Warchild

by Karin Lowachee

  “Might want to pay them a visit,” Iratxe says to Evan. “You know, reacquaint yourself.”

  “I’m not with them anymore,” he tells her, glaring. “If the captain thinks so, why don’t you?”

  “I have a right to my own opinions.”

  “Does that count when you bed Sanchez?”

  She gets off the table, fast. I grab her arm.

  “Stop it!”

  Aki looks between us, holding an injet. “All of you stop it or I’ll use this on your asses.”

  I look at Evan. “You better go.”

  He never listens to me. “Just because you jets can’t seem to do anything but stop a shipment here and there, while Slavepoint’s still undiscovered—”

  “Evan.” I let go of Iratxe, slide off the table, and shove his shoulder toward the hatch.

  “Don’t blame me for it!”

  “Why not?” Iratxe says loudly. “You put out every which way except where it matters.”

  We’ve attracted the attention of other wounded jets and their visitors. And Doc Mercurio, who likes to give reports to the captain. He strolls over from the biolab.

  “Problem?”

  Evan yanks his arm from me and walks out

  “No, sir,” I say. Just because it’s easier than listing them all.

  * * *

  II

  When Aki finishes with me I tramp to quarters alone, sore and half-asleep from the drugs. I hope Iratxe will spend some time with Sanchez or Nathan so I can have a few moments of peace.

  Iratxe isn’t there, but Evan’s leaning on the bulkhead outside my hatch.

  I’m too tired to act nice. I yank out my tags and run them through the lock. “Go away, Evan. If she comes back and you get in a fight, I might let her kill you.”

  “Do you know where Slavepoint is?”

  I stand there, holding the hatch open, and stare at him. “What?”

  “This whole last year,” he says, eyes tight and fixed on me, “in the Send—don’t you read? Merchants and passenger lines getting hit by pirates. And you know when crew’s never found where they go. And the strits in treaty with pirates— Slavepoint’s out there and I want to know if you know where it is. Or if you know somebody who knows where it is. Because I’m tired of getting blamed on this ship like I should have all the answers to what pirates do!”

  “Shut up and get inside.” I shove him in, keep shoving him with my one good arm, right onto my bunk. I stand over him. “You’re not bringing this shit up again, are you? Because I’m tired of it.”

  “I don’t care if you are in contact with the strits—”

  “I don’t know any! I keep telling you how I got to Austro but all these leaps must’ve wiped that section of your memory.”

  He looks up at me, doesn’t bother to argue. He’s had the thought in his head since the first and there’s no dissuading him. He just doesn’t say anything because I got him on the ship and he wants me.

  He wants me and he’d blackmail me if he could, except he knows I’d kill him before I ever bedded him, threats be damned.

  Sometimes it’s hard to believe we share memories of Mukudori. I’ve offered to show him the files Captain Azarcon got for me from Siqiniq, but Evan always refuses. He’d rather forget, he says.

  Sometimes I wonder if we would’ve got along this way on our homeship.

  Useless thoughts.

  “Jos,” he says now, “I just want to know if you know. I’d tell Azarcon myself and say it came from me. I’d make something up just so we can find that damn place.”

  “I don’t know where Slavepoint is. Now get out so I can sleep.”

  Ash must know, but my contacts say that none of the sympathizers or striviirc-na crew Niko captured ever fingered Ash as the head behind the pirate alliance or said anything about Falcone’s whereabouts. In the way of things, he can’t exactly ask Ash since he has no grounds for action. Accusation without proof puts the accuser under suspicion, in striviirc-na law, and Niko says that sort of suspicion does no good for sympathizers on Aaian-na. In fact, the entire striv-pirate alliance is under wraps, something Ash and Niko both agree on, though probably for different reasons.

  Evan hasn’t left yet. He’s trying to read my mind. The silence congeals between us.

  “Feel free,” I say finally as I start to work off my boots, “to sit in here until Iratxe gets back.”

  “I’m not scared of her. And I wish you’d stop using her as a shield.”

  I stand lopsided, one boot off. “What?”

  He gets up from the bunk, forcing me to step back or we’d touch.

  “That,” he says, pulling out a cig from his pocket and lighting it. “Keep stepping back ’til you fall off the ship, Jos.”

  He purposely brushes by me, making contact in the narrow space, before slamming the hatch shut behind him.

  * * *

  III.

  I won’t be going on any missions until my shoulder heals. A couple weeks, Aki said, before I get to put myself in the way of laser bolts again. The circle of life, I remember Rodriguez saying. Patch you up and propel you back out. The circle of death.

  A week into it and I have to do something while my teammates assault pirate caches, so I take my sketchbook to the lounge and make pictures from the battles I see through the window.

  It’s this distant sometimes. I can draw things from any part of the ship and be the observer, not the observed. Even watching a skirmish streak by my view—you can put yourself away from it and pretend it doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme. You’re a year removed from where you were, six years from things you can barely remember, so if you wait long enough it all becomes habit. Life is a habit.

  A jet’s life is a vice.

  Bunk-hopping, drunks on layovers, denial of deaths you see happen in front of you, or cause yourself. My skin soaked it up until I can’t get the scent off me. This ship is my exo-skeleton and I only remove it when I burndive. The dislocation I feel coming out of the comp world and back into the real one only gets larger every time I do it, until I walk around on shift with the grid patterns emblazoned behind my eyes and codes that refuse to leave my head. Codes and information I send to Niko—they walk with me through the corridors of this ship.

  But then they fade, and it’s just the ship. It’s all the noise and the chaos and the intrusion of faces you’ve grown accustomed to, even in quarters. Iratxe is more of a jet than she is a woman, so it doesn’t matter that we share a space, like it didn’t matter with Kris. We stay out of each other’s ways and when we’re in battle, we watch each other’s backs.

  And when I get hurt, Aki or Rodriguez or some doctor here fixes me up. When we go out, Nathan and Hamrlik take us, or some other pilot team we know, and when we get in trouble they come to get us and bring us back. There’s nothing like the buzz in your pickup and the voice of your ride telling you he’s here, you can get out of the drama of enemies shooting to kill and be safe. Macedon never leaves her jets behind.

  Never: Azarcon will hunt for his people before he takes orders from the Hub to run after another enemy.

  The skirmish breaks before me. The pirate runners are in retreat. Small-ship debris floats around in a macabre, inertial dance, as well as parts from the blown cache, which was no more than a double-lock ministation in space. How many enemy did we kill this time, and will we take any prisoners? How many of ours won’t make it back?

  I fold up my sketchbook and head to the hangar deck. Each step is a clanging “what if.” It’s not easy to adjust to a new teammate, even when you’ve fought with them before, or trained with them. It’s just not simple.

  I try to remember if Aki said she was on this mission. I stand behind the inner bay doors and watch the jets disembark from the Chargers. In a few minutes a familiar blond saunters down the ramp, rifle slung on his shoulder, with another tall blond beside him. The corporal and Madi. Scuffed but alive. Behind them Lieutenant Hartman walks with her new Sergeant McCrae. Dorr didn’t get promoted, not
with his station antics and breaks in the rules of engagement.

  Iratxe appears with Nathan and Gitta Hamrlik. Looks like she prefers the pilot this month. Too bad for Sanchez.

  Then Aki emerges, weighed down by kit and helping PFC Dumas onto a stretcher brought up by the medical crew that always meets returning jets. I hit the door release, go through the small passage that serves as an airlock in case the bay is damaged and a deadly vacuum created, and stand to the side as the jets pass.

  “Sir, how was it?” I ask Dorr.

  He waves a hand. “Borin’. The cache ain’t worth shit, looked more like some pirate’s dumpin’ bowl. I’m gonna kill our bozo intel.”

  “Waste of time,” Madi agrees.

  Frustration can kill a crew. I see it in the corporal’s eyes.

  “Cap seems hard-pressed to get any decent leads on Falcone,” I venture. He’s not the only one. The problem with trying to get any intelligence on somebody like Falcone, who was a captain with ties to Hubcentral, is it takes a patience-trying amount of time to accumulate to something useful.

  “That’s ’cause Falcone’s got help,” Dorr says. “If I ever come upon one of them Hubcentral brass-caps, I’ll shoot ’em dead.” Then as usual he jumps to another topic. His mind is like that. “I gotta get me outta these stinky clothes.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find some help for that,” Madi says wryly.

  I move off before Dorr decides to draft me for that detail.

  * * *

  IV.

  At the end of the second week since my injury, I go for my checkup in medbay. Things have been quiet lately, no missions, and the wide trauma room stands mostly empty now. I spy Aki carrying a tray of medical instruments to one of the back rooms. I don’t have to hover for long before she sees me and comes over.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “A little stiff, but it’s good. The knitters’re itching me like crazy.” I know the routine and hop up onto one of the tables.

  “Take off your shirt,” she says professionally, and readies one of the at-hand scanners.

  I do that and she inspects the now-healed wound. “It looks good. The bot-knitters are crawling out.” She sets the scanner down and slowly peels back my bandage and sprays an accelerant to encourage the bots along. She has a light touch unless she’s pissed at you.

  I look around the room, otherwise I’ll get stuck looking into her face. And she’s necessarily standing close. I smell the mix of shampoo and sterile air around her.

  She dabs at the ashes of bots on my shoulder, says absently, “Evan was in here earlier.”

  “Yeah?” I don’t try to hide my disinterest. Everybody seems to think I want to know what he does every shift.

  “He was hurt,” she says.

  I look at her. A second goes by before she meets my eyes. “How?”

  She shrugs. “He said he fell down the steps. But you can’t convince a medic of that. I recognize a beating when I see one.”

  “He didn’t say who did it? Do you know who did it?”

  Teasing is one thing. Even nasty insinuation is one thing altogether different.

  “I don’t know who did it.” She motions me to put my shirt back on now that she’s done. “But I figured you can ask him if you want.”

  “Thanks.” I slide down. A few suspects already come to mind.

  She snags my sleeve before I go. “Jos.”

  “Yeah?”

  For a moment she just looks at me, somber, as if she’s suddenly lost the knowledge of language. Then she waves a hand briefly and sets it on her hip. “Nothing. Don’t worry, he’s going to be fine.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  I leave medbay and head straight to Sanchez’s quarters. 1 just get to jetdeck when my tags beep.

  “Dammit.” I swipe at them. “Musey.”

  “Private, come to my office, please.”

  The captain.

  I stop in my tracks. “Yessir.”

  He breaks the connection and I head slowly to the lev.

  Sudden calls from your CO are never good. Maybe it has to do with Evan. A part of me wishes it does, because if it has to do with me I don’t think it will be anything good. After the conversation in Azarcon’s quarters he never called me back for a one on one. He probably still monitors me through Dorr or Hartman, but all my interactions with him in the last year were casual, unpremeditated incidences—at funerals for fellow jets, in the corridors, or even in the gym. He always seemed preoccupied.

  No surprise.

  My speculations about what he wants make my gut fold in origami shapes for the entire lev ride up to the command deck. The hum of the active drives is always louder on this deck, because it’s so quiet here compared to jetdeck. There’s something lonely about being that consciously encompassed by the ship; there is no escaping it. You hear Macedon’s size when you listen to her drives. On the command deck, you feel doubly small.

  I take a long, slow breath before I buzz his hatch. The lock lights green and I go in and stand at attention.

  “Have a seat,” he says. I notice he does this when he’s predisposed to be patient, but his voice now is anything but friendly.

  I sit, hands on the chair arms, and look at him expectantly. Carefully blank-faced.

  His comp sits open and turned toward him. The vaguely blue-tinged lighting casts slivers of pale neon reflection on his short, jet-black hair. He is so pallid against the dark eyes and hair that you’d think it a side effect of suspended aging treatments. But I know it isn’t. The younger-than-chronological forty-something years of faint lines between his brows and beneath his eyes come from a life spent far away from Hub-central and never in one stationary place for long. Biologically he’s in his late twenties. But that isn’t indicative of his experience—or his memories—in deep space.

  Not in any way.

  “Lieutenant Commander Firsken,” Azarcon says temperately, pointedly, and my gut sinks into a void.

  Firsken is the ship’s senior communications officer.

  “Last shift she noticed an anomaly in one of our outgoing comms to the Chaos sat.”

  I keep my breaths regular. “Yes, sir?”

  “It went through under a reverse Send transmission update, pretty sophisticated considering the news Send is usually one-way coded to the receiver. Lieutenant Hartman says that you are quite adept in satellite communications tech.”

  “Sir, only what was taught in jet training.”

  “You have an affinity for that sort of thing. Like with weapons.”

  “Sir, I’m maybe more intelligent than the average person, but it’s just a matter of brain application with the tech.” Jets are expected to be arrogant. And he likes it when you’re forthright.

  His finger slowly traces a short line on the black desk, then stops. His eyes don’t move from my face. “We were able to acquire some new ware from the Guard at our last port to Rimstation 30. You didn’t know this of course; it’s not something that would interest any jet. With this new ware, however, Lieutenant Commander Firsken was able to trace the reverse code to a comp in the jet wardroom. Time index: oh-five-oh-five hours last shift.”

  Oh, shit

  “Corporal Sanchez also says that he saw you leave the wardroom at oh-five-twenty hours last shift. Alone.”

  My hands are below his line of sight, gripping the chair arms. I let it all flow down to my fingertips before I open my mouth.

  “Sir, it’s no secret the corporal has had it in for me since day one when I tripped him up in the gauntlet.”

  “I’m aware of that. I strongly advised him against slander. He stuck by his claim.”

  Damn that prowling son of a bitch.

  I let my voice grow hard. Indignant. “He’s lying, sir.”

  Azarcon stares at me. In the silence I hear my own words.

  Oh, fuck. That’s all that goes through my head. A mantra of idiotic profanity.

  “I like you, Musey. I don’t necessarily like everyone in my
crew, personally, but I like you. You’re an orphan and you’ve had it bad with Falcone, but despite all that you’ve managed to serve admirably here, in the main. I respect how you’ve turned out.”

  I remember Dorr’s words. If he’s right, the captain was with Falcone for at least five years. Will this help me?

  There’s no reading him. I have never found a way to really read all of his contradictions and purposeful words.

  “But,” he says, “I strongly suggest you be forthcoming. If you’re hiding something and it’s left up to me to discover it without your help, I’ll dump you at the nearest pirate cache. Am I clear?”

  I allow a breath. When he asks that question it is not an idle threat. “Yes, sir. Very clear.”

  Our shared past with Falcone will not help me. He’s far removed from it and I screwed up once already, with Kris.

  It makes his eyes doubly hard to meet.

  “So what do you have to say for yourself, Private Musey?”

  “Sir, I’ve been corresponding with burndivers.”

  His face shows no reaction. “Why?”

  “Sir, I’ve been working with some of them to try and find out Falcone’s whereabouts and ship codes. I didn’t say anything because, well, it’s illegal. Burndiving the way we— they—we do it. Because of Falcone’s Hub ties we—I— suspect he’s been hiding a lot behind legitimate ships. Just like he did with Shiva, sir.”

  “This isn’t news.”

  “Sir, my contacts discovered his tech supplier. But they’re still trying to trace the equipment specifically. And they think they might have the name of someone in Falcone’s crew who is willing to roll.”

  It’s all going to be out on the table now. But better this than the other reason I send comms on the sly.

  I don’t know if any of this information has the least effect on him.

  “Private Musey, in order for you to burndive you have to have optic holopoint receptors.”

  “Yessir.”

  “You’re not authorized to have those on this ship.”