Untitled (38 page)

Davage went to the wall, tapped a panel, and a hidden door opened. He pulled out a tankard and two glasses, which he filled.

"Here," he said, offering one to her. "A toast to our mutual success."

"What is this?" she asked, looking at the frothing liquid in the glass.

"Narva."

"That's a fruit drink, isn't it? I don't think I'll …"

"You've not had narva until you've had it buncked. Try it."

"Buncked … you mean it's spiked?"

"It is—highly against regulations, I assure you. There—your first bit of dirt on me."

They drank it, and it was good. Ki thought it was really good.

"Oh," Davage said, finishing his glass. "I took the liberty of circulating a Letter of Honor for your husband this morning before you arrived. Yes, I already knew all about you before you got here."

Kilos almost choked on her remaining narva.

"I hope your Lord Pittsfield doesn't mind. When I saw his outstanding school records to date, I couldn't believe he hadn't been offered a Letter previously. It looks very good for a Lord to sponsor such a promising student, and I was happy to do so."

Kilos stood there, dizzy. "Sir, I don't know what to say."

"Also, I found a discrepancy in your records over the last six months. It appears, whilst you were digging trenches for Lord Grenville, he wasn't paying you correctly."

"He did pay me, sir, with the Burl."

"Lord Grenville needs to check up on Fleet regulations. You were officially attached to the 8th Marines, which is under overall Fleet command. He formally requested the services of the 8th Marines and thusly, is compelled to bear responsibility for all pays due the Marines according to Fleet standards. The Fleet does not pay in Burl. I apologize for this confusion and have ordered you receive your full sixmonth back pay. Your whole company as well. I certainly hope Lord Grenville's purse doesn't suffer too terribly. The funds should be in your account shortly."

Ki stood there and looked at her duffle. "Sir … I—"

Davage clapped her on the back and picked up her bag. "Come now, Sergeant, let me show you to your new quarters, and let me be the first to officially welcome you aboard the
Seeker
."

The next day, Kilos flashed home to her husband a big lump of money—more than they both had ever seen. She got him on the Com, and she chattered excitedly about the ship and the village and what had happened with Lord Grenville and about Captain Davage—this Blue Lord who was so much more. She proudly showed him the black eye he'd given her and the tooth that he'd knocked out. It was okay, though, she already had an appointment with the ship's Hospitaler to have it fixed. She was so happy.

She kept a bit of the money for herself. She went out into the village and bought the rings she had liked and the books for her husband she had wanted.

Looking back at the
Seeker
parked in the bay as she stood there with her purchases, she knew she'd finally found a home and a captain to go with it.

She couldn't wait for her adventure to begin.

* * * * *

Ergos rocketed relentlessly closer and closer.

Syg sat in Dav's chair. Being on the bridge, and being visible at the same time, was a strange feeling for her.

The Sisters were there too, ten of them, each scanning the scene below, looking for Cloaked contacts.

Kilos looked back at the helm. Saari stood there, holding the wheel. She seemed to have composed herself, but Ki wanted to make sure not to push her too hard, so that she wouldn't break. She tried to make sure her orders were clear and easy to follow. This wasn't going to be a turning, rolling Dav-fight; it was going to be a straight at 'em, broadside furball.

The messages the Sisters were hitting Ki with came non-stop.

<
There is nothing on the left quarter.>

Ki recalled how hard Dav had to Sight in order to pick up the transports; they were Cloaked deep, and she didn't think the Sister's could Sight as well as he could.

"Keep trying, Sisters, they're out there in a hard Cloak. Number and composition unknown."

She turned to Saari at the helm. "Helm, report counter flood."

Saari glanced to her right. "Counter flood positive two. Ship is sailing with minimal trim."

"Any pull?"

"No ma'am."

Good
, Kilos thought,
good
. "Not a bad job putting the ship back together, Sygillis."

Syg was shocked; she wasn't accustomed to being spoken to on the bridge. She was used to hiding out under Cloak. "Oh, oh … thank you, Lieutenant."

The Sisters again. assagrain strike, temple wall, west quarter
.>

"Port Sensing, did you track a Cassagrain strike, temple wall, west quarter?"

"Aye ma'am."

"Transfer data to Canister control, triangulate to source and fire."

She spoke up: "All right, everybody, here we go. I don't think I have to remind you that this action is for our captain—for the man who should be right here, right now—and for all of us, whether you be Fleet or Marine, Hospitaler, Sister, or special guest, he is our man, ours, the beloved head of our family. There's not a person here whose name he doesn't know, whose back he hasn't slapped in genuine friendship. Be you of Great House or not, be you Blue or Brown, Vith or no, his door was always open, and he was always glad to see you. He did all that not because he had to, but because he wanted to … because he thought it important, because he loves his crew as his own. He's down there all alone, and we are not going to fail him. Here we stand and here we make our family whole again. Understood?"

"Aye, ma'am!" the crew shouted.

With a characteristic "thud," the first canister left the ship and sped off toward its target, tail fire lit bright.

13

Davage shook his head when he looked up.

There were three
Seeker
s, soaring around at about four thousand feet, lights blinking, canisters firing.

One, of course was the real thing.

The other two were crude, ¼ scale Silver tech dummies that bore only the vaguest of resemblances to the real ship. He didn't even need his Sight to tell which from which.

Syg.

Obviously, Syg had squirted the two dummies out with shaped blobs of Silver tech and persuaded the Sisters dress them up a bit with Cloaked lights and surface details. She even had little Silver tech missiles shooting out, going here and there. She was probably sitting on the bridge right now, controlling them. It must be an odd thing for her to be invited on the bridge. He knew she often snuck up to the bridge Cloaked. She never ever gave his Sight the credit it was due. He didn't mind her on the bridge—he liked it, in fact.

He supposed that they were expecting a vast contingent of Black Hats down here, and that these ridiculous fakes might divert them. He wondered—why didn't they just send down Arrow shot from orbit and flood the area with Sisters and Marines? Kilos, being a Marine, liked to fight up close—she liked raking a target with Battleshot, and she would want to get up close to the Ghomes and sink them hard. Just a different style, a different way of going about it, he guessed.

Or maybe it was something else. Maybe they came in so close because they were wanting to see him, to be able to look down and possibly catch a glimpse of him and know that he was all right. Perhaps they just wanted to be near to him.

His ship, his crew—he didn't deserve their devotion.

He was concerned about the
Seeker
re-entering the atmosphere after the pounding she previously took. She didn't appear to be having any issues maneuvering. Could Mapes have repaired the spar to such a level that they were full in-planet capable? The ship wasn't doing any excessive or fancy maneuvering, but that was probably a result of Ki's straight ahead command style; the ship appeared to be under full control.

It banked gracefully; he could see its dorsal quarter.

No—no, look, the
Seeker'
s back was coated in a shiny layer of … silver.

Syg! Syg had fixed the spar with her Silver tech. Oh that tiny woman—how he missed her. She had fixed the spar, and he could imagine the scene that must have taken place in engineering to get Mapes to allow her to do such a thing—to outdo him at his own game. He guessed a Gift or two had probably been needed, maybe even some illegal Black Hat ones as well.

And then, she had fashioned these crude fakes to try and help save him.

Still, an idiot with one eye and no Sight could figure out the differences. Well, if you're going to come up with a silly, half-baked plan, why not go whole hog?

A canister blasted out of the real
Seeker
and slammed into a Cloaked transport, sinking it hard—more destruction for the good people of Metatron.

He could see the transports struggling to change course to fix their guns on the
Seeker
. The good thing was they seemed to be falling for the bait—they couldn't determine real from the embarrassing fakes as they laid bearings on them as well.

They fired, the
Seeker
returned, and down they went.

The more he looked at Syg's fakes, the more they annoyed him. It was clear that Syg had no idea what the
Seeker
looked like on the outside. Despite himself and the situation he was in, he found it galling, given the amount of pictures, paintings, and models of the ship available to her for reference, that she butchered it so badly; the
Seeker
was his baby.

She was going to get a stern talking to over this, he thought, right after he had properly re-united with her.

A transport fired on one of the fakes.

A canister popped out of the
Seeker.

Bang, sunk. More wreckage.

Beyond, the temple began to fitfully rise. It struggled into the air, marking its progress in feet and inches.

Beneath it, he could see it was held in place by a thick black rope of Shadow tech, like a tether. And though the tether was stretching, he could clearly see that the temple would never be fully free of it on its own.

And, there was the Dark Man to the south, across the waterway. He stood hunched over with his hands on the destroyed remains of two buildings—like a child looking into a candy store window. He watched the temple struggle to climb into the air. His sinister thoughts were easy to divine: oh, what fun he was going to have, plucking the wings off this buzzing fly. He stepped over the line of towers and lesser buildings blocking his path and splashed onto the waterway. Striding in gore, he proceeded to its location. He was going to ensure it didn't go anywhere. He might just flatten it like an empty can when he got there after he tormented it for a bit.

Not if Davage had anything to say about it. Ignoring his aching eyes, he Sighted the monster, a cone of glowing light rising up into the blasted night.

Immersed in the hated light, it stopped in the waterway and flailed its arms about, fearing the light, despising it. It scooped up handfuls of dark water and threw it in Davage's direction, trying to douse the light; a rainfall of tepid water showered him, but he persisted. It plucked a
Ghome
7 transport out of the sky and threw it at Davage. He Wafted away and reappeared some distance to the north on the vast, flat area near the water. Trying to divert his attention from the temple, he hit the Dark Man again with his Sight. Awash in his golden glow and in misery, it stumbled into the canyons of tenement buildings and rapidly neared, his huge strides covering massive amounts of distance at a step. At last, standing over Davage and his tormenting light, he raised a giant foot and brought it down hard, ready to squash this light, to stamp out this glowing cinder.

Davage saw the foot coming down, blotting out the sky. In his Sight, he saw something rustling around inside the Dark Man—something that enraged him to the very core. Using much of the strength left to him, he Wafted up and away, vanishing from the ground as the foot impacted.

* * * * *

"What the hell is that!" Kilos shrieked seeing this terrible giant striding through Metatron. It looked like a man-shaped mound of dried blood and gristle, three thousand feet tall, easy

Syg and the Sisters appeared shocked. Syg's hand came to her mouth. She appeared terrified.

Man, Dark Man, Dark Man, Dark Man
…> came thoughts into Ki's head over and over again.

"What is it?"

Syg sank into Dav's chair, weeping, defeated. "It means Dav's dead."

Kilos looked at the viewer. "What's that then?" she asked.

Syg looked up.

On the screen, as the Dark Man strode toward the Silver Temple, a cone of bright golden light came up from the dusty ground, shining right on him, like a searchlight. It waved its arms, not liking the light. Syg saw it and took heart.

They watched it splashing water, trying to drown the light, then it plucked something from the air and threw it. The light went out as a destroyed
Ghome 7
unCloaked and slammed into the ground, and then the cone of light re-appeared to the north. The Dark Man turned and pursued, splashing through the water.

Then, she saw it raise its horrid foot and stamp down in a geyser of water and broken rock, dousing the light.

Syg screamed.

* * * * *

Dav emerged from his Waft right in the gullet of the Dark Man. It was a rugose, fibrous dark patch, as if the whole unholy construction was formed of sinew. The interior seemed to wrap toward him, trying to envelop him and pull him into darkness.

He lit his Sight; the coils flew away, giving him space.

He had seen something from below, something that had enraged him like nothing else ever had.

Ahead, in the foul dankness, was what he had seen.

There, four women lay encompassed in black tendrils. They were laid open, guts hanging out, joints cracked and stretched, yet they were alive, fed and sustained by dark tubes forced into their mouths. They were naked, but bits of red cloth gave away their identity—Black Hats, the ones who had fled the field. Here was their punishment, to feel all the pain in the world for as long as possible. Here, in the dark belly, was the price of failure, the price for being afraid and trying to preserve their own lives.