“What terrible things did you need to sneak aboard and isolate me in order to discuss?” he asked in a quiet, careful voice.

  It helped that neither of them were young anymore. That they had reached a stage in life where they were mature enough to have this sort of relationship. She could send him off to the far reaches of the galaxy in the baddest, toughest ship she was aware of, secure that he would return.

  Or die trying.

  That was the reason she was here.

  Behnam reached out a hand and touched the wall of the inner lander rather than sit. She wasn’t sure her nerves would let her pretend outwardly to be calm enough to fool this man, so it wasn’t worth trying.

  “Is it necessary?” she asked. “All this?”

  He started to reply and bit it back before even a breath emerged. They were at that point in their love affair, after all. He could see her inner workings, just as she could see more of him than anybody probably ever had.

  Not all Javier’s secrets, but enough of them. Only Suvi probably knew the rest, and that would be from listening to nightmares that he forgot before he woke up.

  Instead, Javier sighed.

  “It’s complicated,” he offered.

  “I like complicated,” Behnam smiled finally.

  “Once upon a time, I was an explorer,” he began earnestly.

  “I’ve heard that part,” she teased, bringing a smile out of him before he forgot and descended to the darker places that were still present in his soul.

  Javier nodded and relaxed, leaning back and crossing his ankles as he put his hands behind his head.

  “Concord Navy officers are supposed to be the good guys, Behnam,” he said distantly, eyes focused on some impossible horizon. “They train us that way. Indoctrinate us with protecting the galaxy, especially now that the worlds that used to be Balustrade, Neu Berne, and the Union of Worlds are finally starting to recover and get pissy about what the Concord has been up to for three generations.”

  Behnam nodded to keep him talking. She’d heard it all before, in a variety of speeches from both Javier and Zakhar Sokolov.

  “That didn’t work for me, for reasons you already know,” he continued with an ambivalent shrug.

  She nodded again. Behnam Sherazi probably knew better than anybody but Suvi. Certainly Holly and Fryda, his first two wives, had never understood what made the man tick.

  “I was happier as an explorer, but even I won’t go so far as to suggest I was actually happy,” he admitted.

  She listened to the tone of his voice and breathing change.

  “Storm Gauntlet took me back to the bad places,” Javier said.

  Yes. Being taken as a bond slave by a fellow Bryce Academy alum would do that. As would all the things that had happened later, when the two of them decided to destroy one of the famous Pirate Clans.

  And then succeeded.

  “The Concord cannot press charges,” she reminded him. “Letters of Marque and Reprisal at a minimum, plus Nidavellir was outside their territory.”

  “It won’t stop them from getting angry about it,” Javier said. “From wondering if Zakhar and I would choose to do it again, regardless of the fact that Walvisbaai Industrial had it coming. I’m a wild card, at a time when they have their hands full with budget cuts, rising piracy, and restive neighbors. There really is a storm coming.”

  “So the only solution is to hide?” she asked him bluntly. “You don’t think Altai could protect you and your friends?”

  “Oh, you could,” he admitted. “The Concord wouldn’t be able to project enough force far enough to threaten you militarily. So they’d have to send ninjas or something.”

  He raised his hands to forestall as she started to talk.

  “And yes, I’m aware that Farouz Jashari and Rence Moore are probably more than up to the task,” he said. “I don’t want to live in fear of them making a mistake. It only has to happen once.”

  “So all this?” she asked, arms up to indicate The Lander, as well as Excalibur and the happy crew of misfits and professionals that crewed her.

  “How much have we lost over the last four thousand years, Behnam?” Javier asked. “Since the very start of the Terraforming Era in 3200 CE? What planets were forgotten or destroyed in the Resource Wars? Or the Corporate Wars period that followed? Or even the Pocket Empires era when A’Nacia was obliterated and then salted with that damned mine field where we found ’Mina Teague? Suvi and Piet both assure me that those times produced some fantastic music, but what other civilizations rose, collapsed, and fell into darkness for one reason or another? We only populate a small pocket of space in Altai, almost a quarter of the galaxy away from Earth, with the Concord well off in the distance between, plus the remains of the others.”

  “So you’re riding to the rescue again?” she teased.

  “Hey, you knew I was a nerd before you slept with me the second time,” he barked with a sharp laugh.

  “First time,” she countered with an equal laugh. “Even Navarre had something indomitably nerdy underneath. I just had to peel back several layers to find the actual reason for it.”

  “There you go,” Javier smiled. “Plus, I want to be rich. Maybe famous, too.”

  “I’m already fabulously wealthy,” Behnam admitted, understanding one of the buttons that moved a man like him, at least a little better than she had. “You’ll never want.”

  “And it’s your money,” Javier retorted with no energy. “Both through your crown as well as the profit margins on that giant swimming pool currently in orbit ahead of us.”

  She supposed that you could consider Shangdu a private swimming hole. The core of the ship was an oval-shaped lake two kilometers long and one wide with an island in the middle.

  It was a sore point with him. She knew that. But she had literally been born a princess, whereas Javier Aritza had been raised by one set of grandparents while both of his parents served in the Concord Navy. And neither of them had been officers.

  “And Navarre’s terrible legend?” she asked, finally drifting into the reason that brought her here. The real reason.

  He recoiled back into himself, like she knew he would.

  Behnam understood Navarre. Understood the need for Navarre.

  Understood the costs to the soul of Aritza when he had to pull that tireless killer out and use him.

  “Abraam Tamaz had it coming,” he growled in a deep, ugly tone.

  Of that, she had no doubts. Sokolov had filled her in on most of the details her spies hadn’t already uncovered. After all, Tamaz had once been First Officer on Storm Gauntlet, before, as Zakhar told the story, he turned to evil.

  “The Khatum of Altai got to be swindled by the very best in the business,” Javier continued, bringing a smile to her face.

  If he had changed as a result of meeting her, she had changed at least as much.

  She was standing aboard a pirate explorer she was largely funding, talking to the true love of her life and wondering if there was any way to prevent him from going off on adventures without her.

  Because she wouldn’t go. Couldn’t go.

  He needed this. To do this thing himself, with none of the overhang that having the Khatum of Altai as anything more than a passive investor would bring.

  Because of Navarre.

  “The Concord might eventually forgive me,” Javier said. “They will never forget that I came out of jump and annihilated an orbital station with this ship. Everything I do for the rest of my life might just balance those scales enough that I don’t end up with a Warmaster coming out of jump on top of me, one of these days. Except they’d probably show up with a Skymaster instead.”

  “And money?” she asked.

  “I’ll get fabulously wealthy with my share of the profits, lady,” his easy, breezy side finally returned. “Enough that I don’t have to ask you for an allowance or an early birthday present.”

  He chafed at being a kept man, however long the leash might be. But that was Javier. He had chafed while wearing a uniform. Or while being a slave and a pirate.

  Other people making claims on his time and freedom. Being able to tell him No.

  He didn’t want fame for itself. She knew that about the man. He’d have happily gone the rest of his life with Suvi, exploring the galaxy while writing up travel reports for the Gazetteer and scientific articles in botanical journals read by six people.

  But money was money.

  He’d never grow bored, if and when he finally ended up living on Altai. His nature would have him planting gardens and puttering in them, if nothing else. Maybe finally settling down some and teaching.

  Behnam had a sudden image of the two of them in thirty years, finally slowing down as their eighties approached and just sitting in his garden enjoying the morning sun.

  Who would that man be? Or that woman?

  Djamila Sykora liked to remind both of them that the galaxy had changed as much as they had. What things would he discover, her favorite adventure seeker, when he had a whole galaxy to play in, and all the tools and support anybody had been able think up?

  Behnam rapped her knuckle on the hull beside her.

  “And this doesn’t constitute an early birthday present?” she grinned slyly at the man.

  “Maybe,” he grinned back. “If it works, we’ll license the design to some shipyard to produce and then you becomes just another early investor.”

  “But, a flying submarine?” she asked.

  “Only the inner part, and that doesn’t fly,” Javier said, sitting upright again. “You’ve got the outer shell that will land you from orbit to the surface of an ocean, then the bay doors open below and this part lowers into the water.”

  “And you think Ugen has that much to offer as a planet?” Behnam felt her pique coming on and pushed it away.

  She was used to dealing with planetary budgets and a government that answered to her alone. Even when she took her flying swimming pool to visit other planets. No planet was all that impressive by itself, when there were thousands of them.

  “Three thousand years ago, it was a thriving, undersea colony, mining extinct, undersea volcanos and exporting exotic materials dropped there by at least five nearby supernovas before Ugen’s sun formed,” Javier said soberly. “None of the wars really touched it, because there’s not a lot you can do to a planet that’s ninety-five percent covered with water, unless you’re intent on destroying it. They got left alone, other than the overlords in orbit would change from time to time.”

  “And now?” she pressed.

  It had all been in various reports and research he had produced, but that had come down to several thousand pages of ancient encyclopedia entries bound together with a lot of question marks.

  Part of the very reason she had agreed to send an exploration mission in the direction of some of the oldest colonies. They were so far away, both in time and space, that nobody really knew what was going on over there anymore.

  Javier shrugged happily, looking like nothing so much as a precocious eight-year-old in a candy store.

  “And now?” he repeated back. “Del has his usual assault shuttle to take us to the surface of most worlds, but we’ve got The Lander for places like Ugen. Terraformers usually looked for oceanic worlds, and those were pretty common. Ugen just happened to be one of the weirdest. Plus, it got colonized by the same sorts of pale, blond Finns as Suvi, so she’s got a soft spot for meeting potential cousins, however remote and tenuous the connection might be.”

  “So adventure for adventure’s sake?” she countered.

  “Exploration for exploration’s sake,” Javier said, turning even more serious. “Learning, because nobody knows the truth.”

  “And Excalibur?” she asked.

  “Nobody said I had to travel alone and unarmed, lady,” he laughed. “You wanted trade and profit. I remember negotiating one hell of a deal with you for those Letters of Marque and Reprisal, once upon a time. Ten year deal, wasn’t it?”

  “At a dead minimum, Mister Science Officer Pirate,” Behnam glared at him with only a tiny giggle. “I have plans for you longer term, if you ever decide to stop running all over the galaxy like a paladin on a white steed.”

  His face turned dark and serious at the word. Not angry. Not depressed. Not anywhere close to Navarre.

  Paladin.

  Javier Aritza.

  The Science Officer.

  Behnam wondered if she was the only person in the last twenty-five years who had actually met the man who had just taken shape in the chair before her.

  “I can’t promise you that, Behnam,” he said in a sober, careful tone. “I might never be able to stop trying to be a hero.”

  She approached him and put her hands on his face, leaning down to kiss him with the sort of passion she normally hid from the world.

  “I know, Javier,” she whispered as his hands came up around her waist. “But I want you to come back to me, again and again, forever. Promise me that much.”

  “As long as I can, Behnam.”

  She kissed him again. Felt him stand and engulf her without breaking the kiss.

  He would. That much promise his kiss carried.

  If he could.

  Two

  Zakhar

  Zakhar looked up in surprise when the door signal chimed. Most people would call first, to make sure he was in his office. Or ask Suvi where he was and she would refer a quick message or let him know someone was on the way.

  Abrupt knocks on the door were rare.

  Not that he was scared. He still had his whole crew, aboard a Sentient warship in the form of a young Concord Yeoman named Suvi. They’d been to war together, so he understood what made the woman tick.

  Hell, only Javier probably knew her better, but he’d been inside her head, so to speak, programming the young woman to be more human than any ship Zakhar had ever ridden. Better than many of the human crew members he’d served with, too.

  Zakhar triggered the hatch open and watched the figure enter.

  He was to his feet before he realized it, recognizing the Khatum of Altai standing in the doorway.

  “Your Grace?” he asked with surprise.

  “Sit, Sokolov,” she ordered lightly. “This is mostly a social call.”

  “Mostly?” he asked as his butt dropped down into the chair again, wondering why Suvi hadn’t warned him.

  Unless she’d been told not to. There was that.

  The Khatum of Altai entered in a soft cloud of jasmine and rose that suffused the room like a kiss. She wasn’t in her formal attire he’d seen in business meetings with the woman, nor the relaxed things she might wear when entertaining.

  Casual, just out at the edge of comfortable. A woman, perhaps, rather than one of his principle investors.

  And his sovereign lord, now that Zakhar Sokolov had formally accepted citizenship. The Concord authorities would have tagged his old identity now, so his ability to retire to the name he’d been born with was probably gone.

  So far, all the retirement accounts showed as intact, but he’d probably have to instruct his agent to move everything to places not even the Concord could touch.

  Hopefully, those people would allow it.

  Zakhar made a note to handle that before he left, when he signed an updated will the day after tomorrow.

  “Mostly,” the woman said simply, dropping down into the chair on the right. “I’ve just spent much of the afternoon with Javier, and I wanted a chance to talk to you in private.”

  “Anything wrong, ma’am?” Zakhar asked, trying to catalog things quickly.

  There were always last-minute issues with a project this big. Most of them could be delegated to Piet, Djamila, Javier, or Afia to solve, so she didn’t need to be here.

  “Nothing, Zakhar,” the Khatum said, invoking his first name in a way that calmed him down some.

  She’d get frigid and lethal if he was on her shit list. He’d seen it with others.

  “I want to talk about your mission,” she continued. “About what’s going to happen out there. I’ve already had this conversation with Javier and Suvi.”

  “Okay,” he said as a placeholder, mind still racing.

  “You and Suvi will be in a position of authority even Javier is willing to admit to in public,” she said with a brief smile that he shared.

  Javier’d thrown a noisy hissy fit, but she’d gone and promoted his silly-ass to Ambassador when he complained. Zakhar had let him stay as Acting Science Officer, but he wasn’t technically part of this crew.

  Zakhar Sokolov was going to be in charge, at least as much as Suvi allowed it. She was the ultimate arbitrator, it being her ship. Her body.

  Her soul.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Zakhar confirmed.

  “But that means that the two of you will generally be stuck in orbit, while he’s down on the ground, doing crazy, dangerous, and silly things, like he will,” she said firmly.

  Zakhar nodded. That described the Science Officer to a T.

  “He’ll have Djamila, Del, and Afia, as well as others,” she continued. “But they have a tendency to let him run with his crazy ideas. Even Djamila, which continues to surprise me.”

  “They’ve evolved past the lethal part of the sibling rivalry,” Zakhar said simply. “But Djamila has a pretty good grasp on the man now, and an understanding of when she should step back. Afia’s the one who will get up into his face. Well, into his space, anyway.”

  She grinned. Afia Burakgazi was a whole head shorter than Javier or the Khatum, and two shorter than Djamila. That never stopped the woman.

  Nothing ever stopped Afia.

  “I’ll say this plainly, Zakhar, so there are no questions later,” the Khatum said now, turning into the deadly serious ruler he’d seen. “All of you, but you especially are to make sure he doesn’t get in over his head. I want him back when this is all done. He’ll do crazy, and you’ll have to figure out how to compensate.”

  “With my shield or on it?” Zakhar asked, drawing on a historical reference that still haunted most warriors.

  You could always outrun another heavily-armed goon if you dropped your own heavy shield and ran from the field of battle. Doing so, however, marked you forever as a coward.

 

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