THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 3 — HAMMER OF TIME
Chapter 9: Where
“Retreat isn’t the same thing as running away. They’re spelled completely differently.”
– Duaal Sinnay (234 PA)
There was a loud thump from the next room, the sound of a body hitting the floor. Jessica Centra ran out of the kitchen and skidded to a stop, hands splayed protectively over her belly. Logan was sprawled on the apartment floor, eyes closed and laying absolutely still. Jess put her hands on her hips and scowled.
“Vorus Reginald Centra, did you shoot your father again?” she asked.
The little boy standing on the cushions of their threadbare couch hung his head, but his unruly blond hair didn’t hide his grin. Jess sighed and threw her hands into the air.
“Well, go kiss him back to life,” she told her son.
Vorus jumped down from the couch and scampered across the living room to kiss his father’s cheek. Logan sat up suddenly and wrapped his arms around the boy, who screeched and wriggled.
“Dad, no!”
“That’s Captain Dad to you, rookie,” Logan growled.
“Logan, you know I don’t like you playing shooting games with him,” Jess said. It wasn’t the first time.
“What? But we were playing Cops and Also Cops. We were training,” Logan answered. Vorus giggled until his father finally released him. “Go set the table for dinner. Commissioner Mom wants to talk to me.”
Vorus pouted a little, but then scampered off to do as he was told. Jess winced and pressed her hands against her back. Logan jumped to his feet and helped his wife to sit. It was a sweet gesture, but she wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily.
“Vorus is too young for those kinds of games,” Jess said. “They’re just too violent.”
“He already knows,” Logan countered. Logan’s left hand went automatically to the worn old badge on his chest. He was still in uniform, of course. “Vorus knows I’m a cop. He’s already asked what happened to the man he’s named after.”
“And you told him?” Jess asked, aghast.
“What did you want me to do, Jess? Lie? To our son?” Logan took her hands. His fingers were warm, rough and strong. “Jess, this is Prianus. There’s no point in pretending it’s safe.”
“But it is safe in here,” Jess said. “In our home. Besides, you know cops don’t shoot other cops. Let’s keep it to shooting bad guys, hawk. Imaginary ones.”
“That’s fair,” Logan agreed. He smiled and kissed his wife. “What’s for dinner? It smells great.”
The Blue Phoenix made daily flights out to other Sunjarran cities, searching for more Arcadians. Maeve gave several speeches, better rehearsed this time, but still admittedly unpolished. The crowds were small, though. Sunjarrah was not one of the original worlds to which the Arcadians fled when the Devourers ravaged the White Kingdom. Fairies had come to Sunjarrah over the century since then, but never in great numbers. And most of those had already promised themselves to Xartasia’s mysterious cause. After a week of searching and speeches, Maeve’s new kingdom was far from impressive. With only thirty-seven members, it was more like a gang than a kingdom.
“This just isn’t working,” Duaal said. “Not the way we want it to. That we need it to.”
Maeve looked at the young mage’s reflection in the mirror. He stood behind her, helping Panna to style her hair. Panna held the comb while Duaal arranged sculpted black curls around Maeve’s shoulders.
“Xartasia is spreading her message aggressively. We need to do the same,” Panna said.
“If we weren’t so damned broke, we could. Maybe hit the mainstream–” Duaal broke off with a sigh. “But we are broke.”
“Perhaps we could take a job,” Maeve suggested. “This is still a cargo ship, after all.”
“I don’t know that it is,” Duaal answered. He stopped fussing over Maeve’s hair long enough to pat the fibersteel bulkhead affectionately. “We’re cramming thirty Arcadians into the hold every night to eat and to listen to you. There isn’t room for cargo.”
“And I don’t know if we can take a week off to haul any,” Panna agreed. “We have a job. We just need to figure out how to do it.”
“We won’t have much time to do it,” said a new voice.
All three of them looked up. Maeve was already beaming, but Logan’s expression was serious. Even more serious than usual. The Prian didn’t come into the room, but remained in the hall, holding the door open.
“What is wrong?” Maeve asked.
“Xia just commed,” Logan said. “We have to get back to New Hennor.”
“We’ll be there tonight.” Duaal inspected Maeve’s wings for any ruffled feathers. “After the speech.”
“You need to get us in the air now,” Logan told the captain. “The police are at the settlement right now. They’re accusing Ferris and the other Arcadians of trying to start up a sovereign government on Sunjarran soil.”
“What?” Panna asked. “How did they even know about that?”
“Ferris told them,” Logan said. “According to Xia, he was quite indignant when the police arrived. He seems to think that Maeve should have authority over them.”
“Shit.” Duaal ran out of Maeve’s room, past Logan and up to the front of the Blue Phoenix.
“We’re not even Alliance citizens and yet they expect us to respect their government,” Panna said. “Typical CWA politics.”
Maeve, Panna and Logan hurried to the cargo bay. Gripper was already there, hanging from a support strut and planting the last of his seed reserves. He squeaked as the Blue Phoenix took off.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “I thought we were staying put for a few hours.”
“The police are trying to arrest my people,” Maeve said. She paced back and forth across the cargo bay as Sunjarrah raced by in a green and orange blur below.
“I really hope you have another speech up your sleeve,” Duaal said, his voice popping over the intercom. “There are nine cop cars down there and we can’t get into a firefight with them.”
Gripper swung down and landed with a clang beside Maeve. “What are you going to do, Glass?”
Maeve wasn’t sure, but the Blue Phoenix landed and she hit the airlock controls. Gripper shied back, but Panna and Logan charged out alongside Maeve into the bright white sunlight. A pair of officers — a Mirran in dark glasses and a white-eyed Hadrian — turned toward the Blue Phoenix. Their guns were still holstered, but the cops rested hands on their weapons.
“You can’t land here,” shouted the Hadrian officer. She held an arm across her face. The Blue Phoenix’s engines were still rumbling and rippled the yellow grass in hot waves. “We’re in the middle of a police action.”
“How many officers do you have here?” Logan asked.
“That’s none of your business, sir,” said the Mirran.
“How many?”
“Fifteen,” the Hadrian cop answered. “Now we really need to ask you to leave.”
“We’re members of this Arcadian group,” Panna said. “Queen Maeve needs to speak with your supervisor.”
“Queen?” the Mirran asked.
The two cops looked at each other, and then the Mirran nodded slowly. “Come with me, miss. Hands off your weapons.”
It took Maeve a moment to understand what the police officer meant. She didn’t have her spear, but Logan had not forgotten his laser. He remained very close to Maeve as the cops led her through the ring of cars. The lights on top flashed. Maeve was escorted to one of the flat foundation slabs where Ferris stood silently, chin lifted proudly despite the dirty smears on his lined cheeks. When he saw Maeve, the duke spread his wings.
“Here is our queen,” Ferris told another brown-striped Mirran cop rather smugly. “She will have a solution to all of this.”
Maeve wanted to shake Ferris. They had already lost every last cenmark paying out fines. What did the duke think Maeve could do…? Still, she had to try to keep her people out of prison. Maeve took a deep breath and gave the officer — whose brass badge read Lieutenant Sanhir — her best smile.
“What seems to be the problem, captain?” Maeve asked, feeling foolish.
“This settlement was condemned three years ago,” Lieutenant Sanhir said. He was a middle-aged man with dark eyes and was as thick around the middle as the gazelle-like Mirrans ever seemed to get. “It’s illegal to live here. Your people have already been warned about it.”
“Warned?” Panna repeated under her breath. “You call prison sentences warnings?”
Ferris narrowed his amber eyes at the girl and subtly shook his head. Panna’s expression remained furious, but she fell silent once more. Maeve’s urge to shake Ferris returned. Did he really think that Maeve was doing any better?
“They… we have nowhere else to go,” Maeve answered. “Fining and imprisoning them does not change that truth.”
“And it doesn’t stop it from being illegal, either,” Sanhir said. He looked over his sunglasses at Maeve. “Mister Vallerian here–”
“Verridian,” Ferris corrected hotly. “Duke Ferris Verridian.”
“Whatever.” Sanhir kept his gaze leveled at Maeve. “He says that you’ve declared yourself queen of this little crowd. If that’s true, it’s in violation of about a dozen Sunjarran laws.”
“Um–” Maeve didn’t know what to say. She combed her fingers through her neatly arranged black curls. She could imagine Duaal wincing as he watched her from the Blue Phoenix. “What defines squatting under your laws?”
Sanhir arched one brow. His dark green hair was receding, but the Mirran’s eyebrows remained thick and bushy. “Sleeping and storage of personal belongings in a non-residential zoned area for more than fifty-four hours.”
Maeve seized on her tenuous idea.
“Then we can leave,” she told him. “No one will remain here to violate your laws.”
Sanhir crossed his arms over his chest and his sidearm shone brightly in the luminous sunlight. It looked well polished and cared for, but not unused and Maeve wondered if he was a good shot with it. Sanhir’s nostrils flared as the cop took a long breath. He frowned down at Maeve.
“Technically, these fairies have already broken the law,” he said. Maeve’s wings curled angrily, but Sanhir wasn’t done. The police lieutenant looked at Ferris before continuing. “But it’s a civil issue, not a violent crime, and corrections are allowed in civil cases. It’s going to take forever to collect you lot and more taxpayer cenmarks than any of you deserve.”
Maeve swallowed the insult and kept smiling. “Then you will let us leave?”
“If you and your people are out of New Hennor by tonight, I can report the case corrected.”
“Tonight?” Maeve repeated. “That is very little time.”
“That’s the best I can do,” Sanhir said. He looked over her head at the Blue Phoenix. “And if you’re really calling yourself queen of this little flock, I suggest you leave Sunjarrah entirely.”
“I… Yes,” Maeve said.
Tonight? How could she move thirty-seven people by morning?
“We’ll be back at seven tomorrow,” Lieutenant Sanhir told her. “Anyone still here by then will be leaving with us.”
Maeve nodded dumbly. Sanhir said something into a silver com hooked around his ear. The police withdrew to their cars, turned on humming orange null-inertia fields and drove away toward New Hennor. Duaal jogged across the sunburnt grass to Maeve, looking back over his shoulder at the retreating police.
“What happened?” he asked.
“We need to get everyone onto the ship and then off Sunjarrah,” Logan said. “And it needs to be done by seven tomorrow morning.”
“Off Sunjarrah?” Duaal asked. He rubbed his cheek. “Can’t we just take them back to Nanpoor? That’s where you were supposed to talk tonight.”
“No,” Logan answered. “We can make one pickup tonight, but then we need to get off the planet.”
“You really think the cops will chase us off Sunjarrah?” Panna asked.
“We will not be welcome anywhere on this world,” Maeve said. She shook herself and looked at Duaal. “Logan is right. We will take with us those we can from Nanpoor, and then we must go.”
“More than thirty Arcadians on the Blue Phoenix? It’s going to be a tight fit, Maeve,” the Hyzaari said, frowning. “And that’s not including anyone you pick up tonight.”
Ferris drew himself up and gave Maeve an unhappy look.
“Do you truly intend us to leave Sunjarrah, a’shae?” he asked.
“I am afraid that we must,” Maeve told him. “We cannot remain here. I am sorry. I know that your daughter is still in prison here.”
The old fairy noble closed his eyes and rubbed them. “Il’mani was attacked in prison last night. No one will say who did it. They broke both of her wings.”
“That’s why the police came out,” Panna said. “Isn’t it? To tell you what happened? But you don’t have a proper address in New Hennor, so they came back to the last location of record.”
“Are you saying that this is my fault, little wingless one?” Ferris asked in a raw, angry voice. For the first time, Maeve noticed how red the other Arcadian’s eyes were, as though he had run out of tears and would soon begin weeping blood. “You blame me?”
“No,” Maeve answered. She stepped between Panna and Ferris. “It does not matter why it has happened. We must take action, not lay blame.”
“What action?” Duaal asked. “Maeve, we’ll have a ship full of fairies. What are we going to do with them? There isn’t space and there sure aren’t enough filters or food to handle them for long.”
“We are meant for the sky, not the empty darkness of space,” Ferris said. His expression remained unhappy, but the duke would clearly rather be working on the problem at hand than worrying over his own.
“We have to take them somewhere else,” Logan said.
“Where?” Duaal put his hands in his pocket and kicked a clump of brown grass. It clung stubbornly to the ground, not quite dead and ready to be uprooted. “We’re not exactly in the middle of New Hennor out here and the police are still routing them. Where can we go that isn’t going to invite more police visits?”
“Prianus,” Logan said. “There are Arcadians there and the Prian police have their priorities straight. They won’t bother rousting squatters when there’s plenty of real crime to deal with. And the Prians don’t have the same distaste for Arcadians that the rest of the Alliance does.”
Ferris and Panna flinched at Logan’s bluntness, but Maeve knew he was right. Most coreworld species wanted the Arcadians off their planets and would do much the same as the Sunjarrans did now. But Prianus was a long, long way from the deep core. It was dangerous, too — cold and full of predators.
“No. Though I would never begrudge you the chance to return to your homeworld, enarri–” Maeve said. Logan opened his mouth to protest, but she held up one hand. “–I have another thought. It is a little closer and a little less dangerous than Prianus. Stray.”
“Stray?” Panna said, loudly and suddenly. “Maeve, you can’t be serious!”
“This is your queen you address!” Ferris hissed.
Panna’s face went quite red.
“Sorry, Highness,” she muttered. “But Stray? That’s where the old Church of Nihil was! Stray is dangerous.”
“More dangerous than Prianus?” Maeve asked.
Panna chewed her lip and sighed. “I… I guess not. And there is a lot more ship traffic going to and from Stray than Prianus. If we intend to steal more Arcadians from Xartasia and bring them to us, then we’ll need that advantage.”
“We have some allies on Stray,” Maeve told her. “And the police, we know all too well, will not raise their hand against us unless well paid to do so.”
“Stray, then,” Duaal said. “I’ll get the Blue Phoenix prepped. It’s going to be a crowded trip. We’d better make it as short as possible.”
The Hyzaari mage turned on his heels and headed back toward the Blue Phoenix, already calling Gripper on his com. Panna moved to follow, then stopped and looked back.
“Maeve… Majesty… What about Xartasia?” she asked. The question was barely audible. “She’s doing the same thing as we are. Do you think she’s had the same problem?”
“I doubt it,” Maeve said. “The police have tracked and reported us, and would do the same for her, but we have heard nothing. I do not think Xartasia is on any Alliance planet.”
“Then where do you think she is?”
“Khylor hasn’t returned yet. Neither have those little wing-rats that went with him.”
It was Orix, the youngest of the Glorious. He stood with four of the other huge aliens, starlight playing over his nanite-slicked gray skin and long, sharp teeth. Smoky tendrils of his swarm snaked out and back, gathering information that it sent back to the Devourer’s implanted computer and transmitting data to the rest of his alien squadron.
“Sir Calathan is a knight of the White Kingdom,” Xartasia said. She didn’t turn to look at the Devourer. “You will speak of him with due respect.”
“He is a slave, aerad,” Orix snarled. “A meal–”
Dhozo cut him off. “Enough.”
Orix’s grinding, grating voice said something else, something he didn’t bother to send to his nanites for translation. Dhozo held up a fist the size of Xartasia’s head and made a curt motion with it. Orix reluctantly quieted, though the young Devourer glared balefully at his commander.
Xartasia smoothed the skirts of her gleaming pearl-white gown. An Arcadian woman, Ailo, stood up on her tiptoes to place the delicate glass crown on her queen’s brow. It caught the glow of lights in the high ceiling and threw back brilliant rainbows. Dhozo regarded Xartasia’s clothes.
“Again?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “As often as it takes to soothe my people’s spirits. They do not like being in space, so far from any open sky. You are the commander of your team, Dhozo. You should know the value of trust. I would not violate my people’s faith. You will aid me in that.”
Ailo arranged Xartasia’s flowing white skirts behind her. They flowed like cream along the floor. Orix took a long step toward her, looming over the Arcadian queen and Ailo leapt back with a frightened moan, hiding behind her wings. Unflinching, Xartasia looked up into the Devourer’s wide onyx face. Orix’s nanite armor writhed across his skin like a living thing.
“I do not fear you,” Xartasia reminded him. “You and yours have already taken from me what I loved most. Now you will help me to get him… get it all back.”
“Why are we helping this little wing-rat slave?” Orix rumbled like an encroaching storm. “We were supposed to take the Projector, open it and bring the rest through!”
“You know why,” Dhozo said. The sound was like water being poured over coals, hot enough to burn and blister. “There is more than meat for us here. We cannot reopen the Projectors ourselves, not without the old science.”
“The magic she says she can teach us?” Orix hissed. He waved a huge, razor-clawed hand at Xartasia. “She hasn’t given us anything, commander!”
“Your people picked this galaxy clean and when there was no more to eat, you left to find a new one,” Xartasia said. She stared down both of the monstrous aliens, unafraid of their teeth or claws, of the nanites clinging to their skin that could become a deadly cloud of blades in a heartbeat. “Now that galaxy is no more than bones and your people are starving to death. The whole of the universe will be your hunting ground when you control the Waygates once more. But I will not give that to you until my people are home and whole again. When that is done…”
“Anzo b’ho khavvna ghotek! Anzo khamen!” Orix snarled at Dhozo. “You believe her?”
“We must eat,” said the Devourer commander. His voice — his real voice, not the metallic approximation of his nanite swarm — was as hard and cold as ice. “The Glorious must eat. Your pride can take the cut, Orix. So shut it.”
The door slid open, metal ringing on metal. A pair of glass-armored Arcadian men burst into the room, spears held with points low and wings spread wide to leap. One of them turned to Xartasia while the other kept his weapon leveled at the Devourers.
“We heard shouting, Highness,” he said. “Are you alright?”
“Of course,” Xartasia told him. “Go wait outside.”
Reluctantly, the two knights bowed and withdrew. Voices came from the corridor outside, echoing back and forth so that Xartasia couldn’t pick out their exact numbers. But those numbers were growing… The chanting and singing faded again as the door closed.
Xartasia beckoned to Ailo. The woman crept closer, trembling as she emerged from the shadows. Clean, processed air whispered through the vents and ruffled her pale golden hair. She came slowly to her queen. The glass crown was cool and smooth against Xartasia’s skin.
“You need not fear them,” she said, pointing with one wingtip to Dhozo and Orix. “They are our allies, our brothers and sisters.”
“We won’t be helpful to anyone if we don’t get to work,” Dhozo rasped. “When do we begin? We need data, little queen, before we even know if what you want can be done.”
“Not yet. You know that, Dhozo,” Xartasia said. “You are an engineer. You made the calculations. We need more of my people before we make any attempt. Many more.”
She smiled beautifully at Ailo and strode out through the door. Arcadians and Devourers alike fell into step behind her. They made their way down the black metal corridor, toward the sound of voices raised in song, in praise to the White Queen.
Xartasia paused before the final door, listening, and let the song wash over her like a tide over sand. It pushed and pulled, guiding her… The sound was almost enough to drown out the century-long silence of everything she loved — her kingdom, her family, her beloved Anthem…
Even through the sealed bulkheads and airlocks, Xartasia could hear her people sing. They called out for her, for change. For the restoration of the White Kingdom and all they had lost.
