Revolution, page 3
He watched her eyes light up, but Lazarus also understood that she was almost as nerdy as him, just into geography and piloting instead of power systems and naval architecture.
“You in a hurry?” she asked.
“According to Aileen, we’ll run out of food in about a year,” Lazarus teased back. “Think you can find us something prior to that?”
“Just you watch me, mister,” she laughed.
Lazarus enjoyed hearing her laugh. They’d all been too serious lately. Hazards of the job, he supposed, coupled with the mission they were on now. There was a war coming, but it wasn’t here today.
In fact…
“Kuei, you have the bridge,” he announced, standing. “Everyone else stand down to whatever until your next duty rotation.”
“Where are you going?” Eha asked as he turned and walked away.
“Kitchen,” Lazarus laughed. “Khyaa’sha keeps trying to get me to eat more. Maybe it was time I listened to her.”
Seven
Oluchi
Double date. On paper, it sounded utterly droll and harmless. Oluchi Pryce was not the least bit fooled.
The limousine that had arrived for him and Anya was already occupied. Alliance block Human Councilor Erlyn Teixeira was there, dressed to the nines in a nice gown. Oluchi was introduce to the other woman with no name besides Manon. He thought it was a French name, but he wasn’t sure.
The new woman was apparently an artist in just about every medium one could try, from the range of things that came up in general conversation on the flight to the restaurant.
Oluchi found it terribly interesting that he was the only male in the vehicle. Especially as Teixeira had apparently placed a bet earlier with Anya that Oluchi would attempt to seduce the older woman.
Possibly bisexual then, or at least open minded. Flexible about such things, in an era when not everyone was. And Manon was a most interesting person to chat with, dressed in a suit similar to his, but elegant black and simple. Refined.
It didn’t make her look the least bit masculine, but certainly caught the eye. Oluchi supposed that to be the entire point.
They landed on a roof, disembarked, and rode the elevator down a few levels to one of those steak house joints that take up a whole floor and wrap the view all directions, depending on one’s mood and need.
The sun was setting, so they watched the last of the color drain while sipping a good house red and nibbling on an anti-pasti plate.
Oluchi noted that the three closest tables had all been left empty, in what was otherwise a relatively crowded restaurant. He put that down to the Councilor’s pull with the staff. She must use this as a stage to impress folks relatively frequently. Or talk business.
Oluchi smiled and considered how much the woman reminded him of Fernanda Flores, back on Yisan. Roald Cavalcanti was nothing like Eduardo Martìnez, but probably held about the same power ratio in their relationship.
And Oluchi had played a great deal of poker with Eduardo over the last few years, frequently for mind-bending stakes.
Oluchi smiled now at Teixeira. Jacks or better to open?
She seemed to feel the same energy, because she shifted forward in such a way that the general conversation at the table died like a knife had chopped it short.
“This is not generally known,” the woman began, taking a sip of her wine and studying him across the small table.
They had ended up facing each other, but the other two really were just decorative tonight, weren’t they?
He nodded.
“A vessel arrived in system a few hours ago,” Teixeira continued, her voice much quieter now. “It rendezvoused with the warship Recife. The pilot of said vessel was apparently Addison Wolcott.”
“Interesting,” Oluchi offered noncommittally.
“Quite,” the woman said. “Since it wasn’t Ajax but a small transport. I think they call them pinks?”
“Pincke,” Oluchi corrected her pronunciation. “A short-range cargo transport like the one Lazarus and Eha brought to Yisan, the first time. Is there panic?”
“Panic?” she asked, deflected. “No. No panic. Apparently the battle went well and the Westphalian forces were utterly routed.”
“But?” Oluchi asked.
“Eha Dunham did not accompany Wolcott,” Teixeira said without implying anything. “What might that suggest to you, Pryce?”
Oluchi smiled and called. They were early in the game, with only one card apiece showing.
“Perhaps Lazarus still finds himself lacking trust,” he offered, just to get the obvious out of the way.
“Then why send Wolcott at all?” she countered.
“They still wish to maintain a thread of conversation with the one power in the vicinity that might be helpful to their cause,” Oluchi guessed aloud.
“Might?”
“Has the High Council decided to supply Lazarus and friends with sufficient force to go challenge the Innruld’s claim to dominance?” Oluchi decided to play a little rough now. Not much. Just showing the blade rather than actually using it on anyone.
Wouldn’t want these nice clothes to get bloody now, would we?
“They have not, as yet,” Teixeira said, glancing at both of the other women to remind them of state secrets. “That conversation is ongoing.”
“And yet, the whole point of the Rio Alliance was to create a multi-species polity where all life forms were welcome and protected, wasn’t it?”
Teixeira stirred uncomfortably.
“Some of my fellow Councilors express concerns,” she offered as a polite way of suggesting that they were acting like Westphalians.
“Just so,” Oluchi leaned back and sipped the wine. For a house blend, it was pretty good. “Did Eha empower Addison to act in her stead as Ambassador?”
Oluchi liked the way her eyes flared for just the slightest moment.
“And if she did?”
“Then he’ll take over all these negotiations,” he replied with just a hint of predatory grin. “I will become his assistant in that. Meanwhile, he and I can negotiate other trade pacts dealing with Yisan.”
There. That is how you properly use a knife, madam.
He smiled as the implications of Churquen/Yisan trade that bypassed the Rio Alliance entirely manifested itself in her eyes. The amount of money to be made. The political ramifications if a whole block of aliens found the Rio Alliance an untrustworthy trade partner.
Oluchi smiled.
“Is Captain Oliveira that good?” Teixeira asked. “Or the others? You people seem to keep piling up accidents in such a way that you always come out ahead.”
Oluchi nodded.
“Lazarus is that intelligent,” he offered simply. “Eha and Addison as well. Plus, they are all utterly ruthless in ways that I don’t think any of you have given them credit for yet, Madam Teixeira. Eha has been a spymaster for more than a decade. Addison smuggled things designed to cripple the Innruld as a species. Lazarus built Ajax. They are not people to be trifled with. Perhaps your fellow Councilors have spent too much time wrapped up in the ennui of politics ere now and forgotten what the outer world is like?”
She nodded, deep in thought.
“There are those people who suggest you should be isolated from Wolcott,” she replied.
“If you wish to make enemies of the Species Underground, I can think of no better way, no faster way, to achieve your goals,” Oluchi kept the smile but let her hear the blade in his voice. “The clock was reset by Ajax returning, not turned off. You will need to make your decisions and do it soon.”
“Or?”
“You asked what it meant that Eha hadn’t returned with Addison, Erlyn,” he said, going so far as to use her first name now. But he wanted to make this a little personal.
“Yes?”
“To me, it suggests that Ajax kept sailing outward,” Oluchi smiled. “That even as we speak, Lazarus and friends are going to Innruld Space to destroy those bastards.”
“Can he win?” she pressed.
“How did the recent battle go?” Oluchi asked. “You used the word routed earlier.”
“Two GunWalls and a Heavy Starcruiser,” she said quietly, nodding to him that this was still a state secret to keep. “The admiral’s report I read suggested that shattered might also be a good verb to use. I was not expecting that Ajax was such a dangerous vessel, Pryce. What has Oliveira built?”
“Vengeance, Madam Teixeira.”
Eight
H’Brige
H’Brige Slani was used to being the odd person out. Atomarsk were the second largest species in the Rio Alliance, by raw numbers, but tended to stay on their own worlds much more than Humans did. As a result, she encountered few in naval service. There were none besides her on Ajax now, with the handful from Recife staying back at Vilga’s Stand to help finish the station.
However, she was used to being around Humans primarily. Her boss on this ship was a Qooph. A sentient being built like two disks each about four and a half feet tall, and each a handspan wide, a wheel with an inner rim that made him thirty inches wide, give or take. With six eyes and six mouths on that inner rim, and spindly arms that came out of his axle, ending in six-finger claws.
Three of those eyes seemed to be studying her with humor, if she had learned enough body language. She had become his primary assistant, since too much of engineering was built with stairs instead of ramps and she was far more skilled than Thadrakho.
H’Brige could see ripping sections of stairways out and replacing them with ramps, when they finally had enough crew to spare.
“So now we come to the interesting part,” Ereshkiki Nisab intoned in several voices.
Always the full name. Nobody had ever even used a nickname for the man. But if his own stories were true, Ereshkiki Nisab was at least fifteen centuries old at this point. He referred to other species as ephemerals.
The mind boggled.
“The interesting part?” H’Brige repeated.
He also had a tendency to make bold proclamations and then not continue unless prompted.
“You, Atomarsk Engineer Slani, are used to Rio technology,” Ereshkiki Nisab said. “Far more knowledgeable than I, because Innruld uses radically different things almost everywhere.”
She nodded, watching three eyes watch her. At least they were both standing still in the middle of the vast cavern known as Engineering, rather than rolling. Dealing with the being when he was rolling and those eyes kept tracking you made it really weird to watch.
“Where we are going, you will find things most interesting,” Ereshkiki Nisab continued in a manner guaranteed to not arrive any time soon.
“How so?” H’Brige prompted.
“This is a secret you must now swear to keep,” he said, pivoting somehow on his rolling feet until four eyes locked in on her.
The air felt colder, but she suspected that was just her. Atomarsk didn’t have the strange, Biblical implications of running into a creature their holy book might have described as an angel visiting them.
At the same time, his grandfather might have visited Earth in that era and given rise to those very stories.
She nodded.
“My orders were to support Captain Oliveira,” she said simply.
“Yes,” he replied with what sounded like all six voices. “But this is Lazarus, not the Rio Captain Oliveira. There is a difference.”
“How so?” she repeated, uncomfortable with where the conversation might be heading.
However, she also knew that they were technically in a state that might be construed by command as mutiny, depending on technicalities.
“We have left Rio Alliance service, Lieutenant Commander Slani,” Ereshkiki Nisab commanded. “We are now pirates. You need to transform yourself appropriately.”
She couldn’t help the sarcasm in her face. Then wondered if Qooph could read an Atomarsk’s body language. Where they were headed, her kind were merely legends.
“And?” she asked, talking now like a pirate rather than an officer from her tones.
The eyes and mouths all smiled, so she wondered if she had just passed some unknown test.
“Innruld technology is far behind Humans in almost all places,” he said quieter, rather than booming such a statement across the entire bay for everyone to hear.
Including a few of her engineers from Recife who had volunteered to sail into the unknown with them.
“How far?” she asked, suddenly concerned.
She knew Ajax was more advanced than most ships, being brand new and experimental. How far ahead were Humans?
“Our life support systems are better than yours,” Ereshkiki Nisab offered with a grin. “That’s about it. Weapons, shields, metallurgy. And we do not use star drives like you have.”
“How do you FTL then?” H’Brige asked, feeling her tail separate out into individual blades behind her.
“Our trans-space drives open a hyperspatial tunnel that we sail through,” Ereshkiki Nisab stated unequivocally.
“Sail?” She was aghast. Like, slowly?
“Sail,” he confirmed. “We travel at a slow FTL rate between points, rather than blueshifting. It is still much faster than light, but much slower than Ajax. Or any other Human vessel.”
Then the implications hit. Weapons. Shields. Hulls. Star drives. All in advance of Innruld tech.
“Pirates,” she gasped as much as said.
The eyes blinked in a way that suggested something like a biped’s nod.
“Any Human vessel would have an advantage on any Innruld vessel of matching tonnage,” Ereshkiki Nisab said. “Thus the secrets of Innruld Space must be kept until the Species Underground can build or rebuild our own ships to Human standards. Overthrowing the Innruld as overlords is not enough, if any Human coming into our space can replace them.”
“Oh,” was about all she could say. Then a thought struck. “What about Shiva Zephyr Glaive?”
The cargorunner that the aliens had been flying when they first met Lazarus.
Again, Ereshkiki Nisab blinked happily.
“I look forward to having you and your staff aboard to finally get everything working correctly,” he said. “Thadrakho is a good worker, but he is not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Can we upgrade the ship?” H’Brige asked. “Take some of our gear from Ajax over and replace your systems?”
“That is why we are having this conversation, Atomarsk Engineer Slani,” Ereshkiki Nisab intoned in a much more serious harmony now. “It would not just be helpful. It becomes necessary.”
She couldn’t help but shiver all seven tail blades at the term.
Nine
Addison
Addison really appreciated that Eha and Lazarus had come through here first. The food he was served all contained things he was familiar with, none of which was poisonous. With the notable exception of the alcohol the two men were drinking over dinner. That much poison would kill him.
It just made most Humans a little silly.
Then again, they had to have originated on a hell world. Take this atmospheric pressure for example.
Rather than read the reports, or maybe in addition to it, Admiral da Silva had asked for a blow by blow account of the lead up and the battle. Addison had to remind himself that Humans were a violent species that enjoyed that sort of thing, so he kept in all the gory details.
“Is Kirov’s Lance really that dangerous?” Quispe asked at one point, disbelief evident in his entire being.
“It is,” Addison assured him. “I used it earlier myself on the pirates who I still believe were Westphalian sailors in a thin disguise. At short range, Wybert broke their ship into pieces. Here, we had managed surprise, plus Lazarus had enticed them into chasing after him, into the barrel arc of the weapon.”
Both men made odd noises. Remahle shrugged when Addison glanced over. The few senior officers around the rest of the table made a point of eating without questions or commentary.
It was weird.
“So what is your mission now, Commander?” da Silva asked.
“Ambassador-Designate, please, Admiral,” Addison responded. “I only took up the uniform because Lazarus needed me, and I have no interest in comparing myself to men and woman like you who wear it for a career.”
The man nodded a little sideways as he chose his words.
“I’ve spoken with Pancho. Captain Oliveira whom you call Lazarus,” da Silva said. “And spoken directly with Admiral Santos, who spent the most time around the man. We’re honored to claim you as one of us, Wolcott. Not many people would have lived up to the standards we often fall short of ourselves. Shape and species don’t matter. Plus, you are still up for a medal from the Admiralty Staff for what you did at 9087 Geminorum IV. I’m sure there will be another one for Vilga’s Stand, as well.”
Addison found that he could blush, but hopefully none of the Humans understood the flair of scales around his jaw and eyes to appreciate that.
He wasn’t about to argue with potential allies, if they really wanted to reward him. That would help later when he asked for material help. They hadn’t gotten there when it was Eha and Lazarus, but perhaps Vilga’s Stand would help balance the scales?
Addison nodded. Took a breath and then a drink of the tea that was about the only thing here other than water that he liked.
“There are two things in the short term, fellow sentients,” he said in a heavier voice. “You need, we need, to get reinforcements to Vilga’s Stand. The station is close to done now, but understaffed. And Lazarus left behind the three escorts to protect it, but that will not be enough if Westphalia comes back to try to reclaim it.”
“And Ajax did not stay to protect the station?” Quispe asked.
Addison noted that da Silva remained silent, with perhaps a knowing smile on his face. But then, Lazarus knew this man, having served under him before, and had good things to say. Plus Recife had an excellent crew. Addison owed his life to those men and women, and the two officers in front of him responsible for them.
