Stars of Blood and Glory (17 page)

“
A surprise?”

“
Just make sure she’s on our
side. When the time comes, she’ll know what to do.”

He nodded and grunted. “Understood.”

“
And the princess? Is she doing
well?”

“
I have not heard from Lieutenant
Avanadze, but I assume that is good thing.”

“
So do I.”

She rose wearily to her feet, retrieving the
mug from the table. “In that case, I suppose I’ll be needed on the
bridge shortly. Thank you for your time, Roman.”

“
Captain,” said Roman. He snapped
to his feet and gave her a brisk salute before walking out the
door.

* * * * *

Abaqa stood up from his hard metal cot as the
door to the brig slid open. In spite of the narrow cell they’d
given him, with its heavy electrified bars and hole in the floor
for a toilet, he would not let these planetborn break him down. If
the princess could hold out as long as she did, he would prove that
he had at least as much spirit as her.

The sound of boots against the hard metal
floor met his ears, followed by the beeping of a keypad. The door
to his cell swung open with a groan. The light from the corridor
was too dark to see the face of the man who had come to see him,
but Abaqa recognized him from the red glow of his left eye.

The man grunted a command, and a younger
soldier walked in and cuffed Abaqa’s hands. He considered putting
up a struggle, but decided that that would accomplish nothing
besides the complete and utter forfeit of his dignity. Strength was
all about the conservation of power, after all—those who fought
unwinnable battles only demonstrated their own weakness.

The cyborg soldier led him out of the brig to
a small, windowless room with a retractable metal table in the
center and harsh fluorescent lights lining the ceiling. He took a
seat on the far side, while his underling deposited Abaqa on a
bench facing him. A moment later, the door hissed shut, leaving the
two of them alone.

Abaqa drew himself up to his full height and
calmly examined the man sitting across from him. For a planetborn,
he was impressively large, with broad, muscular shoulders and wide,
powerful hands. In the light, though, the entire left half of his
body seemed to be made of metal. With his olive-green uniform on it
was impossible to tell, but at the very least his left arm and the
entire side of his face was prosthetic—and an intimidating
prosthetic at that. As Abaqa stared into the laser-like light of
that eye, he felt as if he were staring at a machine with a man
sewn on.

“
You are Prince Abaqa, son of
Qasar,” said the man, his voice deep and gravelly. “Your mother is
woman from Karduna system, known as Sholpan.”

“
Yes,” said Abaqa, swallowing his
surprise. Suddenly, the room felt a lot warmer.

“
You transmitted this information
in distress signal,” the man continued. “Of course, since your
gunboat is smashed to pieces, they will think you died in
battle.”

“
That’s not true,” said Abaqa,
clenching his fists. “My brothers will come for me, planetborn.
They know I’m alive.”

“
Oh? And how?”

His cheeks reddened as he realized he’d said
too much. Still, the old cyborg shrugged, as if he didn’t care.

“
It matters little. Even if they
make pursuit, we will evade them. We have evaded Hameji
before.”

“
I don’t believe you,” Abaqa
muttered. “No one evades my brothers—certainly not a planetborn
weakling like you.”

The old cyborg grinned—a grotesque
expression, when only half of his face was made of flesh.

“
Planetborn, eh? You use that
word like insult. Would you like to know which planet we are from?”
He tapped his metal fingers against the tabletop, filling the room
with an annoying rasp.

“
What does it matter?” Abaqa said
with a sneer. “All planetborn are the same.”

“
Not true. We are Tajji, most of
us—our captain, myself, and all of my men. Do you know what we
think of you Hameji? What you are to us?”

“
Conquerors.”

“
Barbarians. People without
culture and without humanity, no better than beasts.”

Abaqa laughed. “That comes as no surprise. We
slagged your world, didn’t we? My father should be there even
now—he was one of the commanders who oversaw the bombardment.”

He watched for any trace of emotion, but the
weathered old cyborg simply smiled and tilted his head at him, the
way a parent smiles at a child.

“
If that is true,” he said, “then
there are men on this ship who would consider it honor to kill
you.”

Abaqa puffed out his chest in defiance. “Then
let them try.”

The old cyborg threw back his head and
laughed, an unsettling sight considering how much of him was
machine. “You remind me of your mother’s brother,” he said,
slapping his good hand on the table. “That is exactly what he would
say.”

“
My—my uncle?” said Abaqa,
frowning. “How do you know him?”

“
Do not worry; it does not
matter.”

“
Yes it—” he began to protest,
then sat back and folded his arms. “All right,” he said, “what do
you want with me?”

“
Let us be frank,” said the old
cyborg, leaning forward with his hands clasped in front of him.
“You do not wish to die, and we do not wish to kill you. However,
there is nothing in this universe that does not have a
price.”

“
So you’re mercenaries, then?”
said Abaqa. He spat on the floor to indicate his
disgust.

“
Exactly. And you, my friend, are
worth very, very much.”

“
If you want me to beg to my
brothers to ransom me, I won’t do it,” he said.
I’ve already suffered enough
humiliation as it is.

“
Ah, but have you heard of
Federation methods of interrogation? I hear they use direct neural
interface to extract information.”

“
That’s impossible,” said Abaqa,
tensing a little.

The cyborg smiled and turned his head,
revealing a large socket at the base of his skull.

“
It is not.”

Abaqa swallowed, struggling to keep his
composure. Fortunately, the old cyborg rose to his feet and keyed a
button on the wall. The door hissed open, and a soldier entered to
escort him back to his cell.

“
We will continue discussion
later,” said the old cyborg. “Until next time, consider your
options carefully.”

Abaqa sneered as the soldier led him out, but
inwardly, he couldn’t stop shuddering.

* * * * *

“
How do you feel, Master
Sergeant?”

The sound of the old man’s laughter made
Hikaru sit up. She slipped her bare feet over the edge of her bed
and tip-toed to the divider, peeking around the corner. The cyborg
soldier who had rescued her sat on the examining table, taking up
the entire length with his massive, shirtless body. Doctor Avanadze
opened his patient’s gown at the front to check his vital signs
with her instruments.

“
Every time, you ask me this
question,” he said. “And every time, my answer does not
change.”

“
You’re not just a machine,
Sergeant. You’re a human being, and my patient.”

“
Perhaps. But I feel nothing,
doctor. I am machine.”

“
Nothing?” Hikaru blurted,
covering her mouth the instant she said it. Both the doctor and
Roman turned to look at her, making her cheeks burn with
embarrassment.

“
You need your rest, Princess,”
said the doctor, with all the insistence of an annoying nanny.
“Please, if you—”

“
I feel fine,” she blurted,
stepping out into the examining room. “Besides, I wanted to talk
with Roman.”

“
Oh you do, do you?” said Roman
with a grin. “What do you wish to say?”

“
Well, uh,” she began, finding
herself at a loss for words. “I wanted to thank you for saving me,
of course.”

“
The pleasure was mine. Anything
else?”

Suddenly, she felt like a little girl on her
way to meet her betrothed for the first time. Hot blood rushed to
her cheeks, and she held her hands behind her back with her toes
turned inward.

As she struggled to think of something, the
doctor returned to her patient and continued checking him. Roman
took it in stride, as if it were perfectly normal for a woman to
poke and prod him.

“
What do you mean, you feel
nothing?”

Doctor Avanadze stopped and eyed her for a
second, but Roman didn’t seem to mind. “I mean exactly that,” he
said. “My body is more machine than muscle. I have lived for so
long, it is only like shell to me—but cyborgs never die. Their
humanity fades, until they become like me.”

“
That’s not true,” said Hikaru,
stepping closer. “You’re still human—I know you are.”

He chuckled and turned to the doctor.
“Lieutenant Avanadze, I see you have new protegée.”

“
The princess is just my patient,
nothing more.”

“
Why do you feel so empty?” asked
Hikaru, looking Roman in the eye. “You’ve still got plenty of
spirit. Why would a few prosthetics get you down?”

His good eye narrowed as he returned her
gaze. He fitted the eye patch over the prosthetic side of his face
before rising to his feet and buttoning up his shirt.

“
You are young girl,” he said.
“Your life still lies in your future. There are many things you
would not understand.”

“
But I want to,” she said,
following him to the door. “I want to underst—hey!”

He walked out of the medical bay, all but
ignoring her.

“
I’m sorry,” said Doctor
Avanadze, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Sergeant Krikoryan is a
little … difficult sometimes.”

“
Has he been a soldier for
long?”

“
Longer than you or I have been
alive. Here, let me check you over.”

Longer than I’ve been
alive,
Hikaru
thought as she climbed onto the examining table.
That means he’s
seen more of the universe than anyone on this ship.
Certainly more than
she’d ever see. Her adventure would be over once the soldiers
returned her to the palace, but until then, anything could happen.
She’d have to see that it would.

Chapter 10

“
You betrayed us,” said
Katsuichi, his hands trembling with barely suppressed rage.
“Victory was within our grasp, and you abandoned us like
cowards.”

“
Cowards?” said the colonel,
smiling in a way that only aggravated him further. “With all due
respect, Your Highness, some of us are old enough to know the
difference between cowardice and wisdom.”

Kenta hissed between his teeth to show his
displeasure. For his part, Katsuichi took a deep breath and tried
to calm himself. The lights in the empty observation deck suddenly
seemed very bright, the recycled air a bit too stuffy. He gazed out
the wide observation windows to hide his rage, staring out at the
milky band of stars that made up the galactic disk. New Vela shone
like a sapphire in the midst of it, only a few light years away—and
directly in the line of the Hameji advance.

“
Why did you leave the
battlefield?”

“
My allegiance is to my men,”
said Colonel Webb, clasping his hands comfortably behind his back
with an air of authority. “When I determined that the battle had
reached a point where it could not be won, I withdrew.”

“
Without coordinating with us?”
said Kenta, his eyes burning with rage. “You were not trying to
save your men—you were abandoning us in the most dishonorable way
possible.”

“
Don’t speak to me of honor,”
said the colonel, lowering his voice. “Do you think that honor
matters to the Hameji? How do you expect to defeat them by clinging
to your archaic traditions? If you want to learn to defeat an
enemy, you need to be willing to take extreme measures that your
enemy would consider unthinkable.”

Kenta opened his mouth to argue back, but
Katsuichi silenced him with a wave of his hand. He turned and
looked the colonel in the eye, searching for some hint of an
ulterior motive, but the cunning man was all but unreadable.

“
Why didn’t you coordinate your
withdrawal with us?” he asked.

Colonel Webb gave him a sly smile. “What
makes you assume I would want to coordinate?”

The question hung in the air like a sword
ready to fall. Katsuichi opened his mouth to speak, but the colonel
preempted him. “The Federation is very fragmented right now,” he
said, turning to leave. “There is a power vacuum at the highest
levels of command, and each battle fleet is essentially an
independent unit. Dishonorable men thrive in such environments,
Your Highness.”

With that, he palmed the door and stepped
through, leaving Katsuichi and Kenta staring after him in
disbelief.

“
Impossible,” said Kenta,
breaking the silence first. “I warned you, Your Highness—this man
is no better than a criminal.”

“
You are right, Kenta—of course,
you’re right. But if we do not fight alongside him, the Hameji will
come through the rift and destroy us.”

The old samurai grunted in disgust. “Better
death than dishonor.”