have showed me the spear if I hadn’t agreed. Though it’s going to be hard now. He’s not exactly going to want to go golfing with me when he’s furious at me. Once I win the duel though…”
“The spear is behind a sealed door,” I say. “It only opens from Maya’s or her husband’s fingerprints. It’s not like Thraxa can break in and--”
“What?” Krakon says, eyes wide. “You saw the spear?”
God, I’d forgotten to even tell him. If I had told him immediately, could I have stopped the duel?
“Comms link,” Krakon says. “Thraxa.”
Thraxa appears as a hologram in our room. “Why are you contacting me, this isn’t--”
“Tell her,” Krakon says. “While it’s still fresh. Every last detail.”
I do it. I’m still furious, but I know they won’t let it go until I tell them everything I saw.
“Describe the painting again,” Thraxa says.
I try my best. As many details as I can remember.
“Krakon,” she says. “Does it sound like…”
“Gothra,” he says. “The Martyr’s Last Hymn.”
“Fuck,” Thraxa says. “The spear is a pile of junk next to that.”
“It’s a huge painting,” I say. “How are you going to take it?”
“Look,” Thraxa says. “This is actually perfect. Duels are exceedingly rare these days, especially on Summer’s Breeze. Every single asshole on that habitat is going to be there for the duel. Of course the Mi Kioras have to be there, as well. The vault will be entirely unguarded save for automated defenses, which we can hack.”
“He could die, Thraxa,” I say. “It’s a duel to the death, a fifty percent chance he dies.”
Krakon crosses his arms. “I almost tore his arm off. I can take him. Easily. Much better than fifty-fifty odds. Hell, we only had a forty percent chance to not die over Glacius.”
“What? You never told me that--”
“Shut up,” Thraxa hisses. “Krakon. You will compete in this duel. You will win. We will split everything fifty-fifty. You’re putting a lot more skin in the game than before, and you’ll get paid very well for it.”
“Deal,” he says.
With the duel scheduled for tomorrow at “High Noon,” Krakon really doesn’t seem to be taking the possibility of dying seriously.
“An absolute beauty,” he says, reclining in the lounge chair by the fire. “Total luxury all around. We wouldn’t even have to run any jobs for a few years. I could show you all around the system. A pleasure cruise. We’re going to be filthy rich, Cat. I’ll be the most renowned pirate in the swarm after pulling off two back-to-back impossible jobs.”
“I thought you were leaving the swarm.”
“I mean, I’ll be renowned for the few days it takes me to leave. Then after I’m gone, people will talk about me like I was a legend.”
“So this duel.” I’m pacing back and forth while he lounges back with his legs up. “Are you going to be shooting at each other?”
“Spears,” he says.
His voice sounds like he’s telling me that he’ll be eating with a steak knife rather than a butter knife, rather than talking about the deadly weapon that might kill him.
“You are good with a spear?”
He scoffs. “Didn’t you see me on Glacius? I hit that ice bear right between the eyes, I hit a savage with it, I--”
“Isn’t a one-on-one battle with an aristocrat different? Shouldn’t you be, like, practicing?”
He stretches and gets up. “Catherine. Swarm pirates are master duelists. Aristocrats are just playing at it. He stands no chance.”
He brings up a bunch of videos on the walls of “famous duels of history.”
I see a clip of two huge Cygnians wearing robes similar to the ones people wear here. They circle each other for several breaths, then their spears clash in the middle. The spears move so fast I can’t really tell what’s happening, but it ends with one with a spear in his chest. The whole thing is over in about twelve seconds.
“The one who won there is a swarm pirate,” he says, grinning.
It’s all over in a heartbeat, Krakon. If you so much as take half a step in the wrong direction, you could be dead.
“I’m a swarm pirate, Cat,” he says. “I’ve been in situations like this for the past decade. I always manage to come out ahead, and if I don’t? Well, then I don’t. This is high risk, high reward. And the reward is worth it.”
I’m too angry to continue talking to him. I storm out of the hotel. I’m not supposed to, as it’s “unseeming” for a human to be unescorted by their Cygnian, but I’m