Mech 3: The Empress (7 page)

Late one night in the ship’s saloon, he shared a table with several of the crewmen and played cards. Aldo was a skilled veteran at games of chance, and played extremely well both fairly and unfairly, but as a matter of choice he’d not yet dealt an uneven hand to his fellow crewmen. After all, they were as stuck on this mission as he was, presumably all equally taken in by Droad’s sweet words of heroism and sacrifice. Tonight however, compounding his already dismal mood, he found himself losing every game. Stanley Knox, who squatted in the corner seat, had experienced the opposite fortunes. He’d won nearly every hand and hooted with pleasure as he pawed his winnings.

Aldo decided to realign the Captain’s thinking. He dealt him a losing hand and leaned forward predatorily as he bet hard against the man. He made sure he swilled his own drink and became suddenly loud, appearing off-balance.

Knox eyed Aldo. He knew his cards were not the best, but they were not inconceivably bad. He pushed his luck, trusting to good fortune, as it had not let him down all night. He met Aldo’s bet and raised it. Several crewmen folded. They sat back, sensing tension as Aldo raised the bet to the house limit. The table fell silent as the Captain matched and called.

Aldo threw down his cards, keeping his face blank. He appeared interested only in what the Captain had in his fingers—despite the fact he already knew what every card face showed.

Seeing Aldo’s cards, the Captain’s expression fell. Aldo knew triumph, and his nose rose slightly higher as the Knox threw up his hands and tried to play the matter off as no great deal. Aldo felt a grim touch of satisfaction, but he also felt a tingle of regret. The man had not flashed with rage. He had not shouted and cursed. He’d simply taken his loss and gone on. It was admirable, and Aldo felt the rat for having cheated a good man.

The matter may have passed as an unfortunate wrinkle in time, but for the watchful eyes of the ship’s Lieutenant. As Aldo reached his hands out to scoop up his winnings, the Lieutenant’s hand latched onto his wrist.

Aldo looked at the man in shock. “Explain yourself, officer—and know that I’ve killed for less.”

The Lieutenant stared back. There was concern in his face, but not outright fear. “I saw something. I ask that you relinquish your winnings on this occasion.”

“Why should I?”

“Out of a sense of honor.”

Every eye was upon Aldo. Few of them liked him. He’d bedded every attractive girl on
Aareschlucht
and several less attractive ones as well, only to move on to the next. He could hear their thoughts:
was he a cheater at cards, as well?
The Lieutenant in particular had never liked him. He was an ill-favored man with a face that resembled a mask of twisted meat and hair that seemed oily and lank even immediately after a shower. Aldo knew the girls tended to dart away when he made his clumsy overtures.

“What was it that you saw, Lieutenant?” Captain Knox asked. He had a deep voice that rumbled when he spoke.

“I would rather not say.”

Aldo withdrew his hands from the pot of coins and threw them up into the air. “Very well!” he said. “I don’t want there to be hard feelings. I give back the credits. You may divvy up mine as well.”

“Well, there’s no need to—” began the Captain, suddenly embarrassed.

“No, no,” Aldo said. “I don’t want to sully this fine mission with misunderstandings. I’ll simply—”

“There has been no misunderstanding,” interrupted the Lieutenant.

“There most certainly has been,” Aldo said, “and I intend to repair matters.”

“You cheated,” blurted the Lieutenant. “You dealt the Captain’s hand from the bottom of the deck, while the rest of us received cards from the top.”

Aldo froze, as did everyone else around the table. The Lieutenant was stone-faced. An open accusation of cheating raised the matter to the level of public honor.

The Captain leaned forward and touched the Lieutenant’s arm, who flinched at the contact. “Jacob, there is no need. Let the subject rest.”

“I will not.”

The saloon was deadly silent now. Several people had taken a shuffling step back from the table. Every further step along the path of honor made the situation ever more difficult to defuse among the gentlemen of Neu Schweitz. The scene could become violent very quickly, and all there knew it.

“How then, shall we resolve this?” Aldo asked quietly.

“You have dishonored this ship, my Captain and yourself,” the Lieutenant said. “Honor must be satisfied.”

“And so it must,” Aldo murmured.

“Aldo,” Joelle whispered, having appeared at the rogue’s side. She placed a hand that tightened like claw on his shoulder and hissed into his ear. “Don’t you kill that boy.”

Aldo patted her hand and pushed it gently away. “No one lives forever, my dear.”

Joelle retreated, clearly unhappy. The group, now solemn, moved to the single large open area of the ship, which was the mess hall. At a touch of a button, the tables folded themselves and receded until the walls swallowed them. By this time, news of the imminent duel had reached every ear on the ship. People came rushing from below and even down from the bridge. Captain Knox looked worried, but Aldo saw he could not think of a way out of the situation. Aldo himself felt some regret for having caused a crisis, but he also felt the Lieutenant was indulging himself. Aldo had as much as admitted his guilt by handing out the pot to the players. Was he to also be publicly humiliated? Was he to be shamed into refusing to duel, like a craven coward? No. The matter had been pushed, and pressed, and forced, until there was nothing left to do but allow it to be decided with blades.

Aldo knew the Lieutenant could fight. He was a capable man with sword and pistol, they all were, or they would not have been placed aboard this godforsaken vessel on a fool’s mission. Perhaps the close quarters and the continual rejection of the females everyone else seemed to enjoy had combined with Aldo’s naturally abrasive manner to finally drive the Lieutenant to this point. It did not matter. All that mattered now was the speed and accuracy of each man’s sword.

Aldo cleared his mind of extraneous chatter. He did not see the eyes that stared at him. He did not worry about the Captain, or the aliens they pursued through space, or the ship around them. Those things would have to wait. Worrying about such details lost fights. And Aldo Moreno had almost never lost a swordfight.

The Captain himself stood between the two men. “As the commander of this vessel, I will preside over the event. The blades are to be set to their third notch.”

Both men adjusted the studs on the pommels of their weapons. The swords blazed with colorful plasma. Each seemed to come to life in its owner’s hand. Setting three was low, but still the heat of the blade would cauterize a wound once it was made. At settings one or two, the blades were best used with covers over their points and edges to prevent injury. The shock received from touching them would sting mightily, but would not disable the muscles or burn the flesh. At higher settings, seven or more, unconsciousness or even death was likely from a mere slap of the flat of the blade due to the shock suffered by the victim.

Aldo raised his sword and briefly rasped it down the length of his opponent’s blade. It was a ceremonial motion, a customary salute before dueling with plasma-rapiers. Lavender sparks sprayed the room.

“Step back gentlemen, if you please,” said the Captain.

Both men did as they were told, but their eyes never left the other’s sword tip.

“Honor shall be served by first touch, or the agreement of both parties.”

There was a murmur at this. Normally, duels were fought until death, incapacitation, or the agreement of both parties. The Lieutenant flicked his eyes toward the Captain, casting him a frown which the older man ignored. He opened his mouth as if to protest, but seemed to think the better of it and closed it again. Aldo, for his part, never took his eyes from his opponent.

The customary silver flute warbled. Both men raised their guards, saluted one another and advanced. Aldo attacked first, lunging for the chest. If he could put some proper fear into his reckless opponent, he would fight poorly and the first touch would come sooner. The Lieutenant parried late, beating at Aldo’s blade, but then managed a stop-thrust which halted Aldo’s advance. Aldo parried and retreated a step.

They fenced tightly, shuffling back and forth with feet thumping on the deck plates. The men among the crew watched with squinted eyes, expecting to witness sudden death at any moment. The women watched with a different expression, their eyes glassy with fascination. It was clear the two men were in earnest and each was prepared to slay the other.

The swords clattered, rang and sizzled as they struck one another. To a casual observer from the hallway, it might have appeared that men were working in the mess hall with hammers and arc welding units. The blades were made of fine steel and were deadly in their own right. In addition to a precise mono-molecular edge, the rapiers ran with shimmering emanations of kinetic force. The slightest touch would deliver a serious jolt while a full-force slash might cut through flesh, bone or even steel.

The Lieutenant was the bigger man, and he beat at Aldo’s blade unmercifully. His strategy was easy to deduce: he planned to crash through the rogue’s defenses and weaken him over time. If a single assault made it through, the contest was over.

Aldo had a different plan. He deftly deflected each of the hammering attacks with an economy of motion. Soon, it was Lieutenant’s sides that were heaving, not Aldo’s.

The man’s face had started ugly and heavy with out-sized features, but as he divined the way of things, that changed into a twisted mask of hate. He thrust powerfully for Aldo’s face, a foul in a gentlemanly contest to the first touch. Startled, Aldo was forced to ram his blade upward, parrying in
quinte
. The tip of the Lieutenant’s rapier slid upward and pierced the curved ceiling overhead, and despite a three inch thickness, the hull was ruptured. Gases hissed as they escaped while the blade sizzled there, fixed in the roof. The Lieutenant growled in frustration, tugging at the stuck sword.

His straining grunts turned to howls of pain as Aldo danced around him and slapped the Lieutenant in the posterior with the flat of his sword. There was a vivid blaze of light, as his sword imparted many volts of energy. The Lieutenant’s legs gave out beneath him, but he still hung from his stuck weapon.

“First touch!” the Captain announced immediately. “The contest has ended, Aldo is the winner.”

The crowd laughed and sighed with relief. The duel had ended with embarrassment, but no bloodshed.

Aldo sought Joelle among the many faces. She beamed at him encouragingly. He immediately wondered if he might manage to bed her after all. Noticing his gaze, she stepped forward to greet him.

“You should just have switched it off, man,” the Captain said irritably to the Lieutenant, who had finally plucked the sword from the ceiling. “Now, we’ll have to patch it.”

The Lieutenant crawled, his legs inoperable. Aldo turned away, directing his attentions toward Joelle again. He carefully gauged her expression, weighing the opportunity and his odds of success. Tonight, over a glass of fine wine…at that moment, he would make his move. That would be the proper time to rekindle their past mutual interest. Had he not done as she’d requested? Now, she might well see him as a tough man who could be guided to gentleness by the right woman. Such fantasies had gotten Aldo far with women who’d fostered them in the past.

It was Joelle’s expression that warned Aldo, even before the gasps of the onlookers, who were all excitedly talking amongst themselves. Her face changed from that of warmth, with a pleasant greeting on the tip of her tongue, to surprise and dismay. Her eyes strayed behind Aldo.

Aldo did not even bother to turn around. He simply swept behind himself with his blade, which he’d shut off a moment before.

There was a sensation of heavy resistance, then nothing. A grim wet slap sounded immediately afterward. He turned to see what he’d wrought and his lips curled away from his teeth at the sight.

The Lieutenant now lay stretched upon the decking, decapitated. Unable to do more than creep forward after taking a numbing shock to the buttocks, the Lieutenant had lifted his sword to thrust it into Aldo’s rump. Aldo’s blind slash had ended these dark ambitions.

The Lieutenant’s fallen sword still sizzled and sparked. The blade’s tip sent streams of brightly hued plasma arcing down to the metal deck plates in intermittent pulses.

There was a moment of shocked silence in the mess hall. This soon passed and was replaced by screams, gasps and cries of recrimination erupted around the room. Aldo’s lips twisted in annoyance. He looked for Joelle, but unsurprisingly, she had fled the room in horror.

Aldo sheathed his blade after wiping away dripping fluids, and grunted unhappily. He shook his head slowly as he eyed the mess lying upon the deck. He had only done what was necessary, but he knew there would be no fine wine shared with Joelle tonight. This backstabbing Lieutenant had seen to that, even if it had cost him his life.

Four

Upon finally entering the sanctuary the skalds had arranged for themselves aboard
Gladius
, Garth left behind the terror of the alien monsters—but he felt far from safe. These people were controlled by the Tulk, a race of aliens that were as erudite as the Skaintz were visceral. But they were still strange and dangerous.

Tulk riders lived inside the skulls of their hosts. Parasitic beings, they rarely dealt with the outside world, and one of their greatest fears was that of being
exposed
to that exterior environment. Physically, they were little more than a pound or so of spiny jelly, but they were quite capable of invading a host and dominating it at will. They did not ‘take the reins’ of their mounts often, preferring to live a dreaming life inside the skull of the host, contemplating deep philosophical concepts. Occasionally, however, events took a grim turn and they were forced to dominate their host in order to ensure their survival and avoid the risk of exposure.