Ghost pirate gambit, p.1
Ghost Pirate Gambit, page 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by Jessie Kwak
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: jessie@jessiekwak.com
First edition July 2022
Cover elements by diversepixel, CGPitbull, and Daniel Zadorozny
Cover design by Jessie Kwak and Robert Kittilson
Edited by Kyra Freestar
www.jessiekwak.com
THERE’S MORE TO THE STORY!
… in Artemis City Shuffle.
Raj and Lasadi may both be down on their luck. But as a series of near misses and close calls spin their futures into a collision course, that's about to change.
Get the free Nanshe Chronicles prequel novella!
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CONTENTS
Blood River Blues
1. Raj
2. Lasadi
3. Lasadi
4. Raj
5. Lasadi
6. Raj
7. Lasadi
8. Raj
9. Lasadi
10. Raj
11. Lasadi
12. Raj
13. Lasadi
14. Raj
15. Lasadi
16. Raj
17. Lasadi
18. Lasadi
19. Raj
20. Raj
21. Lasadi
22. Raj
23. Lasadi
24. Lasadi
25. Raj
26. Lasadi
27. Raj
28. Lasadi
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The Bulari Saga
BLOOD RIVER BLUES
NANSHE CHRONICLES 2
Saint’s path to you.
CHAPTER 1
RAJ
The planet Indira fills the viewscreen with deep blue seas and emerald forests, delicate streaks of white clouds. The New Manilan continent is front and center with its frosted, jagged peaks and lush jungle carpets and coastline glittering with cities; the Teguçan archipelago stretches offscreen into the southwest corner of the Thúella Sea, partially obscured by the spiral arms of a gathering hurricane.
Raj Demetriou hadn’t thought he’d ever be this close to home again. The home he’s from, at least; he still hasn’t quite redefined the word for himself in exile, and the last five days trapped in a tiny transport with Jay and Ruby and Alex is the closest he’s felt in three years.
His home country, Arquelle, is comfortably on the opposite side of the planet. Thank the gods.
“Is everything where you left it?” Jay Kamiya asks.
“Pardon?”
“On your planet.” Jay lifts his chin to the screen in front of them, where Indira is drawing the Nanshe’s tiny shuttle inexorably down out of orbit. Jay’s at the controls, with Raj in the co-pilot’s chair; Ruby and Alex Quiñones are strapped into the passenger cabin behind them. “All the continents and rivers and whatever you’ve got down there.”
“Looks about the same,” Raj says.
“You worried about going back?”
Anyone else, Raj would shrug out an easy No. But after five days getting to know Jay better, Raj has come to realize the other man doesn’t ask idle questions, and he doesn’t mind waiting for a true answer. So Raj takes his time.
“No,” he finally says. “It’s a big planet, we’ll keep a low profile. Are you worried?”
“About Las, yeah.” Jay says it without hesitation.
Raj wants to say something comforting: She’ll be fine, everything will be okay. But Jay’s not looking for unfounded reassurance — they have no idea what they’ll find when they track Lasadi down. Raj turns back to the screen and studies the rapidly approaching surface of Indira, trading worry for calm, breath by breath.
It’s been over a week since Lasadi Cazinho took off from Ironfall in the Nanshe by herself, without a word to anyone. Jay’d spent two days worrying before he broke into her messages to figure out where she’d gone. And when Jay called Raj, it took all of two seconds for Raj to volunteer to help Jay go after her.
Raj has worked a lot of odd jobs with makeshift teams over the years, but something clicked for him when he shipped out with Lasadi and Jay to Auburn Station just a couple of weeks ago. Throw in Ruby and Alex Quiñones, and it almost — almost — feels like they’re a real crew.
Before that job, Raj hadn’t thought he’d ever feel this sense of camaraderie again. He’d spent the last three years paralyzed by the fear someone would uncover his past, which made real friendship out of the question. But when Lasadi and Jay found out what was in his sealed military records, they’d simply believed him when he said he was innocent.
He’d been waiting, terrified, for the mask to slip, only to find that when it did, it wasn’t a catastrophe. Instead, he could breathe freely once more.
He’d found his people, he thought. Then Lasadi had disappeared on them all.
They’d paid for transport to Indira and found the Nanshe in orbit, but Lasadi had taken one of the two shuttles down to the surface. The flight plan gave them a set of coordinates in the heart of New Manila, and there was only one settlement for fifty kilometers, so it hadn’t been hard to figure out where she was headed. In the days since she landed, though — Lasadi could be anywhere by now.
The one thing they know for sure is she was lured to New Manila under false pretenses. She’d received a message supposedly from an old comrade, yet Jay had discovered the person actually behind the message: Anton Kato, their old commander, the ex-leader of the Coruscan Liberation Army. Lasadi’s former lover.
Jay hasn’t told them much about Kato except that he was a good leader but bad for Lasadi. Raj can guess what he’s insinuating: Raj’s parents ran in powerful circles. He’s seen firsthand the way some powerful men burn brighter by absorbing the flames of those around them. Lasadi is strong and fiery and capable, but even in the brief time they spent together during their last job, Raj could see how hard she was working to rebuild a psyche that something — someone — had systematically broken into pieces.
“You sure we’re doing the right thing?” Raj asks Jay.
Jay gives him a wry smile. “Eighty-five percent at least.”
“And the other fifteen percent?”
“Ten percent is Las blows a gasket that we thought she needed rescuing.” His mouth flattens. “Five percent is she knew it was Anton and came anyway.”
“You worried about seeing him?” Raj asks. He’s been debating asking the question all day, but there’s something about reentry that peels back layers of vulnerability. The way the view from your ship shifts from black to gentle pink to incandescent orange and blazing red, the atmosphere sparking against the windows, the ship shivering around you — it convinces the animal part of your psyche you’re about to die.
Jay shakes his head. “Nope.”
“No?” It’s not the answer Raj expected to hear. “He basically accused you of committing a war crime.”
“Yeah, but no, you know what I mean?” Jay takes a deep breath, dark brows drawing together in concentration. He blows out, huffing a lock of shaggy black hair out of his eyes. “I mean, he didn’t do it to fuck with me and Las — or anyone else in Mercury Squadron. He did it because the Alliance needed a scapegoat, and Corusca needed peace, and he thought we were all dead.”
“But your memories — your families . . .” Raj trails off, waving a hand — he has the vaguest idea of how the Coruscan ancestral spiritual traditions work, and what it means to have your memory erased from the family altar.
“We were all willing to die for a free Corusca, Anton knew that.” And Jay grins at him, hands firm on the shuttle’s controls. “I’ve always wanted to try flying in atmo.”
The shuttle shudders in the increasing atmosphere, the windows glowing with the friction of entry. Raj glances back through the open door to the passenger cabin. Alex gives him an excited thumbs-up; Ruby’s eyes are squeezed closed, her fingers tapping rhythmically in prayer.
“Welcome to Indira,” Raj says over the open channel. “Can’t wait to show you all around.”
The coordinates they found on the Nanshe lead them to a tiny clearing in the heart of the jungle that sprawls through central New Manila, the canopy swallowing their shuttle as they descend, the light mellowing from brilliant morning sun to dappled green and soft shadows. After five days of travel, the planet’s gravity drags at Raj’s limbs, his muscles remembering this specific weight — the weight of his youth — even though it’s been more than three years since he’s felt it.
Jay cuts the engine. It’s a moment before anyone speaks.
“Well,” Ruby says from the back. She unbuckles with a click. “Shall we go see what this fuss is all about?”
“Do you have a read on the Nanshe’s other shuttle?” Raj asks.
Ruby’s chin bobs in a distracted nod as she studies her tablet. “It’s nearby,” she says. “We’ll start there, will we? Then head into town?”
“Bring everything you’ll need with you,” Raj says to the group. “If she’s traveled on, we can probably follow her in the shuttle. But we may need to take local transport. Jay, you do the talking if we meet any locals.
“Copy that,” Jay says; they’ve discussed this already. This deep in New Manila, the locals are more likely to be sympathetic to the guerrillas and the independence movement, and hostile to the Alliance. Raj can tone down his Arquellian accent, but he’d rather not risk the trouble.
“Did you pack snake spray?” Alex asks his older sister.
Her eyebrows shoot high. “The what?”
“Snake spray,” says Alex. “It’s the only thing that keeps the elephant boas from attacking you. They’re as big around as one of those tree trunks.”
“There are not snakes,” Ruby says. She shoves her tablet into her pack. “You haven’t the faintest.”
“Tell her, Raj.”
“There are snakes,” Raj concedes; he doesn’t know much about the jungle, but he does know that. “Probably not that big, though. Anyway, Alex will go first and let us know if he finds one by screaming his lungs out.”
“Typical,” grumbles Alex. “Send the kid out to spring all the boobytraps. What would you do without me?”
“Don’t get me started on a wonderful daydream,” Ruby says. She blows him a kiss and palms open the door. “Off with you, then. Go find us some snakes.”
After the stale, recycled air of the shuttle, the jungle’s aroma hits them in full force: rich and humid, lush with fertile decay, and tinged bright green with freshly growing things. Ruby lets out a little gasp. Beside her, Jay takes a sharp breath. Alex grins, breathing deep.
Raj fills his lungs — it’s not the air of his homeland, not the sharp tang of salt wind. But it’s real atmosphere that’s been filtered through the forests of a planet and freshened by its storms rather than recycled through the lungs of everyone else living in the same box as you in the middle of the black.
“That’s good,” he says. “That’s really good.”
“What’s that noise?” Alex asks, and Raj looks up, listening to the deep-throated whuff-hff-whuff coming from high above them.
“There are a lot of primates that live up in the canopy.” Raj had read it somewhere in school. “It’s probably one of them.”
“Probably?” Ruby asks.
“We’re quickly reaching my limits of knowledge of the jungle,” Raj says. “My parents used to take me to this replica reserve in Arquelle, but I was a kid.”
“Best assume everything out here is going to eat you,” Alex says cheerfully. “I’ll protect you, sis.”
“You watch your own self,” Ruby says, checking the pistol strapped to her thigh. She tightens the straps of her pack, frowning at the slice of jungle through the shuttle door.
Jay hasn’t joined in the banter; he’s standing apart, lines of worry sketched between his dark brows. “What was out here for you, Las?” Jay murmurs, and the others fall silent a beat; no one answers. Finally Jay sighs. “C’mon. We gotta find her.”
Jay hoists his pack onto his shoulder and hops out of the shuttle, boots thudding softly in the clearing. Alex hops out after him, stumbling a touch in the unfamiliar gravity; Ruby follows more carefully. Raj brings up the rear, palming the shuttle closed and locking it.
“Which way’s the other shuttle?” he asks Ruby. She points to the east, and Alex sets out in that direction, heading towards the edge of the clearing and vaulting a fallen log.
“Here, snakeys,” the kid calls. “Ruby wants to say hello.”
“Alex, hold on,” Raj says before he even knows he’s going to. His hand falls to his sidearm, loosening it from the holster automatically while his conscious brain tries to parse what his subconscious is telling him.
Something’s wrong.
Something about the sudden stillness of the birds, maybe. Or he’d heard a strange crack of a twig, scented some bitter, sulphuric aroma under the redolence of the jungle. Whatever it is, Raj is too slow to put his finger on what — as he opens his mouth to order Alex back, the quiet phap of a stun carbine cuts through the rustling of a breeze high above them. Alex hits his knees with a yelp.
Raj’s pistol is in his hands and Ruby at his back almost immediately; Jay’s taken cover with his pulse rifle. But a half-dozen guerrillas in jungle-green fatigues shimmer like mirages at the edge of the clearing. One has their rifle aimed at Alex’s head.
“You’re now prisoners of the NMLF,” the guerrilla says, voice muffled by a bandana. “Drop your weapons or we kill the boy.”
CHAPTER 2
LASADI
From the bridge at the edge of the vast bluff, jumping to freedom looks like it should be easy, the landing so soft on lush jungle that sweeps out beyond the edge of the cliff like carpeting for as far as the eye can see. Nothing is holding her back.
Nothing but logic. The drop is over two kilometers, Lasadi reminds herself.
If she could sprout or build a pair of wings, though, get a running start down the packed red-earth road to the cliff and launch herself over the edge, she’d soar on the thermals like that majestic bird gliding towards them from the west. She’d sail over the scar of the goldmine scratched halfway down the verdant face of the bluff, away from the red dirt roads and red metal roofs of the town of Icaba, south along the seam where the savannah highlands jut out of the jungle to roll gentle and flat for a hundred kilometers before pitching up once more into the rugged Liluri mountain range. The peaks of the Liluri Mountains are silvery and calm in the distance.
When Lasadi was a child, she used to study the planet Indira overhead through the glass domes of its moon, Corusca. She’d thought the continent New Manila resembled a sleeping bear: verdant green surrounded by blue seas, so vast she never could see the entire bear at once. Now she’s somewhere near the bear’s heart, far from the glittering chain of cities lining New Manila’s southern coast.
Far from anything. Far from freedom.
While the remote beauty of the plateau is stunning, the town of Icaba is nothing to write home about. It consists of three short streets scratched into the dirt at the edge of the bluff. Squat, do-it-yourself printed houses are tumbled among buildings constructed of lumber roughly hewn from the jungle below.
The village is shaded by scrub palms and ceiba and some kind of towering, thick-trunked tree with spiked leaves and red fruits that attract chattering birds. And, of course, the ubiquitous moa palms that trace the path of the Icaba River as it wanders lazy and silt-rich through the savannah before the floor falls away and the river cascades in a frenzied freefall into the jungle.
Maybe five hundred people live in the area, most employed in the mine scarring the bluff below; in the morning, buses and transports fill with clean workers, and in the evenings they all come back the same muddy red-earth brown as the streets.
There’s no security, no fences. Some of the homes don’t even have doors, let alone walls on the first floor: their kitchens open to the street with the bedrooms on the upper level.
The lack of walls doesn’t keep her from feeling like a prisoner.
The bird is gliding closer; its shadow blocks out the hot sun for a brief moment as it passes overhead, and Lasadi’s eyes widen at how massive it is up close. Its hooked beak is blood red, its vicious talons an inky black. It doesn’t make a sound.
She didn’t think she swore out loud, but she must have, because one of her guards — the sister — laughs.
“It’s a Liu’s condor,” Qacha Batbayar says. “Scary-looking bastards, but they’re carrion birds. Nothing you have to worry about unless you’re already dead.”
Lasadi tries to find that comforting. “It’s bigger than I am,” she says, and Qacha’s twin brother, Temu, grins.
