Destiny of Dragons

by Jack Campbell

  Colonel Anders saluted. “Our orders are to wait at Larharbor for your return. Good luck.”

  “Thank you, Colonel. I hope the wait won’t be too tedious.”

  Anders smiled. “Larharbor isn’t Dorcastle, but even here Tiae cavalry gets a warm welcome. Don’t worry about us.”

  Jason squinted down the pier. “That’s our ride at the end? Nice ship.”

  “Yes, one of the Confederation’s newest warships,” Colonel Rus said proudly.

  Kira took a look. Sleek lines, all metal, no masts for sails at all, just two stacks for the steam boilers that provided propulsion, and gun mounts holding the latest, deadliest designs out of the workshops of Master Mechanic Alli of Danalee.

  She wished it had been a ship of the old designs, with tall masts and tight patterns of rigging and sails ready to unfurl. But the engineer in her knew that sometimes practical considerations had to take precedence over aesthetics.

  They started down the pier, Confederation troops ringing them in but keeping enough distance that Kira didn’t feel too claustrophobic. She breathed in the smell of the sea, which brought feelings of freedom and limitless space to her. For a moment all worries were forgotten.

  “Hey, that’s The Son of Taris!” Jason said.

  Surprised, Kira looked to one side at the sailing ship tied up there. It looked just as it had the last time she’d seen the ship, in the harbor at Kelsi, except for the banner of the daughter flapping high up on one of the masts. “Hold!” she called out to the commander of the Confederation escort. “I need to go aboard this ship for a moment.”

  Up the gangplank and onto the wooden deck she’d once walked with bare feet. Kira stared about, surprised by how familiar it all felt.

  “Hi!” Jason called from beside her, waving to the crew on deck.

  Kira saw the captain and first mate coming down from the quarterdeck. “Excuse me for coming aboard unannounced, sir,” she said to the captain.

  He frowned at her, the same authority figure in greatcoat and boots, his beard flecked with gray adding to his aura of command. “You honor us with a visit, Lady.”

  “Please. I’m not Lady to you, or you,” she added to the first mate.

  The first mate snorted. “You owe me, girl. Tasking me with a message to the daughter of Jules herself and not warning me of who it was.”

  “I’m sorry, but would you have believed me? I just wanted to tell you… to thank you both. You helped me learn a lot about myself.”

  The captain gestured upward to where the daughter’s banner flew. “We’ve been well repaid by your mother’s favor. The ship and crew prosper, not that we’d be alive or afloat if not for what you did in that storm.”

  “How are you?” the first mate asked, eyeing Kira. “We heard some of what happened some months back. The legions, was it?”

  “That was part of it,” Kira admitted. “Jason and I… nearly didn’t make it. I’m sorry we can’t stay and visit. We’re on a mission.”

  “Are you?” the captain asked. He had been watching Kira closely as well. “May an old seafarer offer advice to a young Lady?”

  “Of course,” Kira said.

  “I had this from my captain, long ago when I was as young as you are now. He told me the best sailors are a trap. They do their jobs well. You can count on them in any situation. So you give them the important jobs. One job, they get it done and done well. Two jobs at the same time, they’re still doing their best and their best is very good. Then three jobs at once, because you need those jobs done and that sailor can do it. And because that sailor is who they are, they keep doing it all. Until one day that good sailor cracks like a mast under too much strain.”

  The captain nodded to Kira, his eyes concerned. “That’s the trap. That you reward that good sailor by piling him or her with so many important jobs that they break under the burden. It’s all too easy to do.”

  Kira nodded back. “I’ll remember that. I won’t do that to anyone.”

  “It’s not you doing it to someone else I worry about. It’s others doing it to you, and you doing it to yourself. Because sometimes we make that trap for ourselves.” He turned to gesture toward the north. “You’ve fought a dragon, we hear. Faced down those people from Urth, fought Imperial warships and their legions, and now you’re on something else. Because you’re the daughter of your mother. Don’t kill yourself trying to be her.”

  She blinked at him, surprised by the warning. “I can’t be her. I’m not trying to be her.”

  “If you say so. Forgive me for speaking freely,” the captain said.

  “No. That’s all right. I won’t forget what you said,” Kira told him. She turned as a Confederation officer came onto the ship.

  “Lady, my apologies, but—”

  “That’s all right,” Kira called back. “We’ll be right there.” Facing the captain and first mate again, Kira nodded and smiled to them. “If you need anything, contact my mother, or me.”

  Once off the ship, she tried to shake off an uneasiness raised by the captain’s words. “Am I pushing it too hard?” she murmured to Jason.

  “Yes,” he murmured back.

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. You need some rest.”

  Kira looked ahead at the ship they were approaching. “There shouldn’t be anything to do for the next few days but rest.”

  As tired and distracted as she was, Kira still noticed as she boarded the Confederation warship that a whistle shrilled and a new banner was hauled up a halyard to flap in the breeze. She paused to look up at it, puzzled. “Why did you raise my mother’s banner?”

  The ship’s officer on the quarterdeck shook his head. “That’s not your mother’s banner, Lady. It’s yours.”

  “It’s… what?” Kira took another look. The same blue field on the flag, but instead of a large multi-pointed gold star in the center, the banner had a smaller gold star up in the right top corner. “I don’t have a banner.”

  “We were informed that you do,” the officer replied.

  “Jason!”

  “I didn’t know anything about this,” he replied, gazing up at the banner. “It’s kind of cool, though, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not cool! It’s ridiculous! Why do I need a banner? Why are you flying that?” Kira demanded of the ship’s officer.

  “Lady, we were ordered to do so.”

  “How can I have a banner and not even know I have a banner?”

  The officer spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t know how it works, Lady.”

  Kira’s sense of humor came to her rescue. “I guess that makes two of us who don’t know how it works. I’m sorry. It’s obviously not something you decided to do. But… Jason, we need to find out how this happened.”

  The ship’s captain, a woman with the weathered skin of someone who had formerly spent much time at sea on open ships, greeted them warmly, but politely declined when Kira asked that the banner be hauled down, saying that the orders on that didn’t allow any discretion. “I was informed that a council of ministers agreed that your banner should be of that design and it should be flown to indicate your presence.”

  “A council of ministers.” Kira shook her head, too tired to argue further. “Captain, I apologize for asking, but Jason and I are very tired from the trip here. Is there any chance we could get a quick meal and then be allowed to pass out for the night?”

  “Lady, I’m at your command,” the captain said. “Let’s get you to your staterooms.”

  They were small but decent, accommodations on a ship intended for war, not passengers. Kira’s was across the narrow passageway from Jason’s. She felt a sudden tension as she walked into hers, the nautical fittings and metal about her pulling up ugly memories of the Imperial ship where she’d been confined by Prince Maxim. Kira spun about to assure herself that the hinges on the door were on the inside, accessible to her. The porthole in one wall was sealed but covered only by a curtain, the metal protective plate swung down and

unlocked.

  Kira breathed in and out slowly, telling herself that this was different, that she was in no danger here, that this was not a prison.

  “Are you okay?” Jason murmured nearby.

  “Not entirely,” she whispered back. “Stay in here with me while we eat.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so tired and this room feels a little—" Kira stared, trying to figure out how she’d gotten to the door, her hand on the latch to open it. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Jason said carefully. “You suddenly stopped talking and lunged for the door, but then you stopped moving.”

  “How long? How long was it from the time I stopped talking to when I asked you what had happened?”

  “Just a few seconds.”

  Kira slowed her breathing. “Maybe I was just so tired I kind of passed out for a moment. Maybe it wasn’t a blackout.”

  “Maybe,” Jason said. “It was real quick. I’m as tired as you are, and I feel like I’m going to pass out on my feet.”

  “I hope we’re right.”

  The food wasn’t fancy, but it was better than the cavalry got. When they were done, Kira asked Jason to wait just outside for a moment while she closed the door.

  Deep breaths. Calm. She was among friends. Jason was nearby.

  Don’t black out. Don’t black out. Please.

  Nothing. Maybe getting some food had made the difference. Sighing with relief, she opened the door again and nodded to Jason to show him it was all right. “Thanks.”

  A guard also stood in the passageway, looking nervous over this unfamiliar responsibility. Not someone to keep her from escaping, but someone to ensure no one hurt her. Kira smiled and nodded to the guard, letting the sailor know his presence was welcome and his work appreciated, then shut the door again.

  She fell asleep to the sounds of the ship getting underway.

  * * *

  The next morning, Kira got out her change of clothes and walked down the passageway to the officer’s head, where a small shower stall offered a means of getting clean. She scrubbed her hair and body for a long time, reveling in the feeling of cleanliness. As she got out, she found one of the female officers waiting to use the shower. “I’m sorry,” Kira said..

  “We often have to wait in line,” the officer replied cheerfully.

  But as Kira got dressed, she saw the officer’s eyes lingering on the twin parallel scars on Kira’s shoulder, the marks of dragon claws. Even here she couldn’t blend in. And once Kira had finished dressing, the bullet scar on her neck was still visible to anyone.

  “Four days,” the captain told Kira at dinner that evening. “It’ll take four days to reach Altis.”

  Even though Kira felt like hiding in her stateroom, she knew she had to socialize with the crew. It was one of the things her mother had always emphasized, to treat others courteously. “The measure of who you are,” Mari had told her, “is how well you treat people you don’t have to treat well.”

  Which was why she and Jason sat in the wardroom, eating dinner with the officers and making polite conversation. She would’ve felt a little out of place in her Mechanics jacket but for the presence of five other Mechanics assigned to the ship to supervise various pieces of equipment.

  The meal was interrupted by the arrival of a sailor. “High priority far-talker message,” the captain apologized to Kira before reading it. “Hmmm. I think you should see this.”

  Kira took the paper, reading. “The old emperor is dead.” She heard the shifting of the others in the wardroom as they reacted to the news.

  “Do you think it’s true?” the captain asked her.

  “He’s been ailing for some time,” Kira said. “And the death was announced by Camber.”

  “I saw that. Who is Camber?”

  “He’s… he was… the emperor’s closest, most trusted assistant. Very low profile, but one of the most powerful people in the Empire. I don’t think he’d lie about the emperor being dead.”

  “You know him?”

  “I’ve met him,” Kira said, before realizing how casual that had sounded. Sure. The daughter of the daughter, hanging out with the most powerful people in the Empire. “When the ship from Urth came to Tiae, he led the Imperial delegation,” she explained, “so I was introduced to Camber, and Mother told me a bit about him.”

  One of the older male officers made a soft exclamation that caused Kira to look at him. “Your pardon, Lady,” he said. “It’s just… hearing you say Mother and realizing you meant the daughter herself. You must have had a remarkable childhood.”

  Kira decided the safest way to answer that was by saying as little as possible. “Yes. Remarkable.” To avoid saying anything else, she read further. “Oh. Princess Sabrin has proclaimed herself empress. That’s good.”

  “Is it?” the captain asked.

  Kira paused, aware of how the captain and the other ships officers were listening, intent on her every word. Whatever Kira said would be repeated, and written down, and surely transmitted by far-talker back to the Bakre Confederation. Because she was the daughter of the daughter. She was supposed to know what her mother knew, and what her mother felt, and what her mother wanted. At the moment, she felt more like an awkward teen than a polished diplomat.

  She took a moment to choose the right words. “I think so. I’ve personally encountered Sabrin. She’s strong, but, I think, not eager to resort to war. She prefers… other methods of competition.”

  The captain nodded, her eyes on Kira. “Sabrin is part of the Imperial court, though. There are a lot of lurid stories about the court.”

  “A lot of those stories are true,” Kira said. “But Sabrin said she’ll change that. She told me the court was weak because it rewarded betrayal of all kinds.”

  “She told you?”

  Why did everything she said sound either stupid or like a boast? “We’ve met. As I said.”

  “When the Urth ship came?” another officer asked.

  “No, it was… later.” Oh no. That sounded like Sabrin had been involved with the kidnapping. “She wasn’t part of any… ummm… actions against me.”

  “Do you think this will lead to more Imperial aggression? An attempt by Sabrin to solidify power by getting her rivals to back her against an external enemy?”

  The captain must have been fed those questions by higher-ups in the Confederation. Kira felt as though she was being interrogated. Politely, but clearly being pumped for information. “I don’t think so,” Kira said. “Sabrin has already lined up a lot of support. Now as empress she’ll deal with internal opponents who don’t fall into line. And then I expect her to push Imperial technological advances, and Imperial plans to colonize the Western Continent.”

  “The Western Alliance will want to know about that,” one of the other officers remarked.

  “It’s a big continent,” Kira said. “Bigger than the one we’re on. The Empire is planning to send their ships east, to colonize the side of the continent opposite where the Western Alliance will be when it sends ships west.” She knew her mother was already talking to both the Empire and the Western Alliance, as well as other powers, about how to divide up the Western Continent in ways that didn’t result in war. It seemed absurd to imagine fighting over the vast new areas when they couldn’t be filled for centuries, but as Mari had told her, people had done stranger and even stupider things. “The Western Alliance already knows that,” Kira added. “My mother… the daughter… is already working with all countries to establish areas on the Western Continent for each power that wants to colonize there.”

  “Nobody else is there?” one of the Mechanics asked. Not much older than Kira, he must have been trained—like her—in the time since the old Guild had fallen apart, the remnants confined to the Empire.

  “Not that we know of.”

  “We didn’t spot any human habitation from orbit,” Jason said. “No cities or towns or signs of farms or anything else. I mean, in the initial surveys when my ship got here.”

  Kira felt attention recenter on Jason. Grateful for the distraction from herself, she also watched to ensure no one ganged up on him. Word had gotten around that the people from Urth on Jason’s mother’s ship had been arrogant and greedy.

  “What’s that like?” the captain asked. “Being up that high in a ship? I mean, does it feel like a ship?”

  “Not like this,” Jason said, using one hand to illustrate a rocking motion. “Or like being on a Roc. It’s very stable. Unless we were under high acceleration, we couldn’t even feel the ship being moved. It was sort of like floating, I guess, floating above the planet where nothing could move us around.”

  “Isn’t it frightening?” another Mechanic asked. “Being that high up?”

  “Not really. You’re in a ship designed to do that, so it’s no more scary than being out on the ocean in this ship. You know as long as nothing goes wrong you’re fine.”

  “Urth’s a lot different, I heard.”

  Jason paused, his expression troubled. “The technology is different. We didn’t have the Mechanics Guild suppressing things like you guys did. And that… It can be a challenge… I guess… to remember what’s important. Kira can tell you I didn’t understand a lot of things when I got to this world. But I chose to stay. I like it here. You guys… you know things that I think Earth is having trouble remembering. Not technology. But the stuff inside us, that tells us who we should be.”

  They liked hearing that, Kira saw. She liked hearing it whenever Jason said it. The affirmation that while Urth had technology Dematr did not, Dematr had some things to be proud of nonetheless.

  “We knew you’d found something here you liked,” another officer commented, with a smile and a glance at Kira.

  “My father says that destiny brought us together,” Kira said, embarrassed.

  The captain smiled. “So there weren’t any diplomatic considerations involved?”

  Kira gave the captain a puzzled look. “Diplomatic? What could… ?” She remembered some things she’d overheard Imperials saying. “Are you talking about my mother and Urth? Like this is some sort of arrangement?” The idea seemed too ridiculous to be serious. Like the Imperial belief that Jason was a demon brought from Urth to partner her as the daughter of darkness.

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