The Gilded Cage

by Blaze Ward

  “When we get there,” he continued, edging ever–closer to that black place in the back of his mind. “I’m going to need you to either be dead serious bad–ass, or total bimbo, but I need you to decide right now, so I can plan accordingly. Any slip–up in front of those people gets us killed.”

  Javier watched her eyes and then saw her take a deep breath, almost meditatively. She rose to her full height, towering almost as far over him as Sykora did, but there were fourteen centimeter heels involved with Hadiiye. Her eyes closed for several seconds.

  It was like watching ripples on a still pond as the energy flowed outward from her belly–button to the tips of her bright red fingernails.

  “I am Hadiiye,” she announced in a voice that had been cast in bronze. “Killer. Assassin. Death–dealer. Commend your soul to God before you try your luck, bucko.”

  She had gone for bad–ass. He should have known.

  Javier let a single raised eyebrow ask the next question.

  “The galaxy was no safer for a single woman traveling alone five centuries ago,” she purred silkily with an evil smile, just oozing big cat predator. “Not everyone took no for an answer. At least, not the first time.”

  He felt a chill in spite of himself.

  Part Three

  The goons had picked them up as they entered the joint. Wilhelmina counted them.

  No, damn it. Focus. Hadiiye counted them.

  Five, one obviously the official bouncer, two more at the bar, and two others scattered about the room, trying to look innocent as customers.

  Hadiiye did not hang on Navarre as they walked. That would have been the bimbo version of this costume.

  Hadiiye was a killer. She had to act the part: blades secreted in three places, plus one on her belt; a smaller flash pistol than Navarre carried, tucked into a hidden holster, against her left kidney, where she could get at it quickly.

  She was as much body–guard as gun moll here, with a dose of eye–candy designed as the second layer of distraction. Her nipples pressing against the soft cloth of her tunic certainly worked in her favor, but she honestly couldn’t help herself.

  This was so much fun.

  Shepherds of the Word were always serious people. Constantly learning, traveling, proselytizing. They were not supposed to do things like this, dressing up in costume so they could pull off a caper on a criminal enterprise.

  Hadiiye caught the appreciative looks from the five men, either staring at her chest or crotch. Navarre had been right. She would have to pay off on that bet.

  But honestly, what did she know about the baser examples of men?

  Well, okay, maybe that was a bit arrogant and superior, but here were several examples of exactly what the Word was intended to rectify. Hadiiye might have to kick their asses up and down the block a few times, just so Wilhelmina could preach to them, once they were properly disposed to listen to her as a person and not stare at her as a side of meat.

  Wilhelmina sat quietly in one corner of her mind as Hadiiye scowled at the men. They were seeing her undressed and probably bent over one of the tables in this restaurant, with them taking turns.

  She envisioned them hanging from hooks in an abattoir.

  Apparently, they picked that attitude up as she moved.

  Javier walked up to the bar and leaned against it.

  No, damn it. Navarre.

  A flunky appeared from a door behind the bar, cold and arrogant as he considered these tourists who had obviously wandered into the wrong joint.

  Navarre could handle him. Hadiiye turned to study the rest of the space. And the men subtly adjusting themselves as if violence was imminent.

  Because seriously, if you needed five to take on the two of us, your boss needs to hire better goons.

  And that was what they were. Goons. Second–rate, muscled thugs guarding a restaurant that specialized in French cuisine. On a station dedicated to being a criminal marketplace. In the middle of nowhere.

  Hadiiye smiled to herself, then let it encompass the men around her. Once upon a time, a young Shepherd named Wilhelmina had taught close combat techniques to younger students, mostly girls, preparing them to go out into the oh–so–dangerous galaxy and preach the Word. She had the reach for it, too, with legs longer than some people.

  Behind her, the bartender grunted something rude.

  Navarre responded in French, which apparently surprised the bartender almost as much as it did Hadiiye.

  “I don’t care what you think, peasant–boy,” Navarre growled softly. “Your job is to send a message to Captain Tamaz. If you can’t handle that, I’ll have one of these puppies here do it, instead.”

  Around them, the punks tensed, but that was the way hackles came up at being insulted, rather than about to attack. Indignant shock.

  “What message?” the bartender asked with an accent better suited to one of the harsher slums of Paris. How had he gotten out here, so far from Earth?

  But then, how had Hadiiye? They were all far gone from home.

  The assassin fixed her steely eye on each of the men in turn. It wasn’t exactly a dare. It was worse. It was a woman simply laughing at them as the junior varsity.

  “My name is Navarre,” the once–and–future Science Officer said condescendingly. “I want to talk about the woman from Neu Berne. He’ll understand. Right now, we are going to have dinner at Galileo’s. Good day.”

  Navarre appeared in the corner of her eye, already moving towards the door at a sharp clip. Hadiiye smiled once more at her prey and followed the man out the door.

  Part Four

  “How did you know where to go to find him?” Wilhelmina asked. She was still Hadiiye, but they were in a lovely bistro specializing in traditional Italian peasant food. There was enough music and chatter to keep their conversation private as long as they were careful.

  The food was excellent.

  “While we were inbound, I made a few calls. You were in the shower,” Javier replied.

  Except it wasn’t Javier. It was still Navarre, a hard, cold, pirate son–of–a–bitch that looked more like the man who had stood on her deck with Captain Sokolov than the goofball who had awakened her from a magical sleep.

  At least she had finally gotten her kiss.

  “You know people at Meehu?” Wilhelmina was shocked.

  He hadn’t mentioned anything. She had been prepared to wing it, knowing they had a few days to scout before Sokolov would arrive.

  This creature named Navarre wasn’t waiting.

  “I’ve been through here before,” he replied, in a tone that didn’t suggest further questions on the topic.

  “So what’s your plan, Navarre?”

  She was still a little lost in this century. Certainly, humanity hadn’t changed much. But she’d never been a criminal element before. Fun, but a bit unnerving. Navarre was an interesting, if unsettling companion.

  “We have a two or three day head start,” the hard man across from her replied. “He won’t start getting prepared for Sokolov just yet, probably figuring that the captain couldn’t react so quickly. We’re going to get close to him first, find his weaknesses, and exploit them.”

  Navarre leaned forward and put both elbows on the table, resting his chin on crossed fists. His eyes grew even harder.

  “It will probably be necessary to kill people before we leave this station, Hadiiye. Are you at peace with that?”

  “I think so.”

  “No,” he replied flatly.

  It was the tone that chilled her. Up until now, this had been a game of dress up, for a party. She sensed a line suddenly drawn in the sand at her feet.

  “No?”

  “You will either say yes, or you will stay on the ship while I handle this. I have to trust you completely, unquestioningly. Pick. Right now.”

  The last several days were gone, just like that. The last six weeks. The friendship. The comradery. Staying up late and fooling around. Everything.

  Gone.


  Doppelgänger.

  There was no Javier. Only Navarre. Where had he come from? Would she ever see Javier again?

  Already, she missed him.

  “I trusted you with my life,” she said quietly. “My soul.”

  “No. Sykora did that. You were just the result.”

  Huh?

  Wilhelmina thought back to the long conversations with Djamila, over tea, listening to the ancient ship chug through the darkness while Piet and Afia slept. She had missed something. Something critical between those two, Javier and Djamila.

  Lovers in hatred.

  Wilhelmina considered her options.

  The Word conveyed the value of all lives. At its very bottom, the cornerstone of Rama Treadwell’s teachings was the very egalitarian nature of happiness. All beings deserved the freedom to define and obtain happiness on their own terms, in their own way, free from censure.

  Thus had she been taught. Thus had she taught.

  And yet…

  Sophisticates frequently fell into their own logical trap: the Fallacy of Pacifism. They forgot that the Vow of Peace contained within it the promise of violence in defense of others.

  Shepherds of the Word were expected to engage with their words, but they were also equipped to use their hands, if all else failed.

  Wilhelmina looked around the room once, aware that Javier was waiting for an answer. To an outsider, it would look like Hadiiye actively looking for threats to her being. But this was much deeper.

  There were no tourists here. Not in the sense of fat, happy, middle–class travelers on an adventure. That kind did not come to Meehu. Even accidentally.

  Instead, there were kids, folks barely past their teens, who had either run away, or been chased out. There were middle–aged people who had lost it all and had to start over. There were older people trying to hang on to something, facing only a cold and lonely death ahead.

  Very few of the people she could see here probably intended this as their destination, their lot.

  But then, who did?

  Wilhelmina framed the words, passed down from Rama Treadwell and his intellectual descendants a very long time ago, but Hadiiye spoke them aloud.

  “Paladins are men and women of the Sword, Navarre.”

  There. Commitment.

  I will kill people for you, for Djamila, for Sokolov. I will use violence to try to make the galaxy a better place, not by imposing my order upon it, but by using my will to thwart would–be conquerors, bad men, villains.

  Navarre studied her for several moments silently before he drew a breath and nodded.

  For a moment, she saw a depth of pain in Javier’s eyes she had never imagined existed. Something terrible and bitter. Obviously, he was good at hiding things from people.

  Would it better to let it lie, or help him heal? Would he welcome the suggestion?

  A change came over Navarre as he glanced to his right over her shoulder. Subtle, but critical.

  Hadiiye shifted her weight invisibly and let one hand fall off the table to rest close to a blade balanced for throwing, hidden in her right boot top. Something prickled in the air, like the smell of ozone.

  “Captain Navarre?” a man asked carefully.

  Hadiiye looked about, but nobody else was paying attention. She glanced back at the figure.

  Oily, in a slippery way. Well–dressed man in dark pants and matching jacket. Businessman who knew how to wear the suit, instead of the goons at the other restaurant who let the suits wear them. Hair cut short, brown on top and graying on the edges. Conservative and quiet.

  Hard, but in a deadly, accountant kind of way, rather than being a killer.

  Not like her.

  Across the table, Navarre relaxed a touch, perhaps from absolute zero to merely liquid nitrogen.

  “Indeed,” Navarre said, gesturing to the table. “Please, join us. Have some wine. Let us talk like civilized beings who find themselves at an uncivilized crossroads.”

  There was the Javier she remembered. Smooth, charming, eloquent. Even hiding behind that hard face.

  These bastards had no clue what they were up against.

  The man nodded appreciably and pulled a chair out with one hand, all manners in a place that could barely spell the word, let alone practice it.

  Hadiiye felt his eyes pass over her once. Wilhelmina would have smiled. Hadiiye scowled instead, intent on her role as a moll, a sidekick.

  A killer.

  She felt him dismiss her, barely lingering on her cleavage, before he turned his attention fully on Navarre.

  “I do not believe we have met before, Captain Navarre,” the stranger said carefully. “My name is Marcas Almássy. I work as an agent for Captain Tamaz. I understand you wish to speak with him.”

  Navarre had lowered his hands and leaned back from resting his chin on his knuckles. He reached out now and took hold of a half–filled wine glass as a waiter materialized with a second glass and a new bottle.

  Moments of silence passed as the waiter expertly cracked the new bottle, poured, and disappeared, without a word spoken. Obviously, this wasn’t the man’s first visit. Good to know.

  “I understand,” Navarre finally said, slowly, carefully. “That Captain Tamaz has recently come into possession of a person. A woman, exceptionally tall, formerly of Neu Berne, now a freebooter.”

  Almássy paused, sipped his wine appreciably, and considered the tableaux.

  “And where might you have heard something like that, Captain Navarre?”

  She watched Javier, Navarre, lean closer, conspiratorially.

  “Someone talked,” he almost whispered with a chilly smile. “Someone always talks.”

  Hadiiye held her breath as the energy rippled between the two men. She remained aware of every patron and every wine glass in view, confident that the two men with her would cover her blind flanks if something happened. Both were professionals.

  The room remained amateur.

  “And your interest in the woman?” Almássy inquired with a smile.

  Crocodiles might learn something from this man.

  “Entirely personal,” Navarre replied succinctly. “Old business. Unfinished.”

  For a moment, she watched all of Javier’s hatred bubble to the surface. There were actors who could probably fake that sort of thing, but they were few and far between. And they would be hard–pressed to match something like this. Perhaps only a master Shakespearean could manage.

  “And were you interested in negotiating a bounty for her?”

  Hadiiye nearly choked at the price the man quoted. It was a significant proportion of the extravagant fortune Sykora had thought she might get for the ancient freighter with the amazing history.

  Almássy and Navarre leaned close, two old merchants at the bazaar, getting down to brass tacks. She wondered if the man owned one of those old–fashioned accountant hats, all bill and no lid.

  He had that feel to him.

  “Oh, no,” Navarre smiled, catlike. “I was much more interested in obtaining front row seats when you executed her. That would satisfy me. And my backers.”

  “Backers?”

  Hadiiye saw the man’s concentration crack for a second of utter confusion as the implications of the word settled on him like a winter mantle.

  Navarre wasn’t a lone wolf who wouldn’t be missed if something happened to him. Others might inquire. Unknown others. Potentially dangerous others.

  She considered it a masterful job of misdirection, until she saw the light in Navarre’s eyes. If a supernova was white hot summer heat, this was the exact equivalent in winter.

  The accountant saw it as well. He retreated, emotionally as well as physically, leaning back as far as his chair would comfortably allow.

  Moments passed.

  Navarre considered the man as bobcat might consider a field mouse.

  “I think,” Almássy responded finally, “that you would be better served to discuss such a matter with Captain Tamaz directly, Captain Nav
arre.”

  “I suspected as much.”

  “Perhaps you will be able to come to the club, Sevenoaks, this evening? Captain Tamaz will be handling some business there in about six hours. I am certain he will be quite interested in making your acquaintance.”

  Navarre rose slowly from his chair, his hand extended. Almássy did the same.

  “I look forward to it, Mr. Almássy,” Navarre said. “Until then.”

  And then the man was gone.

  The emotional power of the room dropped precipitously, even as the space seemed to grow warmer.

  They were alone again.

  Hadiiye smiled tightly at her partner.

  “Navarre, that was a most amazing bluff.”

  He fixed her with a cold stare.

  “Bluff?”

  Part Five

  The little, unnamed, stolen ship was a useful base while they stayed at Meehu Platform. For the time they would be here.

  Javier scanned the single room once, taking note of several little things he had left, precisely located, that would have been moved by someone rifling the place for clues to his identity. It was second nature when he had to deal with people. Any people. Even ones he liked. In addition, he had left Suvi’s sensors on, so she would have flashed a red light at him if anyone had come in.

  The space was still secure. He entered, the hard woman one step behind him.

  Javier took off Navarre like an old, comfortable cloak and hung him by the airlock hatch, along with the belt holding the sword and pistol. The ship felt warm, almost enough to leech the cold from his bones and soul.

  He turned to find her standing in the middle of the room as the hatch closed.

  They studied each other, across a gulf far greater than it had been when they left.

  “It’s safe to be you,” he said.

  It wasn’t an apology, but it was headed in that direction.

  “Are you you?” she replied.

  Javier considered any number of responses, some of them tart, some angry, a few goofy.

  It was a fair question. It deserved a fair answer.

  “Close enough. For now,” he replied.

  These two women had taken him to his dark places. It wasn’t her fault. Sykora had started him down that road when they met almost a year ago. Wilhelmina when she first came into his life, and then again when she came back.