Honor's Knight

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CHAPTER

1

Three years later, present day.

If you asked me how I came to be standing in a baking desert on a half-made Terran colony world trying not to get emotional while I buried a skullhead, I'd be hard-pressed to tell you.

I'd be hard-pressed to tell you a lot of things, actually. Like how I'd broken both my arms, or what had given me the huge gut wound Hyrek had only just okayed me to move around on. I didn't know who had attacked our ship on this rock in the middle of nowhere or why they'd done it. I couldn't even say for certain how I'd ended up outside my armor to get the blow on the head that was the cause of all this not knowing. Still, things could have been worse. After all, I was the one doing the grave digging instead of the grave filling. I bet Cotter would have switched places with me in a heartbeat, though he would have bitched about having to use a borrowed pickax. Skullheads could bitch about anything.

But though I knew I was lucky to be alive, all I could think about as I stood out there in the blazing sun and the gritty wind, pounding a hole into the rocky yellow ground, was that this wasn't right. Skullhead or not, Cotter's ruined armor and empty gun showed that he'd gone down like a Paradoxian should, defying his enemy to the very last. He deserved more than an unmarked grave in the middle of nowhere dug by a girl who couldn't remember.

Unfortunately, an unmarked grave was all I had to offer him, and I'd had to fight just to get that much. Caldswell was chomping at the bit to get off-world. If it had been up to him, we'd have been in space two days ago. The only reason we weren't was because the Fool was so banged up it had taken Mabel two days just to get us spaceworthy. That delay was how I'd found out the captain had made arrangements to leave Cotter's body with the terraforming office for disposal like a piece of trash.

Needless to say, I blew up at him so hard I almost reopened my wound. The captain didn't usually pay much attention to my opinions, but he must not have wanted to be down two security guards, because he caved in the end. Ten minutes later, I'd walked into the desert with a borrowed pickax on one shoulder and Cotter slung over the other. I found a good spot with a nice view in minutes, but digging the actual grave took longer than it should have. My pickax wasn't made for armor, and Cotter was a big man. By the time I'd made a hole large enough to fit him, I was thirty minutes past Caldswell's time limit.

Not that I cared. I'm no priest, but I've been in armored combat for nine years. I've buried a lot of partners, and I consider it my business to do a proper job. I took my time getting Cotter's grave arranged just right, using my suit's star map to make sure his feet faced Paradox so he would be ready to stand when the king called and tapping a double measure of salt into each of his hands, a tip for the death guide who would ferry Cotter's soul to the warrior's gate of heaven. Finally, I covered him in a white sheet and reached up to the grave's edge to grab the bottle of whiskey I'd snatched from the kitchen on my way out.

I unscrewed the cap and raised my visor, drinking quick before too much of Falcon 34's thin, hot, dusty air could get into my suit. The dry heat was already evaporating the whiskey in the bottle, but I didn't rush as I poured the remaining liquor up and down Cotter's sheet-covered body while I spoke the ancient prayer that would commit his bones to the dirt. I actually teared up a bit when I got to the part about soft green hills and flowing water, but I kept it together by reminding myself that when the terraforming was eventually completed, Falcon 34 would probably have those, and the last words I spoke to Cotter wouldn't be a lie.

When all the whiskey was gone, I set the empty bottle at his feet and climbed out of the grave. The broken-up rocks and dirt went in much faster than they'd come out, forming a tall mound over my dead partner. He'd have liked that, I thought. A big grave for a big man. When the last of the dirt was back in, I weighed the mound down with small boulders so the wind wouldn't undo my work and headed back to the ship.

Caldswell's Fool had never been an impressive piece of machinery, but it was looking especially pathetic now. Whoever had attacked us had done a bang-up job. The Fool's nose was blown almost clean off, damaging the bridge beyond repair. Another even larger blast had taken out the side of the cargo bay, slagging the new door we'd just put in plus several inches of hull. Mabel had covered the holes as best she could, overlapping the plasma patches until the ship looked like a pearly white mud wasp nest, but no amount of layering changed the fact that we would be going into space with hardened plasma where metal should be.

Bad as the outside of the ship was, though, the interior was worse, even by the Fool's normal bullets-in-the-walls standard. The upper hallway was black with blast shadows from grenades, and the floor had so many shots lodged in it that I could feel the bullets under my boots like pebbles. The lounge took the prize, though, with its huge dents and the terrifying man-sized hole that had been ripped through the blast door. I didn't even know what could do something like that, though I should have since it was my blood that had been smeared over on the battered floor. Whatever had happened here, I'd seen it, but I couldn't remember a damn thing, and since there was no footage, I wasn't going to be getting any hints.

You'd think on a ship with so many cameras there would be something, but the explosion that had taken out the bridge had fried all the feeds, and my own cameras hadn't done any better. Whatever had happened during that fight that had gotten me out of my armor had also erased my footage. All of it. Even my Final Word Lock and Mercenary's Bargain had been wiped clean, which was blatantly impossible unless I'd colluded with the enemy for some reason, which was a possibility I wasn't willing to consider.

Just thinking about the fight that had taken all my memories and nearly taken my life put me in a terrible mood, so it was good that I didn't have time to brood. I was forty-five minutes later than I'd promised, and the captain must have been waiting with his hand on the launch button, because the thrusters fired the moment I was inside. I barely had time to get to the safety handles in the cargo bay before we launched into the air and away from Falcon 34. Forever, with any luck.

With the bridge unusable, the captain, Nova, and Basil were reduced to flying the ship from the engine room. It was a horribly cramped setup, so rather than call me in and squish things further, the captain came out to the cargo bay as soon as we entered orbit. "Took your sweet time, Morris."

Since I was safely hidden behind my visor, I rolled my eyes. Good old Caldswell, always sensitive. "I did it right, sir."

The captain nodded, looking me up and down. "You good to go back to work?"

"Yes sir." Hyrek hadn't officially cleared me yet, but if I was fit enough to dig graves, I was fit enough to walk in circles.

"We've got a three-day flight to the jump gate," Caldswell warned. "Might be a little rough."

I shrugged. "What else is new?"

The captain actually laughed at that. "Make yourself useful, then. We've got a long night ahead of us."

"Yes sir," I said, jogging to help Mabel, who was already getting the patcher fired up to repair the bits of the ship that had shaken loose during takeoff.

In hindsight, I shouldn't have been so flippant. I'd done hell shifts before, so I thought I knew what I was in for, but nothing could have prepared me for what I'd later come to remember as the worst three days of my life.

It started with the patches. Hardened plasma is meant to fill small holes temporarily, not to be a replacement for a hull. We'd barely cleared Falcon 34's orbit before the plasma shell that kept us spaceworthy started cracking. Since I was the only one strong enough to haul around the patcher, I was the one who ended up following Mabel around the ship like a talking, walking equipment cart. Under better circumstances, this would have been beneath my dignity, but I was too busy trying not to panic over the cracks growing in the brittle layer of hardened gunk that was the only thing separating us from certain death to fret much over my image.

Cracks weren't our only problem, either. Patched as we were, any idiot with a density scanner could see that the Fool was heavily damaged, and a damaged freighter is to pirates what a wounded seal is to sharks. It wouldn't be so bad if we were flying through more civilized space, but the Falcon Sector wasn't even half terraformed yet. Other than building a jump gate to haul in supplies, the corps developing this sector hadn't done a thing except bring in a bunch of expensive machinery to an undeveloped, undefended area. I couldn't have invented a better hunting ground for pirates if I'd tried, and we were flying right through the middle of it in a busted trade ship with only one working gun and a single security officer. The situation was so ridiculously bad it could have been the punch line of a joke, and if I hadn't been the one getting punched, I probably would have laughed myself sick.

Between maintaining the patches and keeping an eye out for trouble, I didn't catch more than forty-five minutes of sleep altogether in the three days it took us to reach the gate. My only comfort was that I wasn't suffering alone.

I'd never actually appreciated the work it took to be the engineer on an old junker like the Fool until I started following Mabel around. Caldswell's sister-in-law was everywhere at once, applying patches, keeping the engines going, crawling up into the maintenance tunnels with the dexterity of a monkey half her age. Even more impressive was how she stayed cheerful about it. While I was ready to bite off heads by hour two, Mabel never once complained. She just worked, keeping a hundred technical problems in her head so effortlessly I finally broke down and asked.

"Why are you here?"

Mabel looked down at me from where she was perched on a broken beam, spraying down a tangle of blown-out lines that had once gone to the bridge. "Because these wires can't take the exposure," she replied. "The cold will—"

"Not here," I clarified. "Why are you on this ship? I understand the captain's your family, but there's got to be something better. You're a good engineer, you could get work anywhere. Why stay on this rust bucket?"

"I've had offers," Mabel said cheerily. "But there's nothing to do on a shiny new ship. Besides, I'm too old to move on. Brian and I have been together for a long time. He's a good captain and a good man who tries hard to do the right thing. It's an honor to serve under him."

I scowled. I had the funniest feeling someone had said that to me before.

"Anyway," Mabel went on, finishing the patch before dropping down beside me. "You'd all die stranded in deep space without me. Now come on, the seal over the engine should be starting to crack right about…" She pulled out her battered handset. "Now."

The word had barely crossed her lips before the hull breach alarm started blaring. I jumped at the sound, but Mabel just grinned and started for the stairs, leaving me no choice but to pick up the patcher and stumble after her.

And so it went. The state of constant panic kept my exhaustion at bay for the most part, but whenever I slowed down, the tiredness would kick back in with a vengeance. Still, I was holding together pretty well all things considered, but then, just when I thought I'd found my stride at last, the cook reappeared.

I hadn't seen him since right after I woke up from the attack. Frankly, I was shocked that he was still on board. Considering how the captain had been glaring at him when I saw him last, I wouldn't have been surprised if Cotter's hadn't been the only unmarked grave left in the Falcon 34 desert. But the cook must have only been confined to quarters, because when I came up to scrounge for food while Mabel was refilling the patcher solution, there he was, working in the kitchen like he'd never left.

I was so surprised I actually turned to look at him head-on. Bad decision. The moment my eyes met his, the revulsion hit me so hard I staggered.

It was just as strong now as it had been that first time in the medbay after I'd woken up, an intense mix of nausea, disgust, and revulsion, like realizing your food is rotten only after you've taken a bite. I had no more idea now what caused it than I'd had the first time, but whatever was wrong with me, it clearly wasn't getting better. Anytime I caught so much as a glimpse of the cook, the sickness would hit me like a sucker punch, which was a real bitch when you considered how many times I had to walk through the lounge in a day.

In the end, I just learned not to look. But though I was making a point not to watch him, the cook was constantly watching me. He never leered or did anything I could call him out for, but every time I caught a glimpse of him by accident, he was looking back. I would have confronted him anyway, but there's no law against looking at someone, and he hadn't said anything untoward. He hadn't spoken to me at all.

That actually bugged me more than the staring. The Fool wasn't a big enough ship that you could give your crewmates the silent treatment. I didn't know what I'd done to tick the cook off. I couldn't even remember the man's name, actually, and soon I was too tired to care. After seventy-two hours of near panic and constant work, I barely had the brain left to be happy we'd made it to the Falcon Sector hyperspace gate without dying.

Nova and I were helping Mabel redo all the patches one last time before the jump to hyperspace when the captain's voice sounded over the ship's com, ordering me to his quarters. It's a sign of how exhausted I was that the unexpected summons didn't even unnerve me. I just left the patcher chugging and went down to see what he wanted.

I couldn't remember going into the captain's rooms before, but my tiredness must have been playing tricks on me, because I had the strangest sense of déjà vu when I stepped through the door. The captain's quarters were divided into two bedrooms, a private bathroom, and a sitting area dominated by a large window that looked out the front of the ship. He was sitting there now, leaning on the little table with a tired look on his face.

I stopped just inside the door and stood at attention, locking my suit to be sure I wouldn't wobble. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes," the captain said. "I wanted to thank you for stepping up these last few days."

I blinked. I couldn't actually remember the last time an officer had thanked me. I especially hadn't expected it of Caldswell.

"You don't have to look so surprised," Caldswell said with a sigh. "I like to think I'm a fair man, Morris. You've been doing the work of five mercs in dangerous territory without complaint. I could hardly let that go without thanks, or compensation."

"Compensation?" The word popped out before I could stop it, and Caldswell shot me a wry smile.

"I've already transferred a week's double pay into your account," he said. "I'm also willing to foot the bill on a new blade to replace the one you lost. Just let me know when you find something you like and I'll buy it for you, within reason. Think of it as a bonus for pushing through hard times."

I stared at him wide-eyed. I had no idea why the captain was suddenly being so nice to me, but I wasn't going to jinx it by asking questions. I needed to replace Phoebe badly, but I'd drained all my cash repairing the Lady after that nasty business on the xith'cal ghost ship. Thinking back, I couldn't actually recall how I'd lost my blade. The whole tribe ship mess was a blur, which was strange considering I'd been under the hyperfocus of the battle drugs. I thought about it a moment before I decided I was just too tired to care. My blade was gone, and if Caldswell was willing to pony up for a new one, I certainly wasn't going to turn him down.

"Thank you sir," I said at last. "I'll be getting a new blade as soon as possible then."

"You'll have a chance after we jump," the captain said. "With the ship this damaged, I can't take a risk on some colony repair bay. We're headed to Wuxia. It's not Paradox, I know, but you should be able to find something suitable."

That was an understatement. Wuxia was a Terran Republic core world and one of the biggest trade centers in the universe. If I couldn't find a replacement for Phoebe there, it didn't exist. "Thank you sir," I said again.

Caldswell nodded and turned back to the window. I waited a moment to see if he would dismiss me, but he said nothing. I was about to ask if that was all when he suddenly spoke again.

"Have any of your memories come back?"

"No sir." Hyrek had assured me that my memories would come back in time, but the blank spot in my head was just as empty now as it had been when I'd first woken up in the medbay. Of course, considering the hours I'd been pulling, I was surprised I remembered my name. The captain didn't seem troubled at my answer, though. He just nodded again and told me to get some sleep.

I bowed out of habit and left, stumbling up the stairs to my bunk as Basil's whistling voice came over the com to start the jump countdown.

We entered hyperspace with barely a bump, but we could have crashed into the gate and I don't think I'd have noticed. I was so tired I felt almost feverish, and I fell onto my bunk face-first, diving into my pillow without even saying hello to Nova, who'd come in behind me. I was asleep the second I was flat, and I didn't move again until the alarm sounded to signal our arrival at Wuxia.

Wuxia was deeper into the Terran Republic than I'd ever been. My work in the Blackbirds only took me to the lawless fringes, and now that the war was over, the Paradoxian army never entered Terran space. As such, I'd never set foot on a Republic core world before, but I'd heard a ton about them, especially Wuxia. It was supposed to be one of the oldest human colonies, founded by early jumpers from Old Earth back before the ancient human homeworld had collapsed. After all that buildup, I was expecting something majestic and historic. Something impressive. What I got was a lot of smog.

I couldn't even see the ground as the Fool entered the atmosphere, just black clouds and the glow of lights below. The view wasn't much better after we broke through the cloud cover. Being such an old colony, the vast majority of Wuxia's landmass was covered in city. That normally wouldn't have bothered me, but I was used to big, beautiful cities like Kingston. Wuxia just looked decrepit, crowded, and filthy.

The industrial grime was so thick it tinted the air brown, and the buildings, even the newer-looking skyscrapers, were coated in a greasy film. We'd set down on the daylight side of the planet, but thanks to the heavy clouds you couldn't actually tell that from the ground. Between the smog and the huge buildings, the sun didn't have a chance, though it was still plenty bright. Massive projected signs shone in the sky, blanketing the heavy clouds in a wash of glowing advertisements that shed their neon light onto the buzzing city in the sun's stead.

I went outside just long enough to look in a full circle before going back into the ship. I've never cared for Terran cities at my most charitable, and a minute outside on Wuxia had almost been enough to choke my suit's air filter. That, plus the huge traffic jams I could see on the public skyways even at this distance, told me this was no place for sensible people. Hell, it was probably no place for Terrans.

Because of the Terran Republic's draconian armor regulations, I could only legally wear my suit while I was on Caldswell's ship. Since I wasn't planning on going anywhere, that suited me fine, but the Terran work crews who showed up to fix the ship shortly after we landed seemed unnerved to have a Paradoxian in full armor watching them. That suited me fine as well. The war might be over, but scaring Terrans witless is one of life's little joys. These were core worlders, too. Most of them had never even seen a Paradoxian in armor outside of the movies. All I had to do was click Sasha's safety and the whole lot of them would jump like startled rabbits. Quality entertainment at its finest.

Unfortunately, Caldswell, being Terran himself, didn't see it that way. The crews had barely started pulling down Mable's patches before he banished me to my bunk to pick out a replacement for my lost thermite blade. Any other time I would have complained about being sent to my room like a surly teenager, but after the three days of hell I'd put in to get us here, I was more than happy to lie in bed with cold beer and a year's worth of weapons catalogs while someone else worked.

"I'm thinking something that attaches to my armor this time," I said, flipping through the interactive sales display I'd pulled up on my com. "I don't want to lose another blade."

"That sounds wise," Nova replied. My bunkmate was also off duty since there's nothing for a sensors officer to do when the ship's not in the air, but while I was whiling away the time looking at sharp things, she was on the floor digging through drawers filled with her incredibly bright clothing. Finally she pulled out a pretty but completely over-the-top dress spangled with so many metallic gold stars you couldn't see the fabric between them and held it up for me to see.

"Nice," I said.

Nova beamed and started pulling the dress over her head. "Will your new blade light up like your old one?"

"Of course," I said, taking a swig off my beer. "The burning thermite edge is the only way you can get through ballistic plates with a slicing weapon. But I'm thinking of getting something that utilizes my suit more."

Useful as Phoebe's replaceable blades and long reach had been, I was seriously considering a stabbing weapon this time. Something I could throw the Lady's weight and power behind. I was trying to think of a way to explain this to Nova without sounding too bloodthirsty when she pulled out a small mirror and started brushing a thick coat of sparkly silver across her eyelids. That caught me. The star-covered dress was nothing out of the ordinary, but I'd never seen Nova use makeup before.

"So," I said casually, tossing my com on the pillow and rolling onto my side with a grin. "What's the occasion?"

Nova flashed me a huge, excited smile in the mirror. "My brother is on planet! I'm meeting him for dinner."

My face fell. I'd been hoping for something more exciting than a brother. Still, considering how little Caldswell's crew seemed to get out, dinner with your brother was probably a pretty big event on Nova's calendar.

"I haven't seen Copernicus for almost a year," she continued, catching her short, wispy blond hair back with a glittery silver headband. "I write to him every time we land, but I never expected he'd be on Wuxia at the same time as we are. What a perfect alignment!"

"Cheers to you," I said, tipping my beer at her. "I hope that you have a great time."

Nova flashed me a shy smile. "I would be delighted if you would share space with us in harmony as well, Deviana."

It took me a few moments to realize that was Nova-speak for inviting me along. "Thanks for the offer," I said. "But I'd better stick to the ship, and I don't want to go out in that smog again. I think it might be toxic."

"Almost certainly," Nova agreed, adjusting her hair. "Nic promised me we'd go somewhere above the particulate layers."

I frowned. "Nic?"

"Short for Copernicus," Nova explained. "Just like I'm Nova instead of Novascape."

I nodded absently, trying to remember where I'd met a Nic before. Nothing came to mind, but I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that there was something I was supposed to remember. But the harder I tried, the farther the memory ran until I was forced to give up.

"Are you certain you don't wish to come?" Nova asked again, smoothing out her star-spangled dress one last time. "Basil's coming."

If I'd been on the fence, that would have knocked me right off. The last thing I wanted to do was go anywhere on this crowded, dirty world with a picky bird. "Thanks again," I said. "But I'll pass."

Nova's face fell, which made me feel like a jerk. Before I could tell her I was sorry, though, she said, "Maybe I should ask Mr. Charkov?"

I frowned. "Who?"

Nova blinked at me. "Rupert Charkov? The cook?"

"Is that his name?" I said, trying to remember.

Nova stared at me in confusion for a moment, then looked away, her pale cheeks going red. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just thought that you and he were…" She trailed off, going redder still before she turned away and started brushing her hair frantically. "Never mind. It's just, his aura has been even dimmer than usual, and I assumed, well, never mind."

She was talking so fast by the end that the words were running together. I had no idea what she was on about. If the cook's aura was dim, it couldn't be my fault. Other than his seeming inability to keep his eyes to himself, there was less than nothing between me and—

I stopped. Even though Nova had just told me, I couldn't remember the cook's name. It had just slipped through my mind. That was strange; I wasn't usually forgetful about stuff like this. What was his name? I was about to ask Nova to repeat it when Basil squawked from the hallway that they were going to be late.

Nova darted out the door, yelling over her shoulder for me to have a good evening. I didn't feel comfortable with the ship full of strangers, so I got up too, following her into the lounge where Basil was waiting. This dinner must have been quite the thing, because our aeon navigator was dressed up as well. I'd never seen Basil wear anything over his feathers, but tonight he had some kind of black silk cape thing tied over his back and wings. The little square of black cloth on the back of an alien who looked like a giant ostrich was so stupid looking I forgot all about the cook in my struggle not to burst out laughing.

"Is something funny, Morris?" Basil snapped, swiveling his long neck down to put his sharp yellow beak right in my face.

"No sir," I said, trying not to choke. "I was just admiring your cape."

Basil rolled his huge yellow eyes. "It's a mark of respect. I'm not about to embarrass myself going out without my black on Remembrance Day."

"What day?"

Basil's beak fell open. "You've worked in the Terran Republic for how many years and you don't know about Remembrance Day?"

"Do I look Terran to you?" I asked, crossing my arms. "The Blackbirds took Republic jobs, but we're a Paradoxian outfit. We celebrated the five high holy days and King Stephen's birthday. Besides, Terrans have like ten thousand holidays. You can't expect me to keep up with all of them."

"There are a lot," Nova admitted. "But Remembrance Day is special. Unlike the regional celebrations, Remembrance Day is one of the thirty-seven mandated holidays celebrated on every planet in the Republic."