Behnam took a moment to calm her nerves and her soul, mid-hallway, before she approached the final doorway. Around her, the Private-Service Galleon Excalibur hummed and breathed quietly, pinging as things settled and shifted. The ship was almost loaded now, and would depart in less than a week.
And he would be gone again.
“Is everything okay, Khatum?” a woman’s voice asked quietly.
Suvi. Sentience-in-Residence of the mighty warship. Pilot of the last flagship of the now-lost Neu Berne fleet, the only survivor of the last great war.
Possibly a fifth child, to go with the four she had born. A new step-daughter still feeling her way into a relationship.
Both of them.
“I needed a moment,” Behnam said simply.
“Understood,” Suvi said in a warm, reassuring tone so at odds with everything Behnam had ever heard about Sentient warships and systems.
But Javier had extended Suvi’s programming when he bought the old probe-cutter Mielikki. Made her more human than any of the others, back when it was just the two of them, and a team of chickens, exploring the universe.
Yesterday.
Two yesterdays ago.
Before Zakhar Sokolov and the pirates captured the man and cut her ship apart. Before Javier saved them all from certain death more times than anybody was willing to admit without blushing.
Before a terrible, pirate warlord named Navarre invaded her own resort ship, Shangdu, and committed the most petite and polite assassination anyone had ever seen, including her experts on the topic.
So much had changed.
And shortly, he would be gone again.
Behnam had never let a man into her heart like Javier Eutrupio Aritza, also occasionally known as Navarre. Even the fathers of all of her children had been required to make deposits into a sperm bank, where she let them remain for five years before using any, and only after the men had impressed her. The twelve men looked remarkably alike and were aware that they may or may not be the actual fathers, so her two boys and two girls had a whole cast of uncles they could call on.
She wondered how they might react to having a step-father. At least they were all grown now and turning into the sorts of adults she could talk to as people.
When he got back, it might be time to have that conversation.
Assuming he returned.
Behnam let go one more sigh and approached the final hatch. Suvi opened it on silent rollers and Behnam entered the Lower Flight Deck.
Excalibur, the warship, was simply huge. Over a kilometer long, with seventeen decks, most of which were vastly oversized. This flight deck alone was larger than many vessels she owned, and it was dominated by a monstrously-large shuttle.
Behnam saw Javier leaned over an open plate, flashes of light sparking as he welded something inside and revealing the heavy mask he was wearing to protect his vision.
She was sure that she moved silently. The hatch had made no sound.
He still paused in what he was doing, like a magnificent stag sniffing the air. The mask was flipped up out of his way and he turned to stare at her.
Blinked.
Smiled in a way that melted the tiny knot of ice that had taken residence in her stomach.
“Nobody told me you were coming,” he said as he stripped the mask off and slipped the welder into a holster like a pistol.
“I asked her not to,” Behnam said as she approached and took his hand.
He smelled of oil and sweat and ozone as he wrapped those powerful arms around her and tried to squish her chest flat against his.
The kiss was warm and inviting.
She leaned back and studied his face.
Javier had aged in some indefinable way. The women she had asked, most of whom had slept with him at some point, had all described it as growing up, but Behnam wasn’t sure that was the right term.
It might feel that way to them, but she doubted any of them had ever known the real Javier Aritza. The Concord Navy officer with the bright future that he had blown up after fourteen years and two failed marriages. The introverted, nerdy explorer who had bought a small ship and set out to survey the galaxy as a way to heal his soul.
The man who could become Eutrupio Navarre when he needed to, or put that man away like a mask afterwards.
The hair was coming in gray on the sides. The beard, when he affected one, was mostly white on the chin now and slowly losing the battle on the sides. There were lines that hadn’t been there the first time she met him.
“Something I should be worried about?” he asked in that light, teasing tone she only heard when they were alone.
“Only if you decide not to return in a year,” she replied with a half-grin. “I still have exceptionally capable ninjas I can send after you.”
She caught his grimace in his eyes, because it never made it to his face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked instead.
“I just wanted to talk,” Behnam said. “Just us.”
“Suvi,” he leaned back and looked around, like a prophet talking to God Herself. “Could you shut off all microphones and cameras for a bit? I’ll tap a wall or open a hatch when it’s safe.”
“Shutting down,” the young woman’s voice replied after a lag too tiny to be noticed by most people.
But a Sentience thought at something like 20,000 times the speed of a human. A lag long enough to notice might be several hours of personal time, if Behnam understood the way Suvi talked.
Suvi had dragged her heels, but done it anyway.
Jealousy was a terrible bitch of a taskmaster.
“I’m stinky,” Javier offered. “Do I need a shower?”
“No,” she decided, contemplating the need to scrub his back and other things. It would be a pleasant diversion, but she didn’t feel like being diverted. “Let’s go aboard your new toy to talk.”
He nodded to her and broke away enough that he was only holding one hand as he led her to the thing that all the records and mechanics simply called The Lander.
It had been salvaged from an old Balustrade Assault Shuttle, sturdy and available cheap before being gutted and rebuilt. They entered via a triple airlock into the inner core of the craft and Javier took up his usual spot on the left of the pilot’s seat.
Where the Science Officer always sat.
“What terrible things did you need to sneak aboard and isolate me in order to discuss?” he asked in a quiet, careful voice.
It helped that neither of them were young anymore. That they had reached a stage in life where they were mature enough to have this sort of relationship. She could send him off to the far reaches of the galaxy in the baddest, toughest ship she was aware of, secure that he would return.
Or die trying.
That was the reason she was here.
Behnam reached out a hand and touched the wall of the inner lander rather than sit. She wasn’t sure her nerves would let her pretend outwardly to be calm enough to fool this man, so it wasn’t worth trying.
“Is it necessary?” she asked. “All this?”
He started to reply and bit it back before even a breath emerged. They were at that point in their love affair, after all. He could see her inner workings, just as she could see more of him than anybody probably ever had.
Not all Javier’s secrets, but enough of them. Only Suvi probably knew the rest, and that would be from listening to nightmares that he forgot before he woke up.
Instead, Javier sighed.
“It’s complicated,” he offered.
“I like complicated,” Behnam smiled finally.
“Once upon a time, I was an explorer,” he began earnestly.
“I’ve heard that part,” she teased, bringing a smile out of him before he forgot and descended to the darker places that were still present in his soul.
Javier nodded and relaxed, leaning back and crossing his ankles as he put his hands behind his head.
“Concord Navy officers are supposed to be the good guys, Behnam,” he said distantly, eyes focused on some impossible horizon. “They train us that way. Indoctrinate us with protecting the galaxy, especially now that the worlds that used to be Balustrade, Neu Berne, and the Union of Worlds are finally starting to recover and get pissy about what the Concord has been up to for three generations.”
Behnam nodded to keep him talking. She’d heard it all before, in a variety of speeches from both Javier and Zakhar Sokolov.
“That didn’t work for me, for reasons you already know,” he continued with an ambivalent shrug.
She nodded again. Behnam Sherazi probably knew better than anybody but Suvi. Certainly Holly and Fryda, his first two wives, had never understood what made the man tick.
“I was happier as an explorer, but even I won’t go so far as to suggest I was actually happy,” he admitted.
She listened to the tone of his voice and breathing change.
“Storm Gauntlet took me back to the bad places,” Javier said.
Yes. Being taken as a bond slave by a fellow Bryce Academy alum would do that. As would all the things that had happened later, when the two of them decided to destroy one of the famous Pirate Clans.
And then succeeded.
“The Concord cannot press charges,” she reminded him. “Letters of Marque and Reprisal at a minimum, plus Nidavellir was outside their territory.”
“It won’t stop them from getting angry about it,” Javier said. “From wondering if Zakhar and I would choose to do it again, regardless of the fact that Walvisbaai Industrial had it coming. I’m a wild card, at a time when they have their hands full with budget cuts, rising piracy, and restive neighbors. There really is a storm coming.”
“So the only solution is to hide?” she asked him bluntly. “You don’t think Altai could protect you and your friends?”
“Oh, you could,” he admitted. “The Concord wouldn’t be able to project enough force far enough to threaten you militarily. So they’d have to send ninjas or something.”
He raised his hands to forestall as she started to talk.
“And yes, I’m aware that Farouz Jashari and Rence Moore are probably more than up to the task,” he said. “I don’t want to live in fear of them making a mistake. It only has to happen once.”
“So all this?” she asked, arms up to indicate The Lander, as well as Excalibur and the happy crew of misfits and professionals that crewed her.
“How much have we lost over the last four thousand years, Behnam?” Javier asked. “Since the very start of the Terraforming Era in 3200 CE? What planets were forgotten or destroyed in the Resource Wars? Or the Corporate Wars period that followed? Or even the Pocket Empires era when A’Nacia was obliterated and then salted with that damned mine field where we found ’Mina Teague? Suvi and Piet both assure me that those times produced some fantastic music, but what other civilizations rose, collapsed, and fell into darkness for one reason or another? We only populate a small pocket of space in Altai, almost a quarter of the galaxy away from Earth, with the Concord well off in the distance between, plus the remains of the others.”
“So you’re riding to the rescue again?” she teased.
“Hey, you knew I was a nerd before you slept with me the second time,” he barked with a sharp laugh.
“First time,” she countered with an equal laugh. “Even Navarre had something indomitably nerdy underneath. I just had to peel back several layers to find the actual reason for it.”
“There you go,” Javier smiled. “Plus, I want to be rich. Maybe famous, too.”
“I’m already fabulously wealthy,” Behnam admitted, understanding one of the buttons that moved a man like him, at least a little better than she had. “You’ll never want.”
“And it’s your money,” Javier retorted with no energy. “Both through your crown as well as the profit margins on that giant swimming pool currently in orbit ahead of us.”
She supposed that you could consider Shangdu a private swimming hole. The core of the ship was an oval-shaped lake two kilometers long and one wide with an island in the middle.
It was a sore point with him. She knew that. But she had literally been born a princess, whereas Javier Aritza had been raised by one set of grandparents while both of his parents served in the Concord Navy. And neither of them had been officers.
“And Navarre’s terrible legend?” she asked, finally drifting into the reason that brought her here. The real reason.
He recoiled back into himself, like she knew he would.
Behnam understood Navarre. Understood the need for Navarre.
Understood the costs to the soul of Aritza when he had to pull that tireless killer out and use him.
“Abraam Tamaz had it coming,” he growled in a deep, ugly tone.
Of that, she had no doubts. Sokolov had filled her in on most of the details her spies hadn’t already uncovered. After all, Tamaz had once been First Officer on Storm Gauntlet, before, as Zakhar told the story, he turned to evil.
“The Khatum of Altai got to be swindled by the very best in the business,” Javier continued, bringing a smile to her face.
If he had changed as a result of meeting her, she had changed at least as much.
She was standing aboard a pirate explorer she was largely funding, talking to the true love of her life and wondering if there was any way to prevent him from going off on adventures without her.
Because she wouldn’t go. Couldn’t go.
He needed this. To do this thing himself, with none of the overhang that having the Khatum of Altai as anything more than a passive investor would bring.
Because of Navarre.
“The Concord might eventually forgive me,” Javier said. “They will never forget that I came out of jump and annihilated an orbital station with this ship. Everything I do for the rest of my life might just balance those scales enough that I don’t end up with a Warmaster coming out of jump on top of me, one of these days. Except they’d probably show up with a Skymaster instead.”
“And money?” she asked.
“I’ll get fabulously wealthy with my share of the profits, lady,” his easy, breezy side finally returned. “Enough that I don’t have to ask you for an allowance or an early birthday present.”
He chafed at being a kept man, however long the leash might be. But that was Javier. He had chafed while wearing a uniform. Or while being a slave and a pirate.
Other people making claims on his time and freedom. Being able to tell him No.
He didn’t want fame for itself. She knew that about the man. He’d have happily gone the rest of his life with Suvi, exploring the galaxy while writing up travel reports for the Gazetteer and scientific articles in botanical journals read by six people.
But money was money.
He’d never grow bored, if and when he finally ended up living on Altai. His nature would have him planting gardens and puttering in them, if nothing else. Maybe finally settling down some and teaching.
Behnam had a sudden image of the two of them in thirty years, finally slowing down as their eighties approached and just sitting in his garden enjoying the morning sun.
Who would that man be? Or that woman?
Djamila Sykora liked to remind both of them that the galaxy had changed as much as they had. What things would he discover, her favorite adventure seeker, when he had a whole galaxy to play in, and all the tools and support anybody had been able think up?
Behnam rapped her knuckle on the hull beside her.
“And this doesn’t constitute an early birthday present?” she grinned slyly at the man.
“Maybe,” he grinned back. “If it works, we’ll license the design to some shipyard to produce and then you becomes just another early investor.”
“But, a flying submarine?” she asked.
“Only the inner part, and that doesn’t fly,” Javier said, sitting upright again. “You’ve got the outer shell that will land you from orbit to the surface of an ocean, then the bay doors open below and this part lowers into the water.”
“And you think Ugen has that much to offer as a planet?” Behnam felt her pique coming on and pushed it away.
She was used to dealing with planetary budgets and a government that answered to her alone. Even when she took her flying swimming pool to visit other planets. No planet was all that impressive by itself, when there were thousands of them.
“Three thousand years ago, it was a thriving, undersea colony, mining extinct, undersea volcanos and exporting exotic materials dropped there by at least five nearby supernovas before Ugen’s sun formed,” Javier said soberly. “None of the wars really touched it, because there’s not a lot you can do to a planet that’s ninety-five percent covered with water, unless you’re intent on destroying it. They got left alone, other than the overlords in orbit would change from time to time.”
“And now?” she pressed.
It had all been in various reports and research he had produced, but that had come down to several thousand pages of ancient encyclopedia entries bound together with a lot of question marks.
Part of the very reason she had agreed to send an exploration mission in the direction of some of the oldest colonies. They were so far away, both in time and space, that nobody really knew what was going on over there anymore.
Javier shrugged happily, looking like nothing so much as a precocious eight-year-old in a candy store.
“And now?” he repeated back. “Del has his usual assault shuttle to take us to the surface of most worlds, but we’ve got The Lander for places like Ugen. Terraformers usually looked for oceanic worlds, and those were pretty common. Ugen just happened to be one of the weirdest. Plus, it got colonized by the same sorts of pale, blond Finns as Suvi, so she’s got a soft spot for meeting potential cousins, however remote and tenuous the connection might be.”
“So adventure for adventure’s sake?” she countered.
“Exploration for exploration’s sake,” Javier said, turning even more serious. “Learning, because nobody knows the truth.”
“And Excalibur?” she asked.
“Nobody said I had to travel alone and unarmed, lady,” he laughed. “You wanted trade and profit. I remember negotiating one hell of a deal with you for those Letters of Marque and Reprisal, once upon a time. Ten year deal, wasn’t it?”
“At a dead minimum, Mister Science Officer Pirate,” Behnam glared at him with only a tiny giggle. “I have plans for you longer term, if you ever decide to stop running all over the galaxy like a paladin on a white steed.”
His face turned dark and serious at the word. Not angry. Not depressed. Not anywhere close to Navarre.
Paladin.
Javier Aritza.
The Science Officer.
Behnam wondered if she was the only person in the last twenty-five years who had actually met the man who had just taken shape in the chair before her.
“I can’t promise you that, Behnam,” he said in a sober, careful tone. “I might never be able to stop trying to be a hero.”
She approached him and put her hands on his face, leaning down to kiss him with the sort of passion she normally hid from the world.
“I know, Javier,” she whispered as his hands came up around her waist. “But I want you to come back to me, again and again, forever. Promise me that much.”
“As long as I can, Behnam.”
She kissed him again. Felt him stand and engulf her without breaking the kiss.
He would. That much promise his kiss carried.
If he could.