Encrypted (8 page)

They shot while he explained his paper, and
Tikaya relaxed for the first time in days. She almost laughed at
her earlier guess that he might have been a captain in the war.
With that passion for mathematics and those childhood fancies, he
had to be an engineer. Probably the chief engineer on one of the
big warships. He would have been accustomed to going toe-to-toe
with captains to keep his steamer in pristine operating order.

Only after the exercise period ended, and
she was again confined in her cabin, did she realize she still did
not know what his history was with those symbols and why they
stirred dark memories.

* * * * *

The first earsplitting boom yanked Tikaya
from sleep. The second made her scramble out of her bunk so quickly
she slammed into the foldout desk. Groaning, she rubbed her hip,
took another step, and cracked her toe on the stool.

“
No one should wake up
this way,” she muttered.

More booms drowned her words, this time a
whole round that lasted half a minute. The ship trembled with
concussions that vibrated her body like a bell. Cannons, she
realized, as she groped about to find her spectacles and sandals.
She had heard them from afar, but never standing in a cabin under
the gun deck. Shouts sounded through the aftermath of the round,
though the bulkhead muffled the words. She peered out her tiny
porthole. Clouds obscured the stars, and night’s darkness smothered
the ocean.

Was someone attacking them? Who would be
audacious enough to waylay a Turgonian warship? Especially during
peacetime? Maybe it was a training exercise. She would not put it
past Captain Bocrest to schedule drills in the middle of the
night.

A massive jolt rocked the ship, throwing her
into the bulkhead. That was no cannon firing. Psi blast. She had a
cousin who studied telekinetics and could knock the fronds off a
palm tree. Anyone who could damage an ironclad warship was no one
she wanted to meet. Still, if this was an attack, maybe she could
use the confusion to steal a longboat. She would need to get Rias
out of the brig to help. Since he had planned an escape once, he
would know where to find the logs and navigation tools they would
need.

Shouts rang out and boots pounded, but all
the activity seemed to be on the deck above. Tikaya opened the
door. Her hopes of escape sank when she spotted her guard standing
outside.

The baby-face private noticed her
immediately. “Stay inside, ma’am.”

“
What’s going
on?”

“
I’m not sure yet, but
don’t worry. It’s my duty to protect you.”

Yes, but she did not want him to protect
her. She wanted him to go away. Still, his earnest eyes said he
took his duty seriously, and she managed a “thank you.” Though they
had rarely spoken, she had placed him in Corporal Agarik’s tiny
category of People Who Treated Her Like a Human Being.

“
Can we go see what’s
happening?” she asked, though she suspected she knew the
answer.

“
No, ma’am. Please close
the hatch and wait inside.” A cabin door slammed open, and a
sub-lieutenant struggling to buckle his belt scrambled out, a
drunken lurch to his step. He stumbled off, presumably to join the
others, and her guard watched wistfully. He did look back at her
and add, “I’ll let you know what the commotion is about when I find
out.”

Tikaya shut the door and paced her tiny
cabin. Her guard wanted to join the action. Maybe she could nudge
him that direction. He was young after all. Maybe—

A scream of agony erupted nearby. Tikaya
froze. Though muffled, it sounded like it had come from her
deck.

She pressed her ear to the door.

Somewhere down the corridor, a pistol fired,
and steel rang. Shrill voices cried out, and her eyes widened. They
spoke Nurian, not Turgonian.

“
We should go to the
brig!”

“
I read that marine’s
thoughts; the woman is up here.”

Her insides knotted. They were looking for
her.

The Nurians must have found out about
whatever the Turgonians had unearthed. Did they want her help too?
To beat the imperials to the loot?

A shot cracked right outside her door.

Tikaya could help them find her or she could
hide. Though her people had only superficially sided with the
Nurians during the war, sharing the messages Tikaya decrypted, it
ought to be enough to ensure they would treat her better than the
Turgonians.

She eased the door open. The air shimmered
as a wave of heat rolled in from the corridor. The invisible force
slammed into the private’s chest.

She stumbled back and wrapped her arm over
her eyes—not quickly enough to miss the agony contorting the
guard’s face. He screamed and dropped to the deck, writhing. His
sword and pistol clattered down beside him. The stench of charred
flesh seared the air. In a heartbeat, the marine lay still, skin
laid bare to muscle and bone, and bulging eyes frozen open.

Tikaya stared, stunned into immobility. She
had never seen death, not like this. She had spent the war in an
office, not on battlefields or warships.

“
She down there?” someone
asked in Nurian.

Tikaya tore her gaze from the downed man and
leaned out the door.

Two Nurians crept in her direction. They
were shorter than she and darker of skin, like the Turgonians, but
they had slanted eyes and wore their long black hair in topknots.
One bore twin scimitars in his hands and looked lean and sinewy
beneath colorful clothing decorated with bone and beads. The other,
wrapped in a flowing black robe, carried nothing. A practitioner
and his bodyguard.

The bodyguard pointed a scimitar her
direction. “There!”

“
Greetings,” Tikaya called
in their tongue. “My name is Tikaya. Any chance you’re here to take
me somewhere more pleasant than a Turgonian warship?”

But they were not in the conversation mood.
As soon as they spotted her, the practitioner stopped. A glazed
trance slackened his face—the sign of someone concentrating on his
science. The bodyguard watched her, but also glanced up and down
the hall, ensuring no one approached to interrupt his comrade.

Despite the heat lingering in the wardroom,
a shiver ran down Tikaya’s spine. She ducked into her cabin just as
the Nurian lifted his arm. Another wave of energy flared, and the
air crackled and wavered against the metal door where her head had
been. Heat scorched her face. The hem of her dress burst into
flames.

Tikaya cursed, flapping the cloth to put out
fire.

Footfalls thundered toward her cabin. She
glanced around. Nowhere to hide. The fallen private’s sword lay in
the doorway. She bent and grabbed it.

The Nurians appeared in the hatchway,
shoulder to shoulder. The practitioner’s eyes narrowed again. Still
crouched on the floor, sword in hand, Tikaya lunged, hoping to
surprise them.

She bowled between them, ramming them with
her shoulders. Where she might have bounced off burly Turgonians,
her size was an advantage here, and she startled the shorter men.
Both Nurians pitched opposite ways and fought for their
balance.

Tikaya raced through the wardroom and into
the corridor.

“
Flay her!” the bodyguard
called. “She must be killed at all—”

Her instincts prickled again, and Tikaya
threw herself into a clumsy roll. Heat crackled overhead.

She jumped to her feet. The bodyguard
charged after her. She skidded around the corner at a T
intersection. A nook right to the side offered access to a ladder
running up and down. She banged a rung with her sword, trusting her
pursuers to hear it, then jumped through an open hatch a few cabins
down. She dared not stick her head out to look, but their footsteps
told her when they charged around the corner. The clatter of swords
and shoes clanking in the ladder well said they had fallen for the
ruse.

Tikaya could not relax. If there were two
Nurians on the ship, there could be more. Cannons continued to
blast on the decks above. Perhaps the whole attack was a cover to
let practitioners sneak on board to get rid of her. But why? If the
Turgonians had unearthed some treasure they wanted to get at,
wouldn’t the Nurians find her skills of equal use? Wouldn’t they
want to use her themselves?

“
The captain said there
was no treasure,” she muttered, rubbing sweat from her eyes. She
had not believed him, but maybe that had been a mistake. Something
about those symbols alarmed Rias, and it hardly seemed that some
cheery treasure hunt from his youth would account for
it.

More footfalls sounded in the corridor, and
Tikaya ducked behind the hatch. Two marines pounded past.

She could not stay there. But where to go?
If she headed to the upper deck, she could find the captain. He
would protect her from Nurians. He may not like her, but he
obviously had orders to keep her alive, at least until she
translated the language. Still, going to him and hiding behind his
back would eliminate any chance she might have to escape. Better to
find Rias and steal a longboat in the commotion.

Her heart lurched. Rias. Locked down in the
brig. If the Nurians were after her, might they be after him too?
He would have a hard time dodging psi attacks while chained to the
deck in a cell.

More marines raced through, and she made her
decision. Tikaya glanced both ways, then slipped out. Hoping to
avoid the Nurians, she traveled past two more ladders before
climbing down to a dark hold on the bottom deck. She groped her way
past sea trunks and cargo. Somewhere nearby, engines hummed. The
deck trembled with the strokes of massive pistons, while above the
cannons continued to roar.

She escaped the hold and found the narrow
corridor leading to the brig. As she entered, another wave rocked
the ship, and the great ironclad pitched sideways. The ship creaked
ominously as she stumbled down the passage.

Nobody guarded the hatch at the end. The
Nurians had mentioned the brig, so she advanced with care. She did
not think they would expect her to flee this direction, but sweat
still pasted her dress to her back, dribbled down her temples, and
slicked the sword grip.

The single lantern that usually burned on
the wall near the cells had moved. It was hanging—no, being held—a
foot above the deck near Rias’s door.

She moved closer and, when she spotted him
kneeling by the gate, exhaled a breath she did not remember
holding. He was still shackled, but the chains that had secured him
to the back of the cell lay in a tangled heap next to the broken
lantern cover. He held the flame directly beneath the bottom
hinge.

Rias smiled when he spotted her, but kept
his hands steady. Flames bathed the hinge.

“
What are you doing?”
Tikaya asked.

His lips shifted into a bemused half smile.
“Hoping whoever designed these hinges did not factor in the
relatively high coefficient of thermal expansion steel
possesses.”

“
You’re going to break
out...with the lamp?”

“
It worked on the chain
bolts.” Rias shrugged. “I was fortunate the first attack knocked
the lantern off the wall and within reach.”

“
Yes, those foolish
marines should never have left such an obvious tool down here for
prisoners to exploit.” Tikaya knelt by the door and slid the sword
between the hinge and the pin, which surprised her by popping free
with minimal effort.

“
Indeed.” He stood and
moved the flame to the upper hinge. “By the way, what are you doing
down here with a sword?”

“
There are Nurians on
board, at least two. They killed my guard. I thought they might
want me as a translator as well and I was ready to jump into their
arms when they flung a psi wave at me.”

Rias’s brow furrowed. “Why
would the Nurians want to hurt
you
? They ought to be worshipping
your people after the help you gave them in the war.”

She watched his face, trying to decide if
his tone was accusatory, but only puzzlement furrowed his brows. “I
don’t know. I figured they might be after you, too, though I
haven’t deduced exactly what your part is in all this yet.” Tikaya
wriggled her eyebrows to suggest he might share any time. “I
decided to come break you out.”

Another jolt rocked the ship. Tikaya was not
sure how long the flame had to be applied to loosen the bond
between hinge and pin but wedged her sword into the crack anyway.
It was tighter this time.

“
I’m not sure whether to
be offended that you’d think Nurian hospitality preferable to
Turgonian or tickled that you came down to help me.” Rias gave her
that lopsided smile again and, despite the cannons thundering above
and the threat of Nurians lurking below, she bit her lip to hide a
pleased grin.

“
I’d think even
you
would prefer Nurian
hospitality to Turgonian at this point.” She wriggled the sword,
and the pin inched upward.

“
Not really. I’ve been in
one of their prison camps and—”

Something bowled into her.

Tikaya was rammed into the gate and dragged
to the ground. The sword flew from her grip. She launched a clumsy
fist at her attacker, but encountered no one.

“
Invisibility illusion,”
she barked.

Metal screeched.

She started to roll to her feet, but her
unseen assailant grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. With
one hand, she groped for the sword, and with the other clawed for
the Nurian. She jerked her head down to protect her neck.

The cell door flew outward, and metal
thudded against flesh. Tikaya’s invisible attacker grunted. Rias
tore the Nurian off her.