“And in time, when you are not so anxious to be on your way, we can explain everything else,” Caradand said.
“But right now,” Dalinoro said fiercely, “we need your word that you will do everything in your power to destroy those who did this to us. We require your promise.”
“Require?” I said, “I don’t see how you can require anything from me.”
“Please,” said Fretzler, and her pain tugged at my heart, but it was short-lived.
“And incidentally, we can make your life rather miserable, even though you bind us. We can make you focus all your efforts on keeping us bound instead of other things,” Dalinoro said.
Good old Carrot and Stick diplomacy there, Dalinoro.
“So you require my promise to do what I can to give you revenge and grant you the freedom – somehow – to move on from this existence, yes?” I asked.
“Yes,” Yokiro said.
“Then in return, this is what I require. I require your full obedience and support in all things. I require that you keep no secrets from me, and that you will help me with my own goals on the way to meeting yours.”
“Done,” seven voices said at once, and I wished I had asked for more.
“And now I need to focus on the living, because we have a starship to assault, hijack and fly back to Blackwatch, and that’s going to be tricky.”
“Well, that’s something we can help with,” Zeta said, “We are able to fight for you, if you release our shadow forms.”
“And we have those here who once served on starships,” Yokiro added.
I fought to keep my thoughts unreadable. That would be a major advantage.
They faded out and I was back to the outside world.
“...she rode in like a hurricane and saved us. It was awe-inspiring,” Driscoll said.
“It was,” Ch’ng agreed.
I opened my eyes.
“And now we need to do it again,” I said, as I sat up. “This time on a starship.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Glad to see you’ve joined us,” Roman said lightly, but there was an edge under his voice.
I hoped it was just worry for me. I looked around. We were in a temporary camp, with a small fire. Everyone was here and eating or drinking what was left of our supplies. Yamamoto faced away from camp with his gun in hand, so he must have been standing a semi-watch. I wasn’t worried. All our enemies right now were inside me.
I stood up, surveying the people in front of me. We were a collection of marines, sentenced criminals, masterminds, and fools. I smiled wryly. I had asked Driscoll if the fate of our Empire rested on a small band of people making it through impossible odds. We’d already done the impossible, but we had so much more to do.
“What did you decide while I was...sleeping?” I asked.
“We’re with you, Vera,” Roman said, but his eyes told me he wanted to talk more and the sooner the better.
“Into the jaws of death and back...just like before, Matsumoto,” Driscoll said.
“All of you?” I asked, looking each one in the eye and surprised every time at the affirmation in them.
“All of us,” Kitsano said.
I nodded, grim, but satisfied.
“We talked for a long time,” Driscoll said. “Driscoll’s Own will support you, since I am your liege, and Kitsano and Ch’ng have joined Driscoll’s Own. Your guardian seems to be loyal.” An irritated grunt from Roman punctuated that.
“Well then,” I said, scratching the back of my neck, and smiling awkwardly, “I have only one more thing to say. Whatever happens, I won’t fail you. I will hold the course. I won’t back down. I’ll die before I lose, and I won’t ask anyone else to do something that I won’t do.”
There were either nods or grim looks from everyone. We all knew that most likely we’d be dead before another Baldric day was over. No one had ever hijacked a Blackwatch starship successfully, but they were as committed as I was.
“In that case we should move out. We’re running out of time.”
“Marines, let’s roll it up,” Roman said, sending a look at Driscoll, like he wasn’t quite sure if they were following him or the terrorist.
“If I could just have a private word with you, Roman, before we go, I’d appreciate it.”
“Once you’re done, head out. We’ll catch up in a few minutes,” Roman ordered.
Ch’ng had the audacity to wink at me, and I saw looks passed between the marines and murmurs of, “Only takes him a minute.” Typical military humor.
I took Roman lightly by the bicep and led him through the towering trees to the edge of the ravine. I must have been fighting my internal battle for a very long time because the Baldric sun was high and intense. The shadows of the tree canopy were enough to keep us from squinting, and for once they were only natural shadows. Below, the water glinted silver in the sun.
I felt awkward at our reunion. So much had passed since the last time we’d talked. I took a moment to study the scenery so I could compose my thoughts, pretending to admire the huge trees with their wide branches and velvety purple leaves. Golden yellow cliffs plunged below into a diamond river. Baldric, as always, was as beautiful as she was deadly. I was leaving the beauty, though, and bringing the deadly with me.
That thought brought me to my senses, and I turned to Roman and looked up into his cinnamon brown eyes.
“Why, Vera? I thought you wanted to be rid of all this Matsumoto nonsense?”
“Wherever I go, it just follows me. I’m a Matsumoto whether I like it or not, and I have to face that.”
“Wherever you go I’ll go, too,” he said, gently, “As long as I know that you really chose to try to bring down your cousin and it wasn’t forced on you.”
“You don’t have to come with me,” I said. “It’s going to be deadly.”
He laughed, and new lines crinkled around his warm eyes.
“I don’t know if anything is as deadly as you, Vera Matsumoto. Driscoll has been telling us stories.”
I blushed.
“And,” he continued, “You’re even starting to look the part.”
He brought one hand up to delicately trace the scar on my cheek, like he was touching the wing of a butterfly. I trembled with a combination of insecurity and desire.
“I must look terrible,” I agreed, still blushing furiously.
He leaned in close, so his lips were millimeters from mine and whispered, “Terribly beautiful.”
His kiss was tender and gentle. I kissed him back, but he ended it quickly, and pulled back, his forehead resting gently on mine, and his eyes locked onto mine.
“You look older,” I said, my concern for him evident in my voice, and my own hand reached up and stroked his worn cheek. In his dull brown hair there was a thick white streak. A sign of something so stressful that it shocked the hair white. I wondered if it was Ashlyn’s death.
“I am older,” he teased, smiling in the way he did when it was only the two of us.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, still worried.
“Vera, neither of us have been children for a very long time.”
My smile turned bittersweet, thinking about him and Ashlyn.
“I’m sorry, Roman. I’m sorry for everything you’ve suffered. I’m most sorry of all that you are stuck fighting an impossible war with me, rather than living a normal life with her.”
He laughed, but this laugh was bitter.
“I don’t think I could live a normal life if I wanted to, Vera. But please know this,” he said, as he gathered me up in strong, gentle arms, “there is nowhere I’d rather be than with you. And there is no one I’d rather be with.” He paused for a moment and then looked me in the eyes as he said, “I love you, Vera Matsumoto.”
My face grew hot with embarrassment.
“And I’m willing to wait for you until you’re done conquering the Empire,” he teased.
This time his kiss was firmer and laced with longing. My return kiss was t
he same. I longed for a better, safer time, when we could love fully instead of in bits and pieces.
Me, too, Vera. One day, when it’s all over, and I make you mine.
I love you, too, Roman Aldrin.
I said it in the channel, because I didn’t trust my voice, and it just kept echoing in my thoughts, over and over. I felt his answering joy though our channel and his kiss was bittersweet and seeded with hope. My heart soared, but I clamped down on it. There was still too much to do to think of that.
And I’m going to hold you to that promise, I said.
You do that.
We caught up to the rest quickly and our march to the shuttles was surprisingly pleasant and quick without a constant assault on the way. We made our plans as we walked, though there was only so much we could plan ahead of time. Most of what came next would depend on how things played out.
Every time I looked at Roman all I could think about was how grateful I was to have him back, and to have him as mine. We’d taken a long journey apart from each other. At least whatever came next, we’d be doing it together.
All along our path, towering fungus spiralled up into the Baldric sky. I shuddered every time I saw one. The bodies at the bases of them had calcified, and were looking less and less human, but that didn’t make the ghastly totems any less chilling. It was like the planet was warning me all along the way, ‘Don’t forget that the people you are putting your trust in did that.’
When we reached the shuttles, I glanced at the shiny exterior of hull. It was the first time I had seen myself since I began the journey. I looked at least ten years older. I was in a ragged, torn skinsuit. My eyes, still almond shaped and Matsumoto, were hard and piercing, and my shorn head and thick scar gave me a hardened, deadly appearance. The spear I still carried lent such an exotic air, that I looked, for all the world, like a neo-barbarian jungle warlord. I’d started off a pacifist diplomat, then I became a jungle warlord, maybe in the months to come I could find something in between.
You look beautiful, Roman said, noticing my hesitation as my fingers traced my scar. Battle scars suit you.
And somehow they did. Somehow all of this pain that I had never asked for, had shaped me into something that was more suited to me than anything I was before.
I turned for one last look at Baldric, and thought of Ian lying dead miles away. He’d died giving himself for me. I wouldn’t forget.
Don’t forget, the shadows in my head echoed, and I saw Ian’s face coalesce for an instant behind my eyes.
Don’t forget, but don’t let it destroy you, Roman echoed.
I won’t forget, I thought, and looking out over the rolling hills of Baldric, heart-stoppingly gorgeous as they were, all I could see were the jutting fungi that infected that gorgeous world, and I knew I would never forget, and that whatever it took I wouldn’t let it happen again.
Vera? It was my mother speaking in my thoughts. I think there’s something you should know about Patrick Driscoll...
Read more of Vera’s story in The Matsumoto
The Matsumoto
Chapter One
Vera? It was my mother speaking in my thoughts. I think there’s something you should know about Patrick Driscoll...
“Matsumoto! You’d better get in here,” Kitsano called from inside the shuttle.
I broke off my last look at the deadly totems of Baldric, and hustled into the shuttle. I was the last in, and I pulled the hatch closed behind me. Roman waved me off and secured the hatch while I squeezed into the cockpit. I felt warm inside at the glance he sent my way.
We’ll talk as soon as we get the chance, I promised him via our implants as I passed.
His half-smile assured me that he understood. Don’t forget, my shuttle, my rules.
Rules?
No spitting. No swearing. No ignoring your guardian’s requests.
Fair enough. I smirked, wondering what might fall under the category ‘requests.’
Driscoll was already at the controls flicking his fingers over the touch navigation pad. Kitsano had an arm elbow-deep into a holo-manipulator, and with singular concentration she was twiddling the projection at Driscoll’s instruction.
“What do you need?” I started, but then changed it to, “Does no one else know how to fly a shuttle?”
“No,” Driscoll replied, in a distracted tone. “I told you that in time you would need me, and this is only the beginning.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re sworn to me,” I reminded him.
He fiddled with the communications screen before looking up at me. “You’d better call your pet marine to the front. They’re wondering what we’re up to.”
“Call him a pet again and we’ll live without your expertise,” I lied.
If he calls me pet again he won’t live, period.
Driscoll grunted, but Roman was already behind me, his hands slid across my waist as he squeezed past and slipped into the dedicated com chair to call up the display. I saw him subvocalizing. His marine helmet must have linked up directly. I wished I could hear what he was saying, but he was right to keep it subvocalized. The last thing we wanted was for the ship to start picking up background chatter, and the cockpit was full of noise. A careless word and they might suspect that we weren’t exactly what we seemed.
The shuttle was pretty large for the few of us who had survived. Low and sleek, she was primarily a troop deployment bird, and the number of bare seats and harnesses in the main compartment suggested she would hold a squad plus equipment. The cockpit was much more compact, but there was seating for five; a pilot, co-pilot, com officer, gunner, and navigation specialist.
I was sitting in the navigation chair. My implant was trying to translate the screen for me with the Tactical Interface, but I wasn’t paying much attention to that. The irony of my seat was not lost on me. From here on in I was navigating all the way. It was a first step in a long journey to seize what wasn’t mine...yet.
Exactly how did a teenage girl go about stealing an empire? I was about to mentally say “sixteen-year-old girl” but I stuttered over my age, remembering that I had been in cryogenic sleep a lot longer than I thought.
I queried my implant for the date. I’d missed my seventeenth birthday... eleven and a half months ago. That made me angry. You hear people accuse others of stealing their lives. Almost a year of my life had actually been stolen – erased forever. Is that how it worked? Would I just live a year longer, since technically my body was still sixteen? Or was it? I mean, it had been in stasis, but it had still been alive and degenerating. I felt sick. Someone had stolen an entire year that was mine.
No, not someone. Nigel Matsumoto.
I looked up at the navigation screen with fire in my eyes.
“Vera?” Roman said, trying to catch my eye.
Forget second guessing. It was time to step up and take my year back...plus a tad bit more for pain and suffering.
“You called?” I asked, trying to keep the rage from my voice.
Roman’s eyebrows lifted, but he kept his tone mild and on task.
“Captain Sato wants to know our ETA to Cardinal’s Blood.”
I nodded to Driscoll.
“Launch in five minutes, rendezvous in twenty-seven-point-niner minutes,” Driscoll said, in a cool, professional tone that I’d never heard from him before.
Roman repeated it back to Captain Sato and then turned to me.
“He’s demanding a list of passengers.”
“Keep it vague. When we get there we want him to be surprised. Remember,” I said, turning to Driscoll and Ch’ng, who had slipped into the gunner’s chair, “I don’t want any killing. If we have to fight, we aim to injure, not kill. I don’t care how you terrorists usually do things, but I don’t want to kill Blackwatch citizens.”
Kitsano’s laugh was derisive.
“Good luck starting a civil war without casualties,” she said.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Zeta’s thoughts cut through mine.
We need to talk about Driscoll.
“Since you bring it up,” Driscoll said, dropping his hands from the touchscreens and turning to me, “I should perhaps mention that you have the wrong perspective about Driscoll’s Own.”
I thought there was really only one perspective on terrorists, Roman said through the channel.
Unless you are one, I suppose, I said.
“Yes?” I asked Driscoll.
“We didn’t call ourselves terrorists,” Driscoll said. “It was the Matsumotos that called us that.”
I sighed. Driscoll was an ally, and a sworn liege-man. I had to be careful how I did this.
“You killed my cousin Denise,” I said, allowing a smidgen of my sorrow into my tone.
“I didn’t kill your cousin,” Driscoll said, and he sounded sincere.
Driscoll’s Own did, Roman chimed in. His own distrust and anger ran thick through the channel. And not just her, but as many Matsumotos as they could get their hands on. We think they all are dead, except for you and the Emperor.
“In my mind, giving the order is the same thing,” I said, trying to keep my tone gentle. “I understand your animosity, but I want to be clear. That ends now.”
Some of them were children. Children. Roman’s emotions were laced red with rage and in an odd burst his actual thoughts came through again. How can she trust him, no matter what he swore? She shouldn’t. He deserves to stay on this planet. I shouldn’t have let her bring him. This is all wrong!
Easy, tiger. I said to Roman, reaching across to gently lay a hand on his knee. He double-blinked, realizing I could hear his thoughts. I’ll explain everything soon, okay?
He flashed a color coded assent and I breathed a quick sigh of relief. I needed everyone focused now that we were heading into the thick of it.
The Splitting (The Matsumoto Trilogy Book 2) Page 22