Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction

by Dominica Malcolm

  Maui shook his head. “Why would they want to serve humans? Anyway, it’s the researchers that follow them that’ve broken Commonwealth law. A worm in the weapons systems.”

  “We caught it?”

  “No. Not yet. The eyes and turrets are dead. It doesn’t seem to have a taste for brain-jacks and it hasn’t got to the Connaught, yet. We’ve isolated the ship’s systems.”

  Grace felt both sick and excited. Sick that another senseless battle in the Steadings War was about to start and excited about the chance to fight, to flex muscles, to prove herself.

  “Who’re we looking at? It’s got to be an opportunist strike.”

  She tried not to think about what it cost to get a worm, in food or people or materials.

  “Piripi said the worm tastes Wa-ry,” Maui said with a shrug.

  “Bloody Titokowarus,” said Grace with weary anger, “Have Sean keep the main eyes on their heading—in case we get the eyes back on line—but keep the low levels going all around. Everyone’s to take watch shifts with bins. Don’t want to get snuck up on.”

  “Weapons?”

  Grace looked around at the Halcyon steaders. “Cutlasses. No firearms until we see something to hit. Can’t afford to lose the bullets. Keep the turrets down as if they’re dead. If we get them back on-line, they can react fast enough if the Wa-ries follow their worm for it to be safe. I don’t think they’re rich enough to be much of a threat without the worm.”

  It still wasn’t enough to settle the sickness or the excitement.

  “We breaking out the Connaught?”

  “Give me half an hour,” she answered, “Then we’ll go hunt the hunters.”

  §

  The researchers jumped when she stepped into the cabin of their little cat.

  “Nice place,” she said with affected carelessness, “Bit small.”

  The male stood as if to warn her off—“You can’t—”—and stopped when he clocked the Commonwealth combats.

  Grace smiled and wished she was still allowed to carry the old Jack on her left arm. It was unlikely that these two would realise the lack made her less than official. She had some authority as the head of the steading but that that only extended half a mile out on the ocean. All the researchers needed to do was get away from the steading and she would be breaking the Commonwealth law that Halcyon was pledged to uphold.

  “Oh, I think you’ll find it’s physically possible for me to board your… vessel,” she said.

  They blinked at her, silent. They were probably exchanging comments over their brain-jacks. She didn’t care. They had brought this on themselves. This was their fault.

  “You’ve attacked the Commonwealth state of Halcyon in an act of war,” Grace said evenly, keeping her fury over the attack to herself, “Have you anything to say in your defence?”

  “An act of war?” the female demanded, “We haven’t done anything like that! We just—”

  “Shut up!” the male cut in.

  “You brought invasive software from another steading,” Grace explained as if to a slow child, “Another state.”

  The female laughed dismissively. “But rivalries between steadings are nothing to do with Commonwealth law!”

  “Wrong,” replied Grace, “The Sea Steadings War still rumbles on and Titokowaru, the rival steading you did this for, is not a member of the Commonwealth. Therefore, it is an act of war.”

  The female shrugged. “We didn’t do anything. They’ve attacked us just as much as you. They infected the cat’s dry-brain and we’re down to manual.”

  “So you knowingly entered another state with infected systems and didn’t declare it?” Grace asked sweetly.

  “We didn’t do anything,” the female insisted.

  “You can’t do anything!” the male said at the same time, “We’re citizens of Jo’burg!”

  “Who are Halcyon’s allies as we are both Commonwealth states. Now, if you would just come onto the dock, we can proceed through the legalities.”

  Grace gestured towards the hatch and, wordlessly, the two researchers did as they were bid. Their body language spoke of anger with a small amount of fear. They didn’t like the gun and cutlass she carried but hadn’t touched, fearing the backwater nature of the sea steadings. Coming from a more settled state made them trust the uniform and the goodwill of the Commonwealth.

  They were also convinced they had a basic right to life without trying for it, a belief that no steader would ever hold. Anyone who was familiar with steading life or living this far away from full Commonwealth control would have known to flee.

  When they were on the dock, Grace managed to manoeuvre them so that their backs were to the artificial reef without them realising. This business would be easy to conclude. She put on her best captain’s voice to begin their sentencing.

  “Lacking the resources to try and sentence you here—”

  “Well, at least you’re civilised enough not to just kill us outright,” the female said in a cutting tone. She didn’t truly believe she was in any danger of being killed, despite her fear of weapons.

  Grace smiled and continued smoothly, “Means we also lack the resources to take you to somewhere else that might. The nearest settlement of any size is on North Island. And there’s nothing to say they can deal with you, either.”

  She hadn’t thought it possible for their skin to go any greyer. They looked as if they were seriously ill and the beading sweat on their brows did nothing to dispel the image.

  “The Commonwealth treaty says that, in such circumstances, we can deal with outsiders who break the law as we would our own.”

  With a swift movement, she drew her cutlass and swept it across their necks. The force of contact, so unexpected, had the bodies falling into the artificial reef even as the last remnants of life clutched at their throats and tried to prevent the blood spurting. The surprised looks disappeared under the blue Pacific waters.

  “Dinner is served,” Grace said to the fish inside Halcyon’s artificial reef. They seemed excited about it. It was a while since they’d had blood and flesh to feed on.

  In the dock, on the outside of the reef, the larger shark raised itself on its tail again. Grace was unsure whether it saw two sources of blood it wanted to get to or two people it recognised dying. It was hard to say how any mako felt about humans.

  “Maui,” she called out across the docks, “We need to line up a buyer for a standard two-man cat.”

  It wasn’t like they could afford to keep it or patch it, even if it weren’t identifiable.

  “Right-o!” she heard him call back.

  Now it was time to get the idiots who had thought to hook a sweet fish with their digital worm and caught themselves something much more dangerous instead.

  §

  “Kawa? An old war canoe?” Maui asked with an incredulous tone.

  “Like we’re any better with just the Connaught,” Grace said, thinking of the ships they’d had before their last campaign, and of the damaged ships they’d won and had to trade for new fish and plant stocks to replace the resources raided when that last campaign had started.

  But Maui wasn’t thinking of things like that. He laughed, deep and from the belly. “Maybe we should paddle their arses and send them home for stealing our culture.”

  She leant over the side of the Connaught. It didn’t look as if the Titokowaru warriors had noticed them or, if they had, recognised the ex-patrol ship for what it was. Nor had they seen the two mako that had decided to follow her. That said, the distinctive dorsal fins would be very small points from this distance.

  “Do we need to have olive skin to be Māori, now?” she asked with a raised auburn eyebrow. “Aren’t we Māori because it’s our way?”

  The crew laughed and Maui flushed. “They just look—”

  “As if they should be in something dragon-prowed and beating on shields,” Grace said, grateful there wasn’t enough readily available iron to supply that sort of low technology culture among the
steadings.

  “We need to conserve ammo,” she said, “So it’s good they are as they are. We could get away with one shell to dazzle them and then an old-fashioned boarding.”

  It might be another twelve months before they could get to a proper Commonwealth naval base to trade ammunition for more service. A fight with cutlasses was better than a shoot-out.

  “Or we could go round them and take their steading,” said Maui, “Let those left behind take care of these Wa-ries.”

  Every adult on Halcyon had seen naval service. Everyone left behind was capable of defending themselves.

  “But the best fighters are here,” said Grace, unwilling to leave what was probably the harder battle to the worm-ridden Halcyon.

  “So?”

  “And these are bound to be the best of the Wa-ries fighters,” she said.

  Maui frowned. “Their steading’s resources will be worth more to us and Halcyon should be able to cope with these… losers.”

  “There are three types of steading,” Grace intoned in the same voice her father had used to teach them their history and then added in a more normal voice, “And they’re the wrong type.”

  She’d known Titokawara was poor, of course. They all had. They’d even known the Wa-ries were weird for their perceived history. But this was a bit more than she’d expected.

  Maui crossed his arms. “Enlighten me, oh great captain.”

  Grace raised her eyebrows. She could feel the others in the crew pausing in their jobs to watch. If she didn’t come up with an understandable, acceptable reason not to follow Maui’s advice, she could end up watching them sail for Titokowaru steading anyway. Even though the ruins of that other steading wouldn’t actually do them any good.

  She held up three fingers and marked the first finger off with her other hand, “Former financial enterprises like Halcyon.”

  The plans had been submitted by Grace and Maui’s shared O’Malley ancestor some two centuries ago, shortly before the ice age hit the Northern Hemisphere. Building had started even as the first influx of refugees hit Aotearoa. As other pressures came into play, it had become a home not just a business. All residents were shareholders although the O’Malley descendants held a greater share. Which was why there was a chance Grace’s decision would be ignored.

  “Sea steadings such as Halcyon,” continued Grace, “Are usually pro-Commonwealth because we were businesses first. We need global alliances in order to secure trade and survive.”

  Maui made a “move on” gesture. The crew leant forward.

  “Then there are the resettlement steadings.”

  Some of them started even as Halcyon and its ilk were being constructed, as Aotearoa and neighbouring Australia struggled to find places for the flood of refugees.

  “Those who still identify with their deceased parent nation are generally pro-Commonwealth,” said Maui, “Yes, I know. What’s this got to do with the Wa-ries?”

  “Third kind,” Grace said firmly.

  “What?”

  “You remember the history lessons,” she nudged, “The people who lost the land grab when the nations collapsed.”

  Maui stared at the distant canoes.

  “They’re in a canoe because that’s what they can afford,” said Grace.

  Although even that much was arguably of value in the harsh world of the sea steadings—where almost everything but their basic food and the next generation had to come from elsewhere. The easiest way was to take it from another steading too weak to hold on to what they had. Only the Wa-ries knew where they’d found enough wood to build a canoe.

  “So the worm they sent…?” Maui asked.

  She sighed. “They probably spent all they had on getting a program they were assured would disable an enemy. Maybe they sold their own into indentured servitude or tricked someone richer into sharing it. But it worked. Commonwealth grade defences don’t mean a thing if—”

  “They ain’t got that swing?”

  §

  “Of course,” Grace added some time later as their boarding party faced the welcoming committee over the rail of the Connaught, “They’re likely to dress their poverty up as something else.”

  “You mean like a fanatical return to the pre-Westernised culture?” Maui asked.

  They watched the Titokowaru warriors’ peruperu for a further heartbeat before he allowed his frustration to get the better of him.

  “Seriously, people, I do not have time for this,” he shouted, “Either shut up and fight or shove off!”

  Grace shrugged and unholstered her side-arm. As the leader of the group started another insult in pure te reo, she re-homed a single bullet in his temple. The Titokowaru warriors froze and she spoke into the resulting silence before the panic started.

  “You have a choice. You can leave and we will not follow you—”

  One of the warriors shouted “Never!” in te reo and was echoed by the rest. They were wide-eyed and edged away from the corpse of their leader, though. Whatever psychological benefit the peruperu had been giving them was gone, just as she’d hoped.

  Grace continued as if she had not been interrupted, “Or you can surrender and we w—”

  “We keep to the old ways, tauiwi, we do not surrender.”

  “You don’t know your own history is what you don’t,” Maui growled.

  “That makes no sense,” Grace threw at him before returning to the Titokowaru warriors’ choice, “You can surrender and we will accept you as members of our iwi. We always welcome strong men and women among us.”

  Her crew flicked a look at her but she gave a little shake of her head. They would speed the steading’s return to full strength. Grace would ensure they were welcomed but they wouldn’t be included as shareholders—at least not until they’d proven themselves.

  “Or you can fight and die.”

  The self-designated leader laughed, a crow of derision, “We will not die to warriors who bring their women along. Warriors who let their women speak for them are not warriors at all.”

  Grace would bet there was nothing but women and children left at Titokowara. She would have to collect them—peacefully—in the near future. Without warriors, neighbours would find them easy pickings and sell them on for more valuable resources.

  “We’re not warriors,” said Maui, “We’re marines.”

  The crew of the Connaught laughed.

  “And I am Grace O’Malley,” Grace said, “And I’m not in the habit of letting my enemies live.”

  She holstered her gun, her hand already on the rail to vault over onto the wooden canoe. A deep breath, forget the past and the future, focus on the fight.

  “No prisoners. Cutlass only. Don’t waste bullets on them. Don’t feed any of them to the mako. Time to fight!”

  Grace drew her own cutlass as soon as her feet made contact—to draw before meant she risked cutting her own legs off if her landing went badly—and it flashed out in a heavy swing. It made contact with a short but heavy club, changing the course of her momentum as she moved, ducking away from another club that had been aimed at her temple. A quick reverse of cut caught the first club’s wielder on the arm and Grace moved on to the second, content that the first would not be able to attack again and that someone behind her would finish him off.

  §

  The Connaught was slow going back. It was difficult hauling back the wooden hulk that was almost as long as they were and intent on being directionless. Grace wasn’t quite sure what she’d do with the wood, wherever it had originally come from, but she still had a use for the bodies.

  The two great whites continued to circle them. Grace had had one of the corpses—out of thirty-four dead warriors, in all—thrown to the fish as a sort of “thank you” for bringing the Halcyon steaders a prize, no matter how small. The rest would be fed to Halcyon’s artificial reef. She wondered if they could smell the blood from her crew’s wounds and their own dead. Three Halcyon marines would never fight again.

  “So we c
ontinue to advance the Commonwealth’s interests,” said Maui as he adjusted the ropes that held the canoe.

  Grace smiled, a tight hunter’s smile. “Well, we’ve got rid of thirty four men who disagreed with their policies.”

  “World peace and wealth for all!”

  She took one of the rope ends and leant back with all her weight so Maui could tie off the adjustment.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” she said, “But I might add the point about population control.”

  “We’re just making room for more of ours,” Maui said with a grin and kissed her quickly, between tasks.