Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (6 page)

"Left?" Duaal asked, his dark brows furrowed. "To go where?"

"They're going to the queen of the White Kingdom, they say," Panna said. "She's offered a home and a purpose to all Arcadians who will join her. A lot of them don't believe it, but enough do that almost half of the Arcadians in Hanjirrah are gone!"

Maeve recoiled as though physically struck by the news. "Xartasia? She…? I would never deny our people a home, but…"

"How did they intend to get to Xartasia?" Logan asked. "If they don't have ships or colour, the Arcadians must have some other plan. Is she on Mir?"

"I don't think so. They said that Xartasia arranged a ship," reported Xia, shaking her head and making her antennae wave. "The pickup was two days ago in Lameaux. Those who went to Lameaux haven't returned, so the Hanjirrah fairies think that they got away… or that it was all a trick and now they're dead."

"Either way," Panna added darkly, "they're all eagerly awaiting the next chance to flock to the White Queen."

"The White Queen?" Maeve asked in a whisper.

"That's what they are calling her," Xia said. She sounded apologetic. "The next pickup is supposed to be on Sunjarrah. I'm not sure when… Most of the Arcadians can't afford passage off Mir, so they don't really care when the Sunjarrah pickup is supposed to occur."

"Sunjarrah?" Logan asked. "That's a Mirran colony. It's not far from here. But Sunjarrah isn't one of the planets that Arcadians appeared on a hundred years ago. Not many will have emigrated. Xartasia won't need to stop for long to collect them."

"What about the ship and space station attacks?" Gripper brought up the news stories they had found that morning on his computer. "Where does that fit in?"

"I don't know," Logan answered. "But if we can get to Sunjarrah and catch Xartasia in the act – whatever it is – we can find out."

"Hold on a minute." Duaal was on his feet and frowning deeply. "I want to stop that bitch and her big black friends, but if we
do
catch up to them, then what? Your plan to help Xartasia's next targets and then use them as witnesses is great and all, but first we have to be able to help. How? The Blue Phoenix is a cargo ship, Logan. We're unarmed and not even that fast."

"I'm not sure yet," Logan said. He looked at Maeve. She sat unmoving in her seat, her silver eyes still wide in shock. He had to help her. "But what else can we do?"

Duaal put his hands on his hips and sighed. "You're right. I hate it, but I guess we better get up into the black. Sunjarrah's not far, but Xartasia's got a head start on us. Everyone buckle the hells up and get ready to fly."

"The journey begins not when you step onto the ship, but the moment you book your flight."

– Xos, Silverstar Cruises representative (103 PA)

"Not that I am displeased to have you so close, but you must miss your Raptor," Maeve said. She sat on top of an orange plastic crate, legs folded beneath her.

Logan shrugged. "It was only a ship. But we might all be missing its weapons before long. Why doesn't the Blue Phoenix have any?"

"This is a cargo ship," Maeve pointed out. The spear Panna had repaired lay across her lap. She inspected the glass blade for nicks or smudges. "The work here does not often call for violence."

Logan stood beside another crate. His Talon-9 was scattered in pieces across the top. He picked up a rough cloth pad and scrubbed at the contacts inside where the battery connected to the weapon. "I hunted you for a year, dove. I couldn't have been the first danger Captain Myles ever encountered," he said. "I've heard that he was the one who got the original sample of phenno from the Nnyth hive."

"It was. Duaal and I accompanied him." Maeve could find nothing wrong with her spear and set it down. She slid down from her crate. "Tiberius hired me as a guide to take him out to the Tower. All he had were outdated maps from a survey many years ago. But the White Kingdom had a long history of respect for the Nnyth. They taught us to use the Waygates. None know their operation better than the wasps of the Tower."

"So you knew the way there. Useful bit of data. And you negotiated with the Nnyth to get some of their secretions?"

Maeve did not look at Logan. Her face was hot. "No. We took it," she admitted. "And fought one of the Nnyth to get away with what we had stolen."

There was a cold weight on her shoulder, just above her right wing. Maeve lifted her head. Logan had set down his gun and rested his metal hand on her back. He did not stroke or squeeze, unable to trust his indelicate cybernetics not to hurt the small Arcadian woman.

"That was a long time ago," he told her.

He meant to be reassuring and that the bounty hunter would even make the attempt made Maeve's heart flutter in her chest like a butterfly, but Logan's voice was as flat and heavy as his illonium shielding. It really was not so long ago, Maeve knew, not even by human standards, but she had been a different woman then, and Logan a different man… He pulled her into his arms. The hunter held Maeve close and kissed her. Her fingers curled against the hard muscles of Logan's back.

"Hey, Glass," came a loud voice. "Are you down here? Do you know where Shimmer put the–?"

Maeve leapt back, blushing furiously. Gripper filled the catwalk overhead with his rough brown bulk and his wide mouth hung open.

"Great Green, I…!" he gasped, grabbing at the front of his oversized shirt. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I'll just um…"

"What's going on?" asked another voice. "Move over!"

"It's nothing, Silver!" Gripper announced far too loudly. "We should go away. Like right now."

"Come down here," Logan said.

Gripper slunk down the stairs, Xia following him with curiosity on her smooth silver face. Logan returned to his impromptu tabletop and began reassembling the Talon-9.

"What do you need?" Maeve asked.

"Duaal says he ordered up some more reline," said Xia. "But it's not up in the medbay."

"I believe I saw it recently." Maeve flew up over a stack of water barrels and searched the far side until she found the box Xia needed. It was too heavy to fly with, but Gripper tucked it easily under one long arm and carried it back to Xia.

"Got it, Silver," he announced proudly.

"Thanks," she said. "Can you take that up to the medbay for me?"

Gripper climbed the stairs and vanished deeper into the Blue Phoenix. Maeve looked at Xia. "Do you think that you will need it?" she asked.

"I used gallons of it when Coldhand was after you," Xia said. She glanced sidelong at Logan.

"The medical expenses were considerable," the Prian agreed.

"They are going to be much worse when the Devourers attack an inhabited Alliance planet," Maeve said unhappily. She leaned against a stack of water barrels. The plastic net covering them rasped against the delicate skin between her wings. "Far beyond payment…"

"We're not going to let that happen," Xia assured her. "We should be on Sunjarrah tonight."

Maeve heard the Ixthian retreat back upstairs and probably to her medbay. Logan waited in silence as Maeve stared at the scarred and stained fibersteel floor.

Thousands of knights had not been able to stop the Devourers in Arcadia. Duaal cast them from Prianus, but had not been able to kill them. Logan had managed to kill a few Devourers, but it had cost him his ship. What could Maeve possibly do against the monsters? She had banished them from the White Kingdom a hundred years before. That had been different, though Maeve was not quite sure how or why…

Footsteps interrupted Maeve's worries. Panna came down the stairs. "Can I have a minute?" she asked. "I need to talk to you, princess."

Maeve nodded. "Do you need something from the bay, too?"

"What? No. I… I wanted to talk to you about Mir," said Panna. "About the Arcadians there."

Again? Maeve pushed her hands into her pockets and realized that she was clenching her teeth. "I am sorry for their plight," she told Panna, "and I have tried to pay the price for my part in it. But that only caused more harm. Not only to myself, but to everyone on this ship. There is nothing I can do to make amends for the White Kingdom's fall."

"That's not what I mean," said Panna, shaking her head. She drew a deep breath. "The Arcadians need a queen. They need leadership, Highness. They need you."

"No," Maeve answered sharply. "I am no queen! That is Xartasia's right, not mine."

"And look at what she's doing with it! She worked with the Nihilists, who killed hundreds. She taught Gavriel Euvo magic, which he used to terrorize Duaal and to torture you! Xartasia helped Gavriel summon the Devourers, then betrayed him and took them for herself!"

"I do not argue in favor of my cousin's crime," Maeve said. "I know that we must stop her!"

"The Arcadians want a queen. Right now, they have only one choice for that. You would be a much better queen than Xartasia!" Panna's green eyes were bright with nervous passion. She must have been gathering her nerve for hours for this confrontation. "You
should
be queen!"

"The throne is Xartasia's by Cavain's divine right," Maeve argued. "I am as much a criminal to our people as my cousin, even if my crimes against the White Kingdom were unintentional. I have no place on the throne!"

"But–!"

"No," Maeve said as firmly as she could.

Panna bit her lip, turned on her heels and retreated up the stairs. When she was gone, Logan replaced his assembled laser in its hip holster. The metal hissed quietly against aged leather. Logan's expression was impassive, but even with Panna gone, the conversation had made Maeve uncomfortable and she found herself wishing Logan had not heard it.

"You do not wish me to be a queen, do you?" Maeve asked, only half joking. She wanted – needed – him to agree.

Logan secured the Talon-9 with a worn strap across the back. "No," he said. "Your royalty doesn't particularly matter to me. It seems to bother you, though. Especially Panna's attention."

Maeve nodded, but did not know what else to say to that. Logan was right. He usually was about her. Maeve spun her spear between her hands. The glass flashed brightly under the sunlights that illuminated Gripper's hanging garden. When she stopped, Logan ran one of his metal fingers up the blade's shining edge. The spear shivered slightly in Maeve's hands. Logan withdrew his cybernetic hand and inspected the new hairline score.

"Still sharp," he commented. "Does Arcadian glass ever lose its edge?"

"Not really," Maeve said. "It takes many, many years for a glass blade to dull. Unless it is broken, of course."

Logan nodded. Maeve frowned at him. "Are you telling me that I am still a useful blade?" she asked suspiciously. "That time and deeds have not diminished Cavain's blood within me?"

The Prian hunter's handsome face was hard, but Maeve swore there was a faint twinkle in his ice-blue eyes. "I was only asking about the spear. Would it matter if I were making a point? You've made your feelings on the throne quite clear. In any case, our focus must be finding Xartasia. And surviving that encounter."

It always came back to that. Maeve drew a deep breath against the panic tightening her throat. The sour taste was stale, old. "We must find her on Sunjarrah."

"I know," Logan said. They all knew.

Several quiet and unhappy hours later, the Blue Phoenix intercom finally clicked on. "We're about to come out of FTL and should be coming into high orbit of Sunjarrah in about two hours," Duaal announced. "Logan, can you come up here and lend a hand? I need to run a scan when we come out, but I can't juggle that and fly the Phoenix at the same time."

Logan pulled his shirt back over sweaty skin and made his way out of the cargo bay. Maeve combed fingers through her black hair. A few bouts of sparring with the much larger Prian had eased her tension a little. Logan was a skilled fighter and even mock battle against her hunter stirred bittersweet memories of his year as her adversary. Maeve retrieved her spear from between two crates and made her way upstairs, back toward her room. The Blue Phoenix vibrated all around her as it slowed. Maeve stopped in the medbay. Xia steadied herself against the counter as the ship shivered again.

"Almost there," she said.

Maeve wobbled over to the single small window, unable to use her wings for balance in the tight confines, and looked outside. The stars were haloed in shattered rainbows and then even those vanished suddenly as the Blue Phoenix slowed to sub-light speeds. They were on the edge of the Sunjarrah system, a pair of large white-gold stars smeared dark across the equator by the inner asteroid belt. Maeve leaned close to the small circle of reinforced glass.

"What is that?" she asked, pointing.

Xia came over to look over her shoulder. "Where?"

"There! Just above the asteroid belt, on the edge of the suns' glow."

"I don't see anything." Xia squinted her faceted compound eyes.

Maeve looked again, but could find no sign of the dim flashes of light she had seen before. She shook her head and waved a short goodbye to Xia. Impatient and unsure what else to do, Maeve replaced her spear in her room and then went up to the cockpit. Duaal sat in Tiberius' worn and hawk-shredded old seat, flying the Blue Phoenix toward the orange suns. Logan was in the copilot's chair, fingers moving quickly over the sensor controls. Both men glanced back over their shoulders at Maeve and then returned to work.