The Matsumoto (The Matsumoto Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  “We surrender,” Sato squeaked, his hands outspread. “Unconditionally.”

  I thought I said no killing, I sent to Zeta.

  You said to try not to kill. We tried.

  Remind me to make my orders more specific in the future.

  My head ached.

  As you request.

  Chapter Six

  “Take control of the ship, Driscoll,” I ordered. He was going to do it anyways and I was sick of him making me look like a fool when he did.

  Driscoll appeared satisfied. Already his eyes were roving around the sleek lines of the bridge stations and holotanks. A look of hunger filled his eyes, and a small smile played across his lips.

  He waved a hand, “Ch’ng, take the prisoners to the boat bay. The Javierians will back you up.”

  I nodded to Zeta who started calling off names in our mental channel. A group of ten flanked Ch’ng, ready to help. He looked far more nervous about them than he did about the group he was escorting below decks.

  “Join up with the rest of Driscoll’s Own. We’ll assemble the ship’s company there,” he continued.

  “The shadows control the vital areas of the ship, but they will need human assistance to escort the prisoners to the boat bay,” I said.

  “Kitsano, take it deck by deck and handle the communications and prisoner escort. Can she have back up, too?” Driscoll asked.

  I nodded, and Zeta again pared off a group for escort duty. Kitsano’s arms were crossed, and her face was unreadable. I knew she could hear the shadows, although she acted as if she couldn’t. Maybe she’d thought that if she escaped Baldric she could escape them.

  “I’ll need a few moments here to settle things down and then I’ll need about a half hour on the shuttles,” Driscoll said, looking at me with a question in his eyes. He seemed reluctant to tear himself away from the main holo, one of his hands had already dipped in it and was swirling within like he just couldn’t keep from touching it.

  “Then be about it and we’ll meet in the boat bay when all the prisoners are rounded up and contained,” I agreed.

  “What about the morgue?” he asked. “They still have a group holed up in there.”

  “Roman and I will handle that,” I said, “I’ll take Captain Sato with me. Maybe he can convince his men that now would be a good time not to see how easily shadows can slip into otherwise secure compartments.”

  Driscoll nodded, returning to his new ship and Captain Sato gaped at me.

  “You are leading this...hijacking?” he asked.

  “Wherever there is trouble, look for the Matsumoto,” I said, gesturing with my gun that he should wait for the lift with Roman and I. “She’s probably at the heart of it.”

  “But you’re just a teenager.”

  I sighed. “If only. Come on, we have places to be and people to talk into rational responses.”

  And I’m there for window dressing? Roman asked.

  Hardly. You’re the brains of the operation.

  The piece of anatomy you are referring to is somewhat south of the brain.

  I smiled.

  Roman gripped Sato by his upper arm and angled him in front of me. He must still be irritated that I’d managed to beat him out of the lift and into the danger zone without his shielding presence ahead of me.

  Not irritated, just wise to your games.

  The ship schematic that we’d downloaded from the shuttle popped up overlaying my vision. We were a flashing inverted yellow caret, traversing the three-dimensional passageways. I hadn’t been on a starship in a long time, and I was forced to learn all over again how to duck and step high over every emergency hatchway.

  My hands ached badly and I thought one of the knuckles might be broken, but I was in great shape compared to Roman. Purple bruises blossomed on his face, and he walked favoring his left side. I was trying very hard not to think of the people I had damaged and killed, but it wasn’t easy. Inside I was almost vibrating with suppressed horror. I’d seen horrible violence in the last few months, but I had not been its cause. It felt like a betrayal of myself. Oddly, I felt Roman’s agreement in our channel. He was disappointed in me.

  Not disappointed. Concerned.

  It’s the same thing, I said, sighing mentally. Was there any part of me left that was undefiled?

  Yes. Plenty. But you’re right about violence not being right for you. It doesn’t suit you.

  It’s a little late for me to grow a conscience, I thought, bitterly.

  Hardly. You’ve been almost nothing but conscience since the day I met you. Cities could be crushed under the weight of the guilt you carry around. He paused, and I felt him wrestling with thoughts and emotions. Don’t add to that guilt any more than you have to. I’m afraid of what it will do. I...I don’t want to lose you.

  In the background of his thoughts the word “again” echoed. He’d already lost me once. I kept forgetting that. Courage and sorrow soared highest in his emotions. I thought that perhaps self-loathing and depression were probably at the forefront of mine. I must be a real treat to be linked to.

  I, for one, am not enjoying your emotional state, Zeta chimed in where she wasn’t welcome*It’s not conducive to a happy environment for my people. I’m also ashamed that any daughter of mine would be so weak.

  I remember my mother from when I last saw her alive. She was kind to me – almost sweet. Zeta did not remind me of her. What happens to people when they die? Or, possibly, don’t die but are absorbed into a collective consciousness of the waiting dead. Does it change them? Or does it just distill them until they become the most potent form of themselves possible? What would that mean for me someday? There are a lot of days that I don’t like myself. Would anyone want to be around me if I was distilled to the purest form of me? I didn’t think so.

  I would, Roman said

  And that was the kind of loyalty ballads are written about.

  “You turned easily on your own people, marine,” Captain Sato said, biting through my thoughts. “How does it feel to be a traitor?”

  “About the same,” Roman said shortly. He hated that he was forced into the position to betray anyone. Even if I hadn’t been able to glimpse his thoughts, his body language would have screamed it to me.

  “It’s not too late to make things right,” Sato suggested, he was huffing a little from our pace. I guess captaining His Majesty’s starships doesn’t afford one a lot of physical exercise.

  “Yeah. That’s what I keep hearing,” Roman said, picking up his pace even further.

  “Then forget whatever hold the Matsumoto girl has on you and remember your duty here.”

  “Now might be a good time to pipe down, Captain Sato,” I said mildly.

  “I will not pipe down!” Sato said, thinking he had some hold on me now. He lifted a long forefinger, waggling it under Roman’s face. “This man needs to be reminded of his duty.”

  “You said something about making the crew of a ship pay,” Roman said, suddenly. I knew what he was thinking. His parents died that very way.

  “You’d better believe I did! We found her trespassing in our space and she tried claiming that there was a navigation error. I did what any Blackwatch Captain would do. I sent her people to their lifeboats, and blew her out of space. That’s what happens to lawbreakers,” he turned to me, “and that’s what will happen to you. You should surrender now.”

  Roman turned on the Captain, his whole body was shaking, but he managed to say one thing in a reasonably level voice, “How many of them did you rescue after.”

  Sato shrugged, “What does it matter?”

  “It matters,” Roman said tightly, his face red from suppressed rage.

  “About a third. Their lifeboats were defective.”

  I blocked Roman’s blow just before it landed.

  I don’t mind if you want to beat the crap out of him, but can it wait until we’re done at the morgue? It will go easier there if we can show them we treat our prisoners well.

 
He didn’t answer. That’s how angry he was. He just stormed along the passage, half-dragging Sato with him. Sato started to protest, but I cut him off.

  “If you like wearing that face you really shouldn’t talk right now,” I said, “Roman has a sensitive spot when it comes to murdering innocent civilians.”

  “Trespassers...”

  “Seriously. Don’t.” I warned, and some survival instinct must have still been alive in the Captain’s mind because he stopped trying to talk and focussed on keeping pace with Roman.

  At the pace we were moving we made it to the morgue in record time. The passageways had all been empty, and when we arrived at the morgue two shadows stood on either side of the door.

  They’ve been standing guard on the men inside, Zeta told me. There are twelve by their estimate.

  Twelve. Armed, obviously, I sent to Roman. He looked like he was itching for a fight. He still couldn’t even look at Sato.

  My own anger ramped up almost as if it was reverberating off of his. That wasn’t good. Could we spin each other right up like that?

  I tried to clamp down on my rising rage, finding the communicator into the morgue and keying it to active.

  “This is Vera Matsumoto. I am in possession of your ship. Please stand down and prepare to surrender,” I said formally into the video pick up.

  The return feed flickered to life. A man in a lieutenant commander’s uniform stood in front of it. He’d made use of his time by arming himself to the teeth, and nettle guns and flechette pistols were in both hands and stuffed down the front of his skinsuit. I could see four other sailors in the view of the feed. They were also prime candidates for ‘Best Armed: Shipboard Category.’

  “In the name of the Empire of Blackwatch we demand your surrender,” he said in return.

  “Well now, I take issue with that,” I said, scratching at my scar. “In the first place, I have your ship. The Bridge, Engineering, Environmental, Weapons, the Boat Bays and other essential departments. That leaves only your tiny corner of the starship left to clear out. Eventually, you will either surrender and join your fellows, or you will try to kill me and die trying. I’d like to convince you not to die today.

  “In the second place, I’m the Matsumoto here, so if anyone is going to claim to speak for the Empire, well, my family has first dibs.

  “In the third place I have your captain here as a bargaining chip. Say ‘hello’, Captain Sato.”

  Sato moved irritably into the pickup and I arched an eyebrow at him until he finally said, “She’s telling the truth, Ross.”

  Ross’s eyes darted back and forth like he was thinking. Behind me a group of shadows assembled. They were drawn to the conflict. Maybe Javierians couldn’t resist a good fight. Or maybe Zeta had called them.

  “Come on, Lieutenant Commander Ross.” I said, “I came down here to negotiate in person because I’d rather not see anyone else die today. Do me a favor and surrender peacefully. You’ve seen your captain. He’s unharmed. You will be, too - if you surrender.”

  The lights above the hatch flashed the green telltales that informed anyone watching that the morgue was being opened. Ross’s face was frozen in the pickup. I drew my gun quietly. It worried me that Ross wasn’t talking. Roman shoved Sato in front of me, and pressed in beside him, like they were going to form a human shield. I was about to protest when the hatch banged open and flying flechettes and nettles preceded our attackers. Roman and I dodged to the side, but Sato was too late. If I hadn’t known who he was, we would have needed a forensic team to identify him.

  Shadows rushed to fill the gaps in our battle line, their filmy forms ripping apart by the nettles, only to reform and rejoin the fray. They seemed almost eager.

  When the first sailor exited the morgue, the Tactical Interface aimed and shot him in the vulnerable seam in the neck of his body armour. He went down without a scream. Two of his fellows ran right over his corpse, screaming bloody murder, or a battle cry of some kind. I fired again, and Roman fired, too.

  In the stress of the moment I flickered back and forth from his consciousness and to my own three times before I got my stress reaction under control. Thankfully, the Tactical Interface could control my fighting just fine without so much as a flicker when I lost conscious thought. Roman wasn’t so lucky. In a moment between our possession of his body he slipped and fell to the ground. I bounded forward, crouching over him and shooting cowboy-style.

  We flickered back and forth again, and I slipped, too. Prone on the floor, with Roman scrambling up beside me, overwhelming panic took me for a moment. I couldn’t control our switches. It was going to get him killed and it would be all my fault!

  I needn’t have worried. The shadows loved this battle. There were five new chartreuse pillars before the remnants surrendered. The fungus looked just as horrifying shipboard as it had on the planet. Roman reached down and pulled me to my feet, not meeting my gaze, as I fought to control my hyperventilating.

  “What madness is this?” Ross asked, his voice high with tension as he and the others dropped their guns.

  “Javierians,” I said, finally under control and giving the devil a name for the Lieutenant Commander.

  Roman seemed to be no more damaged than he was before this fight, though he was cursing and wiping the blood from his hands all over his skinsuit.

  “Where did they come from?”

  “The same place I’m going to send you,” I said, cryptically.

  “Hell?” he asked, his face white.

  I laughed and only I could hear Zeta laughing with me.

  Chapter Seven

  We sent the prisoners on their way -not to hell as the unfortunate Ross had feared - but to Baldric. Which, in a way, was a kind of hell, although less so with the Javierian’s all aboard the Cardinal’s Blood. True to his word, Driscoll rigged the shuttles for a one-way flight and landing on Baldric.

  “When the landing sequence ends there will be a long burst of sound. You will have two minutes to unload your gear and get as far away as you can before they self-destruct,” he told the highest ranking officer still alive and conscious. It was the lieutenant Sato had been reprimanding when we arrived on the bridge.

  “Two minutes isn’t very long with injured and unconscious people to haul out of here,” he said with a white face.

  “I don’t want to risk one of you hacking into the system, so you’ll have to make two minutes work. And don’t even think of opening the cockpit door. If you do she’ll go up immediately.”

  “Yes, sir,” the Lieutenant said, his shoulders slumping.

  I gave the ship over to Driscoll and Kitsano after we had them launched and heading inward. They needed time to sort out the ship systems and prepare her to leave the system. The bonus with Kitsano was that she could also speak to the shadows, since she was almost one of them. The rest of us went to stake out quarters and get some shut-eye. There was a lot to organize, and we’d have to be on our way quickly, but a few hours to sleep wouldn’t be too many and we were all too fatigued to trust our judgement.

  Roman shadowed me as I walked to what had been the first mate’s quarters. I decided, in a surge of generosity, to let Driscoll have the captain’s quarters. Since he was our only human pilot, and those quarters were closest to the bridge, it only made sense to let him have them.

  The quarters I picked were in perfect order. I didn’t worry about the fact that they were still full of someone else’s things. I’d worry about finding fresh clothing and toiletries later. The room was large for a shipboard compartment and the bed was almost twin size. There was a small head, two chairs, a mirror and an automated desk.

  I glanced in the mirror on the way in. I was a sight. Dirt was smeared on my face and arms. My knuckles were bloody and tattered. Bruising that could be from any of the past days marred my skin in grapefruit-sized blotches and the jagged scar down my left cheek was puckered along its length. I ran a hand through my jagged cropped hair and over my forehead in an act of exhaustio
n. Roman secured the hatch and crowded in behind me, looking even worse after his most recent beating. His face was like a rock, carved and hard.

  I fiddled with the hologram on the autodesk and called for a first aid kit, which arrived promptly from automated ships stores and through the supply tube into the cabin.

  “Sit,” I said, wearily, and Roman dropped into a chair as if his legs could hardly hold him.

  “I wish you’d let me beat Sato back there,” he said with death in his eyes.

  “I wish I had, too,” I agreed as I washed my hands in the sink. My knuckles stung from the soap, but I didn’t want to infect his wounds.

  He grunted, satisfied by my answer.

  I sat across from him and laid out the first aid supplies, looking at him through my lashes, afraid of what I might see.

  “It happened again,” I said, timidly, reaching across to daub his wounds with disinfectant. He hissed in pain.

  “Yeah,” he agreed and I shied away from the look in his eyes.

  “I’m really sorry. I don’t know how it happened. I swear, I don’t mean it, and I just don’t know how to stop.”

  I was afraid. I was afraid that this was the part where he was going to leave forever.

  “It’s a bit much to have someone steal your body whenever she wants,” he said, his tone gruff.

  I started to bandage his wounds, my hands as gentle and reassuring as I could make them. His injuries looked painful, but none of them were too serious.

  “I get that,” I agreed, pulling in on myself to ward away the inevitable pain. “I totally get that, and I promised you never again, but I swear I didn’t mean to.”

  “I think it happens when you are extremely emotional. Fearful, maybe? Angry? I don’t know,” he said, still not looking at me. “You said that you thought you knew how we were connected over all that distance.”