Revolution, page 10
“And had he insisted on boarding and inspecting?” Kuei asked.
“There would have been shooting,” Aileen said with a grimace. “Either at them as they approached, or after they boarded, depending on how big of a ship they might have brought over.”
Eha nodded.
This had moved beyond the simple games. People were going to start getting hurt.
Soon.
Twenty-Four
Eha
Gowook. Eha hadn’t been back to her homeworld in years, mostly because she was forever working. And, if she was going to be honest with herself, she had wanted to be closer to Addison, who forever stayed clear over on that fringe of space, up against the Phraettis Nebula. The middle of nowhere, except that soon it would become a highway to Human Space.
She wasn’t showing her pregnancy yet. Apparently Humans bulged in the middle as they progressed, but she would simply thicken some. Anyone but a Churquen would probably not even notice, and her people would not see anything for several more months.
It was early yet. At the same time, the little one was a reminder that the time to change the future had arrived.
Now.
Astral Jewel, the name they had given the stolen ship, was just about to land on the surface of the planet. Given her last few landings, Eha knew a twinge of anticipation, perhaps mixed with a solid dollop of rage.
But that was her. Dreamer. If anything, it was frustration that she could not just cast a spell and make things better. That she had to work through people. Understand them. Manipulate them, even, to get them to come to her understanding of things.
But she agreed with Aileen, watching Kuei settle on the pad with a soft kiss. The time might have also come for violence.
She feared that. It was a djinn who might never willingly return to the bottle, once freed to wreak havoc and destruction. Humans found it second nature, which was even more frightening.
She would have to overcome all of that and prove that the Innruld could be defeated, rather than simply annihilated.
If she could.
“We’ve landed,” Kuei announced unnecessarily as she started shutting things down. “I let Lazarus and the others know as well.”
Eha nodded. Took a deep breath and let the air purge something in the center of her being. Fear? Disappointment?
Whatever it had been, she would consume it as fuel. Use her body as a furnace to turn raw iron into steel. Forge it into a sword for now, until she could turn it later into a plowshare, either here or on one of those secret worlds she and Addison had talked about.
The Churquen would be free. The only question at this point, at least in Eha’s mind, was whether the other species could join them in that freedom.
“Eha?” Aileen asked tentatively.
“Gathering scales,” she replied sheepishly. “Sorry. So much to do.”
She typed a number into her system and let the local comm network route it.
The system connected and beeped twice. Eha hung up.
She dialed it again, beeped it twice more, and disconnected.
“Now we wait,” she said simply.
The Humans needed to remain aft. Out of sight, so that a camera did not pick them up.
What she was doing was going to be strange enough, complicated enough. Adding the Humans to the mix would make it that much worse. At least for now.
Later, they became necessary. Either as allies, or as mercenaries that she could aim at the Innruld to destroy everything.
Eha shuddered clear to the tip of her tail.
“You okay?” Aileen asked in a quiet voice.
Eha turned to her and focused on the Yithadreph woman. Addison swore by Aileen. Lazarus had come to feel the same. Eha was learning how strong a personality Aileen Enjehn really was.
“No,” Eha said honestly, looking around to include Kuei and even Cormac in the conversation. “We’ve all talked about rebellion. Liberation. Freedom. But we’re about to slither out into the deep water looking for it and I’m a little scared.”
“You?” Aileen laughed. “I’m utterly petrified. Have been for weeks. I don’t know how you and Addison could do this for years.”
“Really?” Eha asked. “You’ve seemed so calm.”
“You can’t see my tail shiver under these capri pants, Eha,” Aileen’s laugh sounded more like a sob now. “It’s fine that Humans are crazy. I’m hoping you can pull a galumph out of your pocket and surprise everyone.”
“Working on it,” Eha replied, feeling the tension suddenly bleed out.
She shared a laugh with the others.
Eha had forgotten that the others might be just as scared as she was.
The comm chirped and interrupted before things got any stranger.
Eha took a deep, calming breath, feeling everything suddenly settle into place, like smooth scales after a good night of sleep.
She keyed the line.
“Who is this?” a female voice came across the line.
The screen remained blank, but Eha recognized her tone. Smiled broadly. She opened the video line the other direction so the woman could see her. Identify her.
“Your daughter Eha,” she said simply. “We’re in town and I hoped to be able to see you.”
“Eha?” the woman gasped. “I didn’t recognize the routing number.”
“You wouldn’t believe the story, even after I tell it to you a second time,” she laughed. “My ship just landed in port and I would love to be able to host you for breakfast tomorrow, after I have a chance to have fresh supplies delivered. I have lots and lots of news.”
The video feed came live now, showing an older Churquen woman, crinkled around the jaw and with her stripes fading down into a dull monotony of aging.
They did that. Eha wasn’t looking forward to it, but she also wasn’t one of those people who would dye their scales, or just stripe themselves in defiance of age. She’d spent too many years expecting to never have to face those sort of mundane futures.
The woman’s eyeslits narrowed suddenly as she studied Eha.
“Yes,” she said slowly, knowingly. “Yes you do, young lady.”
Eha found herself blushing at the words. And the implications.
She knows.
But at the same time, she smiled in spite of all of her scales flaring outwards.
“The third hour after sunrise?” the woman asked.
“That would be lovely,” Eha replied. “Mom, it’s really good to see you.”
“You, too, kiddo,” the woman said, and then cut the line.
Eha felt a surge of tears from the emotions churning through her, but they were good ones. Happy things. Maybe enough to offset all the bad things she was going to have to do.
“Wow,” Aileen muttered. “Awesome trade-craft. I never imagined an older cell contact pretending to be a parent. Great way to throw off the authorities.”
Eha turned to her and giggled just a little.
“No, actually,” she said. “That’s my mom.”
“Really?” Aileen and Kuei managed in harmony.
“It’s been the family business for a long time.”
Twenty-Five
Lazarus
Lazarus understood the need to remain hidden. He had that Ares pistol strapped to his hip at all times, but that was just in case someone rushed them and boarded the stolen ship, hoping for surprise. Afolayan and his crew were just as keyed up. Singh and her engineers just generally rolled their eyes at everything and kept tinkering, but they were also armed.
Prepared.
Singh and another woman had the main engine feed in the process of coming apart for cleaning and review. She and Lazarus both had ideas on how to improve it, mostly because they had both been trained on such antiquated systems when they were pups. Before moving on to the modern stuff the Rio Alliance Navy used.
But Lazarus was just an observer. So he stood off to one side, as much out of the way as he could get while Singh’s team worked. Ereshkiki Nisab was working on the life support system right now, since it could be turned off except for the blower fans.
Give them two weeks on the ground, and even the former crew might not recognize their old ship from the inside. Certainly, it didn’t stink nearly as bad as it had. Couple hours on the ground and they would fully vent the old air, too. Lazarus hoped that he could buy something like orange or lemon trees to plant in pots.
Eha slithered into the engineering bay and looked at everything.
“How did it go?” he asked her, studying the woman.
She was in charge. Her mission. Her network.
He was just brute force. It was kinda nice not having to make decisions for a while.
“I made contact with the locals,” Eha said enigmatically. “A Churquen representative will be joining us for breakfast tomorrow, promptly at the third hour. Cormac is placing orders for fresh food for delivery soon.”
“Promptly?” Lazarus asked, catching the one word in her sentence that stood out. “You’ve worked with this agent before?”
Her whole body lit up, not just her eyes. He hadn’t seen Eha smile like that since Addison had left.
“Promptly,” she said with a huge smile. “And yes, I’ve known her for a long time. She’s my mother.”
Lazarus felt his head come up in surprise. Others listening around them had similar surprised reactions.
“Oh,” he said. “You hadn’t mentioned that earlier.”
“I didn’t know,” she replied. “It’s been more than three years since I’ve been on Gowook, and any number of things could have happened. All I had was a routing number to contact, and a set of codes to use with whoever I reached. She happened to be the one that called back.”
“Good trade-craft,” Lazarus nodded. “Do we want a full crew breakfast, or a small one?”
“You, me, Aileen,” Eha replied. “Kuei wants to sleep in. Cormac is ambivalent. I would like Dubaku Afolayan and Ishani Singh to join us, representing the sorts of Human expertise and scope we have brought to the table. She’ll be alone, so we should fit in the wardroom comfortably.”
“And we’re sure she’s safe?” Lazarus went ahead and asked anyway.
“We are not,” Eha said after the slightest hesitation. “So we will be prepared for both violence and flight.”
Lazarus nodded.
“Questions?” she asked.
“None at present,” Lazarus replied.
One step forward. Or maybe one slithered wavelength.
But Lazarus was looking forward to getting home to Ajax, where he could dictate terms to the Innruld.
He still had a war to win with Westphalia after this was done.
Twenty-Six
Eha
She was nervous, but what woman wouldn’t be. Eha hadn’t seen her mom in three years. Had only exchanged vague pleasantries by mail in between the coded messages updating the entire network about what she had been doing in her corner.
Insects gnawing at the foundation of the Innruld. Quiet revolutionaries.
Eha looked around the room and concluded that quiet was over. She would have to become an admiral, to use terminology Lazarus had taught her. A military commander in charge of strategy and entire sectors of warriors.
He had shared with her books on Human history that she found as appalling as she did mesmerizing. Guerrilla operations, which was more or less what she had been doing, but only at the lowest setting. Humans had invented entire mythologies and business degrees in how to escalate things right up to shooting wars.
And that might be what it took.
Deep breath.
Lazarus was here. Aileen as well. Grace, calm and sure. Lucas, trying not to look like a security goon and doing a reasonable job at it. Afolayan and Singh, strangers becoming friends. The rest of the crew was awake, but staying at either end of the vessel for now. Out of the way but ready in case something bad had happened.
It had not been accidental that Kuei had landed the ship lined up with the control tower for the entire field. All she had to do was takeoff about thirty feet and elevate the bow a few degrees, and she could shatter that tower with a single shot.
Eha shivered as she wondered if Humans had infected her with their madness, or simply liberated her to envision a world where harming any Innruld didn’t invite massive reprisals. She found herself sounding more and more like Addison with her internal monologues.
Hopefully that was a good thing.
The shipwide system pinged.
“A ground car just pulled up and parked in the loading bay,” Kuei announced. “One Churquen visible driving.”
Eha rose from her cone and gestured the others to sit back down again as they went to rise.
She wanted to do this herself.
“Churquen exiting the vehicle and scanning the ship,” Kuei continued. “She can’t decide if she’s impressed or pissed, from the look on her face.”
Eha stifled a giggle into a snort. That described her mother perfectly.
Eha exited the wardroom and moved to stand at the inner edge of the airlock. The outer door was open so that mother could get inside and out of sight.
“The woman is approaching the vessel now,” Kuei maintained her commentary. “Distracted tail flicks suggest she is not at all amused and might have even recognized the type of vessel we’ve stolen. We might all be grounded after this.”
Eha heard laughter from the room behind her. And possibly echoing from both ends of the ship.
“Entering airlock now,” Kuei said. “She is alone and I am opening the inner door.”
Eha watched the door move, unable to decide if it was too slow for her, or too fast.
But it opened. At the same time, the outer one closed, securing everything.
Eha felt like a teenager again, coming home late from a date to the vidshow.
Alla Dunham coiled there and studied her as the hatch finally got out of the way.
Neither woman moved for a long moment.
“Has that damned pirate at least made an honest woman out of you finally?” Alla asked, her voice tart but still humorous.
Eha found all her scales flaring. Inside her coil, that stupid tail refused to remain in place, tapping the deck noisily.
“He doesn’t know yet,” Eha replied, barely above a whisper. “I had to send him back in my place, so I could return to Innruld Space. But yes, he and I are finally together.”
Alla uncoiled and surged forward, catching Eha by surprise with a hug that went all the way down their coils.
“Then I’m happy for you,” Alla said, pressed up against her.
Alla leaned back finally and studied her closely.
“So the last news from the network was that my daughter had turned into a fugitive at Zhoonarrim,” Alla said. “You disappeared without any trace, at the same time Wolcott blasted out of the station, so I presumed you left with him. What happened? And what is this ship?”
“I left with Addison, yes,” Eha said, pausing to take a deep breath. “We went to Human Space, and I have been negotiating with them.”
“Is this a Human ship?” Alla gasped.
“No,” Eha grinned. “We hijacked it from the customs station at Onunk. But I have Human friends with me. They’ve been rebuilding it for us to use.”
“This ship cannot take on a Security Barc, Eha,” Alla said. “Let alone a pyramid. How will it help?”
“This ship is a Security Barc, Alla,” Eha replied, calling her mother by her first name, just to get into the habit. “We stole it from them. There will be others, but we needed to reach the network, to activate it, so that when my Human allies are ready, we can step in and throw the Innruld down.”
“Throw them down?” Alla asked. “Are you mad? How would that even be possible?”
“His name is Lazarus of Bethany, Mother,” Eha said with a broad grin. “I’ll let him explain it to you.”
She unwound herself carefully, keeping an elbow hooked so they could slither into the wardroom together. Everyone was standing now.
Churquen could rear up on their coil, but in their normal posture every single Human in the room was taller than Eha or Alla were. Aileen looked almost like a child at the adult table, except that she wouldn’t begrudge anyone else an inch of space or attitude.
Alla gasped and stopped. Shellshocked. Awed. Possibly grounding them all after this was done, to quote Kuei.
Lazarus stepped away from the table and bowed formally.
“Madam Dunham, I am Lazarus of Bethany,” he said in a deep, rich voice. “The man that this original crew rescued from certain death and helped to get home. We returned to help them, and brought help of our own. Please be welcome.”
Eha kept her face calm as Alla nodded slowly in return.
Eha guided her mother slowly to the head of the table, where Lazarus would be at her right and Eha at her left, with the rest spread out from there. Ereshkiki Nisab would have been the least surprising person to see here, but he preferred to tend his engines over revolution, so Alla got to meet her first Atomarsk instead.
But then, he was already fifteen centuries old, and only into middle age for his kind. What would his lifetime see?
Khyaa’sha arrived with food better suited to Humans and Churquen than the rest of the crew, but Wybert, like Ereshkiki Nisab and Kuei, had insisted that he needed to be at his station, manning the guns in case of trouble.
Eha remembered to breathe. It was her and Aileen, along with Alla, dealing with all the Humans and Atomarsk. Perhaps an appropriate metaphor, all things considered.
Alla was in shock. That much was obvious. But Eha had been expecting it. She’d had nearly a year to get used to Humans, ranging in skin tone from the deep, dark brown of Grace and Afolayan all the way up to the speckled pinks of Lazarus.
Lazarus had gone so far as to refer to Humans as space orcs, compared to the prettier or more delicate folks of Innruld Space. Once she had researched the term, Eha wasn’t entirely sure the man was wrong.
