhar scowled alone at his desk, pondering the new sides of his Science Officer he had discovered.

  What secrets did his Science Officer and his Dragoon now share?

  Was Javier staying a good thing or a bad thing? Was he starting to like being here, enough to hire on after he was free? Or was he waiting until he could see them all hang?

  And what mind games would they start playing tomorrow?

  Find the other Suvi story, The Librarian, at Knotted Road Press or your favorite retailer.

  About the Author

  Blaze has lived in many different places, including Kansas, The Ozarks, Breckenridge, and SoCal. He’s also done a number of things, some of which are even past the statute of limitations now. The ones he’ll tell you about (without the need for full anonymity) include being a bouncer at a cowboy bar outside a Marine base, a volunteer storm–spotter with the county fire department, and herding nerds at a small software company. He currently lives Seattle–ish and tells stories in most every form of English you can, and a few other languages.

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