Any guilt Ekatya might have felt for even considering killing a thousand Alseans slipped beneath her outrage as she marched down the corridor, bracketed by Guards front and rear. Their shuttle had been met over Blacksun by four armed transports and told to land at the State House. She’d been disarmed the moment she stepped out, as had the rest of her crew. They’d even found Roris’s sleeve knife. And now her crew was sequestered in some heavily guarded room while she was being “escorted” to see Lancer Tal, the woman who had promised her any favor she could grant and betrayed her instead.
They stopped in front of a heavy pair of carved and inlaid wooden doors, which silently opened inward when Colonel Micah pressed his hand to the biolock panel. Four of the Guards took up posts on either side of the entrance while the rest accompanied her across the plush carpet and through the beautifully furnished anteroom to another door, this one half the size but no less gorgeous. Ekatya noticed the emblem of the tree on it before it, too, opened inward.
“Lancer Tal,” said Colonel Micah in his low rumble, “Captain Serrado is here.”
“Bring her in.”
The colonel stood aside and held out a hand, following immediately behind when Ekatya stepped past him. The other Guards remained outside.
Lancer Tal was walking out from behind a wooden desk whose apparent age and carvings matched those of the door. The wall of glass at her back looked out onto the park, and Ekatya’s anger kicked up a notch at the sight of it. Her ship had made that glass. Her people had handed it over to the Alseans. All in the name of cooperation, of aid, and all this time…
“I hoped you’d return,” Lancer Tal said, now standing in front of her. “But not like this.”
“Not like what? Not like an idiot who got taken in by the oldest game in the books?”
“You’re the furthest thing from an idiot.”
“And you’re the furthest thing from the honorable woman I thought you were. You knew I’d come back, because you knew I couldn’t get off this planet. Why didn’t you tell me? What game were you playing?”
“I didn’t know, Captain. That was as much a surprise to me as it was to you. And not a good one.”
Ekatya was taken aback. She didn’t know? Then what was destroying their hullskin?
The Lancer’s last statement sank in, and she understood. “You wanted my fighters.”
“Yes. But they all have hullskin, so none of them will fly. We’re almost as shekked as if you’d managed to blow the Caphenon after all. Except I haven’t lost a thousand warriors yet.”
The reminder of how she’d been outmaneuvered pushed her temper right back to the brink. “What did you do to Commander Kameha?”
“What I had to.” Lancer Tal gestured at the small conference table. “Would you like to sit down?”
“No, I don’t want to sit down! Do you really think we’re going to talk about this like reasonable people? One of us is not reasonable! One of us manipulated an honorable man into betraying his captain!”
“I didn’t manipulate him,” she said in that infuriatingly calm tone. “I compelled him. There’s a difference.”
“What do you mean, compelled?”
With a sigh and a glance at the table, Lancer Tal evidently gave up on sitting and crossed her arms over her chest. “I empathically forced him.”
She didn’t know why that shocked her so much. Of course it had been her first thought, but she hadn’t wanted to believe it.
“You told me that was the highest crime an Alsean could commit.”
“It is, if it’s done without a warrant. I had a warrant.”
“How lovely. And just how many of my crew did you have warrants for?”
“All of them.”
“Of course.” Ekatya looked up at the ceiling, trying to get herself under control. And to think she had apologized to this ruthless manipulator for suspecting her of exactly—
“Except you.”
“What?” Startled into meeting her eyes, she saw what looked like regret. “Why not?”
“Because I was in your debt. We were all in your debt. I wanted to keep you out of this if I could. And, well, I was hoping you wouldn’t need it.”
The implication hung in the air. I was hoping you’d refuse that order on your own.
Lhyn had tried so hard to convince her. And when all persuasion had failed, she’d stayed behind. A galaxy-class ultimatum: go and lose Lhyn to the Lancer, or stay and destroy her career.
All of them, she heard again, and then she understood. Lhyn hadn’t done that on her own. She’d been empathically forced. Twice Lancer Tal had brought her back to the base late at night; this morning she’d been in Alsean clothing and holding the Lancer’s hand. Ekatya’s imagination easily filled in the blanks, and her body went hot with rage.
Lancer Tal uncrossed her arms and shifted her weight, a subtle readiness response that made Ekatya even angrier. How could someone so tuned to emotions have so few compunctions about abusing them?
“You low-bellied slime worm,” she growled. “You spineless torquat!”
Both Lancer Tal and Colonel Micah looked puzzled, and Ekatya’s frustration mounted. She couldn’t even insult this woman, for Shipper’s sake; it didn’t translate!
Calling on everything she had learned about these people, she took a step into the Lancer’s personal space and said, “You motherless outcaste. You have no honor. You’re not fit to even be in the warrior caste, much less lead it.”
For a moment she was grimly satisfied to see both of them react. Finally, she’d found the words that meant something.
Then she was stumbling backwards, her head snapped back by the force of a palm strike to her chin. She hadn’t even seen Lancer Tal move. Barely catching herself in time, she straightened and turned with only one thought in her mind—and found herself facing the immovable wall of Colonel Micah.
He shook his head at her. “She’s wrong. You are an idiot.”
“Micah, it’s all right,” Lancer Tal said from behind him.
“I don’t think—”
“Micah. She’s not going to hurt me.”
Oh, but she wanted to, and Colonel Micah’s expression said he knew it. But he stepped aside anyway, obedient to the last woman on this planet who deserved it.
“Do you know what you’ve just done?” Lancer Tal asked, calm once again.
“Told a betraying little shit what she really is? Yes.”
The slur had no effect on the Lancer’s expression. “I strongly suggest you retract your words and apologize, right now.”
“I did apologize to you once. Remember that? Do you remember exactly what it was I apologized for? Yes, I can see that you do. Well, I am sorry—that I fell for your act. And the odds of me ever apologizing to you again are so low that it would take Kameha’s lab equipment to measure them. Don’t hold your breath.”
“Then I accept your challenge. Micah?”
“Where do you want to do this?” he asked, almost casually taking Ekatya’s upper arm in his vise-like grip.
“Training room,” she said. He nodded and began to pull Ekatya toward the door.
“Wait a minute!” Ekatya dug in her heels, but it was like trying to stop a boulder in motion. “What are you talking about? I didn’t challenge you.”
“And that’s why you’re an idiot.” Colonel Micah opened the door and pulled her through.
The Guards in the antechamber snapped to attention, relaxing only when Lancer Tal said, “Settle. We’re going to the training room; make sure no one else enters it.”
“Yes, Lancer,” Gehrain said, looking at Ekatya. He seemed sad, and she turned her head to keep him in sight as she was pulled through the room.
Trooper Blunt. She’d had a crush on Gehrain from practically the moment she’d laid eyes on him. And he’d spent quite a lot of time with her. Ekatya had thought it was cute.
She didn’t think it was cute anymore.
“He compelled her, didn’t he?” she asked Lancer Tal, who was now preceding them down the corridor. “Trooper Blunt.”
“Yes.” The Lancer didn’t look back.
“Don’t you people have any shame at all?”
Neither of them answered her.
They turned and turned again, finally arriving at a lift and boarding it in silence. No one broke it while they descended, and when the doors opened again, Ekatya glimpsed the lobby she’d first seen upon entering this building what felt like years ago. They were on the ground floor, then.
They must have walked all the way around to the back side of the State House before finally stopping in front of a door that had a light fixture over it. The Guards took up their positions while Lancer Tal activated the door, which slid open to reveal an enormous sunken room. The walls were hung with colored banners and weapons of all shapes and sizes, and in many places the floor was lined with soft mats. Level with the corridor was a wooden observation platform with a waist-high railing around it. Like everything else in this building, the wood was old and polished, but the shiniest part of all was the top. Generations of warriors had probably rested their arms there, watching the activity below.
Ekatya had only a moment to take it in before she was escorted to the right side of the platform and down three stairs to the floor, where she was finally released. She refused to rub her arm where Colonel Micah had gripped her so tightly, instead glaring at the Lancer as she descended the steps. “Now are you going to explain what this is?”
“This is a challenge. You insulted my honor; I can’t let that stand. You’ll have to back up your words. If you were Alsean, I’d tell you to pick your weapon. But I have no desire to harm you any more than we already have, so I think we should do this with hand-to-hand.” She glanced at Colonel Micah, who gave a single nod.
“You’re kidding. This is how you solve your disagreements, by fighting?”
“No, we solve our disagreements through our justice system and the governance of the caste houses and the Council. But this isn’t a disagreement. It’s a challenge—which you initiated, so don’t blame our culture.”
She’d blame their culture, all right. This culture had screwed with the minds of all of her crew. Everyone except her, and why was she left out? Because they thought they could control her through Lhyn. They’d turned Lhyn into someone else, a brainwashing victim who wore Alsean clothing and held the Lancer’s hand. That the very people she’d tried to save, the people three of her crew had died to save, would do this…if she’d known, she’d have let that Voloth invader do its worst.
“Captain, it’s not too late to end this now.”
Ekatya saw the fake regret in her expression, heard the concern that dripped off her lying tongue, and thought that she would never get a better chance to extract some tiny bit of justice. They were probably going to throw her in a dark room somewhere anyway, so she might as well make the most of her opportunity.
“Tell me how it works,” she said. If she didn’t know better, she’d think Colonel Micah actually looked impressed.
Lancer Tal took off her jacket and handed it to him, revealing well-muscled arms. “Any fighting style you want; no areas off limits except the eyes and ears. The fight stops when one person is either knocked out or surrenders. To surrender, say ‘I yield’ or slap the mat twice.”
Ekatya nodded as she took off her own jacket. To her surprise, Colonel Micah held out his hand, taking her jacket and turning to hang them both on pegs mounted in the base of the observation deck. Lancer Tal sat on the long, polished bench beneath the deck and began to undo her boots, and after a moment Ekatya did the same. When their boots and socks were tucked underneath, she followed the Lancer to the cushioned center of the room.
“When does it start?” she asked.
“Right now.”
“Good,” was all Ekatya said before lowering her shoulder and barreling into her. But the expected impact never happened—somehow Lancer Tal got out of her way and shoved her as she went past, nearly sending her sprawling. She turned the extra momentum into a forward roll and came to her feet, spinning in place with her arms up in a defensive posture.
Lancer Tal stood with her hands at her sides. “I hope your Fleet taught you better than that, or this is going to be a very short challenge.”
With a furious growl Ekatya rushed her again, this time lashing out with a fist. It was blocked, as was the next and the next, but the fourth attempt connected with a cheekbone so hard that she stepped back and bent over, shaking out her hand. “Fuck!”
She looked up just in time to see the kick before it connected with her side, sending her reeling. A foot tripped her up, and she’d barely hit the mat before Lancer Tal was astride her and smashing a fist across her jaw, which fucking hurt—her jaw had already taken one hit today. But the Lancer’s punch left her side exposed, and Ekatya landed a blow just below her ribs. The grunt it forced out gave her a moment of triumph, and she tried to follow up her advantage by digging one heel into the mat and dislodging her attacker.
It worked a little too easily, which she realized when the Lancer’s leg locked around hers and they rolled, ending up in exactly the same position as before. Another smash across her jaw, this time from the opposite direction, and she let out a shout of frustration. Did she have to keep hitting her there? Her jaw had now been tenderized from both sides and below; there wasn’t any part of it left that didn’t hurt.
She drove her fist toward the Lancer’s throat, a killing blow that she’d never have considered if she were in her right mind, but she was too far gone now. Lancer Tal blocked it and hit her across the jaw again, following up with a chop to the temple that had her seeing stars. Somehow Ekatya’s sheer rage got her free and back on her feet, and she managed a vicious kick to the ribs that she thought might have ended the fight, so pained did Lancer Tal look for a moment.
But only for a moment. The Lancer’s expression changed into something dangerous, and when she came at Ekatya it was with murder in her eyes. Everything after that was a blur. She was only aware of hitting and being hit, of falling and rising and falling again, and then there was a voice saying You took everything from me and it was some time before she realized that she wasn’t being hit anymore. She lifted her head, which felt as if four people were standing on it, and saw Lancer Tal crouched an arm’s length away. Her brain must have gotten rattled, because she thought the Lancer looked distressed. That couldn’t be right.
“I don’t think I yielded,” she tried to say, but managed only the first two words before coughing and spitting out the blood that she hadn’t known was in her mouth.
“Micah, would you get us some water and a kit?”
Slowly, Ekatya rolled to her side and pushed herself into a sitting position. “Is it over?”
“Do you yield?”
She didn’t want to. She really didn’t want to give this woman anything when she’d already taken so much, but her head hurt and it was abundantly clear that she was outclassed. And what was she fighting for, anyway?
“I yield.”
A flask of water was pressed into her hand as Colonel Micah said, “You fought bravely. Here, rinse and spit into this.”
She accepted the bowl he held out and gratefully rinsed the blood from her mouth. Then she drank half the flask. With her head a little clearer, she glanced between them and was baffled by their identical expressions of respect. “I didn’t fight that well. I just got my ass handed to me.”
Colonel Micah’s mouth curved into a grin. “You lasted almost six ticks against the leader of the warrior caste. Take the compliment, Captain. You fought well.” He handed a small case to the Lancer and stood. “I think you two have things to discuss. I’ll be outside.”
She watched him go. “What did he mean by that?”
Pulling items out of the case, Lancer Tal said, “In a moment. First you need some cleaning up.”
Instinct had Ekatya ducking and blocking the arm that reached for her face, and Lancer Tal sat back, revealing a damp cloth in her hand.
“It’s over, Captain. I’m not going to hurt you. Let me help.”
“Why would you want to? Haven’t you done enough?”
Lancer Tal dropped her head, and when she looked up again, there were tears in her eyes. “I did everything I could, and it wasn’t enough. I’m about to lose my whole world because I based my battle plan on assets I don’t have. I’ve failed my people, I made an enemy of someone whose friendship I treasured, and I’ll almost certainly be dead in a few days, so for the love of Fahla, will you just let me help?”
Shocked, Ekatya could only nod. She closed her eyes at the first touch of the cloth, expecting it to sting, but instead it cooled her hot skin and eased the pain. “What’s on that?”
“Anti-inflammatory salve. It will keep your face from swelling up.”
“Good. Because right now it feels twice the size it should be.”
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t look as bad as it feels.”
“It feels pretty bad,” she mumbled.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
She kept her eyes closed as the cloth moved around her face, soothing and cooling wherever it touched. The laugh rumbled up out of nowhere, spilling out before she could stop it. “Of all the things you have to be sorry for, the one thing that gets you to apologize is this? I will never understand your culture.”
The cloth left her face, and she opened her eyes to see Lancer Tal sitting back on her heels.
“You want me to apologize for the empathic force? I won’t. Would you leave anything undone if it meant you could save your entire civilization? It’s nice to sit in judgment from a secure seat, Captain. I wish my seat were as high as yours. I did what I had to; it wasn’t personal.”
“It wasn’t personal? You forced Lhyn to leave me and you don’t call that personal?”
“I didn’t force her.”
But she’d hesitated for a moment, and the loophole was obvious. “So you had someone else do it.”
“That was the plan, yes. But it turned out to be unnecessary. I know you don’t want to hear this, but Lhyn made that decision on her own.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’ve never lied to you. I haven’t always told you the whole truth, but I didn’t lie. Lhyn was never forced.”
A retort rose up, but then Ekatya remembered Lhyn’s impassioned arguments. That was entirely in character for her; she hadn’t acted out of the ordinary in any way until this morning. And the look in her eyes when she’d said she was staying, when she pleaded for Ekatya to stay as well…
She shook her head. “Then you really did take everything from me. Congratulations, Lancer Tal. You may not keep the victory for long, but you did win it.”
Lancer Tal stared at her without answering. At last she dropped the cloth and dug back into the box, emerging with a tablet in one hand and several transparent strips in the other. Holding out the tablet, she said, “Take this and keep it in your mouth until it dissolves. It tastes terrible, but it will seal the cuts inside your cheeks.”
Ekatya eyed it, thinking about how easy it would be to dispose of an inconvenient and no-longer-needed captain with a quick bit of poison, but at last her better instincts took over. “I suppose if you wanted to kill me, you could have done it with your bare hands,” she said, accepting the tablet. She popped it in her mouth and winced. It tasted like the bottom of her boot.
“Yes, I could have.” Lancer Tal’s touch was gentle as she applied a transparent strip to Ekatya’s face. “And I should be insulted that you’d even consider a motive like that, but I’ve already dealt with one challenge today and another one would tire me out and put you in the healing center, so I’ll let that one pass.”
Ekatya snorted, but couldn’t say anything with the tablet in her mouth.
Two more strips were applied before the Lancer spoke again. “I really am sorry about hurting you. But not even Micah could look the other way if I refused a challenge, and you knew exactly what to say. I thought I could knock that anger out of you more quickly, but you’re stubborn.”
Yes, I am, she thought, and fought down the tears that tickled at the back of her throat. So stubborn that she wouldn’t listen to Lhyn, dismissing all of her arguments with platitudes about duty and orders, and what had that gotten her? She’d given up everything and still been betrayed on both sides.
She should have been stubborn when it counted, not when it didn’t.
Lancer Tal finished with her face and held up the water flask. “Has it dissolved yet?”
“Ugh,” she said in answer, reaching for the flask. “You weren’t kidding about the taste.”
“I also wasn’t kidding about the benefit.” Lancer Tal picked up one of her hands and began brushing the cloth over her knuckles.
Ekatya held up her other hand, inspecting the abraded knuckles, then looked more closely at the Lancer’s face. “Why don’t you look as bad as my hands?”
“Because you kept hitting me on the cheekbones, like a first-season trainee without a sip of sense. That’s the most armored part of our faces.”
“Just my luck.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, that kick you landed in my ribs really hurt.”
Ekatya thought about it. “It should make me feel better, but it doesn’t.”
“Then maybe there’s hope.” Lancer Tal let go of her hand and picked up the other one, while Ekatya viewed the results of her ministrations. The abrasions already looked several days old.
“There’s more than just an anti-inflammatory in that salve, isn’t there?” she asked. “You’re accelerating the healing.”
“Yes.”
“Why are you doing this for me?”
“Because you’re the person whose friendship I treasured. I never wanted to make an enemy of you.”
“Well, you certainly did everything you could to make it happen.” But Ekatya couldn’t find the same anger that had been burning up her guts ever since things had gone to Hades in the shuttle. What would you do to save your world? she asked herself.
Anything. Anything at all, no matter the personal cost. What did one person’s honor or guilt matter when weighed against a holocaust?
Lancer Tal set her hand down gently. Shifting over, she used the cloth to wipe up the blood Ekatya had spat onto the mat, folded it up, and laid it next to the box. Retrieving one more tablet, she held it out. “If you want to keep your head from pounding like twelve units of Guards are marching through it, take this.”
Ekatya didn’t question this time, swallowing the tablet without a word.
They sat looking at each other for several uncomfortable moments before Lancer Tal asked, “Why do you keep saying I took everything from you?”
“Because you did. You put me in one impossible situation after another. First I had to choose between Lhyn and my responsibilities. Then I had to choose between wrong and more wrong. And when I decided not to blow the Caphenon, Baldassar—”
“You didn’t give the command?”
“No, I cancelled it. But apparently I’m just as transparent to my first officer as I am to you, because he had a failsafe in place and a detonator.” It was almost comical—Lancer Tal had a failsafe on top of Baldassar’s failsafe.
“We didn’t know that. We thought it was you.”
So now Lhyn hated her. Perfect. “When I cancelled the command, Baldassar relieved me of duty, which he had every right to do. My crew wouldn’t support him, but by the time I get off this planet—if I get off this planet—my captain’s bars will be long gone. That’s on top of the ship I already lost, and all right, that one isn’t your fault, but right now it feels like it. But none of that is as bad as losing Lhyn.”
“But I didn’t take Lhyn from you.”
“Stars and Shippers, she stood right next to you and told me she was staying with you!”
“No, she told you she was staying. Not with me.”
She stared, wanting desperately to believe, but she didn’t trust this woman’s word anymore. “Then I don’t understand. Why were you going to force her if it wasn’t to keep her for yourself?”
“Keep her—” Lancer Tal’s calm vanished into a look of utter shock. “You actually think…how could…Great Mother!”
For a moment there was such horror in her expression that Ekatya braced for the worst, but then the Lancer’s body seemed to collapse in on itself.
“No wonder you wanted to kill me. No, Captain. Not ever. Not in this lifetime or fifty others; I would never—” Her breath caught in her throat, sounding almost like a sob, but it turned into a humorless laugh instead. “I think you might be confused as to who the monsters really are.”
Ekatya was definitely confused. “You wanted to control me through her, didn’t you?”
“Not you. Your decisions. One decision, actually. I needed you to stay, to help us. You’re the only one who can command what’s left of your ship. But you needed the right motivation.” She paused, looked toward the ceiling, and then shook her head. “All right. Why not, everything we know is going to get blown to its Return in a nineday anyway. Captain Serrado, there is no way I could take Lhyn from you. Me, or anyone else. It’s simply not possible, because you’re tyrees. A tyree bond cannot be broken from the outside. And a tyree would do anything to save her bondmate, no matter the cost. That’s why you risked your career to save Lhyn even though you hadn’t yet committed to each other. And it’s why I knew that if Lhyn stayed, you’d come back.”
She remembered Lhyn saying something about tyrees when they were in the healing center. Some mythical type of Alsean bonding…oh, right.
“Soulmates?” she scoffed. “I don’t believe in that.”
“Nor do I, at least not the way Lhyn explained it. A tyree bond isn’t some magical fiction. It’s real and measurable, a very specific connection between the empathic centers of two people. It’s a bond that goes beyond the emotional into the mental and physiological. It’s profoundly deep and precious, and we consider it one of Fahla’s greatest gifts.”
“We’re not empathic.”
“Which is exactly why it’s so shocking that you’re tyrees and why I’ve classified the information. I really don’t know how the Alsean public would react to the idea of sonsales aliens being tyrees.”
“And why do you think that’s what we are?” Ekatya wasn’t buying this.
“Because I can feel it. The two of you broadcast it every time you’re in the same room. It’s impossible not to know. No high empath could avoid feeling it, and the way you broadcast, I don’t think mid empaths could miss it either.” Her expression gave way to a wry smile. “All this time I’ve wondered whether I should tell you, and when I finally do, you refuse to believe. Fahla does love her irony.”
“How am I supposed to believe in some deep and precious empathic bond when I’m sonsales, and yet somehow…I have it anyway? With the woman who left me, no less.”
“Fahla grant me patience. You have something I’ve only dreamed of, but you don’t know it, don’t know what to do with it, and don’t believe it! What I wouldn’t give to have what you’re intent on throwing away.”
Ekatya studied her. She did seem very earnest, and the fact that she was openly showing this much emotion said something about her level of honesty. “It’s an interesting concept,” she allowed. “And it sounds like a nice sort of thing to have, but I still don’t—”
“I could show you,” Lancer Tal interrupted.
“You must be joking. You think I’d let you anywhere near me after what you did to my crew? Not to mention the fact that you just beat me senseless.”
“I never took you for a coward.”
Ekatya waved a finger. “That sort of manipulation won’t work on me. I’ve used it too often myself.”
“That’s not manipulation; it’s the truth. You have a bond that shouldn’t be possible among your kind. It’s even rare among my kind. You shouldn’t be able to doubt that Lhyn loves you, yet you do because you don’t understand the bond you share. I can show you exactly how she feels about you, and you’re going to run away from that? There’s no other explanation besides cowardice. You’re afraid to know.”
“I’m not afraid to know; I’m afraid to let you touch me!”
Well, speaking of irony. She’d done her best to hurt this woman earlier, and now she’d managed it by sheer accident.
“Very well,” Lancer Tal said after a charged silence. She rose to her feet and held out a hand to Ekatya before shaking her head and letting her arm fall. “Get up. I’ll have you taken to your quarters.”
Ekatya frowned up at her. “Just like that?”
Lancer Tal crouched down, scooped up the aid supplies, and walked away.
Scrambling to her feet, Ekatya set off after her, trailing behind as her thoughts churned. A Sharing, that’s what she was offering. Why? To control her mind?
It didn’t make sense. If Lancer Tal had wanted to empathically force her into anything, she’d have done it long before this. Besides, they already had the Caphenon under their control, along with all of its weapons. They didn’t have her command code, but that was hardly important for their immediate needs. The captain’s command code wasn’t necessary to strip the ship of any portable weaponry or to fly the fighters, which weren’t going to fly for long anyway.
No matter how she considered it, she couldn’t find a strategic angle. And Lancer Tal had been stung by her refusal. That wasn’t an act.
The Alseans had an entire culture and legal system built around the importance of emotions. Lhyn had practically swooned after her experience with a Sharing. She’d said it was the most amazing thing she’d ever felt, like being inside someone else’s mind. An incredible intimacy.
So Lancer Tal had offered her a highly valued act of intimacy, supposedly for the purpose of showing her how Lhyn felt, and had been hurt when Ekatya said no. Was it really that simple?
The Lancer motioned for her to wait by the bench while she walked to a bin at the back of the room and threw the cloth in. Then she set the box down on the sideboard that took up half the wall, washed and dried her hands, and wrote a note on a pad. Straightening up, she winced and held a hand to her left side. But when she turned and strode back, there was no sign of pain.
Ekatya narrowed her eyes. “You’re a master of lying through omission. ‘Really hurt,’ eh? Past tense? I cracked your rib and you’re hiding it. Why?”
Lancer Tal sat down a bit too carefully. “Never show weakness to an enemy,” she said as she rolled on a sock. She looked unconcerned, but the small beads of sweat at her hairline gave her away.
“Did you take one of those pills to keep the Guards from trooping through your head?”
“Wouldn’t work on this.”
“What would?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She reached for the first boot, took a shallow breath, and began pulling it on.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Ekatya brushed her hands away. “Let me.” She pushed the boot on, fastened the self-sealing straps, and did the same with the other. When she looked up, the Lancer was staring at her with an expression she couldn’t decipher. Ekatya sat down beside her and picked up her own socks. “I’m not your enemy,” she said, pulling on the first.
“You’re certainly not my friend. Friends don’t call me a motherless outcaste with no honor. I had no idea just how little honor you gave me credit for.”
Ekatya finished with her second sock and reached for a boot. “I was angry.”
“No joke.”
“You mind-fucked my crew.”
“We didn’t mind-fuck them.” She said the word distastefully. “We used empathic force, and only to get information. The only person who was actually compelled to act was Commander Kameha. You were going to blow up the one thing that even gave me a chance against the Voloth. What would you have done in my place?”
Ekatya pulled on the second boot and slapped down the tabs. “Any damned thing I could.” She met Lancer Tal’s eyes. “You said not even Colonel Micah could look the other way if you refused a challenge. What would have happened if you hadn’t fought me?”
“Micah would have had to report it, and Shantu would have thanked you every day for the rest of his life. The warrior caste leader cannot refuse an honor challenge and expect to keep the leadership. My government would have fallen, there’d have been new elections, and I’d have lost every shred of honor you don’t think I have.”
Maybe her brain hadn’t been rattled after all, because she was starting to see things more clearly. “And if I were an Alsean warrior, would this have been a fistfight?”
“No. It would probably have been swords, knives, or staves, and a few skin sealers and tablets wouldn’t have been enough to fix the damage. An honor challenge wouldn’t end until a lot more blood had been shed, which is why they’re not made very often.” She paused and added, “Well, not once we’re past our Rite of Ascension. Young warriors tend to say stupid things.”
“So I forced you into this, but you found a way to resolve it without really hurting me. Relatively speaking.”
“I told you, Captain. I never wanted to hurt you.”
Ekatya studied her bruised face and remembered how the Lancer had helped her less than an hour after they’d met, when she couldn’t possibly have had an ulterior motive for making an alien captain feel less alone. She remembered her look of happy enthusiasm when they’d discussed the principles of FTL flight and how she’d understood then that Lancer Tal’s emotions were all in her eyes. She remembered standing next to her at the state funeral and hearing her say there were twenty-six transports performing that aerial ballet of loss.
“The funeral,” she said. “You greeted me as a family member. Was that just for show?”
There it was, in her eyes.
“No,” said Lancer Tal, her voice rough. “It wasn’t. But I don’t expect you to believe me.”
“I do believe you.”
She was surprised enough to let it show. “I—why?”
“Because I’m not as much of an idiot as Colonel Micah thinks. Although, given what you’ve just told me, I can understand why he said that. Is a Sharing something you offer very often? That’s what you were offering me just now, wasn’t it?”
“It was, yes,” she said, still looking bewildered. “And no, I don’t make a habit of offering it to just anyone.”
Ekatya nodded. Yes, it really was that simple. “All right. I want to know.”
“Want to know what?”
“How Lhyn feels about me. What does it involve? And should you even be doing this now, or should we get you to the healing center to see if I did more than crack your rib?”
“You didn’t.”
“How many fights have you been in that you’re so certain of that?”
“More than I can remember.”
“Then I guess Colonel Micah was right. I did do well.”
That earned her a half-smile. “Yes, you did.”
Ekatya waited a few seconds. “Well? How do we do this?”
Lancer Tal tilted her head, obviously assessing her emotions. Then she scooted back on the bench and carefully pulled one leg across so that she was straddling it. “You need to face me.”
Ekatya matched her position.
“Close enough so that we can touch foreheads.”
“Seriously?” One look at her face answered that question, and she closed the distance until they were uncomfortably close. “Good enough?”
“Yes.” Lancer Tal slid one hand along the side of Ekatya’s jaw and wrapped the other around the back of her neck, pulling her head down so that their foreheads rested together. “Put your hand on the back of my neck.”
It was outrageously past her personal boundaries, and intimate beyond reason considering that they’d just pounded the stuffing out of each other. She was vividly aware of the Lancer’s forehead ridges and the way her skin held a light piney scent; of the very alienness of this woman who was about to enter her mind. But when Lancer Tal whispered, “Close your eyes,” she gave up and went with it. Lhyn had done this. She wanted to know.
At first she felt nothing. Then it began tickling at the edges of her consciousness, gradually growing until she had to concede that it wasn’t her imagination. She was really feeling it.
And it was incredible. The warmth, the affection, and underneath a rich love shining through, working its way into every cell in her body, suffusing her with a bone-deep certainty that she was treasured, cherished, loved above and beyond all others. She was unique. Chosen. The only one, and it filled her with a confidence she’d never had before. Lancer Tal was right; she couldn’t take Lhyn away. She simply had no power to compete with this brilliant light that seemed as if it should be shining out of her fingertips.
Ekatya forgot she’d ever had any reservations as she sank deeper and deeper into the bliss of their connection. She never wanted it to end. Was this how the Alseans went through life, feeling this sort of thing on a regular basis? How did they get anything done? She felt as if she were on a drug high, stupefied with happiness. If an alert klaxon had sounded right now, she didn’t think she’d be able to respond.
She had no idea how long she floated in this unimaginably sweet place, but it wasn’t long enough. When Lancer Tal whispered, “I’m pulling back,” her first reaction was to cling harder to her neck, trying to hold her there.
“I can’t, Captain.”
It was the use of her rank that broke the spell. Lhyn would never call her that, not in this kind of intimacy. She opened her eyes, looking into a pair that were the wrong color, and straightened up in embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was your first time in a Sharing.”
“Oh, stars.” She started to rub her face before remembering it was a bad idea. “That was…I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
“I think it’s a cruel joke of the universe that you haven’t. Because it’s right there. That’s what Lhyn feels for you, and your emotions are just the same. It’s the strength and power of a tyree bond. There’s nothing else like it.”
Ekatya was still tingling with the aftermath, and knew she’d spend the rest of her life craving another hit like that. It was an instant addiction, and yes, a cruel joke that she’d never get to feel it again. But that she had even gotten to feel it once…what a gift.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know how much that cost you, but it was priceless to me.”
“I’m just glad you accepted the offer. And you understand now?”
“Yes.” She reached out, gently touching a finger to the reddening marks along Lancer Tal’s cheekbone, and cringed at the memory of the violence that had put them there. She’d made a terrible assumption and acted like a jealous lover because she couldn’t credit the truth. “I’m sorry about this. If I’d known…”
The Lancer shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. And I’m sorry, too. We’re fighting the same enemy; it’s ridiculous that we should ever be on opposite sides.” She scooted backwards, putting space between them, and winced as she pulled her leg across the bench. Then she leaned back against one of the observation deck’s support pillars and closed her eyes. Of course she wouldn’t admit it, but whatever she’d done to project those emotions had taken something out of her. Quite a lot, by the looks of it.
“You need to get to the healing center,” Ekatya said. “Wellernal or Graystone could probably heal that rib just by resting their hands there for five ticks.”
Lancer Tal shot her a smile. “You should take a look at your face in a mirror before telling me what I need to do.”
“I’ve been treated. You haven’t.”
“Careful, Captain. A person might think you cared about the motherless outcaste.”
Maybe it was the aftermath of what they’d just done, or maybe her brain finally put it together, but in that moment Ekatya realized that Lancer Tal had always referred to her parents in the past tense.
She’d thought the outcaste part was the insult, the word that would hurt and anger the most. The motherless part was just trash talk, a throwaway word that hadn’t even registered as she said it.
“I was raised by my grandparents,” she said. “I never knew my parents. They were both career Fleet, and I wasn’t planned. My mother handed me to my grandmother the moment she’d weaned me, and she and my father went back to the front lines. The war with the Voloth was hot then, burning on several fronts, and there were ships getting blown out of space every few days. My father died less than a year after I was born. My mother lasted until I was four, and apparently she came to visit me on all of her leaves, but I don’t have any memory of it.” She looked up, meeting sympathetic eyes. “And now I’ve disobeyed an order and been relieved of duty. If I go back home, they’ll probably jail me. The truth is, I’m the motherless outcaste.”
After a short silence, Lancer Tal rested her head against the pillar again and said, “I had my parents until well past my Rite of Ascension. But I lost them both at the same time, in a transport accident. I was an only child, so that was the end of my family. There’s one aunt, but…” She trailed off. “My real family is Micah. He was there when I lit my parents’ pyres.”
Ekatya thought about how she’d feel if she lost both of her grandparents at the same time. Just imagining it hurt.
“For the record,” she said, “I’ve changed my mind about your honor. You didn’t have to Share with me, and it wasn’t easy for you. But you did, just so I could understand. Right after I tried to kill you, too.”
“You were never going to land that throat shot.” Lancer Tal’s eyes drifted closed. “As for my honor, you were closer to the truth than you think. I obeyed the letter of the law in everything I did, but it’s possible to do that and still break a moral code.”
“Are you talking about the empathic force?”
She nodded.
“Well, I can’t say I’m not still angry about that, but I also have to admit that if I were in your situation, I’d use every tool at my disposal. Every single one.”
And it was easier to forgive when she herself hadn’t been forced, and neither had Lhyn.
Neither had Lhyn…
“Oh, stars,” she whispered.
“What?”
“She left of her own accord.” Everything Lancer Tal had Shared with her just now—it was what Lhyn had felt before. Not what she felt now. “You said a tyree bond can’t be broken from the outside, right?”
“That’s right.”
“But can it be broken from the inside?”
“That’s the only way it can be broken. But it’s hard to do; one of the bondmates would have to do something unforgivable. And there’s not much a tyree cannot forgive.”
What was the one thing Lhyn couldn’t forgive?
She stood up so quickly that her head spun. “I need to talk to Lhyn. Right now.”
“Yes, you do.” Lancer Tal rose more slowly, but once she was upright, her spine straightened and she looked as if she could run from here to Blacksun Base.
Ekatya had to admire the façade. She handed over Lancer Tal’s jacket and pulled her own off the peg. As she slid her arm into the sleeve, the pad detected her body heat and vibrated, alerting her to a waiting message. She shrugged the jacket the rest of the way on and pulled out the pad, hoping and dreading that the message was from Lhyn.
It was.
This is what you tried to destroy the Alseans for, it said. Was it worth it?
Attached was a file from Captain Habersaat, marked Urgent. One of Lhyn’s team had finally managed to track down the original orbital scans of the five planets the Protectorate was trading for Alsea. She ran her eyes down the list of attributes and resources, getting all the way to the bottom before she realized what was missing. Aghast, she read it again.
People. There were no people. Abandoned cities, yes. Past civilizations, but no living ones.
What they did have was a substantial supply of valuable mineral resources—none of which had been listed on the mining surveys the negotiation team had sent her.
Her legs threatened to turn to rubber, and she sat with little grace.
“What is it?” Lancer Tal asked.
Ekatya couldn’t even speak. The idea that she could have been so angry at the Lancer’s betrayal now seemed laughable. She’d acted on behalf of her people, trying to save her world. The Assembly had acted for the benefit of whichever corporations wanted these resources. They must have bought the necessary votes in the Assembly while bamboozling everyone else with the doctored surveys. Her three crew, her parents, so many of her past crew members, friends, and peers—they’d all died in the war against the Voloth, and now some greedy torquats were privately negotiating with them, trading away an entire civilization for profit.
And she’d nearly done their dirty work for them, blindly obeying orders she’d known in her heart were wrong. She hadn’t listened to her own instincts; she hadn’t listened to Lhyn. The only thing that had stopped her was Lancer Tal’s ruthless strategizing.
“It’s that cruel joke of the universe you were talking about, times a factor of ten thousand,” she said. “And the fastest end to a tyree bond your culture has probably ever seen.”
She looked at the message again, so short and angry. Was it worth it?
She’d laugh if she weren’t so busy fighting back the tears. When Lancer Tal sat next to her, she blinked away the moisture and said, “You didn’t take everything from me. I did. But I have to tell you that your timing is atrocious. You showed me the truth of what I had after I threw it away. You couldn’t have done that a few days ago?”
“I didn’t think I needed to,” Lancer Tal said, and dammit but that hurt.
“Yes, well, never underestimate my ability to not see what I should be looking at,” she said bitterly.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Ekatya was still staring at her pad, so she saw the Lancer’s hand reach out, almost touch her leg, and then retreat. I’m afraid to let you touch me, she’d said, and it had clearly made an impact.
She looked more closely at that hand. The knuckles were just as abraded as hers had been, but Lancer Tal hadn’t treated them. She’d taken care of her opponent but not herself.
Warriors were idiots.
“Where can I get another one of those cloths?” she asked.
“What?”
Pointing at the knuckles, she said, “The anti-inflammatory, super-healing accelerant whatever. You didn’t take care of yourself. Let me.”
“That’s not imp—” She stopped when Ekatya glared at her.
“Let me treat your fucking hands, all right? I need to get one Shipper-damned thing right today.”
Silently, Lancer Tal indicated the sideboard.
Ekatya stomped over and opened one door after another until she found what she was looking for. Wide eyes met her when she stomped back, and she forced herself to slow down. Given her mood, the Lancer was probably expecting the most painful treatment ever.
She crouched in front of her and took one hand into her own. “What happened is that my oath of service was violated,” she said, the harshness of her voice at odds with the care she was using on those knuckles. “Some power players in the Protectorate betrayed every principle I’ve ever fought for and made me a proxy for doing it. And when Lhyn tried to stop me, I wouldn’t listen. When you asked me for help, I wouldn’t give it. I didn’t think I could, because it’s honor and duty and the right thing above all else. We have to act for the greater good. Right? That means making the hard decisions.”
Lancer Tal didn’t answer, nor did she expect it.
“The negotiation with the Voloth is a scam. It’s not about saving civilizations or making peace; it’s about maximizing profit. There are no civilizations on those planets. And it would have been ever so helpful if I’d known that six days ago, or even this morning, but Lhyn’s people only found out the truth now. Probably right about the time I was trying to get that detonator out of Baldassar’s hands.” She paused and inspected her work. “Is this all right? Does it need more?”
“No, you’ve covered it.” Lancer Tal pulled her hand away and offered the other. “How did Lhyn’s people find out the truth when no one in the Assembly seems to know?”
“Oh, let me tell you about the fine art of buying votes. All it takes is having more wealth than the Seeders and the Shippers put together. You throw a little bit of that around, pledge to underwrite a reelection campaign or three, and there you go—Assembly ministers who will vote any way you tell them to. The key is to pick the right ones. You have to get the powerful ones on the right committees, the ones who control the information on whatever thing you’re interested in. Then you give them the doctored surveys that you want disseminated to the rest of the Assembly, and instruct your purchased ministers to push the vote your direction. Lhyn’s people found out because they didn’t get their information from the Assembly. They got it straight from the source.” She inspected the knuckles and went back for a section she’d missed. “You know what we need? We need empaths in our Assembly.”
“That would help, though high empaths could still do something like that without being detected.”
“Do you allow high empaths to control all of your Council’s most important committees and the flow of information?”
“No. For exactly that reason.”
“Right.” She released the hand and returned to her seat on the bench. “Let me see your face.”
“It’s not—”
“Don’t even try. I’m really, really angry.”
“Even Micah can probably sense that, and he’s a low empath.”
Ekatya ignored her. “And I need to stay angry, because if I don’t, I might start thinking about what I’ve just lost. So let me see your face.”
Lancer Tal turned her head without another word, and Ekatya got to work.
“The awful thing,” she said as she swabbed, “the part that’s so unfair, is that the man who sold you to the Voloth was instantly punished. He died a horrible death because his actions were so reprehensible that a bunch of academics turned themselves into a death mob. But the corrupt ministers in the Assembly and the people who bought them? They’ve done far worse, and they’ll never be punished. They’re too powerful.” Gently, she pushed Lancer Tal’s chin to the other side and began dabbing at the lighter marks. “It’s not as bad on this side.”
“You’re right-handed. And nobody should be above the law.”
“See, this is why Lhyn loves Alsea. Because its leader actually believes that. You may have mind-fucked my crew, but at least you got warrants first.”
“I wish you’d stop calling it that.”
Ekatya passed the cloth over her cheekbone ridge one more time and sat back. “Why?”
“Because that describes a vile and violent criminal act that I would never commit, nor would any of my Guards, and any Alsean that does is locked up forever in a place where they can never hurt anyone again.”
That sounded like something Ekatya did not want to learn any more about. “Then what would you call it?”
“Empathic force. But even that covers a whole range of possibilities, and what we did to your crew was at the very light end. You’re all sonsales; you have no protections. It took almost no effort to go into your people’s minds and give them a little nudge. All we wanted was information, enough so that we could operate your fighters and weapons ourselves. It hardly even qualified as force, and it didn’t interfere in any way with their normal characters or actions.”
“Except for Commander Kameha.”
“Except for him.”
“What did you do to him?”
“You know, we could have had this exact conversation in my office, when I asked you to sit down. We didn’t need to beat each other up to get here.”
Ekatya held up her hand and made a fist, marveling at the scabs that had already formed. “Actually, I think we did. And you haven’t answered my question.”
“Commander Kameha needed a…special effort. I had to bind his loyalty to me. He was still the Kameha you know, except that when he had to make a choice between obeying your orders or mine, he obeyed mine. That’s it.”
“If you’d told me that back in your office, I’d probably have hit you. Now I’m just resigned to the whole thing. So yes, we had to do this.” She remembered the Lancer’s odd words on the shuttle and said, “Did you…er, unbind him? When you said you released him?”
“I hope so. That was the intent, but there was no way to be sure when I couldn’t be there in person. Truthfully, I thought I’d never see him again, so it didn’t matter either way. He’d never have to choose again. But I’ll make certain of it now.”
Ekatya’s first reaction was to say Like Hades you will, but she’d just had a Sharing with this woman and come out of it fully intact. More than intact, actually. The time for deception was over; Lancer Tal was telling the truth.
“How much force did his ‘special effort’ involve?”
“Far less than I expected. Which means that he had no moral issues with what I asked him to do. I never had to force him to act against his character. He didn’t want to destroy the Caphenon, so I just gave him a reason not to.”
“And if you’d had to force Lhyn? If she’d been determined to leave with me? What would that have taken?”
For the first time, Lancer Tal wouldn’t meet her eyes. “More than I was comfortable with,” she admitted. “I had a crisis of faith over it.”
Ekatya thought it was a sign of emotional exhaustion that she couldn’t even feel angry at her for that. Or maybe this day had just redefined the threshold of what it took to really piss her off.
Or maybe, she mused as she watched the Lancer looking anywhere but at her, maybe she couldn’t find anger where there was so much guilt. Lancer Tal acted as if she were carrying the weight of a crime and facing a judge, but really, who was Ekatya to be that judge? She’d actually considered killing more than a thousand Alseans just so she could say she’d obeyed her orders. It didn’t matter how brief that consideration had been. And if it hadn’t been for the Lancer’s machinations, she would certainly have destroyed the one thing that gave the Alseans a chance. She would have single-handedly doomed them to slavery and death.
Lancer Tal had been prepared to hurt one person. Ekatya had been prepared to hurt five hundred million.
She sighed. “Well, I’m glad neither of us had to sell our souls.”
“Oh, Fahla.” The Lancer buried her face in her hands, and though she made no sound, the shaking of her shoulders betrayed her tears.
Ekatya didn’t know what to do. Alseans had strange strictures about physical touch, but…maybe a hand on the back was all right. She rested her hand there cautiously, then began a soft rubbing motion. “If this is how you react when you didn’t have to do it, I’d hate to see what would have happened if you’d had to do it.”
“It would have torn me apart.” Lancer Tal straightened and wiped her cheeks. “I went to the Temple for personal advice, and I haven’t done that in twenty-five cycles. I asked the Lead Templar if Fahla would still accept me.”
“What would happen if Fahla didn’t accept you?”
“I’d never Return. When I died, that would be it. No next level, no transformation, no exploration of the potentials we can’t reach in this world. The door would shut in my face and I’d be lost forever. And if that happened, then I can only hope the scholars who say the alternative to a Return is simple death are right. I’d prefer just…stopping. Never knowing what I couldn’t have.”
Ekatya watched her in astonishment. When she’d referred to selling their souls, she’d meant it metaphorically. But Lancer Tal had been willing to risk hers in the most literal sense. No wonder she’d fallen apart.
“What did the Lead Templar say?”
“Enough to make me feel marginally better. Not enough to put me at ease.” Lancer Tal met her gaze directly and added, “Thank you. I can’t tell you what it means to have your forgiveness.”
“Does that mean you forgive me for trying to blow the Caphenon?”
“I never blamed you for it in the first place. I just made sure you couldn’t do it.” She sighed and leaned her head against the pillar. “Not that it matters now. We can’t use your fighters, and I don’t see any way out of this without them.”
“I’m not ready to accept that, and I can’t believe you are. You would have sold your soul to save Alsea and now you’re just giving up?”
“I’m not giving up. I won’t do that until they kill me. But I’m tired, Captain.”
She looked it. Ekatya wondered how much of that was the Sharing and how much was everything else pressing down on her. Certainly a cracked rib couldn’t be helping.
“I’m tired too,” she said. “Tired of making choices that have been forced on me, and of playing the fool for some power-hungry assheads who see me as nothing more than a kasmet game piece to be moved on the board. Those people sold their souls a long time ago, and it wasn’t for anywhere near as good a reason as you had. I swore an oath to the Protectorate, but this isn’t what I agreed to.”
Lancer Tal turned her head. “What are you going to do?”
“What we are going to do is get you to the healing center. And then we’re going to figure out how to beat the Voloth. Because we can’t let them win, and we especially can’t let those slime worms in my own confederation win. I know you’ve claimed salvage and you had every right to, but as the newly returned captain of the Caphenon, I’m putting my ship at your disposal, as well as any of my crew who want to join us. I think you’ll find that almost all of them will.”
Reaching up, she unclipped the captain’s bars from her collar and held them out.
Slowly, Lancer Tal held out her own hand, her eyes wide. “I know you’re serious about this. And I really shouldn’t be asking, but don’t you want more time to think about it?”
“No.” Ekatya dropped the bars in her hand. “I’m putting myself at your disposal as well. As of now, my oath of service to the Protectorate is rescinded. If you’ll accept me, I’m looking for a new oath holder.”