by Ren Garcia
Syg thought a moment. "You might be right … You might be right …"
Kilos finished off her mug. "Well, we should be in Com range of Drelsar by now. I think I'll head to my quarters and drop a transmission to my old man—all your sappy talk has given me the urge to tell him I love him."
"See you, Ki."
"Are you going to wait up for Dav?"
Syg smiled up at her.
"All right, fair enough—stupid question."
Kilos put her Marine cap back on and straightened her jacket. "Listen, Syg—don't worry about this, okay? Dav's always had a knack for attracting the ladies, and I suppose he always will. He's a handsome man, he's filthy rich, and he's a good person to boot, so if you want to be close to him, you're going to have to get used to that to some extent. However, I've made light of your fears, and I didn't mean to. Dav has the best Sight of all; he can see things that no one has ever seen. And he saw something in you, something he thought was worth protecting, worth fighting for—back when me and the Sisters and everybody else wanted you dead. Knowing Dav the way I do, I can't imagine him just throwing you aside because some new star-struck lady happened to show up. He has reacted to you like he has to none other—not Demona, not Princess Marilith, and not Captain Hathaline either."
Sygillis smiled. "You really think so?"
"Yes, I do."
"Thanks … that means a lot to me."
Kilos left through the wooden doors of the mess.
She sat alone for a while, lost in thought, her mug of narva losing its froth.
She thought of Poe, Dav's sister—a Shadow tech girl who didn't become a Black Hat because of chance and because of a father who had the courage and tenacity to protect her from the gaze of the Black Abbess. She guessed Sadric was a lot tougher than people gave him credit for.
She thought of the Silver tech flowing inside her, a product of love. She thought of all her Black Hat sisters sitting alone in their dark temples, wretched and terrible in their evil and their ignorance, never knowing what it felt like to be good, to touch someone, to feel love, to turn their black Shadow tech into silver.
Syg guessed that, as far as Dav was concerned, she could be very jealous and very vindictive, and that was a dangerous thing. She figured she'd become another Princess Marilith, heartbroken and spurned— forever on the outskirts, on the fringe, forever harassing Dav—forever giving him no peace.
She thought about Dav—the man she hopelessly, deeply loved. She wondered why she didn't try to kill him in the beginning; she wondered what had stopped her. She had killed many people over the years—enemies, League, her own Hulgismen by the score. She'd even killed other Black Hats—ones who'd angered her, crossed her, all without any hint of hesitation or remorse.
So, why did she spare Captain Davage?
Certainly the threat of being killed by the Sisters wasn't in play— she had cared little for her own death at the time.
It must have been a combination of things. Maybe Dav had kept her off balance, kept her confused. Maybe, deep down, she admired him, admired his courage, his raw nerve.
Maybe, as she once told Dav herself, maybe she'd loved him from the start, from her first good look at him. Maybe, beyond all hope, something inside her had wanted to be saved … had wanted to be free of her Black Hat sash.
The man with the searching golden eyes. The man who was finally right in front of her.
The maybes could go on forever. Perhaps Dav was the right man, and perhaps she was the right woman. In any event, at one hundred ninety years old, Sygillis was living for the first time. For the first time her life meant something to her.
After a while, a cheer rose up in the mess. She didn't have to look— Dav was here. In quiet excitement, she sat with her small hands on the table, her now warm narva mug in front of her, trying not to look in his direction. A loud chattering followed Dav around the mess as he mingled, talking to everybody, clapping them on the back and hoisting his mug with his crew.
She knew after he had completely made his rounds that he will end up at her quiet, out-of-the-way table and sit down. Then, eventually, they will make their way back to her quarters, where they would talk and laugh, and then make love.
Her heart quickened in anticipation.
After a while, Davage approached her. Smiling, she tried to pretend like she didn't know he was there.
"Sygillis, good evening and well met."
"Why, Captain Davage," she said looking up at him. "This is a pleasant surprise …"
1
AN INSANE PLAN
"You three want to hear my thoughts? I don't think the Xaphans will come at us aloft."
Davage stood by the viewer in the meeting room. Kilos and Sygillis sat at the table. Ennez sat nearby, his silver helmet sitting quietly on the table.
"I'd agree with that, Dav. They have a healthy respect for you, and they don't really have much of a force to send into battle," Syg said.
"My thoughts exactly. So, Syg, with that in mind, where do you think the Xaphans will try to mount an attack?"
"I'm not really big on military strategy, but I'll guess that they'll probably try to snare a planet and let you stumble into it."
"Right—exactly. Ki, bring up a list of all planets within thirty light years of here."
Kilos pressed a few buttons on her desktop terminal and a massive list of names popped up on the screen.
"Hmmm, quite a few. I think it's safe to say that we can rule out all of the gas giants on the list. Ki, take them off."
She pressed a few more buttons, and about three quarters of the list vanished. Davage surveyed the smaller list. "Excellent. Now, I don't think that the Black Hats will inconvenience themselves by snaring a very inhospitable planet, one that's very hot or cold, and I'm certain they will avoid planets where life support will be required. Ki, take them off."
Again, the list shrank, this time down to fifteen names. Davage looked at it.
"Yes, yes … this will do. Syg, how long does a usual planetary snaring take?"
"Depends on how elaborate the snaring's to be. I wasn't a Painter, though. I did the fighting, remember?"
"Be creative for a moment. If you really wanted to pull out the stops. If you really wanted to make a statement."
Syg thought. "About a week and a half, possibly two. That's a lot of Shadow tech to be throwing around."
Kilos looked at Davage. "What are you thinking, Dav?"
Ennez spoke up: "You aren't thinking of raiding a snare operation, are you, Dav?"
He surveyed the list, chin in hand. "I am. I'm thinking we still have time to crash one of these snaring parties. I'm thinking we can snag another Black Hat and turn her."
"Are you insane?"
"What about it? They won't be expecting us. We just swoop in, grab a Black Hat or two, and be off."
"I don't know, Dav," Syg said
"Listen to Sygillis, Dav!" Kilos cried.
"The Sisters won't like that, Dav," Ennez said. "Watching Syg here 24/7 just about gave them aneurisms. Have you ever tried caring for a grumpy, headached Sister, Dav? It's not a pretty thing."
"Hmmm, you might be right, two is too many. We'll grab one for now."
"And just what are we going to do when we get her here? She'll be a hissing cobra just waiting to spit venom," Ennez said.
"What if she blows herself sky high once we get her aboard?" Kilos asked.
"Oh, that's a myth," Dav protested. "Syg—you never thought about blowing yourself sky high, did you?"
"No—I was too busy trying to figure out how to kill you first— then blow myself sky high."
"See, Ennez," Dav said.
Syg winked at Dav and blew him a kiss.
"Then, if it'll make you happy, we'll have to grab her hard and incapacitate her. Syg, can we somehow drain them of their Shadow tech?"
"Yes, but it will be very painful. She won't be happy about it."
"Syg," Davage said, "I thought you were all ready for this."
"I am, Dav, but I just don't want anyone to get hurt—you especially. Abducting a Black Hat might not be a good idea. She'll be too hostile to reason with. She'll have to be killed before she takes the whole ship with her."
"But if we relieve her of her Shadow tech, then she'll be much less of a threat, no matter how cross she initially is, yes?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
"What about her guard of Hulgismen and any other Black Hats who might happen to be around? Just how cross do you think that lot will be?" Ennez asked.
"Again, this is supposed to be a surprise movement. All the Black Hats I've ever seen operate pretty independently. True?"
"Yes."
"So, what's the problem?"
Syg looked down at the table. "I don't know. I simply don't want you to get hurt."
"I'll be fine. You will agree that this life is a bit better than that of a Black Hat?"
"Need you ask me that?" Syg said, incredulous.
"Then I think it's worth a try. Can you detect the presence of Shadow tech from a distance?"
"Yes, and so can the Sisters."
"Then here's what we'll do. We will tour several of the planets on the list. If we detect Shadow tech, we'll Sight them from orbit, see what they're doing, and come up with a quick plan."
"How are we going to do that?"
"I can Sight them from orbit. So can the Sisters."
Syg's eyes lit up. "You can do that?"
"I can."
"Oh, your Sight is the best Gift of all!"
"Syg … you're going to make me ill here, please," Kilos said.
"You don't think that the Black Abbess hasn't thought of this already, Dav?" Ennez asked. "I mean, she's not an idiot."
"I don't believe she'd ever think we'd have the temerity to seek out and disrupt a snare operation."
"Why not? We had the temerity to steal one of her Black Hats, right? Whatever she's got in store for us, it's going to be a whopper, and it's going to suck, and it's going to be on grand display."
"I agree with Ennez," Syg said. "She's going to want to make a statement. The usual operations probably won't do."
Davage thought a moment. He looked at the list. "I think we'll still head out. I see Calendor is a possible candidate. We'll go there and see what there is to see."
2
FACES IN THE DARK
Davage woke in the dark. As usual, he was in Sygillis's bed. She was asleep, having a terrible nightmare. She thrashed and whimpered.
Davage tried to wake her.
She began crying.
"Syg, wake up."
She screamed.
"Syg!"
She awoke finally and sat up. She looked around; she didn't appear to know where she was for a moment. Finally she looked at Davage and appeared relieved.
"Dav," she said. "I just had a bad dream." She pulled herself into his arms, her naked body up against his. "I dreamt of my temple, in Metatron."
"Your Black Hat temple?"
"I dreamt that it turned silver, just like my Shadow tech. I dreamt that the Black Abbess came to destroy my temple …"
"And what happened?"
"Somebody inside the temple fought back, fought the Black Abbess."
"Who would do that?"
"My Hulgismen. I could hear them, crying out for me, crying out for help." She looked at him. "They called me mother, Dav!"
She embraced Davage and wept into his naked chest. "They called me mother."
"Syg, it was just a dream."
"It was so real. I could hear their voices. I could see their faces."
Davage wiped her tears away and kissed her.
"Dav, do you think that my temple might have converted itself to silver too, that the Hulgismen within were reborn, just as I was?"
"It's possible, I suppose. The Hulgismen, though, shouldn't they just move on to another temple?"
"No, Hulgismen from two different Black Hats tend to not get along."
"The city of Metatron is on Ergos, correct?"
"Yes. South, in the Fernath region."
"Well, we've plotted solution of Calendor to check for suspected Black Hat snaring activities. How about the moment we're done, we'll plot solution for the Mirendra system, go to Ergos and have a look."
"Do you mean it, Dav?"
"Certainly. We can survey the situation, and if your temple has, in fact, turned to silver, then I imagine we'll just improvise something from that point."
Syg beamed and kissed Davage. "I knew there was a good reason I let you live! I'm joking—I'm joking!"
* * * * *
Detecting a snare operation was much more of a chore than Dav had first thought. They had gone to Calendor, as it was one of the planets on Dav's list of potential sites hosting a large Snaring Op. Calendor, a fairly pleasant world of a mostly agrarian people, turned out to be overflowing with Shadow tech, but not from a specific Snaring operation—it was everywhere in small, metered amounts. People, items, animals, buildings had it on them. It was in the air, soaked in the water. Not much, just bits here and there, but it was enough to make simple detection very complicated. Shadow tech appeared to be more common than he could ever have imagined.
In the end, though, the grand, sinister snaring operation that Dav had imagined was not there. The masses of Black Hats just waiting to be scooped up like red and black sugar cubes was not to be.
Score one for the Black Abbess.
He wondered, though, what the Black Abbess was cooking up—what sort of twisted plan she will try to unleash on them.
He had come to realize that the Black Hat Sisterhood was, at its core, a political organization pretty much like any other and, as such, public opinion figured greatly in its activities. People, both League and Xaphan, saw them as evil, fierce, and unbeatable, and they had to labor to maintain that image. They had to be just that.
Turning Syg—taking a Black Hat Hammer and a self-professed "mean Black Hat"—caused the Black Abbess, among other things, a PR crisis. People might look at this and say, "Why, the Black Hats aren't as bad as we thought," and she couldn't have that.
She was going to have to do something; she was going to have to respond in kind in a manner that will have people shuddering again. Her plan, whatever it turned out to be, was going to be a lot more subtle and insidious than he'd first thought. He was used to enemies like Princess Marilith—a straight-up, over-the-top bad guy who fought him, as such, straight up. She was easy to fight, and she was easy to predict, though he could never fully "get her" in the end. He knew she didn't know any other way to fight him other than full bore—all out. That was a fight he knew he could win every time.
The Black Abbess, though, will probably spend as much time setting the stage, creating a spectacle, as she would actually fighting. The stage and the political message, and effect it will have on those watching played big in her plans. Davage, sitting in his office, had to acknowledge that he didn't have a great deal of skill in this particular area. His father probably had a better head for this, for scheming and political maneuvering. The fight itself will be almost an afterthought— the fall, though, that's where the detail was.
He wanted to make sail for Gioma, another planet on his list that he thought might be entertaining a current Black Hat snare operation. Gioma was promising, as an old League hero, Lord Veltro of Goima, once annoyed the Black Abbess, but as he promised Syg that he will first stop at Mirendra and check in on her temple, he had to live up to his word. Gioma had to wait.
She dreamed of her temple, that it had turned to silver. She only had it once or twice, but the dream was full and unforgettable. She couldn't get the thought out of her head.
So, they'd make a quick stop and have a look.
Syg—a mighty, powerful Black Hat in her day—abducted into their ranks, ripped from her mother's arms. She crawled in the dark, she said, in the Black Abbess's church, through passes too short to be able to stand. She scrabbled for food—starving, she was bled of her Sh
adow tech. Pushed into a foul pit, she was forced to fight a fellow trainee—a fight to the death, Syg emerging victorious, but her wrist broken.
And she fell into darkness, into an everlasting evil dream where she killed and did unspeakable things for years and years.
The Black Abbess, a cruel black stain.
He wondered, though—were the Sisters any different?