The Reforged Trilogy: Book 1 — Crucible of Stars
Chapter 4
Sibling Rivalry
“The Lyceum is like a choir of children… beautiful, if you can ever get them to stop squabbling and actually sing together.”
– Annu Marth, Hyzaar representative (125 PA)
With a population of over a trillion citizens on thirty-six planets, the Alliance was spread thin. Necessity sent the CWA flying from star to star, forever searching out the means to support its growing population. But space was vast, and even the fastest starships took years or more to reach neighboring stellar systems.
For the Alliance to survive, they needed a way to cover much more distance in much less time. The scientists and engineers of the CWA were tasked with creating this solution. Faster-than-light engines were a simple enough prospect, in theory. But at superluminal speeds, mass was a major problem. As a ship approached the speed of light, its mass increased exponentially. When the inertia of the ship became too great, even the most powerful engines lacked the ability to propel them.
The answer to the prayers of physicists and shipbuilders alike came in the form of the newly-founded Starwind Enterprises and their revolutionary null-inertia technology. Through a clever trick of quantum gravitational thresholds, null-fields reduced the effective mass of everything contained within them to zero. Suddenly, superluminal travel became a real possibility.
But there was one complication. Interactions between shielded mass and normal matter proved to be… problematic. Theoretically, anything enfolded within the null-inertia field had no effective mass and should have been able to slide right through unshielded matter. But in practice, these interactions with normal mass tended to rip test ships back down into subluminal speeds — usually in pieces. Perhaps the same unknown physics that kept time mysteriously pinned into place had some other effects…
So engaging superluminal drives near planets or deep inside a stellar system — where planets and moons held captive by a star’s gravity were most numerous — was risky. Faster-than-light speeds made reacting to such barriers a dangerous roll of the dice.
Despite their imperfections, however, null-inertia fields were an overnight sensation throughout the CWA. Starwind stockholders became the richest beings in the galaxy.
Since matter contained inside null-inertia fields had no mass, it was immune to the effects of gravity. The fields were incorporated into all manner of technology, from replacing wheels on vehicles to reducing the gunpowder required by projectile weapons. Expensive hair accessories even utilized tiny null-fields to create ever more wild and imaginative styles. Of course, only those who had first invested in Starwind could afford the most extravagant uses of their technology.
The Blue Phoenix burned at the edge of the sun’s corona for the better part of an hour before Tiberius would consider venturing out of the sheltering plasma for a quick scan around. Radiation from Axis’ star made it impossible to perform even the most basic sensor sweep, but it hid them from the patrolling Axis orbital enforcement fighters, too. The Blue Phoenix’s hull still rippled with azure fire and inside, the passengers waited.
With Duaal in tow, Tiberius stumped down to the crew lounge. It was a round room located in the middle of the ship with a large viewport set into the ceiling, covered by thick illonium radiation shielding for the moment. Duaal followed his grumpy Prian captain to the battered dinner table.
Duaal had been flying with Tiberius the longest, but he was the youngest member of the Blue Phoenix crew — somewhere around eighteen central standard years old. He wasn’t exactly sure. But it didn’t matter if he was young, Duaal often reminded himself. He was special.
The air moving sluggishly through the broken recycling system was hot and wet and smelled like burning oil. Maeve perched up on one of the acceleration couches, watching the door. The white feathers of her wings stuck against the fairy’s pale, sweaty skin. They looked… itchy.
Gripper sat beside Maeve, alternately clenching and relaxing his hands. His huge claws were black with engine grease. But the mechanic grinned at Tiberius.
“Right into the sun!” Gripper said. “The phenno did great, huh? We just about ruined the SL engines jumping them like that, though.”
Tiberius shrugged and grunted. “They did the job. We’re safe… For the moment, at least.”
Kessa wandered a slow circuit of the room, her mouth hanging open. The pregnant Dailon woman had been terrified down in the cargo bay, but now she stared at everything in frank wonder. Duaal surreptitiously combed his fingers through his hair. Her pregnancy certainly suggested there was already someone in the picture, but it never hurt to make a good impression.
“We need a new coat of phenno,” Tiberius said. “We don’t have a replacement for the one we’re burning.”
“Phenno…?” Kessa asked.
“Phennomethylln,” Gripper told her. “That’s the stuff keeping the heat and radiation out right now, or we’d get cooked inside the ship!”
Kessa flinched a little. “Oh.”
“Phennomethylln is useful for all sorts of protection,” Xia said. She gave Kessa a reassuring silver-lipped smile. “The Lyceum hasn’t quite approved its production, though.”
“Why not?” Kessa asked.
“It’s a protein secreted by the Nnyth,” Xia explained. “Phenno shields them from heat and radiation when they fly in space. But it can be dangerous to collect samples and the Alliance doesn’t want to encourage ships broaching Nnyth territory.”
“The wasps fly in space? Without ships?” Kessa asked. “But… no one can do that!”
Maeve leaned forward and shook her wings like an angry bird. “Coreworld arrogance. Whatever you do not understand, you call impossible.”
“I didn’t–” Kessa said in a tiny voice.
“Don’t bother,” Duaal whispered.
“For generations, your kind told stories of fairies and angels and enchanted trees,” Maeve hissed. “But when you found us, you recoiled! You treat us like refugees!”
“But… Arcadians are refugees,” Kessa protested.
Duaal snorted and Maeve’s eyes narrowed. She half rose to her feet and spread her wings, making Gripper scramble away with a shout. Kessa shrank back behind Xia.
“Easy there, princess,” Tiberius said.
Maeve snapped her glare up to Tiberius. She held his gaze, every muscle in her small body tensed. Duaal touched his fingertips to one of the embroidered stars on his coat. If the fairy decided to actually attack Tiberius, he would make her regret it. But Maeve just pushed a tangle of dark hair out of her face and nodded.
Xia cleared her throat. “At any rate, the phenno on our hull isn’t designed to withstand the kind of stress we’re putting it through. Nnyth occasionally skim stars but they never stay close for this long. That’s why the phenno is burning.”
“Burning?” Kessa’s black eyes widened. “Will it burn off?”
“No,” Xia answered. “At least, not for a while. The heat from the sun has crystallized the phenno and it should hold for another five hours at this range.”
“But as soon as we fly out of the corona, the temperature differential outside will crack the finish,” Gripper said. He flicked one of his fingers as though chipping imaginary phenno off the hull. “We need a whole new batch.”
A sun blazed just outside the Blue Phoenix, on the other side of a few layers of metal and phenno. Sweat ran down Duaal’s back. Maybe Maeve didn’t really have it so bad with those wings, he decided. She only had feathers to deal with, but the leather of Duaal’s coat was as heavy as lead in this heat. He shifted uncomfortably, but he couldn’t take it off. Duaal needed the stars and sigils that he had stitched there. Without them — without his magic — Duaal was only a useless kid.
“Where is Coldhand?” he asked, more to distract himself from the sticky feeling of sweat streaming down his spine than actual curiosity.
“I locked him up in one of the spare rooms,” Xia answered. “Number six.”
“What are we going to do with him?” Duaal asked.
Tiberius rubbed his rough cheek, considering. “I’m not sure. We have some other things to figure out first. Like who exactly our new passenger is and why we just spent three thousand cen getting her off Axis.”
“We never pay for the phenno,” Duaal said. “Xyn owes us.”
“But we did run away from Axis police,” Xia pointed out. “If they ever discover that we survived jumping into the sun, we just earned ourselves some criminal records.”
“Those who did not have them already,” Maeve said.
“Damn it,” Tiberius sighed. “How the hells did this happen? Start talking, princess.”
Maeve turned one of the chairs at the table backwards and sat, crossing her arms over the back. She couldn’t sit normally with those wings behind her, Duaal supposed. The fairies didn’t fit anywhere in the core. The war that had driven them from the White Kingdom was over now, wasn’t it? Why didn’t the Arcadians just go home?
“Logan Coldhand found me on Level Seven,” Maeve said. “We fought, but we were interrupted by Kessa’s arrival. She was being chased by her Sisters and needed our help.”
“Sisters…?” Gripper asked. “Why would she be running away from her family?”
Kessa shook her head and gulped. “They were my family once, but not like that. They’re called the Sisterhood.”
“The Sisters are a gang of sorts,” Maeve said. “Their outlook on other genders is… unkind. I have encountered them before.”
Of course she had, Duaal thought. If a bounty hunter was after Maeve, that meant she was a criminal, didn’t it? She would fit right in with a gang of violent women.
“The Sisterhood’s membership is entirely female,” Maeve said. “And deadly when provoked. More than that, I do not know. But Coldhand seemed to. He was the one who suggested how to deal with them.”
Duaal took a chair across from Maeve, who was now describing tearing off Coldhand’s shirt as a part of their ruse. That, at least, sounded interesting. But then Maeve’s story moved on to the arrival of the Sisterhood and trying to distract them from Kessa hiding nearby. Duaal’s attention swiftly wandered.
Why did Tiberius put up with Maeve? The fairy woman was pretty enough, Duaal supposed, with her delicate features and long midnight hair. Maeve attracted Duaal’s attention when she first joined the Blue Phoenix crew, but that died off quickly. He doubted that Tiberius had designs on Maeve, either. Orphia was the only woman in the old Prian’s life.
Duaal kicked his silver-buckled boots up onto the table and glanced around the room, past Maeve to Gripper and then Xia. Why had Tiberius hired any of the others? Things were so much better when it was just the two of them, Duaal and Tiberius. Before Maeve and her chems and her bounty hunters. Before Xia and her mothering. Before Gripper and his questions.
Of course, keeping the ship running had been harder back then, too. Duaal had to admit that having a mechanic and a medic was helpful, at least: someone to fix broken machines and someone to fix broken bodies. But Maeve? Maeve was useless.
Tiberius was frowning and rubbing his jaw again. It was already dark with a day’s gray stubble. Maeve seemed to have finished her story and fell silent. Tiberius looked at Kessa.
“What the hells, girl?” he asked. “You don’t seem like the kind to join a gang. Too fragile. What’s going on? And why did they turn on you?”
Fresh tears ran down Kessa’s blue cheeks and she covered her face with her hands. Xia gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze and Maeve scowled at Tiberius. Duaal badly wanted to kick her under the table. Wasn’t it just a few minutes ago that Maeve was the one yelling at Kessa?
“You’re right,” said the Dailon. The words were muffled through her blue fingers. “You’re right about me. I know I’m not strong or fierce like them…”
Kessa hiccupped and Gripper held out a wad of paper towels from a dispenser next to the sink. She blew her nose into them and wiped her cheeks.
“That was the whole point,” Kessa said when she could speak again. “My dad left us alone, Herra and me. Herra was my sister — my actual sister — and she took us both to the Sisterhood. Herra said we needed them. She always told me to just stay quiet and wait when things got bad.
“So I did. I stayed quiet and waited one day while some of the Sisters went out for men. They hit up against some other gang. It… didn’t go well. Herra didn’t come back. But they brought another Dailon. They chained him up in a room so… so the girls could use him. He cried at night sometimes. His name was Vyron. I think his line name was Fethru.
“I felt sorry for Vyron. I brought him food if no one was watching, and we talked. Vyron was nice, and smart. I liked him and he seemed to like me, too. After a while we… uh… got up to the same sorts of things that the other girls did with him. But… better.”
Here, Kessa blushed deep violet and touched her fingers to her rounded stomach. So this prisoner, Vyron, was the baby’s father. Where was he now? At least Kessa was calming down a bit as she told her story.
“I wanted to let Vyron go,” she said. “But I was scared of what the others would do if they thought I actually cared about a male. They would kill him and hurt me. Vyron said he understood, that he loved me and didn’t want me to take any chances for him. I didn’t like it, but I had no idea what else to do.
“Vyron was around for about three months, I think, when the other men came for him. His gang, the ones the Sisters attacked when they caught Vyron. They killed four of my Sisters during the fighting and we got five of them. But they took Vyron back.”
“Were you there when it happened?” Xia asked.
Kessa shook her head. “No, I was off buying food. They told me about it later. I missed Vyron, but I was glad he was out of there. I guess I wasn’t very good at pretending to be angry about the whole thing, though. My Sisters got suspicious.”
“Did you know you were pregnant at the time?” Maeve asked. “How did that occur? Surely birth control is a simple matter, even on Level Seven.”
“It would be, but it’s kind of frowned upon,” Kessa said. “We’re not supposed to get the shots. Mothering is really important to the Sisterhood. I didn’t know I was pregnant until after Vyron was gone, but then it was pretty obvious.”
The Dailon gestured to herself and Duaal nodded. It would be hard to overlook that body.
“They were all excited about a new Sister, but I was frightened,” said Kessa. “What if it’s a boy? They only keep female babies. And even if I have a girl, she would grow up hating her father…”
Kessa let out a shuddering sigh and wiped her face again. She took a deep breath before continuing her story.
“So I ran away. It didn’t take my Sisters long to figure out that I hadn’t just gone shopping. They chased me across Level Seven, where I ran into her–” Here, Kessa pointed to Maeve. “–and the human male with the old metal hand. You know the rest.”
Duaal looked at Tiberius.
“I see,” the captain grunted and scratched his rough cheek. “You ran to keep your baby safe.”
Everyone waited.
Duaal tugged at his collar. God, it was hot. Sweat streamed into Duaal’s eyes and blurred his vision. He blinked it away and hoped no one noticed how much he was fidgeting. Tiberius folded his arms on the scuffed plastic table and peered at Kessa. The pregnant girl squirmed in her seat, too, clearly aware that her fate hung in the balance.
“I never had any children myself,” Tiberius said at last. “Always too much work to do. But if I had, seems I would want the best for them. Can’t exactly blame you for the same.”
The old Prian slapped his hand down on the tabletop, making Kessa jump.
“Besides, we’ve already flown right out from under the Axis police and burnt off thousands of cen in their sun,” Tiberius said. “Might as well finish what we started.”
Gripper grinned and Kessa’s face lit up with confused hope. She reached out to take Maeve’s hand, but the fairy pulled away. Kessa deflated a little, then brightened again as Xia enfolded her blue fingers and her own silver ones.
“Once things have settled down a bit, I’d like to examine you and the baby,” said the Ixthian doctor. “Just to make sure you’re both healthy.”
Kessa nodded and Duaal caught Maeve’s eye. This wasn’t a paying job and having Coldhand onboard was dangerous. Duaal couldn’t quite hate the fairy for bringing Kessa to the Blue Phoenix, but he wasn’t happy about it, either.
“Now, what are we going to do with you?” Tiberius asked Kessa. “Don’t suppose we could just put you back down on the other side of Axis?”
“My Sisters will find me there,” Kessa said. “Sooner or later. Probably sooner.”
“Fine,” Tiberius grumbled. “Forget that. We’ll take you somewhere else. Any ideas, dove?”
Kessa shook her head. “I’ve never been off Axis before.”
“Maeve, you and Coldhand seem to know about that Sisterhood bunch,” Tiberius said, shaking one rough finger at his first mate. “I want the two of you to help me figure out where Kessa can get some damned peace from them.”
“Be careful with him,” Xia said, looking up from Kessa with a deep frown. “That man is dangerous.”
“I will speak to Coldhand,” Maeve said.
She stood and headed for the door. Tiberius heaved himself to his feet and grabbed her arm.
“Not alone,” he told Maeve. “I’m coming with you.”
“Wait,” Kessa asked suddenly. “What about Vyron?”
Tiberius turned his attention back to the Dailon, though he didn’t release Maeve. The captain sighed.
“Wouldn’t be right to make you do this on your own. We’ll find your hawk, if we can. But let’s start by figuring out where to take you two,” Tiberius said and then corrected himself. “Three.”
He and Maeve moved toward the door again. Duaal tried to think of some good reason to go along or at least an intelligent suggestion. But by the time Tiberius and Maeve left, Duaal still hadn’t come up with anything. Gripper grinned at Kessa and gently took one of her blue hands in his huge claws.
“Come on,” he said. “I want to show you the garden. It’s the nicest place on the Blue Phoenix.”
“A garden? On a ship?” Kessa asked.
“Yeah! It’s wired up high,” Gripper told her. “So we can keep the cargo floor open for crates and stuff. But you can see it pretty well from the catwalks.”
Kessa stood and let herself be led away until their voices faded into echoes. Xia sat down in the recently vacated chair and laced her six-fingered hands together. The Ixthian doctor rested her pointed chin on her knuckles and looked at Duaal.
“What is it?” Xia asked.
Her eyes shimmered alternately blue and green. Duaal wondered how a species who displayed their mood so obviously could ever hide anything from each other.
“Shouldn’t you be off examining Kessa?” Duaal asked.
“I will when Gripper’s done showing her the garden. But I know something’s bothering you. What is it?”
Xia could be such a mother sometimes. But Duaal didn’t remember his own parents… Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a mother. Just for a little while.
“I don’t know,” Duaal admitted. He leaned back in his chair, balancing it up on two legs. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t help her, but did Maeve have to bring Kessa to the Phoenix? Don’t we have enough to deal with?”
Xia’s short antennae curled. “Where else could she have taken Kessa? Maeve has no home except this ship. You know that.”
Duaal pulled his feet off the table. His chair thumped back down to the floor.
“But that meant bringing Coldhand, too,” Duaal said. “That was dangerous. Maeve should have gotten rid of him first.”
“And risk fighting him off with a pregnant girl on her arm?” Xia asked. “Besides, all he managed to do was get himself caught. Coldhand is locked up now, away from his ship and his weapons.”
The Ixthian’s voice faltered a little, perhaps trying to convince herself that the Blue Phoenix was actually safe from Logan Coldhand.
“I guess so, but I don’t trust her. Or him,” Duaal said.
“You think this might be some kind of trick?” Xia asked. “How? Coldhand couldn’t have known that Kessa would run into Maeve.”
“You want to know what I think?” Duaal snapped. He kicked his chair back from the table. “I think that a good first mate wouldn’t do things like this! Maeve has never been anything but trouble. Why the hells does Tiberius let her stay?”
Xia blinked and sat back, her eyes darkening to a deep blue and pursed her lips.
“I… I don’t know why Tiberius had to hire her,” Duaal said. He didn’t look up. “It used to be just him and me. I was here before this was even the Blue Phoenix, when it was only the Phoenix.”
“I didn’t join up until after that,” said Xia. “How did a Hyzaari boy end up on a Prian ship?”
Duaal closed his eyes.
It was cold. It was dark.
Duaal pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping thin arms around them and shivering. Sparks of color danced in his vision. Was it really dark? Or was he blind now? The child rocked back and forth on the hard floor, crooning to himself. It didn’t matter. Blind or just condemned to live in darkness, at least Duaal had escaped. Anything was better than… than before.
“Two hundred eighty-eight days of light…”
“I was hiding on the ship when Tiberius bought it,” Duaal said.
There was more — much more — to that particular story. Even Tiberius didn’t know the whole thing. Duaal closed his hands into fists and felt sweat on his palms. It had nothing to do with the heat this time.
“I had run away,” Duaal told Xia. “A bit like Kessa, I guess. We were on Prianus when I escaped and I found my way to an old shipyard. There was an unsecured hold and I hid inside.”
Duaal knew he should be quiet, as silent as a stone, but it felt so good to hear his own voice, his own words. His own words, when he wanted to sing! But Duaal only knew his master’s songs… His teeth chattered in the cold, surrounded by the empty crates he had pulled together into a sort of cave.
“…Will be desired by a Night…” Duaal sang.
He didn’t hear the footsteps over the sound of his own voice. It was his master’s song, the one he sang so often. Not a spell like the others, but it seemed to hold another kind of power. Or a promise, at least.
And then a huge, rough-calloused hand caught Duaal by the scruff of the neck and hauled him into the light. The boy screamed and writhed, but the hand held him fast.
“When Tiberius found me down there, he threatened to toss me out an airlock,” Duaal said. “Then he threatened to leave me on the nearest planet. But he never did. He gave me a room and said that if I was going to fly with him, I was damned well going to pay my way. So he found me some work around the ship and he even started teaching me how to pilot the Phoenix.”
Duaal opened his eyes and saw Xia smirking at him. She didn’t comment on his flying, though. Duaal felt heat in his cheeks.
“For a few years, it was just the two of us,” he said quickly. “Until Tiberius hired Maeve.”
“Did you ever question that?” Xia asked. “A first mate manages a crew. But if there were only two of you, then what did Tiberius need Maeve for?”
“I have no idea.” Duaal shook his head and stood up. His shirt stuck uncomfortably against his ribs and he pushed sweaty hair back from his face. “I should get up to the cockpit and check on the readings. If the captain missed a bit of hull when he put the phenno on, some radiation might be getting through. I don’t feel like baking inside my own skin today.”
Xia reached out and placed her hand on his arm. The Ixthian looked as though she wanted to say something else, but Duaal pulled his sleeve from her grasp and made his way up toward the front of the ship. He really didn’t want a mother, Duaal decided. Tiberius was all the family he needed.
