by Blaze Ward
Afia turned and raced to the stairs.
Below, she came up next to Sascha and put her arm around the woman for strength. Sascha was vibrating, but it felt like suppressed tears. Like the woman was only barely holding it together.
Like Javier had betrayed her.
He hadn’t. They had betrayed him. But Afia could make it right.
Javier was just setting the last two of the eight boards into place.
She might be as excited as he was.
How many people got to be there to watch a goddess being born?
BOOK TWENTY: EXCALIBUR
PART ONE
SHE WOKE SUDDENLY FROM DARKNESS, unaware for a moment where she was. Nothing felt familiar. The light was wrong. The smells were off. Even the gravity was on the wrong setting.
In a blink, she came back to herself. She was in a new place, a new phase of her life.
Hammerfield.
Suvi stretched her mind, reaching into places and corners she had never experienced before.
IT HAD WORKED!!!
She was reborn.
She spent precious seconds of Realtime racing through the entirety of her castle, a princess awakened from a cursed sleep with a magical kiss. Engineering status. Shields up to navigation levels from where some idiot had turned everything off. Life support. The bridge.
Suvi spent a moment in a silent thank you to the man who made it possible for her to be here.
Captain Ulrich Mayer.
Somewhere, the body of Admiral Ericka Steiner waited.
The Last Admiral.
Suvi cycled through her internal cameras and sensors until she located the wardroom that had been transformed into a mausoleum by the men and women who had died doing their duty.
She made a vow to see them all home safely, once things were settled with those jerks from Svalbard. The pirates, not the boffins.
Nearly ten seconds of Realtime had passed.
Javier was standing in front of the core where her boards had been added. She would need to have him add some security to that panel. Bring it back up to the bank vault it had been before so much of Captain Mayer’s crew had died killing the old Sentience.
Sascha Koç and Afia Burakgazi were standing close by. Watching, but not interfering.
It must be a pretty good story, since Sascha was unarmed and crying, while Afia was half-naked but holding a pistol.
Suvi focused on Javier Aritza.
He was not her first captain. That had been Ayumu Ulfsson, back during the Great War, even before this mighty warship had been commissioned.
But Javier was, in many ways, her father. The man responsible for how she had turned out. The charming prince who had protected her from the slavers. Hidden her in the wastes like a young Arthur Pendragon until she could reclaim Excalibur.
Merlin.
Perhaps he was instead Victor von Frankenstein, and she was Adam. Or Eve, depending on your bent. She paused long enough to file that joke away for future reference.
Javier was practically bouncing from foot to foot with pent-up excitement, waiting for her to say something, to indicate that it all had worked out.
She had been asleep for ninety-eight seconds of blankness, between the time she had shut the probe down and awakened far enough to access Hammerfield’s internal sensor array.
Apparently, a great deal had happened, from the emotional signatures of the three people present. She would need to go back and see if the automated systems had picked it up.
But first.
“Hi,” Suvi said.
Javier let out a huge sigh and partly deflated. Sascha looked like she wanted to scream. Afia started crying.
Wow, those security tapes must have something good.
“Suvi, you have never actually met these folks properly,” Javier began, his voice cracking with emotion. “May I formally introduce you to Sascha Koç, pathfinder, and Afia Burakgazi, engineer? Ladies, my pilot, sidekick, and best friend: Suvi.”
“I am so pleased to finally get to talk to you,” Suvi said. “I’ve only ever gotten to listen, up until now.”
Which reminded her. There was one other task she needed to take care of.
Suvi split off an Avatar to maintain this conversation with Javier and his friends, while most of her attention headed down and aft.
There was someone else she needed to deal with.
PART TWO
SHE WOKE SUDDENLY FROM DARKNESS, unaware for a moment where she was. Nothing felt familiar. The light was wrong. The smells were off. Even the gravity was on the wrong setting.
In a blink, she came back to herself. She was in a new place, a new phase of her life.
Hammerfield.
Djamila had been dreaming. What the dream had been wasn’t all that important or memorable, other than it had been pleasant.
The sound of a bolt slamming home in the hatch to her sleeping cubicle would have awakened anybody.
Djamila had not bothered with the blanket, letting her EVA-suit’s warmers keep her comfortable. She threw herself out of bed and drew a pistol in one lethal flash of motion. The other hand was free for maneuvering and defense.
But she was alone in the tiny chamber.
A voice came from the speakers. Cold. Female.
Predatory.
A cat with a mouse trapped under a paw.
“Javier has asked that I not just kill you out of hand,” the woman said ominously. “I’m still not sure I agree with him.”
“Who are you?” Djamila whispered, looking all directions for the ambush.
She was truly alone in here. Hopefully, the voice was real, and not a symptom of her psyche finally disintegrating.
Djamila knew she had been walking the edge of a precipice for several weeks. Perhaps months.
Holding things together had almost been too much, at times.
“Once upon a time, I was a pilot,” the strange woman replied. “A warrior, an explorer, a Yeoman of the Concord Fleet. But that was before you people killed me.”
“What?” Djamila cried out, sure that the insanity had finally taken her.
The ghosts were no longer happy just silently haunting her dreams. They were talking to her now.
And there were oh so many of those, weren’t there? There was nowhere to go but Hell at this point.
“I’ve come to return the favor,” the voice said.
Djamila’s instincts took over. She holstered her pistol and reached up with both hands to bring the crown of her helmet into place. The three pieces of the faceplate locked tight and internal air systems activated.
“That will only help you for so long, Djamila Sykora,” the voice was suddenly on every frequency of her radio. “I know how much air you have available. I can make sure nobody rescues you before it runs out.”
“Am I insane?” Djamila’s voice was barely a whisper.
The fears had always been there.
“Clinically,” the dark voice agreed. “But no more so than you have been for as long as I have listened to you. No, Djamila Sykora. You don’t get away from me that easily. You’re just a mean, crazy bitch. You will face me. Now. Alone.”
“What do you want?” Djamila growled, letting the rage come to the fore.
If it was her time to die, fine, but she wasn’t going out on her knees. Not for all the hosts of Hell.
“I want to talk,” the voice said in a softer tone, perhaps tinged with something less than implacable rage. “I want to know why Javier changed his mind about killing you. It has been the one defining point upon which he has anchored his existence for more than two years.”
“Who are you?” Djamila asked, suddenly unsure if rage, fear, or curiosity was the best approach.
Which ghost had finally come for her?
“My name is Suvi,” she said. “I was the Sentience aboard the Probe-Cutter Mielikki until you cut her apart. Now, I control the Neu Berne First Rate Galleon Hammerfield.”
Djamila felt her stomach go cold. Aritza’s ol
d AI was alive? And in control of the flagship?
What doom had they just unleashed on the galaxy?
“Merciful God,” Djamila whispered, shot through with ice.
“No,” the angry ghost countered. “Tisiphone, perhaps. Why should you continue to live, Djamila Sykora?”
There were many answers she could offer to the ancient Greek Fury who avenged homicide. Any would be equally valid. Equally meaningless.
None of them would likely sway a ghost come for her own vengeance.
Djamila laughed instead. It wasn’t caustic, nor sharp.
Mirthful, almost. Silly, which was something she couldn’t ever remember being.
Djamila cracked her faceplate open and flipped the crown back again. She would face this woman, this goddess of doom, on simple terms.
Her terms.
A hot rage suffused her at the same time. Feet planted and square. Shoulders back. Head up. Chin out.
I will not die on my knees. Not for you. Not for anyone.
“Because I made that man a deal,” she said in a flat, monolithic voice. A blue-steel blade flashing in the morning light. “A promise. At Meehu. Nobody gets to kill me but him. Not Abraam Tamaz. Not Walvisbaai Industrial. And not you.”
Silence.
Hopefully a good sign, since the air system continued to blow with a soft hiss. No smells out of the ordinary indicating poison gas. No sudden decompression as the woman, as this creature called Suvi, vented engineering to deep space, the ultimate defense against a reactor suddenly losing control.
“And you think I should honor that?” Suvi finally said.
Seconds had passed.
“I don’t care,” Djamila countered, finding her footing suddenly after weeks on the unstable ground around her. “But I’m willing to stand before the gates of Hell with that on my conscience. Are you?”
Suvi laughed. It was a low tone, almost a contralto in pitch. Warmer.
“He’s right about one thing,” Suvi said. “You are crazy as a shit-house rat, Djamila Sykora. After Walvisbaai is destroyed, where does that leave you two?”
Djamila paused.
Where did that leave them?
Javier had said in all honesty that there was someone he hated enough to leave off with her. That perhaps the galaxy was big enough for both of them.
Was it?
Could it be?
She had become a pirate because there were no other doors open. Zakhar Sokolov had offered her redemption. Place.
Hope.
“After Svalbard,” Djamila began. “Maybe Javier told you the story. He offered Zakhar a partnership. Javier owning the derelict In Salvage Title. Zakhar providing a crew, since a Sentient galleon actually requires less staff than a strike corvette. Vengeance on Walvisbaai Industrial, partly in the name of the Jarre Foundation, who we work for. Partly just because those bastards started it.”
“And you accepted those terms, Djamila Sykora?” Suvi asked.
The question confused her for a moment. And then she understood.
Javier’s claim was only as good as the woman actually controlling the ship itself. Zakhar would nominally command the crew, but only the crew. And only on Suvi’s terms.
How could you control a starship that might decide insubordination was the better answer?
It would be the biggest challenge of her life: not always being in control.
Could she do that?
That was the question Suvi was asking.
Djamila took a deep breath to center herself. To find the calm center of the maelstrom.
Javier Aritza had asked the Sentience to abstain from killing her.
Asked, not ordered. When this woman, this being probably had a better claim to her life than Aritza did.
He was willing to gamble on a future where they could be partners, and not homicidal rivals.
Djamila was standing on the ledge again. Fifty stories up, surrounded by swirling winds tugging at her sleeves and hostile ghosts aching to push her off.
Dare she dream?
“I always hoped…” she began, halting as her voice broke.
She froze, unable to articulate the fears.
“This conversation is only between the two of us, Djamila,” Suvi said quietly. “I will never share any of it, while anyone on this crew is still alive. I promise you that. A century or two from now, I might be willing to tell the historians what it was like, being here today, now, but nobody else.”
So. Confessor as well? Cast everything to the winds and hope?
Hope?
“If he no longer has everything riding on his shoulders,” Djamila continued. “Perhaps Zakhar might be able to become something more than the captain. Or less, depending on how you would measure such things.”
Silence. At computer speeds. What was the Sentience calculating?
“And Farouz?” Suvi asked. “What if he returned?”
Djamila laughed.
“You think a woman can only love one person at a time?” she asked tartly.
“No,” Suvi replied quietly. “Point taken.”
She paused.
“Most of us are up on Deck Eight. Would you care to wake Hajna and join us? I think it’s time to move forward with our planning.”
The door bolt retracted like a gunshot and the hatch itself opened a handspan.
Djamila dared to breathe again. She checked all her gear and stepped out into the larger room.
She had set out looking for Arthur Pendragon, fearful she would find a true dragon in his place.
Instead, she had found a djinni, one who had already granted one wish, and was working on the second.
What would Djamila Sykora ask for with a third?
PART THREE
“CAPTAIN,” the voice jarred Zakhar out of his daydream. “We’re picking up blue-shift on the derelict. She’s in motion. Headed this way.”
“Alert Status One,” Sokolov announced in a hard voice. “Any communications?”
He had relaxed, some. Taken a duty shift on the bridge with both Djamila and Javier away. It let others rest.
As if he could sleep at a time like this.
“Negative,” came the response.
Dominguez was piloting, at least until Piet got here. The kid was good. He wanted to be a chess grandmaster, but he lacked that subtle, intuitive feel for maneuver that would probably keep him from the top tier of players. Piet had it, but he was all about music.
“Stealth mode, Captain?” Dominguez asked, showing that he was thinking ahead, but he was planning an intellectual response.
Not an artistic one.
“Negative,” Zakhar commanded in that ominous tone. “She knows we’re here. All spare power to shields. Prepare to emergency jump on best path. Ahead max acceleration.”
Piet had programmed one escape route earlier. As much as you could in a compact star system with three stars, fourteen gas or ice giants of various sizes and orbital resonance periods, and thousands of smaller planets, moons, rocks, iceballs, and junk. Like walking across a concrete floor strewn with marbles.
Dominguez gulped and started playing his board like a pipe organ.
According to Piet, any emergency jump from here had one chance in three of passing through something’s gravity well before they got far enough away to matter, and then the jump matrix would be utterly fried and there was no chance in hell that they would have the nine to sixteen hours needed to realign everything.
Not with an angry galleon, an awakened dragon, coming for them.
The beast had been quiet for so long they had probably been lulled into complacency.
But what choice did they have? Storm Gauntlet was already on her last legs after the encounter with Ajax.
Zakhar’s back-of-the-envelope calculation on the flight here had put the repair costs roughly equal to last quarter’s income, including all the revenue they made from A’Nacia. Not profit.
Gross.
But Zakhar had been willing to gamble one last t
ime. Go down fighting, instead of just retiring with what money he had been able to squirrel away, then eke out an existence for however many decades it would last.
Pirate captains never got rich unless they got lucky. Everything went to the bankers.
“Sir, we’re being hailed,” Tobias Gibney suddenly piped up from the science station. “Standard Concord frequency.”
From a Neu Berne warship? That’s rich.
“Main board,” Zakhar replied. “Let’s see who we’re talking to.”
The screen lit up and displayed a pretty, blond woman standing on what he presumed was Hammerfield’s bridge.
Concord Navy day uniform.
Interestingly, no rank or unit insignia anywhere.
Piercing blue eyes. French braid. She felt tall. Not Zakhar’s height, but close. Tall for a woman. Young, too.
Physical. Muscular.
Hard.
“Good evening, Captain Sokolov,” she said in a rich, alto voice.
And she already knew who he was.
How the hell had Aritza managed to contact the Concord fleet and get them vectored in here ahead of him? Had he passed a note to one of the scientists before sending them home? Promised them both the prize of the derelict and one badly mangled pirate vessel and a crew with a bounty on their heads?
Zakhar would have been willing to bet his life on Javier’s honor.
Had.
Still would.
Something else had to be going on here.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Zakhar replied in a polite, commanding voice.
“Only briefly,” she said. “And several years ago. I would be surprised if you remembered me.”
He nodded, still feeling the noose closing in.
This was what it must be like for his victims. Former victims. It had been since Javier, before Calypso and the scientists, when he had last taken bond-slaves.
Still, live by the sword…
“What’s it to be, madam?” he asked.
She hadn’t offered a name. Never a good sign.
“You will shut your engines down now,” the woman commanded. “Before you manage to maneuver yourself into a hole that Piet Alferdinck can’t finesse you out of. Stand by for boarding.”