and a Fleet battle-squadron will be underway within the hour.”
Ahuizotl could see the combined suspicion and pleasure in Xochitl’s face. His tutors did train him to be ever wary. But he is my son, and he wishes to earn my good regard.
“Surely one of the Admiralty would…”
“This is family business. You must understand that. None else can assume the responsibility.” Ahuizotl smiled. “And who, then, should I send? Tezozomoc the Glorious? To command the Tlemitl?”
Xochitl laughed nastily. Pleasure at his father’s apparent favor flushed his face. “The Tlemitl, you say?”
“Yes. She has just cleared the fitting yards. And it is only proper that you should command her. But carefully now,” the Emperor went on, a serious tone creeping into his voice. “The Scout Service may have found something real out in the back of beyond, and if they have, the single most important thing you must do is make sure this Hjogadim emissary does not find out what it is. Too, he must be returned safely to Anahuac. And of course, we must secure the relic or object for our own use. You understand?”
Xochitl nodded.
Ahuizotl knew his son’s blood would be afire with the prospect of reaching high enough to touch the face of Tonatiuh itself. As for himself, the Emperor felt exhaustion and sadness settle deeper into his bones. We cannot afford the loss of a ship like the Firearrow… not now. I can spare a son, but not her… curse the Mirror, the Judges, and all meddlers!
He tapped the channel closed, an old song coming to mind-something he’d heard long ago, in his innocence, from one of the elders at Chapultepec:
Oh youths, here there are skilled men with shield-reeds, In the flowers of the pendant eagle plume, The yellow flowers they grasp; they pour forth noble songs, Noble flowers; They make payment with their blood, With their bare breasts They seek the bloody field of war. And you, O friends, put on your black paint For war, for the path of victory; Let us lay hands on our shields, Raise aloft our strength and courage.
THE AKBAL YARDS
OFF EUROPA, THE JOVIAN SYSTEM
Kosho entered the temporary officer’s mess on the Naniwa balancing a tray of tea, rice pudding, and sliced fruit on her right hand, while a heavy set of construction binders were tucked under her left arm. The room seemed enormous to her after the cramped quarters on the Cornuelle. Due to the rush of work underway to complete fitting out the ship, there were sections of wall panel missing, and several ceiling tiles were pulled up, exposing bundles of comm and power conduit.
Two long tables ran the length of the room and both were crowded with officers of all stripes, busily digging into bowls of rice, fried egg, picken, and chillis. As soon as she’d stepped across the threshold, the nearest ensign shot up out of his place on the tatami and bawled, “ Chu-sa on deck!”
Everyone paused, chopsticks in midair, and the veterans cast amused looks at the clean-shaven young man, so fresh from Academy. No one else stood up, though everyone was paying close attention to the new commander’s response.
“As you were,” Susan announced to the room, which brought a rustling sound as everyone relaxed. Then she nodded politely to the ensign, saying: “We are not so formal at mealtimes, Sho-i Deskae. A well-fed crew is a hardworking crew. Please continue with your breakfast.”
The boy was back at his bowl of noodles faster than the eye could follow, bronzed skin darkening in embarrassment. Susan hid a smile as she paced along the tables towards her place at the far end. After a dozen paces she slowed, noting an empty zabuton between two senior petty officers from Engineering-but there was a little, mahogany-skinned man sitting cross-legged on the floor in just such a way as to block anyone else from sitting on the cushion.
Kosho stopped, looking down at his bald head and was dismayed to glimpse her own reflection. Ay, I look haggard as a fishwife, she thought. Three months of sixteen-hour days wears… that it does.
Her initial postings to the destroyer Ceatl, and then the Cornuelle, had begun nearly a decade after the light cruiser’s commissioning, and though they’d been in dry dock or offlined for repairs many times, Hadeishi had always been in the middle of the actual repair work, leaving her to manage the local authorities and run security while he crawled around in the engines with Isoroku and the grease-monkeys. Under normal conditions, she’d have had the option to task her XO with the engineering review or take it herself-but Sho-sa MacMillan had not yet arrived from his previous command-and that left her very shorthanded.
Now she was the one in the conduits, banging her head and shuffling around after the construction foremen and Kikan-cho Hennig while the engineers talked nonstop about kinetic absorption rates in the between-frame armor and the spalling tendencies of the new model g-decking.
She had never felt better in her entire life, or more exhausted. Every cell in her brain had been stretched in three or four directions, and then snapped back into place. But she’s my ship, and I have-at last-my own command.
It had not really occurred to her, until now, how long she’d spent on the Cornuelle, banging around in the dark, out beyond the fringes of Imperial control. She was years behind the others from her Academy class in achieving a ship command- but there is a balance, Kosho reminded herself, none of the others were given a battle- cruiser. None of them had her combat experience.
“ Chu-sa Kosho,” the man said, peering up at her with a pair of black eyes. The pupil and irises were almost exactly the same peat-dark brown, leaving only a thin white ring to outline them against his skin. He was wearing the somber black uniform of the Engineering service-not the shipboard branch, which was under the purview of the Fleet, but the station-side arm, which ran the sprawling complex of orbital habitats, forges, construction frames, and fitting stations which comprised the Akbal yards.
A Mayan, she thought with interest. Of an old, old family. What an astounding profile.
“Oc Chac, kyo,” he said, bowing stiffly to her once he’d stood.
“A pleasure,” she replied, then paused a split second before saying: “Is there something wrong with this zabuton?”
Chac nodded, lips thinning.
“Should it be replaced?”
He shook his head, no.
His silence was both amusing and irritating at the same time, and she was hungry.
Chac frowned, thought for a moment, and then shook his head. “ Chu-sa, be mindful of this mess hall-always leave one seat empty. Always.”
“What suggests this?” She shifted the binders under the tray and started picking at her sliced fruit.
“Saving yours, kyo, there are only twenty-five seats.” He indicated the tables and Kosho saw this was indeed the case. “The last to sit will be-must be-in the thirteenth chair, regardless of how they enter.”
“Ah,” she said, suddenly realizing who he must be. “You are our hafuri priest.”
“No!” He shook his bald head abruptly. “The jichinsai rites to consecrate the hull will be performed by others, before you leave the yards. I am your fitting officer, kyo.”
But our hafuri bonze should… “You’re not our fitting officer,” she said, voice suddenly cold. “You’re our superstitions officer.”
Chac’s impassive face seemed to congeal, and Susan bit down on further angry words. That was not polite.
“Starmen are… superstitious, Chu-sa,” the Mayan hissed, trying to keep his voice down. Kosho realized she’d cut him to the quick with the heedless statement. “Do not tempt fate! You bring this ship bad luck enough, kyo, without provoking Camaxtli with your rudeness!”
“Bad luck?” Susan’s eyes narrowed to bare slits.
“Not that you are a woman!” Chac hissed, standing his ground. Though Kosho would never be accounted tall, she had a good two inches over the tiny Mayan. But he did not flinch away from her. “Your last ship died, her crew disgraced, captain sent down to the List… you think no one here knows what happened at Jagan? And you survived?
