He patted her arm. "Grief is fine. Self-pity, not so much. There is work to be done."
She sighed and nodded, feeling better. "Before we're discovered. Yes."
Qora crawled over the entirety of the Visionary's surface, cataloging its needful repairs, while Sediryl ran basic scans on their environment. The atmosphere had been leaking into the ship for hours, by its own calculations, and they'd all survived thus far, but that didn't rule out any slow-acting environmental poisons. Luckily, she found none; better than that, she found a world they could eat from, which made foraging an option if they wanted to supplement their rations. A world suitable for hunting Chatcaava was apparently habitable for Pelted and related sapients as well; some part of her wondered why that was, when the Chatcaava were true aliens. Why so many similarities? Would she ever learn?
Sediryl left the hatch open to release the chemical stench, and went to work as best she could with her injuries. As more of the Faulfenza woke, they began clearing the wreckage and helping Qora with his checks, and that left Sediryl to inventory their food and water stores, and to wish for better medical aid. The computer was online, but power was marginal... she found a single stasis module squirreled into the back of the ship, but there would be no fueling it.
They would have to hope for rescue. To that end, she brought up the Chatcaavan dictionary she'd been studying while composing her mock letter to the Queen she hadn't yet met. That seemed forever ago; perched on the hatch coaming, she stared up at the darkening sky and inhaled carefully around her bruising, and wondered how she'd lived long enough to become this Sediryl, right now.
"We should set watches," the Faulfenzair in charge of her retinue said, joining her not long afterward. "Darkness brings predators."
"Right," Sediryl said. "Who else is well enough to stand one?"
"You intend?" the female asked, cocking her head.
"I'm one of our least injured," Sediryl said. "And I have-"
She halted, realizing the gun Maia had given her was on Kamaney's flagship. The gun that had set people on fire, so many people...
The Faulfenzair leaned over and patted her cheek. "Focus, Princess."
Was she gasping? She felt like she couldn't breathe. "Why do you all call me that?"
"It is what you are, yes?" The Faulfenzair smiled, ears spreading. "We don't have any similar word. Are we using it wrong?"
"No, just...." She gulped in a breath and forced herself to calm down. "I'm not used to hearing it." Could she say it? Just one word at a time. "I left my gun behind."
"We will find you something."
"Thanks."
Trembling, Sediryl hugged the data tablet and tried not to rock on the edge of the hatch. She'd left the gun behind. And the fire. She wasn't that person. She wasn't a killer. She was... she looked at the dappling of the shadows on the trunks of the surrounding trees, reading the time of day and the slant of the sun from them as naturally as any book. Choking on a laugh, she thought: I am a farmer. A girl of the forests. And here I am. She looked down at her data tablet, still running the analysis she'd requested of the particulates in the air. "I know how to do this," she whispered, and let the tension in her body drain. As much as she could, anyway.
Evening brought a cooling that lifted the deeper scents of the earth into the air and a return of the breeze, this time tinted with sweeter, more delicate scents: night-blooming flowers, Sediryl thought, and wondered what season it was. Her instincts suggested late spring, but she had only the computer's guess at where they'd landed for information. No satellites would be pinpointing her location, not after the pirates had dispatched them... if she could even have tapped them with an Alliance system.
Two Faulfenza were on watch, one in a tree, the other pacing a slow circle around the vessel. Sediryl trudged in that second Faulfenzair's wake, staring into the woods and their purple shadows. There hadn't been enough power or water for a shower, but she'd found her old clothes and changed, an act that had taken far too long when raising her arms caused her head to swim and sweat to film her body. The clothing fit on the outside, but it didn't feel right anyway. Someone else's boots: someone else's life. But her feelings amid nature... those remained genuine. They felt like they belonged to her. That instinct that cataloged every peep and chirp of insect or amphibian, that attended to the hushed rustle of wind through deciduous leaves, and the deeper, hollower sound of it through needles... that was as old as she could remember. Old, and clean.
Sediryl lifted her chin to it and closed her eyes, orienting herself, then returned to the vessel.
The Faulfenzair in charge of her guard was a female, Paudii: the missing captain Daize had been determined to rescue. Her coloring made her difficult to see in the shadows of the Visionary's corridors, black and dusky maroon and a pewter gray that broke up her silhouette, but like Sediryl she was always in the center of any activity. Sediryl found her that way, seeing to the wounded Faulfenzair.
"We need water," Sediryl said.
"You know where to find it?" Paudii asked, wrapping a fresh bandage around a seeping gash. The medisealer had run out of power.
"Yes."
The Faulfenzair glanced at her, ears uncurling and head tilted.
"It's not my world," Sediryl said. "But I know land."
Paudii wrinkled her nose. "Not much choice here. I will relieve Jedan outside, he can go with you. You shouldn't be lifting weights with your injuries."
It was a relief, escaping the confines of the ship and the clearing their crash had made for it. A relief to be free of artificial environments after the stifling atmosphere of the pirate base. Sediryl had been content on the starbase, but only because it had been large enough to simulate... this. Did other Eldritch long for adventures off-world? She found herself wondering what had become of Nuera's apiaries, and Ontine's fields. She wanted to hear the sea again, despite associating it with tiresome visits to the palace and all the fatuous parties there.
Slipping through the trees, pausing to crouch alongside their roots and study the direction they'd grown in... taking samples with her data tablet and inhaling the freshness, the newness of this particular forest... this felt more like home than anything had since she'd left.
As she'd expected, the change in vegetation led them to the water, and a quick check with the tablet indicated the automated sanitation in the containers could clean it. Sediryl filled the containers for Jedan to carry, and she was glad they had to make multiple trips because it meant they could return to this place where the stars glittered on the surface of the water and the chuckle of it rushing between the banks and around rocks lifted her spirits.
The noises in the forest... stopped.
Sediryl grabbed Jedan's arm and pulled him back into the trees, upwind. She crouched close to one of the trunks and waited, heart pounding.
In the distance, an angry cry. Almost sapient. Another. Then: howling, like wolves, haunting and terrible. She stayed very still, measuring that distance. But the noises came no closer, and after a time they died away, and the noises of the forest returned.
"Hunters," Jedan hissed when they drew together again.
"Not hunting tonight," Sediryl said. "Or they would have been quieter." She inhaled, let it out slowly. "Let's finish with the water."
Paudii's only response to their news was to flick her tail once, agitated. "Where there is wilderness, there are predators."
"Pack hunters," Jedan said. "We are too few to handle pack hunters."
"We'll draw our watchstanders to the hatch," Paudii said, glancing down the hall. "That is all we can do with the people we have."
The fight at Apex-East swamped the Chatcaavan skein with so much news Maia wanted to claw her eyes out with frustration. It was hard enough chasing the far more subtle threads about possible pirate incursions without the riotous proliferation of accounts from the triumphant return of Apex-Navy. And then the news about the fights in the Twelveworld exploded across the skein: pirates! In the oldest fiefdom of th
e Empire! Maia pushed her way across the network until she reached the border of the Twelveworld Lord's territory, and fell there into chaos. So many black-outs! Entire worlds that were now swathed in darkness, lacking satellites. She jumped from node to node, trying to find a way closer, listening for any news that might lead her to Sediryl and hearing casualty lists, and damage inventories, and anger. So much anger. These worlds were special, somehow, and aliens were defiling them. Every one of the twelve planets that gave the area its name was under attack. Maia spared a moment to thank the gods in the threads that the pirates were boasting about their conquests, because it made it clear they were responsible; she didn't want to think about what the Twelveworld Lord would do if he'd believed Alliance warships were responsible for the carnage.
Because it was carnage. Fleet would have attacked military targets. The pirates had no such compunctions.
Had the two forces squared off, the fight would have been over immediately. Kamaney's fleet, large for unaffiliated criminals, was miniscule compared to the number of ships the Chatcaava were fielding. But the pirates fought like guerrillas, and their smash-and-grab tactics were difficult to plan for or react to without blanketing every system with ships. Which was what the Twelveworld Lord was doing.
Maia sat in the closest node to the main fleet she could find, which was not close at all, and listened. Finding Sediryl in this mess... was she still leading the pirates? Maia couldn't tell: she'd made an attempt to tap one of the pirate ships when it had come close enough, only to run smack into Crispin's wall. She tamped her frisson of anger and fear before it could radiate to the shell enclosing her, disliking how her emotions rippled back off the inside of its surface. If the pirates had split into so many separate task forces, how could she possibly locate Sediryl? If she'd taken control, she should have been on the flagship, but there were too many gaps now in the Chatcaavan sensor net in this part of space. If only she had access to a mobile platform! If Crispin would only let her in...
Maia watched the Twelvelord's ships glide past her.
And replayed their passage.
And again.
She rested glittering fingers against one of those ships. The pirates weren't the only ones with ships in the area. And she was wearing a Chatcaavan shell.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Maia gathered herself and leapt.
Vasiht'h's first thought on waking was that he'd had better days, and the second was to recognize, with resignation, the feel of a broken bone. He remembered broken bones, from childhood, and from that storm-that storm, now. That had been an awful day. This day had to be better. He propped himself up, discovered he'd been wrapped in a blanket and set out on a clear space on the bridge. The floor was at an improbable angle. He didn't blame whomever had left him here for not moving him, given how unwieldy his body was.
"Hello?" he called.
A few moments later, Qora peered in. "Ah, you wake."
"Have I been out that long?"
"A little over a day." The Faulfenzair pulled himself through the hatch and propped himself upright with a foot against the wall. "How are you feeling?"
"Thirsty," Vasiht'h said. "And if you have a painkiller?"
"Pills and injections, we have. Anything more..." Qora jerked his nose toward Vasiht'h's wing. Someone had done a fairly good job of immobilizing it. "Not enough power."
"We made it," Vasiht'h said, dazed. "I didn't believe we would."
"Some of us didn't," Qora said. "But enough of us did. No worrying... your princess is fine. Better than she was. Also your dragon."
Vasiht'h wanted to protest that he didn't want any of the Faulfenza dead either, because it was true, but the success of... whatever it was they were doing... hinged on the Queen and Sediryl. He pushed himself upright. "So we're on some Chatcaavan world, I guess."
"Pretty outside, yes. We will have visitors soon."
"Visitors?"
"Our crash cratered the landscape. It is too pristine outside-we'll be noticed."
Vasiht'h shuddered.
"Here," Qora passed him a bottle and one of the medkits. "Pick whatever works on your physiology."
"Thanks." Vasiht'h picked through it until he found a painkiller and took it with the water. "Now... how can I help?"
"The Queen could use watching."
"Lead the way," Vasiht'h said. "Has she woken up?"
"No."
That would have been too much to ask. Vasiht'h joined Qora at the Queen's side and saw anew her... her smallness. She was so little, to have done so much, and to be carrying so much hope on her shoulders. Settling alongside her couch, Vasiht'h took her hand and said, "Alet, you have not yet rescued yourself. Now would be a good time."
She didn't stir. He sighed and cupped her hand in his.
This time, it was Sediryl's touch that roused him. Blinking, Vasiht'h rubbed his eyes, glanced up, and started. He'd seen Sediryl in court clothes on the Eldritch homeworld. He'd seen her in the erotic outfits she'd donned to seduce a sociopath. This sensible outfit-a fitted turtleneck over trousers and boots, straight out of any Alliance citizen's wardrobe-suited her far better than anything he'd found her in yet. She looked as comfortable in her skin as he'd seen. This, then, was an echo of the maiden Jahir must have fallen in love with. But only an echo, because she looked underslept and gaunt, and she'd been thin enough already.
"How are you holding up?" she asked.
"I'm fine," Vasiht'h said. "The wing hurts, but someone tied it well. You?"
"Struggling," Sediryl answered with a twisted smile. She touched her side, which made him realize there was a bandage under the turtleneck, corrugating its fabric. "In more ways than one. But we're making do, all of us." She held up a data tablet. "I haven't any facility with languages. I don't suppose you can speak Chatcaavan?"
"Not at all," Vasiht'h confessed. "I know a word or two, maybe, from Jahir. But I can't translate. Are we planning something?"
"Just anticipating our visitors." Sediryl sat beside him, her back to the couch. "She hasn't changed, has she."
"No." Vasiht'h touched the back of his fingers to the Chatcaavan's fevered cheek. "At least here it's easier to keep her hydrated. Pouring soup into her mouth on the pirate base, drop by drop, was a lot harder than injecting her with the solution from the medkit." He frowned. "Not that it seems to matter. She doesn't look anywhere near as bad as I expect for someone who hasn't been able to eat solid food in a while."
"You fed her soup?" Sediryl asked, bewildered. "I don't remember."
Vasiht'h glanced up at her and smiled. "You were a little preoccupied."
"Wasn't I." Sediryl sighed and smiled back, crookedly. "Thank you. For helping."
He shook his head. "We're all doing what we can. What we have to."
"But saying ‘thank you' is important." She managed a more honest smile, and his heart cracked at how sad she looked, and how tired. "You've done... a great deal. And that bit with Crispin..." She exhaled. "We'd be dead. I'm sure of it. I didn't have an exit strategy, alet. I got us as far as the Alliance needed us to go and... I didn't know what to do after that. And honestly, Maia was the one with the good ideas. I was just the one crazy enough to... to take ridiculous risks."
So much there that he didn't know where to start. And they were still in a delicate situation: shoving her off balance was the wrong thing to do. "You can't win unless you play," he said finally.
"That's just it." She twisted to face him, her eyes haunted. "It's not a game. And I didn't understand."
Naturally, he'd stumbled right onto one of her issues. He reached over, clasped her wrist, squeezed. "None of us learn that lesson the easy way. And right now, none of us have any great ideas. We're all just trying to make things work. We're in this together. Right? You, me, the Queen, these Faulfenza. It's not all on your shoulders."
"But what if it is?" she asked. She looked away with a grimace. "Liolesa wants me to be her heir."
"Last I checked, the Goddess was the only one
bearing everything on Her back," Vasiht'h replied. "The rest of us, with our limited vision, time, and abilities, do what we can, and that's not everything." He sighed, found a chuckle somewhere. "Though I can imagine trying to live up to the Eldritch Queen is enough to harrow anyone."
"She's my aunt," Sediryl said, and there, the corner of her mouth was twitching, just a little.
"Did you actually grow up with her in your household?" Vasiht'h thought of his aunts and uncles, who'd been underfoot all his life.
"Goddess, no. Thankfully. She had too much to do to visit any of her relations. Though I guess Bethsaida got a triple serving of her, which is probably why she turned out so... so..."
"So?" Vasiht'h asked, curious.
"So determined to make stupid mistakes?" Sediryl rubbed her face. "No, that's unfair. She was high-spirited. She didn't want to live in Liolesa's shadow. Not in fear, not in awe."
"Sounds like a quality Liolesa might have wanted in her successor," Vasiht'h offered.
"And now she has Beth, broken. And me, as possible replacement. And I am not... I'm not feeling very high-spirited. "
"Are you worried that you'll break?" Vasiht'h asked gently.
"I'm afraid I already am, and haven't noticed yet." Sediryl shook her head. "All of which is terribly self-indulgent. We have... we have work to do here. The Faulfenza are attempting repairs-"
"Successfully?"
Sediryl eyed him. "Attempting repairs-it keeps them busy, and that makes them feel better-and we need to supplement our food and water, and tend our wounded. Fortunately we've landed on a hospitable world, in a good climate. Very fortunately, as we haven't been able to seal the ship."
Vasiht'h sniffed. "I guess that's why it smells like plants in here instead of burnt-up electronics?"
"It's lovely out. You should take a look, when you feel up to a walk. I can watch her."
He'd just woken up, so, "How long has it been? I think I'm due for another painkiller. Then maybe I'll try it."
She nodded and rose, and as she stood he heard a distant wail, something primal and alien. All the hair lifted up the back of his spine, from tail to neck. "What is that?"
From Ruins Page 18