Ancillary Sword (30 page)

“I did what I did out of loyalty,” asserted Captain Hetnys. “Which is apparently something you know little of.” If my shoulder hadn’t hurt so badly, if this situation hadn’t been so serious, I might have laughed. Oblivious, Captain Hetnys continued. “The
real
Lord of the Radch would never strip
her ships of ancillaries, would never dismantle the fleet that protects the Radch.”

“The Lord of the Radch,” I pointed out, “would never be stupid enough to give you a tea set like that as a payment supposedly
more
discreet than cash.” A plashing, bubbling sound came from the middle of the lake, where, I assumed, the water was deeper. For an instant I thought someone had thrown something in, or a fish had surfaced. I stood there in the water, gun aimed at Captain Hetnys, my other shoulder hurting ferociously, and then on the edges of my vision, it happened again—a bubble rising and collapsing on the surface of the water. It took me a fraction of a second to realize what it was I had seen.

I could see by the increased panic on Basnaaid’s face that she had realized it, too. Realized that air bubbling up from the bottom of the lake could really only be coming from one place—from the Undergarden itself. And if air was coming up, water was surely going down.

The game was over. Captain Hetnys just hadn’t realized it yet. Station would remain silent to save Basnaaid’s life, and even block calls to Security from here. But it would not do so at the cost of the entire Undergarden. The only question remaining was whether Basnaaid—or anyone else here—would come out of this alive.

“Station,” I said, aloud. “Evacuate the Undergarden
immediately
.” Level one was in the most immediate danger, and only some of the consoles there had been repaired by now. But I didn’t have time to worry how many residents would hear an evacuation order, or would be able to spread the message. “And tell my household the Undergarden is about to be flooded, and they’re to help evacuate.”
Mercy of Kalr
ought to have told them by now, but
Mercy of Kalr
was gone. Oh,
Captain Hetnys would regret that, and so would
Sword of Atagaris
. Once I got Basnaaid clear of that knife at her throat.

“What are you talking about?” asked Captain Hetnys. “Station, don’t do any such thing.” Basnaaid gasped as Captain Hetnys gripped her tighter, shook her just a bit to emphasize the threat.

Stupid Captain Hetnys. “Captain, are you
really
going to make Station choose between Basnaaid and the residents of the Undergarden? Is it possible you don’t understand the consequences of that?” Tisarwat’s
fish-witted
had been about right. “Let me guess, you intended to kill me, imprison my soldiers, destroy
Mercy of Kalr
, and claim to the governor that I’d been a traitor all along.” The water bubbled again—twice, in quick succession, larger bubbles than before. Captain Hetnys might not have yet realized that she’d lost, but when she did, she would likely take the most desperate action available. Time to end this. “Basnaaid,” I said. She was staring ahead, blank, terrified. “As the poet said:
Like ice. Like stone
.” The same poem she had quoted, that had brought me here. I had understood her message. I could only hope that now she would understand mine.
Whatever you do, don’t move a muscle
. My finger tightened on the trigger.

I should have been paying more attention to Lieutenant Tisarwat. Tisarwat had been watching Captain Hetnys, and the ancillary at the head of the bridge. Had been moving slowly, carefully closer to the island, by millimeters, with neither myself nor Captain Hetnys nor, apparently,
Sword of Atagaris
noticing. And when I had spoken to Basnaaid, Tisarwat had clearly understood my intention, knowing as she did that my gun would defeat Captain Hetnys’s armor. But she also understood that
Sword of Atagaris
might still pose a danger to Citizen Basnaaid. The instant before I fired,
Tisarwat dropped her own armor and charged, shouting, at the
Sword of Atagaris
ancillary.

Bo Nine, it turned out, had been crouching behind the rail at the top of the rocky ledge. Seeing her lieutenant behave so suicidally, Bo Nine cried out, raised her own gun, but could do nothing.

Captain Hetnys heard Bo Nine cry out. Looked up to see her standing on the ledge, gun raised. And the captain flinched, and ducked low, just as I fired.

The Presger gun, it turned out, was waterproof, and of course my aim was good. But the shot went over Captain Hetnys, over Basnaaid. Traveled on, to hit the barrier between us and hard vacuum.

The dome over the Gardens was built to withstand impacts. Had Bo Nine fired, or
Sword of Atagaris
, it would not have even been scratched. But the bullets in the Presger gun would burn through anything in the universe for 1.11 meters. The barrier wasn’t even half a meter thick.

Instantly, alarms sounded. Every entrance to the Gardens slammed shut. We were all now trapped, while the atmosphere blew out of the bullet hole in the dome. At least it would take a while to empty such a large space, and now Security was certainly paying attention to us. But the water flowing out of the lake meant that there was no real barrier between the Gardens (with their hull breach) and the Undergarden. It was entirely possible that the section doors there (the ones that worked, at any rate, all of which were on level one, immediately below us) would close, trapping residents who hadn’t managed to get out. And if the lake collapsed, those residents would drown.

It was Station’s problem. I waded toward the island. Bo Nine ran down the path to the water.
Sword of Atagaris
had
pinned Tisarwat easily, was raising its weapon to fire at Basnaaid, who had wrenched free of Captain Hetnys’s grip and scrambled away toward the bridge. I shot
Sword of Atagaris
in the wrist, forcing it to drop its gun.

Sword of Atagaris
realized, then, that I posed an immediate danger to its captain. Ancillary-quick, it rushed me, thinking, no doubt, that I was only human and it would be able to easily take the gun from me, even injured as it was. It barreled into me, jarring my shoulder. I saw black for an instant, but did not let go of the gun.

At that moment, Station solved the problem of water pouring into the Undergarden by turning off the gravity.

Up and down disappeared.
Sword of Atagaris
clung to me, still trying to pry the gun out of my hand. The ancillary’s impact had pushed us away from the ground, and we spun, grappling, moving toward the waterfall. The water was not falling, now, but accumulating at the dome-edge of the rocks in a growing, wobbling mass as it was pumped out of the lake.

In the background, behind the pain of my shoulder and my effort to keep hold of the gun, I heard Station saying something about the self-repair function of the dome not working properly, and that it would take an hour to assemble a repair crew and shuttle them to the spot to patch it.

An hour was too long. All of us here would either drown, unable, without gravity, to escape the wobbling, growing globs of water the waterfall pump kept sending out, or asphyxiate well before the dome could be repressurized. I had failed to save Basnaaid. Had betrayed and killed her sister, and now, coming here to try, in the smallest, most inadequate way, to make that up, I had caused her death. I didn’t see her. Didn’t see much, beyond the pain of my injured shoulder, and
Sword of Atagaris
, and the black and silver flash of water as we drew closer to it.

I was going to die here.
Mercy of Kalr
, and Seivarden and Ekalu and Medic and all the crew, were gone. I was sure of it. Ship would never leave me unanswered, not by its own choice.

And just as I had that thought, the starless, not-even-nothing black of a gate opened just outside the dome, and
Mercy of Kalr
appeared, far, far too close to be even remotely a good idea, and I heard Seivarden’s voice in my ear telling me she looked forward to being reprimanded as soon as I was safe. “
Sword of Atagaris
seems to have gated off somewhere,” she continued, cheerily. “I do hope it doesn’t come out right where we just were. I may have accidentally dropped half our inventory of mines just before we left.”

I was fairly sure I was more starved for oxygen than I realized, and hallucinating, up until half a dozen safely tethered Amaats took hold of the
Sword of Atagaris
ancillary, and pulled us both through the hole they’d cut in the dome, and into one of
Mercy of Kalr
’s shuttles.

Once we were all on the safe side of the shuttle airlock, I made sure that Basnaaid was uninjured and strapped into a seat, and set an Amaat to fuss over her. Tisarwat, similarly, but retching from stress and from the microgravity, Bo Nine holding a bag for her, ready with correctives for her lieutenant’s bloody nose and broken ribs. Captain Hetnys and the
Sword of Atagaris
ancillary I saw bound securely. Only then did I let Medic pull off my jacket and my shirt, push my shoulder bones back into place with the help of one of Seivarden’s Amaats, and immobilize my shoulder with a corrective.

I had not realized, until that pain went away, how hard I’d been gritting my teeth. How tense every other muscle in my body had been, and how badly that had made my leg ache as a consequence.
Mercy of Kalr
had said nothing directly to me, but it didn’t need to—it showed me flashes of sight and feeling from my Kalrs, assisting the final stages of the evacuation of the Undergarden (Uran assisting as well, apparently now an old hand with microgravity after the trip here), from Seivarden’s Amaats, from Seivarden herself. Medic’s outwardly dour concern. Tisarwat’s pain and shame and self-hatred. One-armed, I pulled myself past her, where Bo Nine was applying correctives to her injuries. Did not trust myself to stop and speak.

Instead I continued past, to where Captain Hetnys and her ship’s ancillary were bound, strapped to seats. Watched by my Amaats. Silver-armored, both of them. In theory,
Sword of Atagaris
could still gate back to the station and attack us. In fact, even if it hadn’t run into the mines Seivarden had left for it—which likely would only do minimal damage, more an annoyance than anything else—there was no way to attack us without also attacking its captain. “Drop your armor, Captain,” I said. “And you, too, Atagaris. You know I can shoot through it, and we can’t treat your injury until you do.”

Sword of Atagaris
dropped its armor. Medic pulled herself past me with a corrective, frown deepening as she saw the ancillary’s wounded wrist.

Captain Hetnys only said, “Fuck you.”

I still held the Presger gun. Captain Hetnys’s leg was more than a meter from the shuttle hull, and besides we had the ability to patch it, if I sent a bullet through it. I braced myself against a nearby seat and shot her in the knee. She screamed, and the Atagaris beside her strained at its bonds, but could
not break them. “Captain Hetnys, you are relieved of command,” I said, once Medic had applied a corrective, and the globs of blood that had floated free had been mopped up. “I have every right to shoot you in the head, for what’s happened today. I will not promise not to do so. You and all your officers are under arrest.

“
Sword of Atagaris
, you will immediately send every human aboard to Athoek Station. Unarmed. You will then take your engines off-line and put every single ancillary you have into suspension until further notice. Captain Hetnys, and all your lieutenants, will be put into suspension on Athoek Station. If you threaten the station, or any ship or citizen, your officers will die.”

“You can’t—” began Captain Hetnys.

“Be silent, Citizen,” I said. “I am now speaking to
Sword of Atagaris
.” Captain Hetnys didn’t answer that. “You,
Sword of Atagaris
, will tell me who your captain did business with, on the other side of the Ghost Gate.”

“I will not,” replied
Sword of Atagaris
.

“Then I will kill Captain Hetnys.” Medic, still occupied with the corrective she’d applied to Captain Hetnys’s leg, looked up at me briefly, dismayed, but said nothing.

“You,” said
Sword of Atagaris
. Its voice was ancillary-flat, but I could guess at the emotion behind it. “I wish I could show you what it’s like. I wish you could know what it’s like, to be in my position. But you never will, and that’s how I know there isn’t really any such thing as justice.”

There were things I could say. Answers I could make. Instead, I said, “Who did your captain do business with, on the other side of the Ghost Gate?”

“She didn’t identify herself,”
Sword of Atagaris
replied, voice still flat and calm. “She looked Ychana, but she couldn’t
have been, no Ychana speaks Radchaai with such an accent. To judge by her speech, she might have come from the Radch itself.”

“With perhaps a hint of Notai.” Thinking of that tea set, in fragments in its box, in the Undergarden. That supply locker.

“Perhaps. Captain Hetnys thought she was working for the Lord of the Radch.”

“I will keep your captain close to me, Ship,” I said. “If you don’t do as I say, or if at any time I think you have deceived me, she dies. Don’t doubt me on this.”

“How could I?” replied
Sword of Atagaris
, bitterness audible even in its flat tone.

I didn’t answer, only turned to pull myself forward, to get out of the way while Seivarden’s Amaats brought a suspension pod for Captain Hetnys. I caught sight of Basnaaid, who had been only a few seats away, who had perhaps heard the entire exchange between me and
Sword of Atagaris
. “Fleet Captain,” she said, as I pulled myself even with her. “I wanted to say.”

I grabbed a handhold, halted myself. “Horticulturist.”

“I’m glad my sister had a friend like you, and I wish… I feel as though, if you had been there, when it happened, whatever it was, that maybe it would have made a difference, and she’d still be alive.”

Of all the things to say. Of all the things to say
now
, when I had just threatened to shoot Captain Hetnys only because I knew how her ship felt about her. Of all the times for me to hear such a thing, coming from Lieutenant Awn’s sister’s mouth.