Sisterhood of Suns: Pallas Athena

by Martin Schiller

  Bel Anny and Enggredsdaater were working behind them when N’Vera spotted something that she didn’t care for. “Is that what you call clean, hatchies?” she yelled. “Unacceptable!” With a kick, she overturned their bucket. Hot soapy water spilled out onto the floor.

  “Completely unacceptable! Now go refill that bucket and scrub this section again!”

  The hapless pair ran off to the latrine to refill their bucket and then returned for another round of scrubbing. This time whatever it was that they had missed on their first pass was absent, and N’Vera stayed silent, but it was clear from the look in her eyes that she would rather have found another fault with their work.

  When the platoon had cleaned the entire barracks floor, Sa’Tela called the time. And after a brief re-inspection, she spoke to the platoon again. “One of the things we instill here on Hella’s World is teamwork, ladies. You have already started to learn to count on your battle sister, and now you will also learn to count on the rest of your platoon. To help you think like a team, I will now announce your new platoon leader. This person will be your leader, and your liaison with the Instructors. Because of her prior experience in basic, Recruit bel Anny will be the new Platoon Leader. Do not let her, or me, down. Dismissed.”

  Kaly wasn’t sure if congratulations were in order or not, and one glance over at Bel Anny, told her that the woman wasn’t exactly overjoyed. If anything, she actually looked a little ill.

  CHAPTER 6

  CSS C-JUDI-GO. Lunar Raw Materials Plant, Virgo, New Covenant, Telesalla Elant, United Sisterhood of Suns 1042.12|06|02:52:64

  It was early in the morning, ship’s time, and Maya was sitting on the deck with her back against the bulkhead, staring up at the overhead. Her anger had long since exhausted itself. Now, she was just tired of having nothing to do except sit there.

  Her boredom ended when the hatch slid open to reveal the Black Witch. There was no mistaking those full red lips or the shape of her oval face.

  Panicked, Maya jumped to her feet, and backed away from her, her heart racing. After their encounter at the port, anything was possible, and had she had the chance, she would have exploited any avenue of escape and bolted. But there were none. She was trapped.

  The woman entered slowly, keeping her hands in plain view, and immediately sat herself in the cabin’s only chair. There, she quietly crossed her legs and put her hands in her lap.

  Maya had been expecting a monster, but her unwanted guest wasn’t one. Instead, what she beheld was a tall, slim woman dressed in a black bodysuit that covered her up to her neck, and long matching gloves.

  And although her skin was extremely pale, and possessed an odd, iridescent sheen that only made itself obvious when she moved, it wasn’t out of place for someone with Nyxian ancestry. The slight epicanthic fold of her eyes, along with her long, jet black hair also suggested that she was part Aran.

  Not a monster at all. In fact, under other circumstances, Maya realized that she would have found her to be quite beautiful.

  At last, the woman spoke. Her voice was a soft contralto, with only a hint of the predatory timbre that it had possessed at the port.

  “Maya n’Kaaryn,” she said, using Maya’s real name, “My name is Sarah n’Jan, and I think that you know why I am here. We need to talk. We have since we first encountered one another.’

  “You know that it is no accident that you felt me under your window. As I told you at the port, you are also a psi. But we are different from one another in a very important way and I think you realize this as well.”

  Yes, Maya thought fiercely, I’m not cruel like you.

  Sarah smiled, as if she had heard this thought, and went on, “Maya, we are different because I have training and you do not. That is why I am more powerful than you. My talents have been artificially augmented and sharpened by my teachers.’

  “I also know that you hate me. It takes no special ability to recognize that. But I am not here to ask you for your forgiveness. I did what I had to at the port. Instead, I have come to offer you a choice of futures.’

  “You have two roads open to you. The first is the one that you travel now, surviving on your wits and your raw, untrained talents.’

  “This is a short road however, with a certain end. There are others like me, Maya, many others, and some of them would have killed you rather than risk letting a rogue esper interfere in any way with their business. This will happen to you unless you make the decision to take another path, and change.”

  Change? Maya thought, and become like you? The very idea filled her with disgust. She kept her tongue however, and only a slight increase in her breathing betrayed her upset.

  Sarah sat forwards, just enough to emphasize her point, but without intruding on Maya’s personal space. “Yes, Maya, change. And learn; learn to control your abilities, and harness them to their true potential.’

  “You know as well as I that this universe of ours is a jungle. It is filled with predators, and you must become a predator yourself or become someone else’s prey. Your talents are your teeth and claws, and if you hone them properly, you will transform yourself into something far greater than you can now imagine.”

  Sarah paused, and let her consider this. Then she went on.

  “We are putting in at Ashkele next,” she said. “You know this port, don’t you?” It wasn’t a question and they both already knew the answer.

  Ashkele, or the Free City as it was often called, was under the nominal control of the non-human Xee, but in reality it was an open port, governed by no single star-nation.

  The city had been built by the Xee in the heart of a planet-wide necropolis left behind by the legendary Drow’Voi, an extinct galaxy-spanning civilization. The Xee religion believed that the blessings of the dead ensured prosperity, and by their reckoning, the vast cemetery had granted this to them in abundance. Whatever the actual causes, Ashkele’s wealth was beyond dispute; the city was ranked as one of the richest in the Far Arm.

  For Maya however, Ashkele was more than just a burial ground for the Drow’Voi dead. The port city had also been the graveyard of her innocence.

  She had been born on an unlicensed agricultural colony, situated in a no-woman’s zone of space between the Xee Protectorate and the Sisterhood. On her 12th year, a plague had come and ravaged the little settlement.

  To save them, the women had sent their children into the hills with a handful of adult guardians. And by the time the epidemic had finally burned itself out, only the children and their caregivers had managed to survive.

  With the colony effectively wiped out, Maya and the other children had been sent to Ashkele for temporary housing at one of the city’s multi-species orphanages. Months of diplomatic wrangling had followed this, with Sisterhood and Xee officials arguing over their ultimate citizenship, and custody.

  Eventually, the bureaucrats reached an accord among themselves, but by that time it was too late for Maya. She had run away and was roaming Ashkele’s streets with other cast-offs.

  The port had been a brutal place, wholly unlike the cities of the Sisterhood. What was considered extreme and unthinkable in the Sisterhood was commonplace in the Free City. Slavery, murder-for-hire, drug addiction, prostitution and a host of other evils were the norm in a place that was tenanted by dozens of races, each with their own concepts of moral conduct, and with no one to really police them.

  The pressure to stay alive in such an environment had destroyed the Maya-That-Had-Been as thoroughly as the plague that had wiped out her motherworld. Only her talents, and her wits, had allowed her to survive long enough to become a teenager, and find a way for herself off-planet aboard a merchanter bound for the Sisterhood.

  Ashkele held no fond memories.

  “Yes,” Maya finally said grimly. “I know it.”

  “I am not going to confine you here any longer,” Sarah informed her. “You will be free to do what you will when we reach Ashkele. There, you may go your own way, or you can remain with t
he JUDI and go a new way.’

  “If you decide to stay, you will have a place with us, and you will also train. I must warn you that the training will be hard, and in the end it is possible that you will hate me even more than you do now. I can assure you however, that if you take the road that I have offered you, you will find the rewards at the end worth any hardship that you might suffer along the way.’

  “I will leave the final decision to you, and I suggest that you weigh your choice carefully. In the meantime, you have the freedom of the ship—unless you create problems for us. I think that you know what will happen in that eventuality.”

  Seeing that she understood, Sarah rose and left the chamber. The hatch remained open behind her.

  Ashkele Free Port, Hallasa System, Frontier Zone, Xee Protectorate, 1042.12|06|05:83:33

  Although Maya wasn’t aware of it, she had something else in common with Sarah beyond her psychic abilities. This was her sense of smell. While she didn’t possess an augmented olfactory ability like Sarah did, it was still quite keen and it played a powerful role in shaping her awareness, and associations.

  As she walked down the JUDI’s cargo ramp, the aroma of Ashkele hit her nostrils. The Free City was a heady mixture of chemicals, human and alien waste, machine exhaust, and a thousand strange spices, all overlaid with the flinty scent of the omnipresent dust.

  Smelling this mélange, it was hard for her not to believe that she hadn’t somehow been transported back in time. But she wasn’t a frightened runaway scrabbling to survive any longer, she reminded herself. She knew how to take care of herself now. Raising her chin determinedly, Maya stepped off the ramp, steeling herself for anything that the city dared to throw at her.

  Just as her foot touched the grimy dock plating, Zara called her name. Maya looked back over her shoulder at the old woman, and saw that Captain bel Lissa, Hari and Sarah were all standing with her at the cargo bay. Bel Lissa’s expression was unreadable, Hari’s was plainly impatient, and Sarah’s was hidden beneath her hood. Even so, Maya could feel the woman’s eyes watching her.

  Zara walked down and handed her a holocard. “The Captain wanted me to make sure that you got this,” she explained.

  Maya took it from her and examined it. The text was animated, scrolling over the card’s face at random intervals until she tilted it slightly. Then the words stopped, and centered themselves to read: “CJG Enterprises, 13.8 Street of the Joyous Newly Dead, Ashkele Free Port, ComX: 13.8.3.055.7.889.”

  “If you decide you want to join up with us, you can find us there. There’s a pathminder built into the card if you need it.”

  Maya stuffed the holocard into her jumpsuit pocket. “I think I can find it on my own.” In truth, she didn’t recall exactly how to reach the Street of the Joyous Newly Dead, but she was fairly certain that it lay to the west end of the city, and somewhere near the Square of the Twelve Golden Corpses of Prosperity.

  Not that she actually intended to ever go there. She had other plans for herself and they didn’t include Sarah, or the C-JUDI-GO. Without another backwards glance, she walked briskly away from the merchanter, knowing that Sarah was still watching.

  Let her, she thought defiantly. After what she’d been through, she had firmly decided that she was not about to accept the woman’s offer. Her talents had gotten her through just fine so far, exactly as they were, and Sarah the ‘Big Bad Witch’ was the last person in the galaxy that she wanted as a teacher. And as much as she wanted a job aboard a smuggler, the C-JUDI-GO was not an option.

  Not with her aboard.

  Resolute, Maya walked on until the JUDI and her crew had dropped out of both sight and mind, and then got straight to work resuming the hunt that she had begun back on Thermadon. Although the Free City was a miserable place, it did possess two redeeming qualities; an utter lack of customs officers, and an abundance of smugglers who didn’t bother to hide their profession at all.

  She went up to the first vessel that she saw and approached the crew to make her pitch. In sharp contrast to Bel Sharra Memorial Spaceport, the crews in Ashkele were openly armed. Maya was met at the cargo ramp by a tough-looking woman toting a military-issue blast rifle, plainly standing guard while her crewmates worked.

  “Help you with something?” the woman asked. Her finger rested lightly along the trigger guard, and it was obvious from the way she held the weapon that she was accustomed to using it, and could bring it to bear in a hurry.

  “I’m looking for work,” Maya said. “I’m looking for a ship that doesn’t mind getting its hands dirty making a few credits.”

  The woman laughed and exchanged a deprecatory grin with her co-workers. “That’ll be the Captain’s call, honey-pot. She’s busy right now, but I’ll call her down. You can tell your lies to her. I don’t want to hear them.”

  “I’ll wait,” Maya replied, folding her arms. “I’ve got plenty of time.”

  The woman cocked an eyebrow at her, and then closed her eyes as she accessed her psiever. “The Captain will be along in a while,” she finally announced.

  “A while” actually turned out to be thirty standard minutes. If the woman standing guard had seemed a hard sort, the captain looked like she was made of solid stone. She was a short stocky woman, with a leathery complexion, crisscrossed by a fine network of light-colored scars. She came down the ramp with a pronounced swagger, and her eyes had an unfriendly, suspicious gleam.

  “Make it fast,” the Captain said impatiently. “I’ve got better things to do today.”

  Maya took no offense at her brusqueness, and she didn’t waste any time. Instead she kept her story short and briefly highlighted her skills and experience.

  When she finished, the Captain stroked her chin thoughtfully. “Work as a hand, you say? Do you have any problem hauling glass?”

  In fact, Maya did, and she suppressed a profanity. Glass smuggling was a filthy, dangerous business, and if they didn’t get killed by the people who supplied it, any Nulltrekker who got caught by the authorities spent a long time in a correctional colony.

  But she also had a personal reason to despise the substance. Something that went much deeper than any professional concerns. Glass had been responsible for the death of someone she had loved, and although the pain had dulled over the years, her hatred hadn’t.

  “Never mind,” she said, fighting to keep her emotions in check. “I’ll keep looking.” The woman on guard laughed, obviously having expected as much.

  The Captain scowled at the crewwoman and planted her hands on her hips. “Well,” she said, “you won’t find many ships here that aren’t moving a little crystal, girlie, even if it’s just a part of their cargo. If you think you’re too good to haul it, then so be it. Come back when you’ve run out of ships and maybe I’ll reconsider you--if I’m not too busy.”

  “Thanks,” Maya replied with a forced smile. “I’ll keep your ship in mind.”

  Disappointed, she moved down the line to the next ship. But her luck stayed poor; the vessel turned out to be a T’lakskalan slaver, and she didn’t even risk coming near it, or its sinister reptilian crew.

  The one after that was a human ship, but they were also hauling Szalian crystal. The third ship she came to was, oddly enough, a legitimate merchanter from a franchised line, but its Captain wasn’t even interested in speaking to her without an initial interview by the company’s personnel department. They were located on Thermadon.

  Her hunt went on and on like this, with only a few variations in the theme, until by the end of the day, she had run out of ships, and energy. Sitting down in a heap on a bench at the port entrance, she wearily took stock of her situation.

  With the exception of the jumpsuit that she wore, all of her personal possessions were light years away, back in her locker in Thermadon City. And aside from the crew of the JUDI, she no longer knew anyone in the Free City.

  But although it wasn’t a large sum by Ashkele standards, she did have credits. Although the Xee possessed a legal tender
of their own, they preferred to do business in Sisterhood currency, due to its strength and stability compared to other forms of exchange in the Far Arm.

  The rest of Ashkele followed their lead. The only way to get anything was with credits. This at least saved her from having to change her money at one of the Xee banks. Nothing in the Free City was really free, and the Xee charged murderous rates for such transactions.

  Given her overall resources, and deficits, the only thing she could do was to find a place to stay for the night, and give the ships another try in the morning. Sleeping at the port, or on the street for that matter, was completely out of the question. There were simply too many chances for theft, robbery, or worse, Maya knew that much from personal experience.

  She looked up at the sky, and saw that it was almost dusk. She had to get moving. Being on the street alone, and unarmed, especially after dark, was just as foolish as sleeping there. The Guns, the armed robots that the Xee employed to maintain the appearance of civil order, loosely patrolled the main thoroughfares, but the side streets, and anywhere the Guns were absent, were effectively lawless zones. T’lakskalan press bands prowled those places, capturing anyone that they thought might fetch a good price on the alien black markets, not to mention various types of street gangs, perverts, and a whole host of violent riffraff.

  Maya got herself up and made for the port exit. A scan of her inocular there earned her several painful immunizations, but as unpleasant as these were, she wasn’t surprised, or unhappy about it. Ashkele was not only one of the busiest crossroads of the galaxy, but it was also one of the filthiest. Unfriendly bugs were simply a given in such an environment.

  As soon as the steel bars at the egressway had retracted, she stepped out into the street and sized up the foot and vehicle traffic around her. From the look of the place, the Free City hadn’t changed very much, or at least not for the better, she observed. She located a rather battered and battle-scarred omni station nearby, and accessed the device.