Cannons.
House Krahr had built a mobile battle station. Her mind refused to accept the existence of so much firepower concentrated in one place.
Dear universe, how much did that thing cost? Arland had mentioned that because of her sister’s help, their House was doing well, but this, this was off the scale.
Maud’s fingers went to the blank crest on her armor. The crest controlled the armor’s functions and granted her entry to the Holy Anocracy and permission to operate within its borders as a free agent, a mercenary. She wouldn’t be trapped on Daesyn. If things went sour, she could always grab Helen and go back to Dina’s inn, she told herself. She made Arland promise to provide a passage, but Dina had insisted on sharing the proceeds of the sale of weapons they collected during the attack at the inn. She could easily buy a passage back.
“Mama?” Helen asked. “Are we there yet?”
“Almost, my flower.”
She turned. Helen had put on the outfit they bought at Baha-char, the galactic bazaar. Black leggings, black tunic over a crimson shirt. She looked like a full-blooded vampire. But she was only half. The other vampires would not let her forget it. At least not until she beat every last one of them into submission.
“Come here.” Maud crouched and adjusted Helen’s belt, cinching her daughter’s tiny waist. She reached for the small box waiting on the shelf next to the bed and opened it. A strip of black metal lay inside, ten inches long and one inch wide. Maud took it out and placed it on Helen’s left wrist. Tiny red lights sparked inside the metal. The strip curved around Helen’s wrist, joined into a bracelet, and shrank, adhering to her skin. Thin rectangles formed on its surface.
“Do you remember how to use it?” Maud asked.
Helen nodded.
“Show me.”
Helen tapped the center rectangle with her finger. A translucent screen showing the layout of the ship flared into life one inch above her wrist.
“Call Mommy.”
Maud’s own unit came to life, tossing her own screen out with Helen’s image on it.
“Good.”
The harbinger unit served as the Holy Anocracy’s version of a smartphone. Equipped with a powerful processor, it made calls, tracked its target, provided maps, monitored vital signs, tracked schedules, and simplified dozens of small tasks to make one’s life easier. In adults it interfaced with armor, but Helen was wearing a child’s version. It couldn’t be removed or turned off by anyone other than a parent.
For the past five years, keeping Helen alive had been the core of Maud’s existence. Once they made planetfall, there would be times Helen would have to be on her own. Thinking about it set Maud’s teeth on edge. The harbinger didn’t take away the anxiety, but it blunted it, and right now she would take all of the help she could get.
“All set?” Maud asked.
“All set,” Helen said. “Can I bring my teddy?”
“We’ll bring all our things.”
They had so little, it didn’t take them long to pack. Five minutes later, Maud swung the bag over her shoulder, glanced one final time at the cabin and display, and took Helen by the hand. The door slid open at their approach. Maud squared her shoulders and raised her head and they stepped through it.
Let the games begin. She was ready.
Space crews had a saying, “Volume is cheap; mass is expensive.” In space, where air and friction weren’t a factor, it didn’t matter how large something was, only how much it weighed. It took a certain amount of fuel to accelerate one pound of matter to the right velocity, and then a roughly equal amount of fuel to decelerate it.
House Krahr had taken that saying and run with it. The arrival deck of the ship looked like the courtyard of a castle in the finest Holy Anocracy tradition. Square gray stones paved the floor and veneered the towering walls. Long crimson banners of House Krahr, marked with a black profile of the saber-toothed predator, stretched between the false windows. The gentle breeze of atmospheric circulators stirred the fabric, and the several krahr on the banners seemed to snarl in response.
In the middle of the chamber, a vala tree spread its black branches. Solid, with a sturdy trunk and a mass of limbs that divided and subdivided into a vast crown, the vala reminded Maud of basswood, but unlike the gentle green of linden trees, the vala’s leaves were a vivid scarlet. The blood-red heart of the ship, a remnant of the origin world, sacred