Alabaster Noon Read online

  “No…shit. No. I just…” she let out a laugh, tinged with pain and embarrassment. “I just need to pee, and I can’t get there from here alone.”

  “Oh! Okay, let me help you.” He stepped forward and looped her arm over his shoulder, and then straightened up, holding her around the waist as she leaned on him. “The bathroom is right over here.”

  “Look at you,” Ziva joked to try and ease the mortification she felt. “Living the glamorous life of a merc commander! Piloting Raknar through the skies and helping old ladies to the toilet. I can’t imagine anything better. The women must be beating down your door.”

  “You’re not old,” Jim protested. “And no one’s ever been beating down my door. The last relationship I had didn’t…end well.”

  “Oh? Well, we’ve all got one of those in our history. Don’t feel bad. And I have a solid ten to fifteen years on you, kiddo. Don’t forget that you’re famous for being the youngest commander in the history of the Cavaliers.”

  “Don’t forget that I am the Commander of the Cavaliers,” he said tartly, but he flashed her a surprisingly sweet smile as he did so. Despite herself, Ziva felt a warmth curling low in her belly. He was really quite handsome when he smiled. “I’m no one’s ‘kiddo.’”

  “Naturally, not in public,” Ziva said as they maneuvered through the doorway. “But you’re helping me pee, so I feel like that gives me some leeway.”

  “Um, shouldn’t that be the other way around?”

  “What? No, that doesn’t make any sense at all. What? Were you raised in a barn?”

  That got him to throw his head back in a genuine laugh, and the warmth spread through her as some of the careworn lines were erased from his face, leaving him looking as young as he truly was.

  With Jim’s help, Ziva got herself situated and handled her business. With hands freshly washed, she slid open the bathroom door and beckoned him over to help her back to bed. Once she was back in place, however, she reached out a hand to stop him from leaving.

  “Are you going to sleep?” she asked.

  “No, probably not,” Jim said.

  “Me, neither. Want to play cards or something?”

  Jim looked at her for a long moment. “Why?”

  “Why not? I’m awake and bored, and I figured you could maybe use someone to talk to. Someone not under your command, that is. Someone you won’t have to later order to do something that may get them killed.”

  Ziva didn’t miss the quickly indrawn breath that meant she’d nailed his problem. Or one of them, anyway. She gave him a soft smile.

  “C’mon, kiddo. You beat me at gin, I’ll find you another nickname.”

  Jim let out a gusty sigh but shook his head and opened up a drawer under the counter near the bathroom door. He pulled out a new pack of cards, stripped off the old-school plastic wrapping, and tossed the pack at her.

  “Shuffle them up,” he said. “I’m gonna get a chair.”

  * * *

  Laboratory, Unknown System

  “I’ll never tell you infidels anything,” the man said, panting, as he pulled at his restraints. Sweat beaded the length of his naked body.

  The reptilian creature looked down and checked the security of one of the leads running from his equipment to the Human. “I have a feeling you will,” it said finally. “We have been experimenting on your kind for a hundred years. We know what makes you respond, and we know what causes you pain. You may have a great tolerance, but I will break it at some point. I always do.” Its lips twitched in what might have been a smile.

  “So, let’s start with New Persia,” the creature said.

  It pushed a button on the equipment, and the man began screaming.

  * * *

  São José dos Campos, Brazil, Earth

  Splunk threw down the wrench. “This is stupid and a waste of time,” she said. “I’ve been through this CASPer three times now. There is no message for the Peacemaker’s Guild to be found. It isn’t written anywhere on it that I can find, nor is it in the operating code. I don’t think they ever got around to putting the message into your CASPer.”

  “They did,” Sunshine said, giving every indication of a teenager about to have a temper tantrum. “The bass told me it was already in there.”

  “Well, I can’t find it,” Splunk said.

  “That doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Sunshine said stubbornly. “It just means you can’t find it.”

  “If she can’t find it, child,” Dante said, coming into the workroom, “then it isn’t there.” He turned to the two Dusman working on Sunshine’s CASPer. “Come on,” he said. “We don’t have time to play with this child Human’s toy any longer. There’s no message there.”

  “There is a message there!” Sunshine yelled as the Dusman left. “Even if you can’t find it, it’s still there! And I’m not a child, either!” When they didn’t reply, she lowered her voice. “Fine. You can think that all you want, but I know the bass wouldn’t have lied to me. The message is there, and I’m going to get this CASPer to the Peacemakers, even if I have to carry it to them piece by piece to do so.”

  She sighed as she looked at the disassembled mess the Dusman had made of her CASPer. If she couldn’t find a good CASPer mechanic to put it all back together again, she just might have to do that.

  * * *

  São Paulo, Brazil, Earth

  A thousand robots labored day and night, bulldozing, moving debris, cleaning radiation. A Dusman-provided manufactory turned out a new robot every few minutes. The work proceeded at an ever-increasing rate.

  A third of São Paulo had been razed during the battle. Raknar and CASPer, tanks and troopers, blood and fury. Jim looked out over the devastation from the shoulder of his Raknar, inexplicably called Doom now. He wasn’t even sure why—he’d named it Dash what seemed like a millennium ago.

  A hundred meters away, another Raknar stood, this one called Despair. Next to it was Fear, then Wrath, Revenge, and finally Pain. Six 30-meter-tall ancient war machines standing amidst the devastation they’d caused. Each of his fellow Raknar Corps members stood in their machines bearing witness. The tens of thousands of Brazilians working with the robots looked up at the Raknar often, unsure of how to respond to their presence. Standing on the shoulder of Doom, he wasn’t sure how he felt about it either.

  “Jim!”

  He turned and saw Nigel struggling up the side of Doom. The image made him smile.

  “Help me up, you shit!”

  Jim laughed and moved over, offering his hand. Nigel grabbed hold and pulled himself up. Jim was glad he’d worked out so hard over the last few years.

  “I wish you’d climbed a mountain instead. What are you doing up here?” Nigel asked after he reached the top. The leader of Asbaran Solutions looked over the devastated cityscape and shook his head. “You guys did this? Amazing.”

  “Amazing destruction,” Jim replied.

  “What you were doing in space was a million times worse. Fates and hell, Jim, what happened up there?”

  “I can’t explain it,” Jim said. “Because I don’t know either.”

  Nigel stood next to him, and the hot wind from the mountains to the west blew his long hair while the two stood in companionable silence. “I’ve come to respect you, Jim Cartwright, and think of you as a brother.”

  “Thank you, Nigel. I feel the same. We’ve bled on the same fields, and you came back for me. I’ll never forget that.” Nigel bowed his head.

  “What about this world?” Nigel asked, though it didn’t sound like a question exactly.

  “What about it? We fix the damage and go back to what we do.”

  “It’ll never be the same.”

  Jim sighed and shook his head. Nigel looked at him and waited. “You’re right,” Jim said finally. “I don’t think things will ever go back to exactly how they were.”

  “Then how do we change it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. The Mercenary Guild has been led by the Veetanho
for a long time. My father used to talk about it: how the rats ran everything, one way or another. I never really understood until this war. But I still don’t understand why Peepo wanted to subjugate us.”

  “Maybe she just wanted another weapon to wield?”

  Jim looked at Nigel then slowly nodded. After a second, he followed it with a shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll never know. I do know the Mercenary Guild might be back, and we can’t be the way we were.”

  He turned to look back to the ruins of the government buildings. Peepo’s first office had been in one of those piles of rubble. Maybe it was one of the ones already being removed and recycled into fresh building materials by the Dusman robots.

  “How’s Alexis?”

  “She’s fine,” Nigel said. “Pretty upset about the Hussars who died and the ships she lost.”

  “I meant you and her.”

  “Oh.” He was quiet for a minute as the wind whipped. “We’re still trying to figure it out.”

  “You’re going to be a father, and she’s going to be a mother. Doesn’t that change things?”

  “It does, and it doesn’t. That’s why we’re trying to figure it out. I’d ask her to marry me except…”

  “Except you’re both Horsemen,” Jim finished for him. Nigel nodded solemnly, and they stood in silence, until Jim spoke again. “There is a coalition of world leaders who want to meet with us, the Horsemen.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” Jim said. “I think they want to ask for help.”

  “What help do the politicians need?”

  “I think they want a new way of running this world,” Jim said. “And I’ve got some ideas.”

  Nigel nodded. “I’m pretty sure we’ve shown that we’re worthy of full admittance into the Union at this point. Things are going to have to change with the Merc Guild, and I’m sure the other guilds will try to take advantage while the Merc Guild is down. I’ve got some ideas for what to do with that, too.”

  Below them, the slow work of rebuilding continued.

  * * *

  EMS Pegasus, Earth Orbit

  Her old office felt different. Maybe it was just the time she’d spent away? She couldn’t put her finger on it.

  Nigel, Sansar, Jim, and she had spent a few minutes talking, once Jim had been recovered and brought back. No words were spoken about what happened with him and the Raknar; the look on his face said a lot. The Peacemakers didn’t know how to handle it either, but she understood they were putting it down as a hiccup in the cessation of hostilities. The young man looked haunted, and it worried her.

  The conversation was mainly about the future. The Earth government wanted to talk to them. Jim had ideas about that, and Nigel had some about the Mercenary Guild. Sansar and she were both going to listen and provide advice, but both had privately agreed they would mostly stand aside and try to keep things from getting out of control on both sides. Even though the Omega War was over, the two women felt another was looming. Maybe a much bigger one.

  Now she was back home, in her office, but without her longtime confidant and XO. Paka had betrayed her. The Veetanho probably thought she’d murdered her. The scar on her back suggested as much. Yet she’d failed, and she’d missed the life growing inside her. And what were the implications of that? Entropy, layers upon layers. She desperately wanted to get back to New Warsaw.

  A knock on her door sounded. “Come in.” Captain Stacy entered smartly and closed the door behind her. “Please, sit.” It was a formality, of course, and now they were in zero G, so it was more like floating over and strapping yourself into a chair. Still, Humans were, by nature, a being of gravity.

  “Did you read the report, Captain?” Elizabeth asked, addressing her by her ship’s rank since they were on her ship.

  “I did,” Alexis said, and gestured to the slate. “I cried my tears over Katrina many years ago. Have you over Patrick?”

  “He’s not dead,” she said. “Even riding over with it—with him—a short while ago, I think there’s something of him in there.”

  Alexis had seen images of the new Ghost. She’d never met Patrick Leonard from the Geek Squad. She’d seen his file, of course. Kleena had given him top marks. The man would have been the obvious replacement for Kleena after he’d been killed on Prime Base. A lot of people needed replacement after the Battle of New Warsaw.

  She’d become used to the look of Ghost as a prematurely-aged mirror image of herself, not a fit 40-year-old man. She hoped Ghost would take better care of this body and was more than a little disturbed about the event.

  “I’ve lived with Ghost since the incident where it took over Katrina,” Alexis explained. “Trust me, there’s nothing left.” Elizabeth looked down and sighed. “You did a spectacular job with the Hussars,” she said, changing the subject.

  “Thank you, ma’am, but I think I could have done better.”

  “Of course, we can all do better.” She put a hand on her stomach. “It would seem the Hussars will have an heir, but we don’t have a second in command. I’m formally offering you that position.”

  “Ma’am?” She looked surprised.

  “After what you accomplished?” Alexis gave a little laugh. “Please. Normally you’d sit in my XO position, to study under me; however, I don’t think you need it, and you already have Shadowfax. The job is yours, if you want it.”

  “I accept, and thank you.”

  Alexis nodded. “Okay, return to Shadowfax and continue repairs. I’m hoping to get the majority of the fleet underway by the end of the week.” Elizabeth saluted and floated out, leaving Alexis alone. The door was open to the CIC, giving her a view of her command crew. None of her original members were alive except the two Bakulu, who were now on the battleships. So much had changed. She unbuckled and floated through the CIC, out the armored door showing welds to repair battle damage, and up a deck. She arrived at her destination and hesitated.

  Alexis examined the door of Drone Control for a long moment before she pressed the button. The door slid aside to reveal Ghost/Patrick. The look in his/its eyes was the same, though the body was different.

  “I wAs exPectinG yOu,” it said in the same weirdly modulated voice.

  “Yes,” Alexis said. “We need to talk.”

  * * *

  MGS Supreme, Approaching the Stargate

  Peepo smiled as the stargate neared. All she needed was time and space, and she’d been given that by the timely intervention of the Peacemakers. Although they’d refused to bow down to her, they had served her purposes in the end. They would still have to be destroyed, of course. She couldn’t risk having them show up in the future to intervene when she didn’t want them to.

  She would have plenty of time to think, uninterrupted by the crew and her Besquith guard. They had all gone out the airlocks, courtesy of an “anti-boarding” option she’d had installed the last time the superyacht was in the yards. By herself, with a week to plan, she would emerge stronger and with a better plan. One that would rid the galaxy of Humans…and especially the Four Horsemen.

  The ship lurched as she entered the stargate, almost as if she’d hit something solid on entry. It was a feeling unlike any she’d ever had in the hundreds of transitions she’d done previously. She checked her instruments, but nothing seemed amiss. All the engine functions were nominal, and she was—thankfully—in no danger of dropping out of hyperspace.

  Peepo advanced the throttles to give her one G, then unstrapped and allowed herself five minutes to rage. She swore. She threw things. She stomped around the interior of the yacht. At the end of the five minutes, she stopped and composed herself again, patting down the fur that had become mussed.

  All was not lost, after all. A huge amount of resources had been wasted, which she was sure she would rue in the future. Too many lives thrown away. While it was true they were only Tortantula, MinSha, Bakulu, and so forth—and therefore ultimately meaningless—they were bodies she wouldn’t have in the future where she was sure
she would need them.

  But they could be replaced.

  The plans would have to be revised, but that was part of being a leader; when plans failed, you adapted, adjusted, and overcame. The Humans had a good saying: no plan survives first contact with the enemy. She had misjudged this enemy—these Humans—somehow, but she wouldn’t continue to do so. She still had no idea what had gone wrong in New Warsaw, and she would long regret not leading that assault herself. In retrospect, it was obvious she should have. She didn’t blame herself, much. She had given them an overwhelming amount of force to get the job done, and the plan—as modified by Paka—had been perfect, and constructed with a knowledge of the Hussars’ defenses and how to beat them. It was foolproof…but apparently, it wasn’t.

  The only thing that could have happened to change the outcome was that either Paka had been subverted somehow, or that living too long with the Humans had done something to her mind. The fact that Trushista had returned with New Era told her everything she needed to know. Paka had betrayed her.

  Paka would die slowly, in great pain. It was the least she could do for her murderous, betraying sister.

  She took a step toward the planning table, but then her legs stopped working, and she collapsed to the floor. A searing pain enveloped the backs of both legs, and neither seemed to want to work correctly anymore.

  “What the hell?” she asked.

  “It’s hard to walk when your hamstrings are cut,” a voice said from behind her. Peepo rolled to her side and gasped. A Depik!

  “What?” she asked with a gasp. “How did you get here?”

  “One of our frigates brought me a ship that I was able to run you down with. It was a near thing; you almost got away. I don’t think we had more than a second from when I latched on before you went through the stargate. Happily, though, I am here.”

  The Depik slow-blinked in that infuriating way that they did. “That was an impressive tantrum you threw. You almost hit me with one of the slates. And the cursing? Highly inventive, if not physically possible. Of course, with a broken limb or two, you might be flexible enough to do it.” Tsan shrugged. “I’m willing to experiment if you are.”