Untitled (5 page)

And that wasn't all. He could see through the dry dock, through the girders and hulls and see the people moving about inside. He could see through the people, too, he could see down to their atomic structures. He could see the heat trails that they made as they moved through the hallways. He could see the cold vapor of their iced drinks, and though it once frightened him, he found he could see what the people in orbit were
about
to do; he could see things that they recently
had
done.

The Sight was truly a potent Gift when properly used. Additionally, when he used the wonders of his Sight, his eyes glowed, a profound, mesmerizing golden light. He found his two sisters, Lady Pardock and Lady Poe, became enraptured when they looked at his glowing eyes. His eldest sister, Pardock, was once coming to beat him senseless for ruining one of her favorite Blanchefort gowns with spilled ink and his glowing eyes calmed her enough for him to escape into his mother's protective arms.

The Sight was truly a Gift of many surprises and benefits if one merely took the time to … look.

* * * * *

Eyes glowing, Davage Sighted from his office all the way down to the brig in the rear section of the ship and the Black Hat sitting within.

The Sister looked at his glowing eyes with admiration.

Lt. Kilos, a Brown, didn't think twice about it. She looked at her fingernails, feeling hungry for lunch.

Davage homed in on the brig, seeing it clearly through all the metal and distance.

There she was, sitting in the brig, her Black Hat mask gone … her scarlet robe, her face …

Her face! Creation, her face!

He wasn't prepared for what he saw. He did a double take. He gasped.

He nearly knocked his chair over.

Kilos was startled. She forgot all about her fingernails and lunch. "Dav, what is it?" she asked.

Grabbing his hat, Davage made for the door and offered it to the Sister, who appeared confused.

"Sister," he said. "Before we proceed, I must see the prisoner."

A look of startled shock etched itself on the Sister's face.

"You want to do what, Dav?" Kilos said, incredulous, speaking for both herself and the Sister.

"I want to go in there and see the prisoner. I wish to talk to her."

"You want to interrogate the Black Hat? What for?"

"I have a few simple questions I wish to ask her," he said.

"And you expect a response of some sort?"

"I do not know. I won't know until I ask."

Several more Sisters arrived in short order. They appeared agitated. They spoke silently to Kilos, blasting her with thought. The Sisters, unused to using their mouths to speak, were pumping Kilos full of silent chatter. Such a frantic treatment could often leave a Marine dazed, insensate. After a moment, she composed herself and spoke.

"Dav, the Sisters here are beside themselves. They want to know why you want to go in there, and they want to know when they can execute the Black Hat."

"I want to go in there because I want to see the prisoner. I've some questions I wish to pose. The Sisters may execute her when I am satisfied that my questions have been answered."

Kilos rubbed her eyes—she was growing a whopper of a headache.

"When was the last time the prisoner was fed?" Davage asked.

There was more chatter as the Sisters spoke to Kilos. "It has not been fed. It was not expected to still be alive, Dav."

Davage turned to the Sisters. "It? The Black Hat is a prisoner of this vessel, and as such,
she
is entitled to certain rights and amenities— food and drink being just a few of them."

Davage hit the Com and called for an orderly. In a flash, one arrived.

"Catlin," Davage said. He knew her name; he knew all their names by heart. "Will you please go to the mess and bring a plate of something simple and some water to the brig? Don't go in, just wait there for me."

"Aye, Captain!"

"Thank you, Catlin." She ran off.

One of the Sisters mumbled in her halting, strange accent. "Captain … what you wish proving?"

"Sister, I'm not trying to prove anything. I simply wish to see the prisoner and ask her a question or two."

"Speaking to a Black Hat is pointless and dangerous. We forbid it. We shall execute the prisoner now …" Kilos said, a Sister wrenching her thoughts into her head.

Davage was determined. "I am going there so that I may see the prisoner. You may proceed with the execution if you must." Davage left the office and headed for the brig at speed. The gaggle of Sisters and Kilos followed.

"You cannot be present when we execute her … the backlash will kill you as well," Kilos said again for an agitated Sister, her mouth and voice being controlled like a puppet. She was going to be sick later, she knew it.

"Then, I suppose I will die today. I am going in there."

"Davage!" Kilos said, her head and her thoughts being wrenched this way and that. "What are you doing?"

"I have to see something for myself."

"If you go in there, the Black Hat will kill you on sight!"

"Lieutenant Kilos, we have twenty Sisters here, each one monitoring her every move, her every thought. If she makes a hostile action, then, by all means, you have my permission to execute her."

"And that will be moments after you yourself have been killed. Killing you, a Fleet captain, would be a bold statement. Dav, I have a responsibility for your safety …"

"Because of which I sleep very well at night. Ki, I have no desire to throw my life away. I have every faith in the Sisters, and in you, to protect me."

They strode through the ship and eventually arrived at the outer doorway to the brig—it was a long walk. Catlin, the orderly, was waiting there with the tray of food Davage had requested. Davage thanked her again and took it from her.

The Sisters looked at one another, dumbfounded.

"Captain Davage, I forbid you going in there!" Kilos yelled.

"Is that from them, or from you, Ki?"

"Both."

"So noted—put it in your daily report … Lieutenant."

"Don't attempt to give me that 'Lieutenant' crap, Dav—it's me you're dealing with! And, 'Captain,' I'll remind you that we've disagreed on things before—but never like this. Perhaps we should discuss this further in the gymnasium. No Gifts—no Strength, just you and me solving a disagreement."

Davage smiled. "For someone who claims to be concerned for my health, you seem eager to lay a beating to me."

Kilos jumped front of him, blocking the entrance to the brig. Tears began to well up in her large eyes—that didn't happen often. "Dav, how could I live with myself if I stood by and allowed you, my captain—my closest friend—to come to harm?"

"Ki, we've been in tough scrapes before, you and I, right? And we always come through. Have you no faith in me at all?"

She looked down and wiped the tear away. "I do, Dav, you know that … But this—this is a Black Hat. She'll kill you just to spite the League—to take the life of a Fleet captain. Her life means nothing to her."

"You know that for sure, do you? Trust me now, I promise, we'll be laughing about this later."

Kilos gave him a pleading look and then stepped aside.

One of the Sisters, the first one who had come to see Davage, put her hands on his chest and stared at him.

She said through Kilos: "Please do not go into her presence."

"I must. I must see her."

"I could restrain you. I could keep you from doing this," Kilos said.

"I know that, Sister, and I am asking you not to. I am asking you to trust me … to have faith in me."

The Sister looked at him, her eyes deep aquamarine. In all his years, Davage had never engaged a Sister in such a way.

"Will you do this for me, Sister? Will you have faith in me?"

Kilos shook her head, the Sister's thoughts overwhelming her. "Dav—the Sister—I can't translate what she's saying and feeling. She's begging you not to do this. Let them kill her."

Davage, holding the tray, looked at the Sister. "Sister, I shall be fine. I simply must see something. I must look her square in the face, one to one … and know that I saw what I saw."

"What did you see?" Kilos asked.

"I'll tell you when I re-emerge."

The other Sisters threw their hands in the air. "One bad … movement … she die!" one of them said.

The first Sister put her small hands to her face and walked away, certain Captain Davage was about to die.

Davage, holding the tray, opened the door and went in. The door closed behind him with a clank.

4

The Black Hat Sisterhood … certainly a scarlet-clad enigma and everterrifying vexation of the League.

They were the Devil in the flesh, the Boogey-man and the Riders of Doom all rolled into one convenient yet very-real package. They were the eternal enemy, the plague in the night, the pack of murderers who were the subject of endless stories spun to frighten children into good behavior. Of all the secret Xaphan Societies, they were by far the most powerful, the most dangerous, the richest, and the least beholden to the Xaphans themselves. As the Xaphans spun helplessly around Mirendra, depowered and slowly dying, the Black Hats had the dark power to make all five of them tremble.

It was a long-held belief that the Black Hats were invincible in battle, that to face them was to die. Only the mighty Sisterhood of Light, it was told, could stand before them—their League Light to match the Black Hats' Xaphan Darkness, centuries of hatred standing between them. The check to the balance.

The two opposing sides certainly took a radically different approach to their various disciplines. The Black Hats loved the theatrical, the spectacular. Their Painters were known and greatly feared for their deep Cloaks, their clogged mire of illusion and deception, their ability to snare an area completely undetected and slip away to the dark, their illusion all encompassing. And should they somehow be discovered, should the hated Sisters arrive, they had their Hammers, adept at the Special Gifts, the Point, the Sten, the Mass—all gruesome and spectacular methods of killing an enemy, at mowing down entire forces at a stand … deaths that will have people talking, have people locking their doors at night and gazing fearfully out their windows.

The Black Hats had their vile henchmen as well—the Hulgismen. Like visions out of a civilized person's nightmare, they were brutal, their filthy mouths slavering in their mindlessness. And, stark naked, they did the Black Hats' bidding and defended them in battle. These mindless brutes were, of all forces known, completely immune to the Sisters' power—it was said that it was their raw brutality and uncivilization that allowed them this immunity. It was said should a stitch of clothing ever touch their bodies, should a comb ever pass through their hair, then they would lose their immunity forever. In any case, they had a singular thirst for the Sisters' blood, and as long as they had an ounce of strength available to them, they relentlessly strained to put their hands around a Sister's throat and end her light forever. In response, the League created the Stellar Marines and their dreaded SK pistols specifically to protect the Sisters from the ravenous Hulgismen. An odd juxtaposition—the naked howling Hulgismen armed with nothing more than Nyked knives and their bloodlust arrayed against the dapper, orderly ranks of Marines and their thundering SKs.

And finally, there was their Shadow tech, ever present, ever dark, a Black Hat specialty, the illegal darkness they flaunted in the Sisterhood's face. In the hands of a Black Hat, Shadow tech could be made to do anything: make snares, make weapons, make Nyked poison, make demons of the night. To be touched by Shadow tech, it was said, was to never be touched by anything again.

The Sisterhood of Light, on the other hand, relied on more subtle Gifts. The "miracles" they could create at will delighted the League and kept it in awe—rightfully so. Their TK was unmatched, as was their use of Hyper Gifts, and they could fry a Black Hat's brain in a psychic grapple without half trying. Also, they were the only force known that could throw aside Shadow tech, detect it, and render it dead and harmless. Only the Sisterhood could de-snare an area rife with Shadow tech traps. Only the Sisterhood could hold back the Phantom Hand.

So, arrayed before each other on the battlefield, the Black Hats surrounded by their naked, blood-thirsty Hulgismen, mindless creatures immune to the Sisters' power, and the Sisters defended by their loving squadrons of Marines, they fought as they had for centuries, each giving the other no quarter within the pre-set and civilized parameters they had set for each other.

No one dared face the Black Hats, and no one dared question the Sisters' authority. Their very reputations demanded a certain fealty from their opponents, a respect and decorum that had not been challenged in known memory.

Nobody willingly faced a Black Hat. Only the Sisters would dare.

Nobody attacked a Black Hat. Only the Sisters could hope to triumph.

And certainly, nobody tried to talk to a Black Hat.

Not even the Sisters …

* * * * *

The interior of the brig was cold and lonely. It was deathly quiet.

Sandwiched in between various bulkheads and other required structural components of the
Seeker's
rear hull, the brig was a long cylinder, about twelve feet high and fifty feet long, the walls sloping and convex. There were five cells in the brig, each cell guarded by a clear glass door that had been machined into incredible strength. All of the doors were open—there was no need to shut the prisoner in. The guards were all outside, all around, ready to strike, ready to kill.

Slowly Davage moved past the open cell doors.

Finally, in the center, he saw the prisoner—the Black Hat. He couldn't believe what he had seen in his office; he had to see for himself. He had to look her square in the eye and see.

She was sitting quietly on the bench, erect, perfect posture, her small hands placed properly in her lap. Her scarlet robe was a shocking splash of color in the drab ochre interior of the brig.