She understood them. “If they blow us up, a lot of people are dead anyway. Including us. We might as well take the chance.”
Part of the Flarecat’s problem was that its engine had not been designed for sprinting. Liyeusse’s skill at modifications made it at least possible to run, but in return, the Flarecat made its displeasure known at inconvenient times.
The gap between the Flarecat and the fighters narrowed hair-raisingly as Rhehan waited for Liyeusse to inform them that they could light the hell out of there. The Incendiary Heart’s glow distracted them horribly. The fighters continued their pursuit, and while so far none of their fire had connected, Rhehan didn’t believe in relying on luck.
“I wish you could use that thing on them,” Liyeusse said suddenly.
Yes, and that would leave nothing but the thinnest imaginable haze of particles in a vast expanse of nothing, Rhehan thought. “Are we ready yet?”
“Yes,” she said after an aggravating pause.
The Flarecat surged forward in response to Rhehan’s hands at the controls. They said, “Next thing: prepare a launch capsule for this so we can shoot it ahead of us. Anyone stupid enough to go after it and into its cone of effect—well, we tried.”
For the next interval, Rhehan lost themselves in the controls and readouts, the hot immediate need for survival. They stirred when Liyeusse returned.
“I need the Heart,” Liyeusse said. “I’ve rigged a launch capsule for it. It won’t have any shielding, but it’ll fly as fast and far as I can send it.”
Rhehan nodded at where they’d secured it. “Don’t drop it.”
“You’re so funny.” She snatched it and vanished again.
Rhehan was starting to wish they’d settled for a nice, quiet, boring life as a Kel special operative when Liyeusse finally returned and slipped into the seat next to theirs. “It’s loaded and ready to go. Do you think we’re far enough away?”
“Yes,” Rhehan hissed through their teeth, achingly aware of the fighters and the latest salvo of missiles.
“Away we go!” Liyeusse said with gruesome cheer.
The capsule launched. Rhehan passed over the controls to Liyeusse so she could get them away before the capsule’s contents blew.
The fighters, given a choice between the capsule and the Flarecat, split up. Better than nothing. Liyeusse was juggling the power draw of the shields, the stardrive, life-support, and probably other things that Rhehan was happier not knowing about. The Flarecat accelerated as hard in the opposite direction as it could without overstressing the people in it.
The fighters took this as a trap and soared away. Rhehan expected they’d come around for another try when they realized it wasn’t.
Then between the space of one blink and the next, the capsule simply vanished. The fighters overtook what should have been its position, and vanished as well. It could have been stealth, if Rhehan hadn’t known better. They thought to check the sensor readings against their maps of the region: stars upon stars had gone missing, nothing left of them.
Or, they amended to themselves, there had to be some remnant smear of matter, but the Flarecat’s instruments wouldn’t have the sensitivity to pick them up. They regretted the loss of the people on those fighters; still, better a few deaths than the billions the Incendiary Heart had threatened.
“All right,” Liyeusse said, and retriggered stealth. There was no longer any need to hurry, so the system was less likely to choke. They were far enough from the raging battle that they could relax a little. She sagged in her chair. “We’re alive.”
Rhehan wondered what would become of Kavarion, but that was no longer their concern. “We’re still broke,” they said, because eventually Liyeusse would remember.
“You didn’t wrangle any payment out of those damn Kel before we left?” she demanded. “Especially since after they finish frying Kavarion, they’ll come toast us?”
Rhehan pulled off Kavarion’s gloves and set them aside. “Nothing worth anything to either of us,” they said. Once, they would have given everything to win their way back into the trust of the Kel. Over the past years, however, they had discovered that other things mattered more to them. “We’ll find something else. And anyway, it’s not the first time we’ve been hunted. We’ll just have to stay one step ahead of them, the way we always have.”
Liyeusse smiled at Rhehan, and they knew they’d made the right choice.
Author’s Note
The inspiration for this story came from Ross Anderson’s spectacular Security Engineering, which I have read not once but twice; I’ve even sought out a number of the works it cites. The title may sound dry, but it’s engagingly written, frequently accessible to a lay audience (you can skim the more technical sections if you’re reading for fun), and tells you how the kinds of heists you might see on Leverage would work in real life. In particular, there’s one section discussing various approaches an art thief could use that I found both hilarious and useful. Less so if you work for a museum, I’m sure.
How the Andan Court
ACTUALLY, I CANNOT offer you roses. Roses that taste like crystallized desire when you try to smell them. Roses whose buds are softer than the hands of the morning mist. Roses pierced through by the needles of nightfall.
Roses that count the season’s clock with their petals, disrobing red by red until all’s gone except the sun’s winter angles. Roses growing in walls around the wells of your heart. Roses crowding the boundaries of your cards until every shuffle is a procession of brambles.
Roses laid upon the swelling waters to be swallowed by black tides. Roses that candy themselves as they pass your lips. Roses so shy you can only glimpse their shadows as you fall asleep.
I would rather give you roses than a bouquet of words, but I do not speak the petal language adequately and it does not admit translation; this will have to suffice.
Author’s Note
This is more of a prose poem than a proper story. I used to write speculative poetry, and even sold some of it until I came to the conclusion that $5/poem was a miserable rate of return. (Perhaps the secret is to write better poetry. I’ll never know.) Still, sometimes the urge hits me to write something with the feeling of a poem, if not its form.
Seven Views of the Liozh Entrance Exam
1.
ACCORDING TO RECORDS held like stunted chrysalids in the vaults of the Rahal, the Liozh demanded a practical examination as well as the written examination. We can guess what both components contained, even in those days, heresy-seeds waiting to fruit into the later rebellion. We know, empirically, how long it took the other heptarchs to recognize and act against the Liozh heresy. The delay between recognition and action remains a puzzle to this day.