Warchild

by Karin Lowachee

  “He was my home,” I said. “And now he’s not.”

  I felt Kris turn to look at me. I thought he would say something inanely appropriate. But he didn’t. I blinked at the lights and said, “We got ourselves a pirate ship.”

  After a moment he said, “Yeah. Well, we’re jets.”

  And so we were.

  * * *

  XXX.

  I awoke an hour before our shift’s reveille and stared into the pitch-black of the quarters. Across from me Kris slept heavily for once, the deep expelled breath of somebody who would need a klaxon in order to wake up. Missions did that to him. I slid out from under the blankets and stuffed my feet into the boots I’d left by the bunk and went blind to the hatch. I’d slept in fatigues so I wouldn’t have to fumble around.

  Everyone was either on duty or in bed, or blowing off steam in the lounge. At the head I tapped in my holopoints and went to the jet wardroom, the only place that wouldn’t be suspicious if somebody found me in there. A quick peek inside confirmed it was empty. I opened one of the black comps and sat, keeping an eye to the hatch, blinked a few times, then palmed the comp to holointerface mode. I had to hurry. People tended to interrupt after five minutes. That wasn’t enough time to send a code quantum hopping all the way to striv space.

  I slid into the main systems ops “city” grid, leaving a banner behind to mark my entry/exit ramp, primed only to my interface code. I soared deeper through the carnival-lit trenches of Operations. Outgoing ship communications was a first tier division in Macedon’s complicated network but I had to bypass a thick wall of code to access it, since I didn’t have first level authorization. This was where I spent most of my time.

  I set my symbol self to an acute awareness, like a tuning fork reverberating to perfect pitch, and concentrated my efforts on dissecting that code, sliding in bogus authorizations that would deke the real scans so they wouldn’t send up flags or, worse yet, military polisyms. These were codes I’d spent hours building first on my private comp files, then memorizing in my head as the picture-code the holointerface recognized. I’d had a template from training with Ash-dan; once I got to see the customized program tiers on the ship, I’d altered the template accordingly.

  The diamond-bright code wall accepted my authorization but you couldn’t tell how long that would last. Macedon’s own communications officer could be rooting around in here and would recognize an intruder. I flew to the outgoing comm ops, my symself a sharply constructed red dagger, and cut through to the carrier’s satellite access. The closest setup was on Chaos, so it would be there I’d bump my sig straight toward striv space, where Niko had placed hidden sats at key pickup points. Blindly I set my holocube into the comp’s uplink slot and blinked an undercarrying code. My message would ride under the wire of a normal outgoing comm, or barring that, I’d send it while simultaneously deleting any record of an outgoing from this comp. A quick flicker around the area confirmed that Macedon was already sending out comms, like they routinely did unless they were silent running. I tucked my message beneath a particularly thick-coded communiqué and tracked its progress along the satellite link nodes. At Chaos they diverged and I knew mine was on its way on preprogrammed teleportation blinks.

  I accessed the second codestring in the holocube and sent it shooting from Chaos to insystem, straight to Austro and another one of my prearranged contacts, a symp who went by the commsig Otter. It was a simple query about Falcone’s whereabouts. Otter had more time to dive for the pirate’s codes than I ever would on this carrier. A long shot, but since Niko wanted updates I figured I had a right to them too.

  I fled the comm ops, whipping back to the entry/exit and dissolving my footprint codes as I went. My eyes burned, sparking black suns, after I shut down the comp and palmed the holocube. The flash of the ops grid still shone in after-image as I left the wardroom and made my way down the corridor. When I turned the corner I bumped straight into Corporal Dorr. He steadied me. I stepped back before his hand could linger. His gaze flickered.

  “Bad sleep?”

  I shook my head. “No, sir.”

  “Your boy’s askin’ for you. You got him for duty this shift, ahright?”

  “Yes, sir.” My brain felt heated. I slipped past him and went to the head to take out the optic receptors. Hopefully Ash-dan would pick up my report, or Niko would intercept it himself. It was on a path to Aaian-na but Turundrlar could be patrolling in the area. I didn’t want another ship to get it, especially one that might meet with pirates. It was in code only Niko and Ash-dan knew, but codes could be broken with the right minds.

  By the time I got to Evan’s hatch I felt steadier, my vision clear. I had to be clear to deal with him. I handed Private Dumas my sidearm, then knocked on the hatch before motioning the jet to open it. I found Evan huddled in the corner of one of the bunks. A food tray lay scraped empty on the floor. He’d showered and wore badgeless black fatigues. Surplus from supply. It made his skin look paler. His face lit when he saw me, then flattened out to careful suspicion. The jet outside must’ve given him another cig; the quarters was misty with smoke.

  “You’re back,” he said cautiously.

  “I said I would be.” I approached the bunk slowly and sat opposite. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Like shit.” His hand shook slightly as he brought the cig to his lips. His other arm lay tight against his stomach.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Yeah. But the guy outside… he said they couldn’t do nothin’ ’bout that.”

  “Here. Get under the blankets.”

  He seemed afraid to move even that much, as if he had no right to mess up the bunk. I tugged at the covers until he worked his legs under them, then pulled them up and around him. His shoulders were thin under the shirt when I patted the end of the blanket there. He watched me with the close intensity of a wary animal. Clean, his hair was pale yellow like I remembered, the same color as Corporal Dorr’s, but straight and ragged.

  I moved to sit back on the opposite bunk but he caught my sleeve.

  “Where did you go? What’re they gonna do with me?” His eyes were steadier since the shift before, though far from trusting. Relief, but also resignation.

  “I got quarters on board. I’m a jet here. That’s where I went.”

  “A jet. Yeah. That’s right.” His eyes traveled all over me, looking at the BDU, the emblems and insignias. “They gonna dump me?”

  “No.” Azarcon hadn’t indicated that. At any rate, I wouldn’t stand by and let it happen.

  “What’re they gonna do?”

  “You’ll stay here for now, where it’s safe.”

  He stared at me, remembered the cig in his hand, and took a long drag. “Nowhere’s safe, Jos. Thought you knew that.”

  I couldn’t exactly argue with him. Instead I sat back at the foot of the bunk to give us some room. “Did they send in a medic to look at you?”

  “No. Don’t want no death doctor pokin’ at me.”

  “What happened on Shiva, Evan?”

  He darted looks at me, then all around the quarters. His voice was sharp. “What happened on Genghis Khan?”

  I took a breath. “I was only there a year.”

  “Huh.” He nodded absently and plucked a bit at the blanket, then flicked his ashes in the small cup by his elbow. “I was gone for six on Shiva. More than a minute’s too long, so why don’t you remember?”

  “I was only eight.”

  “And I was only twelve!” he suddenly shouted. My body snapped taut. “Stop askin’ me about Shiva! I was only fuckin’ twelve!”

  “All right. All right.” I wished I had my sidearm. My nerves twitched.

  Evan sniffed and raked back his hair, said with cold calm, “If you’re here to grill me then go ahead and be done. It’s what you want, right?”

  His schiz reactions sent alarms through me. “I don’t want anything.”

  “Yeah you do. Everybody does.”

  “I just want to help.”
This was not the person I’d thought would grow into his older brother, handsome and self-assured. Of course he wasn’t. My mouth was dry.

  “You want to help.” He smiled but it wasn’t pleasant. One canine tooth was chipped.

  “Yeah. Let me help you. If we’re the only ones left— Evan, I thought you were dead.” The words barely fit around the sudden heaviness in my throat.

  “No, guess I’m alive. Cosmic joke, that.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  He didn’t answer. Smoke drifted in front of his face. He stared at me through it. “How’d you get on this tanker?”

  “I signed on. From Austro.”

  “Austro?”

  “Yeah. Where I grew up.”

  He squinted at me. “Falcone let you go at Austro? I thought it was Chaos.”

  I sat still. “He didn’t let me go. I ran. How did you know?”

  “They talk.”

  “Who they?”

  He waved his hand and shrugged. “You were supposed to be his next thing. He really liked you. You had it sweet.”

  Somehow I breathed, though it felt as if my lungs contracted and stuck. “Had it sweet.”

  He shrugged again and smoked.

  “Evan. Help me understand. What happened to you after… I woke up and you all were gone?”

  “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

  Rage simmered just below his fear, equally as thick.

  “All right.” Azarcon would have to wait. Evan had a right not to talk. I couldn’t blame him. “Do you need anything else? I got leave to stay with you, so…”

  “Stay with me?”

  “Yeah.”

  He was silent for so long I thought he was daydreaming. Then he moved slowly and stubbed out the cig and looked at me from behind ragged ends of hair.

  “Is it safe? Here?”

  “Yeah, it’s safe. If they fed you and clothed you I don’t think they’re gonna vent you. I won’t let ’em, anyway.”

  He pushed the blankets down and crawled over to me. I shifted back and put one boot on the floor.

  “I don’t wanna be traded again. Since you know me, they won’t trade me, will they? You won’t let ’em?”

  His shoulder pressed against mine. I moved until I was almost off the bunk. “I told you—I wouldn’t.”

  “Okay. Then I believe you.”

  His hand found the bottom of my shirt and slipped beneath it.

  I stood up hastily, dragging half the blanket with me, almost tripping on it.

  “What the hell’re you doing?” I stepped back until my legs hit the opposite bunk.

  “You said they want you to stay with me. And they won’t dump me off or trade me. You said you won’t let them.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So then…” He looked at me carefully. After a moment something shut down behind his eyes and he moved back against the bulkhead. His hands shook.

  I had nothing in my head to say. My limbs refused to move.

  After a while I realized he was crying. He made no sound, his breathing stayed regular, yet tears made uneven tracks down his face. He didn’t even bother to wipe them away.

  My voice wasn’t at all convincing. “Why don’t you—try to sleep.”

  He didn’t move. I wanted to leave. I wanted to reassure him because I kept seeing that twelve-year-old boy in my mind, getting hit when they dragged me away. He bore bruises still. And I wanted to leave.

  “Go on,” he said finally, without emotion. “Go on before I make you sick.”

  “You don’t… you don’t make me sick.”

  “I make myself sick.”

  I took a hesitant step toward him but he suddenly grabbed the cup of ashes and flung it at me. Gray-white specks flew wild around me, dusted my uniform.

  “Go on! Get the fuck out!” He rose to his knees as if to lunge at me.

  I stepped back, then back again, toward the hatch. His face was a dry, contorted rage. But not at me. Not at me.

  “Get out!”

  I fumbled with the hatch but it was locked from the outside. I banged on it until the jet opened it, then shoved past him without a word. Behind me followed only silence.

  I walked through the corridors with no idea where I went.

  I stopped by some stairs and sat on the cold metal, didn’t know for how long, but crew passed and asked me questions and I never answered them.

  I started walking again without thought. I circled back to Evan’s hatch and retrieved my sidearm from Dumas, then left jetdeck. I took the lev down to the lonely, colder part of the ship, straight into brig where the Shiva crew that we’d captured sat huddled in their cells, murmuring to one another. The jet at the security desk ignored them, alternately watching her console and tapping at her comp. I strode by her without a word and stopped by the farthest cell.

  “Private?” the jet asked.

  I pulled my sidearm and aimed it at an older man. “I’ll start with your feet and work up. Unless you answer my questions.”

  “Private!”

  The Shiva man stood still, looking at me with stone eyes. His mouth tightened.

  “Kid, there ain’t anything I know to tell you.”

  The jet came up beside me. “What’re you doing? Private”—she looked at my tags—“Musey?”

  “I’m interrogating a prisoner. We got a lot, nobody’ll miss this one.” I kept my gaze on the man. His carefully set arrogance wilted slightly. The other prisoners had fallen silent, dozens of eyes staring at me. At the gun in my hand.

  “Are you authorized?” the jet persisted. “Who’s your immediate superior?”

  I glanced at her. “Corporal Dorr. So comm him.”

  She went to do that. I kept my gun trained on the man. “Evan D’Silva. Start there.”

  He stayed silent.

  I thumbed the gun to kill, slow enough that he saw it. “Evan D’Silva, mister.”

  “Scrub kid. That’s all I know.”

  “Cleaned decks, washed pans, is that it?”

  The man shrugged.

  I shot at his feet. He jumped back and so did the rest of them in the cell. Some of them shouted at me. I had intentionally missed and I told him so.

  “Next time I won’t.”

  “Private Musey,” the jet said from behind me. I ignored her. She could come and physically remove me if she wanted.

  “I had nothing to do with the kid,” the man volunteered. “Some of the others… yeah. But not me.”

  “Which others? And what?”

  “Higher ranks. Nobody here.”

  “Convenient.”

  Nobody said anything to that.

  “What did you do to him?”

  The man gave me a long look. “I need to spell it out? He was a nice-looking kid.”

  I shot that man in the chest.

  “Private Musey!”

  The jet was fast. She grabbed my arm before I could take aim again. All the cells roused in one yelling match. I shoved at the jet but she was capable and held on. I could have floored her but that would’ve got me into more trouble.

  “Corporal Dorr is on his way. Let go the gun!”

  I let it go and stared fiercely into the cell, at the packed prisoners who let the man I’d shot lie there bleeding.

  “I wanna know what you did to Evan D’Silva, who had anything to do with him, and where they are!” I wrenched from the jet’s hold and strode to the cell gate. “Or I’ll end you all the same way.”

  The brig hatch opened and Dorr walked in. His eyes moved fast. Without a blink he took my gun from the jet’s hands and passed it back to me. He smiled everywhere but his eyes.

  “You can’t go shootin’ the pirates willy-nilly, Muse. There’s a technique to this sorta thing.”

  The prisoners fell silent, rather abruptly.

  “What you wanna know?” the corporal asked me after looking impassively at the dead man.

  “About Evan.” I stared hard into the Shiva faces. “About Falcone.”

>   I didn’t think any of them breathed in that moment.

  “We asked ’em about Falcone.”

  I looked at Dorr. “And?”

  Dorr looked right back. “And it ain’t your concern right now, Musey.”

  “It’s my concern! It’s more my concern than it is yours!”

  “Oh? How’s that?”

  “Let me alone with them, sir. I’m asking you.”

  “Not yet. You go killin’ ’em all, we ain’t gonna find out jack. It takes time to pry from pirates. They need to understand the grand opportunity for speeches in this forum. If we’re too hasty we just waste good ammo. Got it?”

  “Let me alone with them and I’ll get anything you need.”

  Dorr laughed. The prisoners still didn’t move. “I’m sure you could. But that ain’t my orders and I don’t think they’re yours. You’re supposed to be talkin’ to your bud and writin’ a report. Am I right?”

  Azarcon’s agenda. Whatever the hell it was, it kept me on the sidelines.

  “Evan’s not talking. These bastards will if I encourage them.”

  “Let me worry ’bout that. You go back to him. He’s spooked, strange ship an’ all. I got a feeling he was more than some pirate’s bedbug.” This last he said to the pirates, not to me.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Do I need to make my pleasant conversation into an order, Private Musey?”

  He strategically pulled rank. And I couldn’t fight him.

  I holstered my sidearm and strode out. All the questions I’d ever had about Falcone and what he was up to could have been answered right in that brig, if I’d just been given a chance. He was within reach, now that I was in space. And I was older and trained. It would be different.

  I looked in the wardroom but three jets were in there, relaxing and talking. I went past the hatch before they saw me.

  By the time I got back to quarters some of the heat in my blood had cooled. If I could steal a moment I could always dive into Dorr’s report files and find out what they’d discovered about Falcone. Or dive the vid files of the interrogations, since I knew they had optics in the brig walls.