Destiny Abounds (Starlight Saga Book 1) (7 page)

Merlot used Branwen’s captured datapad to pull up an Exonet image of the system in question, and stared for a moment. “A real ringworld, huh? That thing’s gotta be huge.”

“Oh, yes, Miss Merlo.” She sighed vaguely to herself, somewhat amused but resigned to Mr. Leonard’s continued use of the honorific. “Altairan scientists and astrologers point to the lack of other planetoids in the system and theorize that all other matter in the system was consumed in its construction, and probably much more extrasolar material as well. Estimates put its maximum ‘carrying capacity,’ if you will, at around the volume of 137 standard masses, assuming I remember correctly.”

Mr. Leonard’s words stumbled a bit at the end, as if to signal that he was worried about being incorrect, or maybe putting people off by being too knowledgeable. Merlo had known people like that before. Or maybe it was just from speaking too quickly; he’d really picked up some surprising momentum there as he had gotten engaged in laying all of the information out.

“Wow. How do you even know all this stuff, Mr. Leonard?” Merlo asked the com the question with absent curiosity as she paged through the Exonet’s comprehensive articles on the matter.

“I… well, um…”

“Mr. Leonard comes from a rather excellent education,” Captain Branwen said, smoothly stepping in to help him out as he faltered on the personal details.

“Yes. Just that, Miss Merlo.” He seemed relieved to not have to try to talk about himself, which was fine; Merlo had another curiosity building at the moment.

“Heh, that’s pretty much what I thought,” Merlo said, still looking down at the pad, but having changed articles despite her honest interest in the ringworld. “I was actually curious about something else, if I may, Captain?” She looked up and across the table at the only other person physically in the room. “What about Fade?”

“Hmmm,” Branwen supplied, leaning back again and tracing her fingers in a thoughtful arc across the fair skin of her cheek and down the line of her strong jaw. “There is indeed a lot I could say about Fade, having lived there all my life up until recently.”

Merlo shrugged. “Tell me anything, really; what’s it like?” Curiosity was pretty plain in the reflective silver disks of her eyes, having gotten the better of her finally on the subject. “I know it’s… um, not very advanced there.” She’d accidentally referred to Fade technology as “primitive” before in the Captain’s presence. Later, she’d realized that was probably somewhat offensive, so she was trying to avoid doing so again. As of yet, she hadn’t seen the Captain angry, or even upset. Something told her she had little desire to.

Branwen laughed, the room echoing slightly with her mirth. “Well, I am uncertain whether you would know much of which I speak; you seem unfamiliar with many things I would consider quite basic.” Merlo nodded; they had mutually come to that conclusion in previous conversations. “How does one describe their home in a worthy way?” She queried in return with a sense of open honesty.

“I could say that it is beautiful, picturesque; but that is vague. I could say that the people who call it home are a hardy sort, very distrustful of those from the outside. But perhaps that gives the wrong impression, as when I say such, I speak also of myself.” As Branwen continued speaking, Merlo bobbed her head in a nod, figuring she could understand the sentiment.

“I could say that it is cold, that we live castles of stone, prized wholesale from the very grasp of the earth. But that would speak more of my home and Realm than, say, the manors of rich woods and clothes of flowing elegance common to my neighbors in southern Stormhaven. The question, for me, is not so easy as it first appears.” Branwen paused to draw in a breath, obviously taking that moment to sort her thoughts.

“Perhaps, I could best say that Fade is a place of natural beauty, where technology is near negligible by your standards and the magic of the Fade itself shimmers through the air beneath Fera and Vola, our sisters in the sky. That the air is crisp and clear, and when you breathe it in, it reminds you that you are still alive. Where things perhaps seem simple, yet contain many mysteries that veil their true depths to those that do not know how to seek, how to question. It is a place with less law and more rule of adventure, of courage, of making your way with one’s own will. Perhaps that is the best way I could describe Fade to someone who has never laid eyes or set foot upon her.” The passion in Branwen’s impromptu speech simmered in her eyes like the ripples of a heatwave, shimmering the the soulful depths of purple-tinged blues.

The Captain made a gesture of seeming helplessness, offering her open hands as if to indicate something, while her eyelids dropped momentarily, drawing a curtain over the raw emotion contained therein. When she opened them again a moment later, a tint of sadness tinged her vibrant orbs, toning down the other emotions. “Perhaps, I will think upon the question some more, at length. My description was... poetic, perhaps, but I harbor doubts that it was the explanation you were seeking.”

She smiled with a soft amusement at Merlo, who glanced down for a moment to consider her feelings, nebulous as they were. She felt moved, but found it difficult to truly relate; had she ever felt so powerfully about any place, even about her own home, now so far away as to feel unreachable? That train of thought even caused mild swirls of guilt to rise from where they had lain dormant within. “No, Captain, that was actually pretty good,” she said after a moment, wanting to give voice to something appreciative before the silence began to hang empty in the air. “Thanks.”

Merlo looked back up at her Captain, wondering once again why, if she cared so much for Fade, she was out here instead of back there. When she’d mentioned at ports that her Captain was from Fade, people had outright laughed to the point of crying at the “joke.”

Apparently, people from Fade didn’t
do
space travel; it was unheard of there. Her internal turmoil was rearing its head, though, and that discomfort pushed her to stand, seeking something that would busy her hands and distract her instead. “Hey, I feel the bathroom and the cargo bay calling,” she offered by way of excuse. The Captain nodded understandingly in return. “Then I need to drop off some of the locations into the nav- so I’ll see you later, huh?” She patted the datapad secured at the small of her back indicatively and nodded with a crisp efficiency as she took quick strides out the open doorway and down the hall.

CHAPTER FOUR

One Piece of Steel

Branwen

Branwen drove her blade home into the meat of an extended arm, deep into the man’s bicep. She didn’t twist it as she pulled it free, as she normally would have, leaving a clean stab wound. She was nonetheless rewarded with a wild, surprised cry of pain, and she responded by driving one of her heavy plated boots into the man’s sternum with enough force to send him sprawling awkwardly into one of his fellows.

As she and Merlo fought under the shade of the sparse trees surrounding them, instincts crouched in the back of her mind, screaming at her that she mustn’t go easy on these people; those that didn’t fight for their lives with everything they had usually wound up dead. But as she looked around at the dirt smeared faces of the men and women crowding her, brandishing their improvised and poorly maintained weapons, she reached deep inside and found the killer’s place in her soul missing. She didn’t have the heart to end them, not now; not anymore.

“Captain!” Merlo cried out, and with hardly a glance, Branwen spun to parry aside some sort of foreign farming utensil as it reached, somewhat timidly, for her exposed side. It was the first time she’d been in battle alongside her pilot; she had to admit that she was impressed by the girl’s skill. The brutal acrobatics of Merlo’s unarmed style seemed backed up by amazingly superior strength and speed, but was just barely enough to keep her ahead of the enemy’s advantage of numbers and reach.

It was pretty clear to Branwen, who was well practiced at studying her foes in or out of combat, that these people weren’t hardened killers. It was etched into their eyes, into the lines of desperation carved into their lean faces, into the moments of hesitation where their hands shook instead of surging forward for a killing blow. They looked like simple people, perhaps farmers or laborers, not soldiers, and they wanted her cargo, not her head; a load of medicinal supplies on a little four-wheeled auto transport destined for a town toward the outer reaches of Pireida’s habitable area.

Unfortunately for them, neither of those things were theirs to take. A heavy piece of crudely-fashioned wood, somewhere between a staff and a club, came flying in from Branwen’s side, threatening to strike her temple and likely rob her of her consciousness. Since the gleaming blade of her curved, single edged sabre was busy elsewhere, her other hand whipped fluidly behind her back and produced another hand axe, a sleek piece of solid, curved metal with barely a grip.

She’d picked those axes up from a Kepo trader during her first trading run in space, and they served her as well now as any ever had, sinking deep into the looming wood of the incoming weapon, driving it downward and away from her head. She swept the blow low and pivoted with it, taking the impact to the meat of her thigh instead. Her axe got stuck, wedged tightly into her opponent’s length of barely-shaped timber, but she shrugged the hit off and let go of her axe.

She had more axes, and she’d had worse bruises. As that foe backed away, Branwen reached under her coat for another weapon.

Overall though, the fight was not going well. Over a dozen opponents still held their feet, due mostly to Branwen’s sense of reluctance and the non-lethal orientation of Merlo’s combat ability. She grabbed another axe out of the compact holster at the small of her back with a practical flourish, reversing it so that when she sent it spinning out into the crowd, the blunt side smashed headlong into the bridge of a woman’s nose, instead of the much more worrisome end.

That foe fell, dazed and rolling on the dirt and undergrowth of their surroundings, but was immediately replaced with another. Definitely not good. Unlike in stories, in real fights, people did not commonly survive odds of six or more against one. The group milled about for the length of a breath, but didn't give the defending duo enough time to expel it before they rushed them again, seeming to draw courage from one another and attacking as a clustered mob.

Captain Branwen could hear the measured rhythm of Merlo’s breaths as they worked to defend their stance on the top of the cargo transport. Branwen knew the high ground only helped so much; proven true a moment later as Merlo cried out again.

Branwen’s heart jumped, she spared what attention she could to see the girl being grappled and pulled off the side of the transport. She tried to surge forth to her aid, gripped with a sudden cold chill of worry and urgency, but instead had to abruptly snap her focus back to her own problems. The trusted and tried metal of her war-sabre sliced—lightning quick—once, twice through a wooden haft, shortening the threat of a spear to a useless length of kindling.

In that one instant, she missed as real lightning struck elsewhere as well; the crackle of electricity lit the air as Merlo threw a man off of her and rose to her feet, the others backing away from their twitching fellow in surprise. Merlo hopped easily onto the waist high side of the idle transport, glowing ports on her palms crackling with the barely restrained lambent blue of… some kind of energy. Branwen was pretty certain that those hadn’t been there before; for now, though, she filed the information away. She hadn’t seen firsthand what had happened, but she could make an educated guess, backed up by both the crowd’s hesitance to approach Merlo again and the twitching groans of the man writhing in the road, incapacitated.

Branwen’s moment of distraction cost Merlo, instead of herself. She spun, sensing more than seeing the motion, and Merlo’s warning cry came an instant too late: a knife whipped through the air, thrown with startling precision directly at Branwen’s back as she was turned.

As Branwen had once again forgone her mail armor, the short blade would likely have buried itself indecently far into the flesh next to her spine, if it had not instead dove nearly as far into the lightly armored tissue of Merlo’s hastily-raised forearm. Branwen whipped her head around, eyes wide with alarm and concern for her friend, but relief rushed in instead as her eyes confirmed that Merlo was not mortally wounded. The girl grinned fiercely back at her, hints of pain, determination, and pride all vying for space in her expression as she turned her attention back to the fight. They settled into a defensive stance together, watchfully eying the crowd, standing ready for the next wave of attacks.

“What now, Captain?” Merlo cast the question sidewardly at Branwen as she tensed for further action.

Branwen rapidly surveyed the scene before her with a practiced eye and growing apprehension. Ten uninjured, four picking themselves up, three milling at the edge of the treeline deciding whether to engage, and one man further back was readying a ranged weapon of some sort. The crowd edged closer, fear and desperation hanging in the air, liberally blended.

Too many.
She noticed Merlo tug the six inch blade from the meat of her arm with an easy pull, discarding it to the side as her bodysuit
closed over
the wound of its own accord, shutting off the generous dripping of crimson from the puncture like sealing a valve. Branwen inclined her head, a gesture of respect to the mob for their courage as they pushed and then started to again surge forward. She sighed to herself and flicked on the plasma edge to her sabre, and it obediently flickered into abrupt, deadly life as she opened her mouth to reverse her previous request not to kill any—