Tiger Honor, page 9
I roared as I leaped toward the target. As a tiger, I could cover almost eight yards horizontally in a jump. The morbid thought occurred to me that this way I wouldn’t have to creep around the bodies of the fallen.
But the enemy was a tiger, too. And one much bigger than me. It was white. Could it be—?
More blaster fire blazed ahead of me. Almost all of it missed. Our opponent had inhumanly quick reflexes. Supernatural reflexes—like mine, but better. Still, Min scorched the attacker with a well-aimed shot to the side of the head.
I circled the intruder, snarling. Suddenly I was assailed by a strong, familiar smell. That of Uncle Hwan. And not just his typical smell, but with the additional earthen undertones of a tiger asserting authority in his own domain.
What was more, Uncle Hwan was also circling—dodging—avoiding any direct attack on me, as though he didn’t want to hurt me. “Sebin! You belong with me,” he rumbled in the language of tigers, which the others wouldn’t be able to understand. “Come!”
The scar on my paw began to ache, a reminder of the oath I had sworn to the Matriarch. I dropped into a crouch and moaned in confusion. Then I resumed human shape. “Uncle?” I whispered.
In the ruddy light, the white tiger appeared flame-tinged. The sight should have terrified me. Instead, I found it awe-inspiring—a tiger in his prime, utterly assured as he faced down his enemies.
Except those enemies were my comrades.
“Look out!” This time it was Euna with the warning. Searing light flashed from her glare pistol as she fired, blinding everyone but, presumably, Euna herself.
I couldn’t see anything but purple afterimages. I resorted to tracking location by scent and the movements of air currents, just as I’d promised Euna. Uncle Hwan must have done the same.
Too late I realized that Uncle Hwan had cornered Yi, and the investigator was in serious danger of being mauled. Yi wielded a blaster of their own—I could hear the high-pitched whine every time they pulled the trigger—but its fire only seemed to enrage Hwan. I heard the investigator scramble for cover, only to trip and go sprawling. Uncle Hwan roared and snapped at Yi. I could both hear and smell the saliva dripping from Hwan’s powerful jaws.
For once, the strictures that had guided my life didn’t tell me what to do. But I knew I couldn’t let Yi get chomped, even if the person doing the chomping was my uncle. I shook off my confusion, and changed back into a tiger. “Uncle, you can’t!” I cried in the language of tigers. I interposed myself between Uncle Hwan and Yi.
Hwan roared ferociously. My ears flattened against my skull, but I couldn’t back down. I roared in return.
“I’ll be back for you later,” Hwan said, “when the odds are better. You’ll understand soon, Sebin.” His footsteps receded.
I resumed human shape. By now my vision had started to return, although everything was hazy and ringed with the purple afterimages. The earsplitting wail of the alarms made it impossible to gather my thoughts.
That was the only reason I didn’t notice sooner that the others had surrounded me instead of chasing down Uncle Hwan.
I blinked fuzzily at Jee, who avoided my gaze, then at the investigator. Yi and Min both had their blasters trained on me. Euna was frowning. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“You have some explaining to do,” Yi said coolly. “Namkyu, we’ve got Sebin covered. Go check on the captain and the rest of the bridge crew.”
“Of course,” Namkyu said. They rushed to Captain Chaewon’s side, rummaging in their medkit as they did so.
I would have liked to watch Namkyu at work, not least because I was terrified that the captain had perished. And at my uncle’s hands, as impossible as that seemed. Was he really the renegade that the Space Forces had painted him to be, despite a long and honorable history of service?
That question would have to wait. First I had to figure out why my comrades had turned on me. “Explain what?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“You recognized the saboteur, didn’t you?” Euna said accusingly. “I saw the whole thing. You were talking to that other tiger. You knew it.”
Yi sucked in their breath. “This is serious,” they said, as if I didn’t know that. “Very serious. Sebin, what do you have to say for yourself?”
I tried to put myself in the others’ heads. It was dawning on me that I was in a lot of trouble. They must have mistaken my confusion at seeing my beloved uncle here, and as an attacker, as collusion.
“I did recognize him,” I said slowly, knowing that this would only condemn me further in their minds.
Yi’s eyes bored into mine. Min was scowling, and Euna shared her expression. Jee continued to avoid looking my way, as though he were ashamed of me.
“Cap—I mean, Hwan of the Juhwang Tiger Clan,” I said. And because Yi was still waiting with that accusatory expression, and Euna’s eyes were starting to glow even through her contacts, I added, “My uncle.”
“You realize that aiding a saboteur, and one who attacked the crew, is a crime subject to court-martial,” Yi said, their face stern.
I blanched. “It’s not a crime to be related to someone!” Besides, what if they had misunderstood the whole situation? Uncle Hwan might have come to assist Captain Chaewon on the bridge and thought that we were the intruders. I still didn’t know how he’d gotten onto the ship, but I knew he had an explanation, even if he wasn’t here to give it. Too bad anything I offered would be pure speculation. And given the way the others were looking at me, they wouldn’t be interested in any of my theories, or be willing to give my uncle the benefit of the doubt.
“Perhaps not,” Yi said, although their tone made me think otherwise.
“Special Investigator,” Namkyu called, sounding worried. “I hate to interrupt, but…”
The muzzle of Yi’s blaster didn’t waver from me, but they nodded to indicate that they were paying attention to Namkyu. Min was frowning slightly, her eyes darting back and forth as if she couldn’t decide what the biggest threat was. Jee and Euna, less disciplined and also not armed with blasters, turned to regard Namkyu.
Brushing their hair back from their face, a nervous tic, Namkyu continued, “Captain Chaewon is alive, but she needs further medical attention. I think some kind of drug knocked her out—either that or a strike to her gi. She has a broken arm, too. She needs time in one of the healing pods if the sick bay is still intact.”
“That’s good. She should recover,” Yi said. “The others?”
I could have taken advantage of the distraction to spring free of the circle, but that would only have confirmed my guilt in the others’ eyes. Even so, I was sorely tempted. I didn’t like being treated as a hostile, and I liked the thought of what might come afterward even less. Would they throw me in the brig?
If only I’d had more time to talk to Uncle Hwan and find out what he wanted from me. I had always loved his visits when I was growing up. Meeting him on a battle cruiser should have been a dream come true. Instead, he’d attacked us. I dreaded the possibility that he’d been responsible for the mayhem on the bridge. The circumstances had turned what could have been a happy occasion into a frightening one.
I could smell my own nervous sweat, along with the others’ paranoia, as Namkyu moved around the bridge. Despite the morbid sense of humor they’d displayed back in the bunkroom, they worked with a quiet thoroughness. I caught myself wishing Namkyu would hurry up instead of leaving me in suspense. All the same, I recognized that they currently had the most important job of anyone here.
Please be alive, I wished for the crew. It bothered me that, aside from Captain Chaewon and her XO, Commander Ae, I didn’t know any of their names. Aside from the interrupted meeting with the captain, I hadn’t gotten a proper introduction to anyone but the other cadets.
“My bad luck strikes again,” Min muttered under her breath, so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. A breath of cold air gusted from her.
Surely it wasn’t just her misfortune? There was a lot of bad luck going around on this cruise, my own included. Unless she was cursed or something?
It can’t be that, I thought. The special investigator couldn’t be so foolish as to travel with a cursed person, as opposed to taking her to a shaman to uncurse her. I didn’t know a lot about curses, only that bad luck could follow someone for any number of reasons—failing to make the proper ancestral offerings, offending a shaman, running afoul of ghosts, improper use of geomancy…. With all the possibilities, it was a wonder anyone had good luck.
At last Namkyu finished their rounds. “Everyone’s alive,” they reported. “That renegade Hwan must have known this was the only way we’d show him mercy. That, or he didn’t want to risk being haunted by a crowd of vengeful ghosts.”
I sagged in relief. I’d been afraid they would accuse Uncle Hwan of killing the crew. Ghosts or no ghosts, he never would have done that. Things still looked bad for him—and me—but at least no one would be condemned for murder.
That you’re aware of, a nagging voice in my head interjected. After all, we didn’t know what had happened elsewhere on the ship. I remembered the fallen crew we’d passed before, devastated by whatever attack had crippled the Haetae.
They can’t be dead. I clung to that thought. Surely I would have felt—and smelled—that much death. And yet…I remembered the booms that had reverberated through the ship. Who knew how many people had been hurt?
“We’regoingtohavetosplitup,” Yi said, resuming their normal rapid speech.
I forced myself to focus. I couldn’t afford to miss a single word.
“Getting medical care for the bridge crew is our second priority,” Yi said.
“Only second?” Namkyu demanded.
Yi looked at them dourly. “There’s a fugitive at large on the ship, and possibly more with him. Who knows what other damage is being done right this moment? The ship needs the guidance of the next person in the chain of command. Who is not me, unfortunately, since I’m not Space Forces. We’ll have to find—”
“That’s ridiculous!” Jee exclaimed, cutting them off. “This whole situation is crazy!”
I bristled at Jee’s outburst, even though he hadn’t been addressing me. Discipline was the backbone of the Space Forces! My family had been very clear on this point. It was why they had prepared me for service with such rigid household rules.
“Nevertheless,” Yi said, “unless we receive definite information that there is no one left on the ship besides yourselves, that is how we have to proceed.”
I blanched at the implication. I hadn’t thought that far ahead, and I kicked myself mentally. I should have been prepared for even an emergency that dire. The chain of command extended down through the lowliest cadet. But for us to be in charge of, well, anything, everyone else on the ship would have to be unavailable. I couldn’t imagine one enemy taking out so many people singlehandedly, which meant there had to be multiple hostiles.
Yi kept speaking. “Agent Min,” they said, and with a jolt I was unpleasantly reminded that Min, for all her apparent youth, had more pull than we did as cadets. “Take Cadet Sebin to the brig and get the truth out of them. The rest of us will attend to matters on the bridge.”
“Special Investigator,” Min said, “are you sure there will be security staff down there to let us in? Normally that would require an officer’s authorization.”
She knew the regulations well, I had to give her that. I was impressed that Yi would entrust her with me without giving her any backup. I wondered if she had capabilities she hadn’t shown us yet.
“You’ll figure it out,” Yi said with a meaningful look. “Go.”
“You’re coming with me,” Min said to me as Yi and the others scrambled into action.
“Just you?” I asked, not bothering to hide my skepticism.
“Blaster fire might not kill you immediately in tiger form,” Min said, “but it would sting. I don’t want to have to hurt you. Come on.”
I blinked at her, trying to concentrate on her words. My head felt as though stars were swirling at the edge of my vision. Suddenly what Min was telling me made sense. She was my friend, wasn’t she?
An uneasy voice murmured in disgruntlement at the back of my head, then quieted. I had no reason to suspect that Min had anything but my best interests at heart. As long as I cooperated, we’d get this cleared up.
Behind me, I heard Jee asking, “Are you sure that’s safe? Not to question Agent Min’s competence, but…”
“Don’t be fooled by her unprepossessing appearance,” Yi replied. “Min has special defenses…” I couldn’t hear the rest of the sentence.
I wondered what those defenses were, but by then Min had herded me out of the bridge and toward the elevator.
“No need to pay attention to any of that,” Min said soothingly.
I quieted. If Min said it wasn’t important, I didn’t need to worry about it. Obediently, as though in a trance, I drifted after her. I felt myself smiling, and I couldn’t say why, although that didn’t bother me, either. After all, Min hadn’t mentioned that it was a problem.
“I can’t believe how much of the crew is locked down,” Min commented to herself as we emerged from the elevator. “Hwan must have hacked into the anti-intruder systems and used them to gas the on-duty crew unconscious. What irony.”
The barriers rose at our approach. Jee must have been looking out for us. I said this out loud, and Min glanced sharply at me, then nodded. “In order to get around, Capt—I mean, the fugitive Hwan must also know how to hack the access codes,” she said, eyeing me as though she thought I might shed some light on the situation.
I noticed her slip and blurted out, “You know my uncle?” Perhaps she would help me clear his name.
That’s ludicrous, a colder part of my awareness scoffed. Why would she do that? But I dismissed the thought as uncharitable.
The muscles around Min’s eyes tightened. A tiny shift, but one I noted immediately, intent as I was on her reaction. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, with a bit of an edge.
I remained slightly tense. This was something I needed to keep an eye on. But she clearly didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t press her.
Still, I couldn’t help noticing that we passed unimpeded through all the corridors. Once in a while I heard a faint scuffling from behind the hatches to either side, as though crew members were hiding. I was tempted to call out and ask for information. But Min strode onward, giving no sign of doing any such thing, so I held my tongue.
She’ll have an explanation, I told the lurking cynical part of myself that thought this expedition was a bad idea. I just have to trust Min.
The eerie emptiness of the ship reached an abrupt end when we reached the brig. There were two security officers slumped at their posts, also unconscious. I almost stepped in front of Min to shield her in case anyone recovered unexpectedly, but she gestured for me to stay back.
“Time to do my thing,” Min muttered.
Trust Min.
I looked around. All the cells were empty. I didn’t know what the Haetae’s record of disciplinary actions was, but I liked to think that the brig was used as a last resort.
Like when someone’s accused of treason, my annoying backbrain supplied.
Min made a call using her slate. “Special Investigator, could you have Jee unlock one of the brig cells?”
A pause, then, “It should be done,” Yi replied.
Indeed, one of the doors opened. The cell almost looked enticing.
Min led me there. “In you go,” she said. “It’s for your own protection.”
“It’s for my own protection,” I repeated. I couldn’t help it. I was smiling again. The bars would keep me safe from all but the most ferocious of enemies.
I walked into the cell, then turned around to face Min, wondering what she had in mind.
The door snapped shut with an ominous click. Min stared at me from the other side of the bars. This time there was no trace of friendliness in her voice. “Now, Sebin,” she said, “you’re going to tell me everything you know about the traitor Captain Hwan.”
I stared out at Min. My lips curved into that smile again. “What do you mean?” I wasn’t trying to be obstructive. I needed to know what she was after so I could answer her as completely as possible. “He’s my uncle. I’ve known him since I was a cub.”
Min bit her lip, and I smelled her impatience. “I mean his plot to sabotage the Haetae.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” I protested. Her brows drew down, and I hastily added, “I can’t believe he’s gone renegade.”
She slitted her eyes at me. “You’re telling the truth?”
“Of course,” I said, injured that she doubted me. Why would I lie to Min of all people? I had to convince her that I wanted to cooperate. “I tried to warn Captain Chaewon, but—”
Min inhaled sharply. “You tried to warn the captain about what?”
I stood straighter, glad to have found something of interest to her. “It was before I was sworn in,” I said. My scar ached, but I ignored it. “We were interrupted by the alarms going off.”
Min’s nod indicated that I should continue.
“Earlier,” I said, “I smelled my uncle’s territorial mark in one of the corridors. I thought the captain should know, just in case she wasn’t aware, but I never got the chance to tell her.”
Min smelled even more strongly of suspicion, although I couldn’t tell why. After all, I was doing my best to be honest. “You didn’t think to mention this to anyone else?” she asked.
“I wasn’t sure what was going on,” I confessed. “I’d heard that some people suffer strange hallucinations during Gate transitions. This is only my second time on a starship. I couldn’t be certain it wasn’t a figment of my imagination.”
Min huffed. “You could have told Special Investigator Yi.”
“I was so worried about the status of the bridge that it didn’t occur to me,” I said. That was the truth. “Besides, I don’t think my uncle would stoop to sabotage!”
“Wake up!” Min shouted. Her voice reverberated in the confines of the brig. “Who else could it have been?”
