SeekerStar

by Blaze Ward

  Had the locals been legitimate businessmen, they would have known better than to scramble a dozen or so armed tugboats to engage sixty Patrol craft and a Septagon.

  Pasdar assumed he had just done the galaxy a favor by destroying a band of pirates, not that the Free Worlds would appreciate the effort. It would cost them one of their systems, and establish a place where the Sept had a salient thrust deep into their territory.

  Someone would find it eventually. They might even complain, but Pasdar was planning to leave four Patrols here for now, while sending messages home requesting enough forces be assigned to this system to hold it against most future threats. The Free Worlds could still dislodge him, if they chose, since Vorgash would be moving on, an unstoppable iceberg working its way deeper into the trade lanes.

  Soon, the task would become even more dangerous. The authorities would discount a few pirates with wild tales of a Septagon destroying their base. Eventually, his Patrols would begin to encounter other ships, and the word would get out.

  He wondered if Kathra Omezi would understand that he was coming for her. That it was time for her experiment in social justice, or whatever she called it, to be crushed, lest others draw the conclusion that they could thumb their noses at the Lords of the Sept.

  She would need to be made an example of.

  Six Patrols would have made shorter work of that, but he had to consider that thing.

  That Star Turtle.

  It had apparently feared the Axial Megacannon, even as it resisted the Ram Cannons on Uwalu. He would need a Septagon to kill it, presumably.

  Or at least break whatever ties it had with Omezi and her people. Without that, she could be hounded until she surrendered or died. Either outcome was acceptable, since it would convey the correct message to the rest of the galaxy.

  You will not resist the Sept Empire.

  Rostami stood from his command chair and approached where Amirin stood at the front of the space. Not diffidently, but perhaps carefully, mindful that Pasdar had fallen silent at the front of the Great Causeway, staring at the cooling cloud of debris and plasma that had been a pirate base until very recently.

  Pasdar turned to him with a frosty smile and a nod.

  “All resistance has ended, Naupati,” Rostami said professionally.

  Just in case Pasdar had doubts, in the aftermath of the Axial Megacannon.

  “Arrest any survivors,” Pasdar ordered. “Question them and then execute any you credibly believe to be pirates. The rest can be sent to work farms back home for reeducation.”

  He turned and stared into the darkness, as though he could pierce it with his mind and locate Kathra Omezi across however many light-years.

  “Begin construction of Forward Operating Base Ardabil,” Pasdar continued. “You and I will review contingency plans later, but we will need to send a courier home tomorrow with updates and requests for additional Patrol forces in this system. Prepare for an extended stay here while we fortify the place. In two weeks, I expect to proceed with the next phase.”

  Twenty-Five

  Kathra watched Isaev’s docks in the distance out her personal cabin’s window, moving slowly as WinterStar’s disk rotated around its central hub. She had moved her ship to a point midway between the TradeStation and Isaev’s graving yard, the massive factory station where new ships took form.

  The work was nearly done over there, faster than most people had probably expected, but she wasn’t spending money for unnecessary extravagances inside the hull. No grav field inducers, nor the massive power systems they required. No extra effort inside to hide raw steel plates that made up the hull. Not even carpeting that would wear out and have to be replaced regularly.

  The Mbaysey lived rough, stoic lives. At least the folks on WinterStar and the new ship. ClanStar inhabitants could spend time and energy on making things softer and prettier for themselves, but the warriors did not.

  That let her build a new ship quickly. She would need it.

  Already, Kathra was nervous about the amount of time she had spent at Tavle Jocia, nearly two months, when her normal TradeStation visit was a matter of two to three days. Just long enough to order new supplies, deliver trade materials, and depart again once she loaded up.

  Daniel had a plan to investigate the station for the pixies that he was convinced were following him. Or her. She had told him flatly that he was not allowed to even begin his looking until the new ship was done and she was in the process of acceptance trials with the builders.

  If he was provoking someone who had been content to just watch up until now, she wanted to be ready to flee at the moment something went wrong.

  With her new ship.

  The Sept had spies here, reporting back to their masters. Getting a message out of the Free Worlds and drawing trouble to Tavle Jocia was a longer round trip than she was going to be here, so Kathra generally ignored them, except to have Daniel inspect every new candidate.

  A knock at the door drew her eyes from the window and Kathra brought herself back to today’s problems, rather than what might lurk around some distant corner.

  She walked to the door and opened it, smiling down at A’Alhakoth as the young woman stood at attention.

  It had been an interesting challenge, dressing her in the tangerine and black that was the current uniform of the comitatus. Nobody was used to making clothing that small, so they had had to create entirely new patterns by cutting one of the woman’s existing outfits into pieces.

  Not that she had probably missed the old faded grays, almost on the verge of disintegrating.

  “Come in,” Kathra stepped back and gestured.

  Her newest warrior entered, perhaps a bit hesitantly, but Kathra directed her to one of the two chairs and closed the hatch again.

  Like her warriors, Kathra lived a rough life. She liked to occasionally think of herself as a barbarian warlord in the distant past of Mother Earth, living in a tent, rather than a palace.

  Her personal cabin was no larger than Erin’s. Or A’Alhakoth’s for that matter. Three meters wide. Five deep. Two footlockers in a corner and a dresser. Two chairs. A bed that two people would find uncomfortable for sleeping. Nightstand. Porthole currently pointed at the TradeStation, with the graving yard coming back soon.

  At not quite two revolutions per minute, WinterStar had the appearance of planetary gravity, without the expense of grav field inducers.

  Any way she could reduce her operating costs.

  “You’re wondering why I asked you here,” Kathra stated as she took the other chair, not quite close enough to touch knees and angled apart thirty degrees. Comfortable, when her office might have sent the wrong message and wound the woman up all the wrong ways.

  A’Alhakoth nodded, entirely compact in her surface emotions tonight.

  “I am going to send you on a mission shortly,” Kathra said. “It is not secret from Daniel or Erin, but you will be operating separate from the rest of the comitatus, and undercover.”

  Again, the nod, a little more confident this time. Like the young woman could see the logic of an alien pretending to not be part of the comitatus, if nobody outside the ship knew the truth. Station authorities knew, because Kathra had added the woman to her crew officially, but the average person would just see her as another kaniea. There were a few men of the species on the station, but no other women that Kathra was aware of.

  Or Daniel was aware of, and he had looked at her request.

  “Understood, Commander,” A’Alhakoth said firmly.

  “Daniel and Erin will be looking for trouble,” Kathra said. “You will go over early and just fade into the background. Nobody in the comitatus will apparently know you while you are gone, but you have a skyvox that can be used to contact us, and us you.”

  “Do we know what Daniel is looking for?” she asked.

  Kathra had seen the woman surface from living inside Daniel’s memories, but it was different every time, and for every woman.

  We eac
h of us are not the people we were yesterday.

  “Not even Daniel knows,” Kathra said. “His theory is that someone was chasing Urid-Varg, and that was why the man had not stopped anywhere to conquer himself another empire in a long time. He was afraid of them, whoever they were. I have no idea who or what they might be, but Daniel is convinced that something is on the TradeStation right now, and that they are a threat.”

  “When do we begin?” A’Alhakoth asked, matter of fact.

  Yes, the youngest daughter of a relative nobleman from a culture that had not given up all the trappings of their barbarous history, in spite of access to space. Long-lived and slow-growing, they might never impact the rest of the galaxy with some of their militant ethos, but Kathra could make use of a daughter with no great reason to go home soon.

  “You begin with the next cargo run to the TradeStation,” Kathra said. “You will return to your civilian clothing, and some we will make up for you. Erin will transport you, and once you slip out of the SkyCamel, you are on your own until we need you, or you contact us. Questions?”

  “The mental powers are from the gem?” she asked. “Daniel had none before that?”

  “Correct,” Kathra said. “Humans have always claimed to have some level of abilities in that field, but nothing that science has been able to confirm, or replicate. The gem acts as a repository of many things, including raw power, and keys to his mind. You will kill any male that gets hold of that power other than Daniel, if you can.”

  “If I can?”

  Those eyes got big. Bigger. Eyeslits popped open a moment later to reinforce the image.

  “If he knows an attack is coming, nothing hand-held can hurt him,” Kathra said. “That is part of the reason he is always at such pains to let me and the others into his mind, so we can remind him to stay human.”

  “What is the alternative?” A’Alhakoth asked.

  “Urid-Varg saw himself as a god,” Kathra said. “A mad, angry, rapist fool of a god, who could do anything he wanted because nobody could stop him. His arrogance was his undoing. Daniel would rather kill himself than go down that road.”

  “I see,” she nodded. “How long until he does lose control? Or at least interest in helping the Mbaysey achieve their destiny?”

  “Years, I hope,” Kathra said. “Again, there is nothing we can do to stop him, except provide him the same sort of refuge you have found. That anchor of sanity will keep him here, until it is no longer effective. I can only hope that he departs on happy terms at that point, rather than flying through the flaming wreckage of the Tribal Squadron on his way elsewhere.”

  A’Alhakoth gulped. Good. That meant she had the beginning of wisdom, to see the road Kathra had chosen for herself and her people.

  Kathra saw the young woman out with instructions to talk to Erin and organize everything, while she went back to the window and watched her future slowly slide by, over there.

  This was not the easy road. But Yagazie had seen the future, and gathered up all the women at Tazo and bought a starship. Trade had bought a second and a third. Eventually, they had left Tazo entirely and danced at the edges between Sept and Free Worlds.

  The Sept Empire had not been able to stop her. Maybe they would send assassins now, like they had done to Yagazie.

  She just had to stay ahead of them, until they couldn’t ever find her again.

  Twenty-Six

  The SkyCamel was docked and Daniel felt the weight of his mission descend on him like a rainstorm before he could unbuckle the straps. He sat still for a moment and tried to remember how to breathe.

  “You okay?” Erin asked from the pilot’s seat.

  “Dancing with visions of failure and mortality,” he said as he turned to her.

  “Kill them first, then,” she offered, rising.

  Erin was like that. Every problem was just an excuse to go sideways and find another way around it. Or use brute force to destroy it.

  Daniel was already skidding sideways on ice, careening down a hill and waiting to slam into something at the bottom, but he had brought it upon himself, so he wasn’t about to complain now. He had chased after those ghosts, after all.

  They had mostly avoided him except for that first touch, and a few since that might have been unguarded moments. Or they might have been his imagination.

  But he could not let the mystery go. It was like eating a new dish and spending all night unraveling the tastes so he could replicate the recipe in his head.

  “You coming?” Erin asked, so he finished unbuckling and rose.

  Iruoma, Kam, and Nkechi were already waiting at the airlock for him, dressed in their combat finest and ready for whatever might occur.

  Erin had brought Kam and Nkechi for their lethal skills. Daniel had insisted on Iruoma for her scowl. Erin was there to supervise and keep him out of trouble. Somewhere, A’Alhakoth was hiding, waiting to be their ace in the hole if they needed her.

  But Daniel was already on his own.

  In the darkness, Kathra was supervising the last of the efforts to move things from WinterStar to the new warship, which she had called SeekerStar. They were keeping WinterStar, but Kathra would hide it someplace else for now, once they had moved everything.

  Kathra lacked the crew to have both ships running, without draining all of the ClanStars of staff that were needed to keep the tribe fed.

  They would recruit more warriors and sailors later.

  Iruoma put her hand on his shoulder and smiled. She had a warm smile when she forgot to scowl angrily at the universe. He drew strength from her touch as Erin opened the hatch and stepped out onto the main deck of the concourse.

  “Thoughts?” Erin asked.

  “Burgers,” Daniel said. “I skipped lunch for an excuse to sit quietly in a restaurant on station and think.”

  Kam led. Apparently she knew a joint off the main walkway, kind of hidden, like the place where they had first found A’Alhakoth. Something for station folks, rather than spacers. Although the smart spacers learned to find these places and generally keep quiet about them.

  Daniel was in the middle, standing as usual at the bottom of a bowl of mountains from the taller women around him. Both Iruoma and Nkechi had eight centimeters on him, and Nkechi was built like a Forceball Middle Wing, back on Genarde. Her arms were as big as his thighs, and her shoulders always felt like they were a meter across.

  Hopefully, they would be enough. He wasn’t sure anything would be.

  Still, they got him to a burger joint that had apparently been a Polynesian themed place in an earlier incarnation, with bamboo and thatch decorations and South Pacific art painted on various surfaces.

  Daniel almost missed the thought of what the place might have once been, but the smell of grease and fried meat coming from the back was enough promise to make his stomach rumble with excitement.

  “So what are we looking for?” Kam asked forthrightly, staring at him from a level that always made him jump.

  Sitting, all of the women were his height, because they were all legs. He didn’t have to be the smallest person in the room. Good for his psyche to remember that.

  “I don’t know,” Daniel reminded her. It wasn’t like they hadn’t had this conversation on the ship four hours ago. “We’re going hunting, and hopefully I can find them. After that, I hope they’ll talk to me. If not, I brought all of you to save me.”

  That got a round of laughs. All of these women considered themselves tougher than any male they would ever encounter. Daniel didn’t want to remind them that Urid-Varg had never encountered humans in the flesh until he boarded WinterStar looking for a harem.

  He could only imagine what whoever it was hunting Urid-Varg might be.

  His stomach was too rumbly to concentrate, so Daniel ordered the basic burger and fries, plus an Italian soda made with sweet cherry and cream. It was a nostalgic touch of home that took him to a first date when he was sixteen.

  A last date, too, when she had ended up horrified and of
fended at his dream to cook. Another one like Angel that probably ended up as a groupie chasing Forceball players until she was too old.

  He smiled and looked around.

  Burgers were apparently a thing across species, if your digestion could handle it. Or the food here was that good. Only midafternoon and the place was nearly full. Three-quarters human by occupancy, but that was much lower than he would have expected, even on this TradeStation.

  He listened to the ribald conversation around him without really participating. Areen was the only one who ever shared his bed. Yejide, Spectre Eleven, had a tremendous crush on him, but was held back by her shyness on that one topic, and a respect that Areen might have staked a claim.

  Daniel didn’t feel like an object, but he could see where Yejide was trapped. He couldn’t say anything to her without admitting how deep he had peeked. Others in the comitatus had either missed those memories, or chosen not to say anything to either of them on the topic.

  Only Ndidi knew.

  Maybe he needed to walk up to Yejide and say something, one of these days. But that could wait. He hoped.

  Instead of adding to the pile of dirty jokes, Daniel closed his eyes and let his senses expand outward. He couldn’t reach far without pulling on the gloves and really concentrating, but a good chunk of the station itself was within his range right now.

  He pushed, listening for silence instead of minds. The waste reclamation systems were huge and below him, so he could account for that space. Similarly, the battery arrays that kept the inhabitants in power from the sun-sensitive skin of the station itself.

  Grav Field Inducers were huge, especially when you had to cover whole lobes of a TradeStation. Those took up two entire decks that could have each held a SkyCamel standing on its nose.

  Where else?

  He was reminded of the ancient literary reference to solving a mystery by proving that the dog didn’t bark. Silence was suspect, but not definitive. There might not be anybody there to think or dream.