Down Among the Dead

by K. B. Wagers

  “I don’t want any complaints then if the plan turns out something like Canafey.”

  Emmory chuckled on his way out the door but didn’t reply. I smiled at his retreating back before turning my gaze to the trio who’d come in the room.

  Alba smiled and I took the hand she offered between mine. “How are you?”

  “I’m all right.” It was startling to realize it was mostly true despite my rough start this morning. I felt somewhat settled for the first time since we’d left Sparkos.

  “Jiejie.” Dailun pressed his cheek to mine for a brief moment.

  Hao closed a hand around my arm, landing right on the spot where I’d drawn three precise lines with the tip of a knife just after my shower, and I swallowed down the gasp of pain that almost escaped.

  “What are you three up to?” I asked, deftly slipping out of Hao’s grasp and using Dailun as a shield against the pain that had to be crawling across my expression.

  “Came by to say hi,” Hao said, dropping into a chair. “And to let you know Gita and I finally tracked down where that money originated. We found the skip, and the false back-dated entries to make it look as though the money was all coming from the same place. I can’t believe I missed it the first time.”

  “We all saw what we wanted to see. Well?” I prompted when he didn’t say anything more.

  “We traced it through half a dozen ghost companies; whoever was trying to make it look like the Shen were paying him did a really good job. But the original source was a Farian tech company based in the Solarian Conglomerate, ironically named Star Optics. Their headquarters are actually on Earth.”

  I muttered several curses in Cheng, stopping only when Hao lifted a hand.

  “You want to know my theory?” At my nod, Hao continued. “Someone, Adora let’s say, thought that they could get out of the negotiations if they hired someone to disrupt things. All the big players are off the table—you and me obviously.”

  I grinned at him.

  “Rai, Po-Sin, the Barton boys, Lacy and O’Brien and more than a dozen of the smaller outfits got swept up in this Shen payday. But you know who didn’t get an offer?”

  “Jamison,” I murmured. “Mia said it was because I didn’t like him. She was building a crew of mercs who’d work with me in charge.”

  “She knew her shit, I’ll give her that much. With the exception of Po-Sin but that’s only because of, you know.” He waved a hand. “Anyway, the pool of contenders was not the cleanest, and on top of that the Farians were pretending the payment was for coming after my ass, which further wiped out some of the options.”

  “So they fucking hired him because he was basically the only one left?” I laughed. “Oh, he’s going to be pissed for all of two seconds when I tell him that.”

  “Only two seconds?” Alba asked.

  “He’ll be dead after that,” Hao replied. “So the Farians hired Jamison, not having any clue about the history there or his impressive way of turning the simplest job into a violent clusterfuck, and it unsurprisingly blew up in their faces. Fucking amateurs.”

  “That makes a terrifying amount of sense,” I said. “We don’t have any proof of it, though?”

  “Beyond the money coming from a Farian company? No.” Hao shook his head. “So it’s a wash as far as leverage goes, but it at least clears up the mystery. You could always ask Adora about Star Optics when you see her. She doesn’t have a great poker face.”

  “No, she does not.” I filed the information away for later use. One more check mark against the Farians, one more for Jamison—though his fate was already sealed.

  “You okay?” Hao asked.

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You seem a little more bloodthirsty than normal.”

  “It’s been a long six months.” I met his golden gaze calmly. “It never used to bother you.”

  “You’d be surprised, but back then you had Portis to keep you level so I didn’t worry much.” He studied me, frowning at whatever he saw on my face. “Are you going to declare war on Rai, Hail?”

  “I might.” My smile had no warmth. “I suppose if the universe burns I won’t need to bother with it.”

  “He wasn’t responsible for what happened.”

  “He could have taken us to safety. Instead he took us prisoner. Are you defending him?” My voice rose and the quiet conversation between Alba and Dailun across the room cut off. I muttered a curse. “He helped the Shen kidnap me.”

  “I know and believe me I had some words with him about that. You’ve forgiven the Shen for that easily enough. I’m just wondering why Rai’s not getting the same consideration,” Hao replied. “To be fair, Mia’s a whole lot prettier than Rai, but don’t tell him I said that.”

  I gaped at him. “You are the worst.”

  “You love me.” He stretched in his chair. “These two have something for you.”

  “Dailun more than me, Majesty,” Alba said with a smile.

  I looked between them and waved a hand. Dailun sat on the edge of the bed at my gesture, elbows braced on his knees and his fingers linked loosely together. There was a solemnness about the pink-haired pilot I’d never seen before. “I have been studying the future Mia showed you,” he said, staring at the floor. He was choosing his words with care. “My honored cousin came to me after you showed him. We have spoken a lot about my people and he saw something that he thought was familiar to my people’s memory.”

  Dailun’s father was Cheng, but his mother had been Svatir. The Svatir were as alien as they came. A reclusive race who only ever interacted with humans during their Travelings. They had a collective memory, all the experiences of their people shared among them. I couldn’t even begin to fathom how jumbled and chaotic that must be, but Dailun didn’t seem bothered by it, even though he was half human.

  “I didn’t realize that was something that could be shared with non-Svatir?”

  “It is complicated,” Dailun said. “Since Hao and I are related he has a right to certain family memories.” He gave me a look, eyes chased with silver lights, and then smiled boyishly. “I may have bent the rules somewhat, but I was young and Hao is the closest thing to a father I have.”

  It was obvious from Hao’s reaction that Dailun hadn’t ever said that out loud in his hearing. My brother sat up in the chair with a shocked look racing across his face.

  “Vybiramai srdce kterah vybiramai,” I murmured, and watched the lights flare in Dailun’s eyes.

  “Yes, precisely. Where did you hear that, jiejie?”

  27

  A story for another time,” I said. “But it had to do with him, too.” I pointed at Hao.

  “Is someone going to tell me what that means?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied after a shared smile with Dailun.

  “I am sorry it took me so long to find what I was looking for.” Dailun lifted a hand and I realized how weary he sounded. “I had to go far back in our memory to find what I sought. It is an exhausting process.”

  “I’ll bet. So what did Hao see that triggered this?”

  “Those creatures you saw in the future. They are known to the Svatir. We call them the hiervet sveta in our language.”

  “Monsters of light?”

  Dailun nodded at my translation but still didn’t look at me. “We were not always pacifists, sister. Long ago we fought among ourselves as much as humans do now. We gloried in it. Developed newer and more awesome ways to send someone to their dreams. We were very, very good at war.”

  I glanced Hao’s way and he gave the slightest nod of confirmation. What was interesting was Alba had also nodded, and I raised a curious eyebrow.

  “I had a Svatir nanny as a child, Majesty. She went to her dreaming while she was with us, and her family came to thank us for the memories.” Alba looked at Dailun with a soft smile that had my eyebrow lifting a little higher.

  “It was a distant branch of my family,” he said. “But it was a delight to realize who Alba was when we met on t
he ship.”

  “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

  “Emmory knew,” Alba replied.

  “Emmory knows everything.” I sighed.

  “I don’t know that I’d go that far, Majesty.”

  I looked at my Ekam in the doorway, Zin just behind him, and waved a hand. “Come in. Dailun was about to tell me something important, I think, but we got sidetracked.” I waited a beat. “So these monsters of light that we all saw in Mia’s future. You know them.”

  “The Hiervet came from outside the disc. They looked like us, only better.” A bitter smile curved Dailun’s lips up. “By design, no doubt. They can shift their appearance much like the Shen and Farians can.”

  “Oh, that’s lovely,” I murmured.

  “They taught us a different way to live; a better way, they said. It was only later that we realized the cost of their lessons. We were nearly enslaved, would have been ground under the Hiervet’s bootheels had the braver among us not risen up to fight.”

  “You defeated them?”

  Dailun smiled again, this time turning his head to look at me. “We were well versed in war, sister, with generations of memory at our backs. We drove them out of the disc. It cost us so much. Generations gone. So many sent to their dreaming early. So much potential lost. We returned home, and those who had led the rebellion announced they would fight no longer. That less violence, not more, was always an option. They spent their lives seeding peace among our people and we were all so grateful for their sacrifices, so weary from the battle, that we agreed to lay down our arms and never raise them again.”

  “That’s why the Svatir are pacifists?” I asked.

  “It is, and though I have sent word home warning them of this future you saw, I do not think it will change anything for the Svatir.” Dailun shook his head. “We will not fight again, Hail, not even for the Star of Indrana.”

  “They may not have a choice.”

  This time it was Fasé in the doorway, Mia and Sybil behind her.

  “We’re throwing a party, I suppose,” I said, and Fasé’s mouth twitched as she suppressed a smile. “Come on in, find a seat somewhere.” I got up as the others shuffled around for available seats, and leaned against the wall by the door, giving a quick recap of what Dailun had just told us.

  Sybil seemed unsurprised by the news from Dailun. “I remember a similar story many years later when we first made contact with the Svatir.” She nodded after a moment’s thought. “We never investigated it further. It happened many years after your family was killed—after the incident.”

  Mia nodded. “Aiz told me of how the Shen met the Svatir shortly after we left Faria. I do recall something about it, though the ones we met were hesitant to go into much detail for some reason.” She looked at me. “Now you see, Hail, why this mission is important not only to the Shen but to every living thing in this galaxy.”

  “Yeah.” I ran my tongue over my teeth. I saw it. I didn’t like it much, but I saw it coming like a charging Hagidon.

  I’d never been to Nugwa XIII, and I’d only heard stories of the massive beasts. If you were in a vehicle it was a simple matter of outrunning the deadly bulk and sharp tusks. If you weren’t, bravado was your only option because running would get you trampled.

  Could I stand my ground? Not fight the gods and hope that the future we saw with the Hiervet coming was something we could still avoid?

  Or was I fooling myself, and was fighting the only way through this mess?

  “Hey.” Mia snapped her fingers in front of my face and I jerked backward, hands flying up to defend myself. She blocked my strike, dancing out of reach with her own hands up. “We lost you there.”

  “I was thinking.” Feeling foolish, I dropped my hands and tried to ignore the hammering of my heart as I lowered myself onto the edge of the desk.

  “This news doesn’t change anything,” Mia said softly. She lowered her own hands with a smile. “The Farians are on friendly terms with the Svatir, but they’ve seen this light coming the same as we have.”

  “True.” Sybil frowned. “Our foil for it has always been the Star.”

  I looked at her. “I can’t believe you would put your very survival into the hands of one person. When you saw this, Indrana didn’t exist. I didn’t exist. Why?”

  “It was the clearest, most consistent future,” Sybil replied. “Things change over the years. Empires rise and fall. People die—both deliberately and accidentally. The future isn’t static.” She pinned me with a fierce look. “But this one, it has remained largely unchanged for all these years.”

  I swallowed, feeling the weight of it all in my chest. “You’re not going to actually show it to me, though, are you?”

  “You don’t need to see it, Hail. You know what you need to do. You’ve always known.” Sybil smiled. “I don’t want you to get hung up on the future when it’s the choices you make that matter.”

  “Now you sound like Fasé.” I shared a look with Hao as I got back up to pace.

  “She is right about some things,” Sybil replied. “As is Mia. As are you.” Her smile vanished. “I am not the linchpin here, Hail. You are.”

  Fasé, Mia… and me.

  I stopped, looked across the room at Fasé and then to Mia.

  “Oh.” I breathed as it all suddenly made sense. I dragged a hand through my hair. “Mia. Fasé. Me. We’re it.” The pieces fit so neatly into place in my head. “Trust the heart of the star and the sides that will collapse without each other to lean on.”

  “Quoting prophecy now?” Hao raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s appropriate, given the direction we’re headed in,” Fasé said.

  “Which is?” I asked.

  “Disaster, probably. We shall see,” Fasé replied, and Mia rolled her eyes.

  “Fasé and I have come to an agreement, one I hope my brother will also find benefits us. Though I can make no promises, and if he decides it does not I will have to go with him.”

  “Why the change of heart?” Hao asked.

  “Because Hail is right, there are the futures we see, which are shifting and changing with every choice that is made, and then there is the future Sybil saw, which stays more constant and immutable than anything in this universe.” Fasé shook her head. “I was reminded I am young, as is Mia. But of the two of us she has more experience interpreting the things she has seen with a greater degree of accuracy.”

  Mia looked around the room. “We are the sides that will collapse—Farian, Shen, and human. We need each other. We need to find some way to work together. To find a way to trust that our common enemy is not each other, but the gods who stand in the way and bring the light down on us all.”

  I released the breath I’d been holding when Emmory finally nodded. “I’m not entirely convinced,” he said. “But I’m willing to consider all the options because I trust her.” He pointed at me. “And that future I saw is not going to happen. Not while I’m around to stop it.”

  “Same,” Hao said. “Though I have a question first. Little sister, why did you make this choice?”

  “The choice?” I frowned at him.

  “Your choice.” He glanced at Gita and then back at me. “You kept saying it, over and over, that it was your choice to do what the Shen asked of you. Why?”

  “Why what?”

  Hao smiled. “Why did you choose it?”

  Mia’s little gasp was loud in the quiet. Hao didn’t look away from me but instead waited patiently for an answer.

  I wrapped my arms around my waist and stared at him as responses crashed around my brain. Aiz’s words from our very first fight came back to me.

  “You are the person who will put herself between the chaos and all she loves. You will stand against the tide. Sacrifice everything to see the galaxy safe. You have always made that choice and you always will.”

  “I couldn’t, I can’t stand by and watch my people burn. I can’t watch humanity burn. Not if there’s a chance I can stop it.”

>   Hao’s smile rivaled the sun. “There’s my little sister,” he replied. “So fucking noble it’s a wonder you survived as a gunrunner for as long as you did. You give so much more than the universe deserves. Than any of us deserve,” he added quietly. “Sacrificing yourself to save the universe because you’d rather die than see the rest of us hurt.

  “You made the choice. It wasn’t the best of circumstances.” He shot Mia a sharp-edged look as he got to his feet. “But you made it and I won’t take it away from you by treating you like a victim.” Hao shook his head. “But by that same token, little sister, you need to own your choice and use it. If you run from it, try to deny it, it will ruin you.”

  “Spoken like a man who’s made that mistake.”

  “You know I have.” Hao’s grin was quick. “You also know that I won’t stand in your way, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you do this alone. You have that favor you wanted, all of it.”

  I took the hand he held out, squeezing it once before I released him.

  “Same, Majesty,” Gita said. “You’re stuck with us on this and anything following. Empress or not, doesn’t matter. You can’t make us go.”

  I grabbed her by the back of the neck and pressed my forehead to hers as the tears I’d thought were dried up started fresh in my eyes.

  I felt Hao’s hand slide over my back and his cheek against the top of my head.

  “Gita speaks for all of us,” Emmory said as we separated. “We’re in this to the end. Whatever happens.”

  I had to clear my throat of emotion before I could get the words out. “That’s settled, then. We’ll meet with Aiz and see what he says. How are you going to convince him?”

  Mia shook her head. “I won’t. You will.”

  I stared at her. “Me?”

  “I understand him, of course; he’s my brother.” Mia glanced Emmory’s way before stepping closer to me and putting a hand on my cheek. “But you speak to him in the only language he understands and one I no longer can find the voice for. He listens to you, Hail, even better he respects you. It may be that which saves us all in the end.”