Untitled (36 page)

Her hamlet was under the fealty of a Blue Lord, the House of Pittsfield of the Calvert line. He was a man who was rarely there in his manor on the hill near the sea. It stood unoccupied. He rarely interfered in their lives or caused them distress, but he rarely showed any interest in them either. His usual feudal duties were left undone or charged to poorly paid Brown clerks who were backed up in red tape by the years.

She was the eleventh daughter of a crowd of twenty-three brothers and sisters. Having little else, Browns often had huge families. A litter of twenty-three was actually a modest load. Ki was a smallish, pretty girl as a child, but her golden, smiling face hid a rough, quick temper—a feature that reared up and plagued her throughout her life. She frequently got into dust ups with the urchins and weedy lot that frequented her country hamlet in the shadow of Tusck. A boy about her age from down the lane often assisted her in these child-to-child brawls. They became friends, went to school together, and swam in the blue streams and creeks. Even as the boy stopped growing at a smallish size and Kilos continued until she was head and shoulders taller, they remained constant companions. Eventually they married in a small private ceremony in the Brown tradition.

Itemless, penniless, they struggled to make a life for themselves, often moving from place to place tending fields, picking the coffee that was all the rage in Kanan League society, cobbling roads, building walls, or doing whatever was available. Her husband dreamed of going to school, to the big university in Tusck. They had no money to pay for the schooling, and as Lord Pittsfield was never around, they could not receive a Letter of Honor, a merit grant on the credit of the Lord to attend for free for those students who showed promise, and Ki's husband appeared to be a born scholar.

And she so wanted to send her husband to school, to make his dreams come true. Drastic measures were required.

Being married, she couldn't join the Hospitalers—a sect always eager to accept Browns. Having little other choice and being a tall, strong girl, Kilos did the only real thing she could … she joined the Stellar Marines. She wanted to send her husband to school, and though it meant they would be apart for long stretches of time, she was willing to do it.

The Marines were her third choice—all things being the same. With the first choice unavailable to her, her second choice was to join the Stellar Fleet, learn a trade, and who knows from there, the Fleet often being a well-spring of opportunity for Blues and Browns alike. But, again—no Lord Pittsfield, no Letter of Recommendation, no Fleet. So, with tears in her brown eyes, she said good-bye to her husband and shipped out of Tusck port to become a Marine.

Being a standard-issue Marine could either be very, very good, or very, very bad. If you served well and if you were assigned to a prominent ship duty—or best of all, if you were selected to serve a squadron assigned to protect a Sister, then being a Marine could be an exciting and profitable experience—penniless Browns who joined could, if things worked out, retire fairly wealthy. And like all Marines, Kilos was taught to speak to the Sisters. It was a wonderful, unique way of speaking, full of thought and feeling, light and sound. It was no wonder the Marines loved the Sisters like no other.

But if you weren't assigned a ship and you weren't assigned to a Sister, being a Marine was a dreary, humiliating, and often-brutal experience.

And so it was for Kilos. Assigned to a weary garrison in Bustoke, she toiled for several years, breaking up fights in the towns, chasing down petty criminals, even digging trenches, her beautiful red Marine uniform soiled and torn.

Why did Ki have such a hard time? Was she being singled out and shunned for some reason?

Nope—again, her rotten temper and quick fists got the better of her time after time. She punched out her commander while in training. She punched out her jailer while she was in hack for previously hitting her commander. She spent time in the brig for hitting a fellow trainee on Howst during a mercy exercise, of all things. She could never get anything accomplished, never finish anything without a visit to the brig, or worse, to the yard for a session with the sonic lash.

She was decertified for …

She was put into Hack once again for …

And on and on …

She'd lost count of the number of times her usual bravery, strong back, and fairly sharp mind got her out of toil, and then her temper put her right back in again. She lost count of the number of times she had to Com her husband after a promotion to tell him she'd lost it again, that she was back down to nothing … again.

So, there she was, in a work detail—this time, for the last six months, in the green forests outside of Armenelos on Kana. The local Lord wanted to perform some redecorating, and as usually was the case, there were the Marines to perform the hard labor, little more than slaves. He even paid them in Burl—an old Remnath tribe tradition, where, instead of money, she was paid in food and lodging. The food was very good and as much as she wanted, the lodging very comfortable and lacked for nothing, but she'd rather have been paid in money. She'd rather have had something to send home to her husband.

She'd been moderately curious when she was called to the Commander's office that one day. She'd not been in any recent trouble—not that she could recall. She went into the large office and the Commander, a large, formidable-looking woman named Marshall Henbane, and a garishly dressed gentleman—no doubt the Lord of this Holding—were waiting for her.

The two of them looked at her for a time, as if they were sizing up a show animal.

Finally, Marshall Henbane spoke. She told Kilos of an opportunity that had just come up, one that might hold great promise for her.

She was to leave the work detail immediately, rekit with a fresh set of uniforms, and be assigned to the 12th Marines, a shipboard squadron. She was to be the squadron adjutant to the Fleet captain.

Adjutant? Fleet captain? Ship duty?

She couldn't believe what she was hearing at first. She was about to go from a dreary, unpaid work detail to a fairly cushy position aboard a Main Fleet starship of all places.

She had to be dreaming. This couldn't be true.

But as the conversation continued, the dream faded to a genuine nightmare. The things the Commander and the Lord said gave her great pause.

"Keep your eyes and ears open," they said.

"Report back should you hear or see anything … interesting," they said.

"Feel free to … ingratiate yourself with the captain, be pliable, and report his … indiscretions back at once."

Ki knew exactly what this was. Two Great Houses, two Blue Lords, had it in for each other, and obviously, this man—this Lord—was wanting dirt and embarrassing gossip on the captain to take back to the Blue society he no doubt inhabited and cause a stir.

And he was going to use her to get it.

Blue families—that's how they fought with each other, with gossip and humiliation, with loss of face.

And then the conversation got even worse, if that was possible.

"You will do nothing to compromise the safety and operations of the ship," they said.

"You will betray no secrets to the Enemy," they warned.

"You will be executed if …"

Execution. They used the word. If, while she was digging up dirt on the captain, something bad happened, anything at all—even if she had nothing to do with it—she would be executed as a saboteur. A disgraced Blue Lord was much better than a dead one, and this Blue Lord wanted his dirt, but he wasn't going to take the fall should anything happen; she would. That's what she was there for.

She was ready to stand up and thank them for this opportunity and say she wanted nothing to do with it. She'd rather keep on digging trenches.

"We will make it very much worth your while," the Lord said.

He said a Letter of Honor had been penned for her husband so that he could go to school at no further expense. All the Lord had to do was sign and circulate it. And money, there will be money. All she had to do was humble a Blue Lord.

As soon as the Lord had a few good tidbits, the letter will circulate, the money will flow. What was the harm in a little gossip?

She thought about it for a moment.

She accepted. She would do it.

Carrying a duffel bursting with brand-new uniforms, Ki boarded the ugly old transport
New Providence
and headed to wherever— she wasn't even told. She'd been given a folder regarding her new assignment and a sealed folder she was to give to the captain once she arrived there. As the transport meekly stumbled into the air, she read her folder over.

The ship she was being assigned to was the
Seeker
, a Main Fleet Vessel of
Straylight
configuration. Even though she was going to be a spy, a rat, she was excited—a
Straylight
, the top class of the line. A real heavy-duty starship.

The captain of the
Seeker
was a man named Davage, Lord of Blanchefort. So, here was the man she was supposed to rat out, humiliate, and scandalize. Her conscience began to settle as the long ride progressed. She wasn't really hurting the man, after all. It was all Society nonsense, and he was a Blue, so he probably had it coming to him anyway. He probably bought his way aboard that ship; he probably had friends all over the Admiralty.

She looked at his record—Blue or not, bought or not, this Captain Davage had earned his merit.

Over a hundred different engagements with the Xaphans.

Four hundred plus enemy vessels sunk.

Two hundred plus enemy vessels seized.

Ten thousand plus enemy combatants captured. She was impressed.

When the transport landed, she couldn't believe it. Instead of a shipyard or Fleet holding ground, they were in a small village—the cold village of Blanchefort, the pilot said. Obviously, this Captain Davage thought the
Seeker
was his private chariot and berthed a Main Fleet Vessel in his village to please his own vanity. He was probably throwing a party. He might have a lady of standing to please.

Blues … she wondered why she had felt so bad to begin with.

She made her way to the docks, through the crowds of bustling people. There, parked in the half-moon shaped, frigid bay on pylons, was the
Seeker
. Ki had never seen a
Straylight
up close. Even though it was mostly submerged, it was huge, the large, spade-shaped frontal section of the hull rising out of the water like a great white bird's head. She could see its hull plating, its closed gun ports, its decks and could make out the tiny forms of people moving about on top of the front section. She could see the tower rising up in the rear section far away. An incredible vessel. Grace and strength perfectly melded together. The closest thing to a starship she'd ever been was to a rusty old
Webber
that she had to fumigate for fungus before it was scrapped.

A
Straylight
, battle-tested.

The dock in front of the
Seeker
was a crowd of noise and activity. There were small shops and colorful vendors selling items from carts. There were pubs and cafes, inns, tailors, artisans, sportsmen, exotic animals, and no doubt, courtesans plying their trade. The
Seeker's
crew—a mixture of Fleet officers and crew, Hospitalers, Marines, and civilians—milled about shopping, eating at the cafes, drinking at the pubs, and sightseeing.

Behind the village, rising steeply to a lofty precipice, was a huge Vith castle perched in the mountains above the cloud-line. A solitary switch-back road led up to the top. Must be Captain Davage's castle. Beautiful, huge, but sort of scary looking, like a chaotic red pincushion of towers and tall spires. She tried to count the number of spires but gave up after thirty; vendors selling various goods and snacks kept interrupting her, and she'd lose count.

It hit her that the villagers of Blanchefort made a busy and very good trade having the
Seeker
here, where, otherwise, the village would have been hopelessly remote and ill-traveled. At first, she naturally assumed the
Seeker
was here merely out of vanity to serve a Blue Lord's whims, but now, she had to wonder. Was the captain, in one simple and elegant stroke, thinking of his people? Was he using his station to enable them to make a fair and honest living?

If that was the case, then this Lord Blanchefort was certainly no Lord Pittsfield.

Ki found herself wandering around in the maze of shops, and she even saw a few things that caught her eye—a ring or two for her, some interesting books she thought her husband might like. But she had no money.

A short time later she made her way onto the ship. She was overwhelmed with it—the complexity, the size. The places this ship had been to, the action it'd seen. She was due to see the captain soon but found herself hopelessly lost in the vast interior of the ship.

She came across a maintenance tech who was waist-deep in an open panel.

With a dirty arm, he groped about for an intricate tool that had, so far, defied his grasp.

"Miss," the man said, "would you be so kind as to hand me the torque bit there?"

She stopped, knelt down, and handed him the tool.

"Much obliged," he said.

She thought a moment. "Sir, I am here to see the captain, but find that I am quite lost. Could you point out his direction?"

The tech pulled himself out of the panel. His head and frilly white shirt were covered in a clingy sort of black soot. He must be an officer of some sort. He wiped his eyes and looked up at her.

"My," he said, "you're a tall one. How tall are you, if I may ask?"

"I am, using League measurements, six feet, one inch."

"Goodness," he said, "six-one. Remarkable."

She remembered the time. "Sir, I am in a bit of haste. Could you point out where I may find the captain?"

The man stood up. He was taller than she was by a good two or three inches. That was something she wasn't used to—to be shorter than somebody.

"I'm headed in that direction. I will show you the way."