Excerpt from Daughter of War
Caught up in a fight she doesn't hope to win, Kiffa goes back to clean up one last mess - but only because the pay is good.
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The afternoon sunlight slanted onto my bed, pounding at my eyes with an insistency I didn’t want to feel. It poured across my body in waves of heat that mimicked the rush of salt water below my bed. Eventually I rose and padded across the small room to what served as the kitchen, setting my hands to the wall in a dizziness of remembrance. The last few days scoured my mind from within as the heavy wood of the walls shuddered beneath my touch. How long had it been since I had eaten?
Trivial, trivial things. I keyed the code for coffee into the dispenser, stood and waited while it retrieved and filled a small paper cup. I didn’t know where the cups came from, and I never asked. On a planet like this one I was glad to have any comfort at all, no matter how primitive. I sipped my coffee as I keyed for bacon and eggs, stomach lurching as the first waft of sizzling fat stirred from behind the protective cover that had slipped down to hide my view of the creation of my breakfast. Some things were better left unknown, such as the origins of bacon.
It was almost an hour later before I saw the commchip pinned to the wall above my bed. I frowned, then self-consciously smoothed the lines from my face. No medical facilities, I reminded myself. And definitely no plastic surgery. No one to impress, either, so I guess the two went hand in hand.
I snapped the chip free of its plastic sheathe and held it for a moment. There were waves underneath the floorboards that could carry a thing so small to the darkest depths of any one of five nearby oceans. Most modern commchips held a tracking beacon, although it had been a recent and expensive addition when I had first left Quintoris. I considered for a moment watching a D.E.V. team try to find the tiny chip underneath a billion litres of water, then closed my fist around the glimmering square. They’d find me anyway – no sense in making them angry first.
I slipped it into the reader – another gift from the only man who knew where I was, and why I was there – and settled onto the edge of the table to watch. Rustic as my surroundings may have seemed, I knew the wooden walls and all the furniture within them had been hand-crafted rather than simply created, unlike my breakfast. So I placed my full weight upon the trusty tabletop, even swinging my legs a little as the message cycled to reveal a dark man in a dark suit, staring at me with ill-concealed rage. It’s just as well I was sitting down.
“Kiffa?” he said, holographic face reddening with the effort of not shouting. “I know you’re watching this.” Some things never change.
“Sure am,” I replied quietly, and, as I suspected, my voice provided the necessary information to unfreeze the holographic representation of the man who had, at one time, been the only thing protecting me from a fate I richly deserved. Unfortunately, gratitude only goes so far.
“Kiffa, you listen to me, and you listen good – Sanitariat’s gone all crazy on us again; they launched an offensive from Dalbvus two weeks ago. You know the drill, and you sure as hell don’t need me to explain why you have to get here. I don’t know where you are, and I don’t care, but get your low-tech butt to the nearest spaceport or, so help me, by the time the dust from this clears you’ll realise I’ve already kicked your ass to the other side of the galaxy. And there’s another thing, why you gotta go jet-setting or whatever it is…” The rest of his message was lost as I abruptly flipped the commchip into what remained of my coffee. Brown bubbles rose from its surface then subsided, leaving only a faint metallic tang in the air and nothing at all in my paper cup. At least he was efficient, if not especially clever.
I stepped out onto the balcony and ran my hands along the smooth railing, walking around my entire single-roomed house as I did so. The ocean stretched from horizon to horizon, the force-field-shrouded steel pylons holding up my tiny cottage the only artificial things to ever grace these waters. Land was far away, and wherever it was I felt no need to be.
It was evening by the time the ship arrived.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The afternoon sunlight slanted onto my bed, pounding at my eyes with an insistency I didn’t want to feel. It poured across my body in waves of heat that mimicked the rush of salt water below my bed. Eventually I rose and padded across the small room to what served as the kitchen, setting my hands to the wall in a dizziness of remembrance. The last few days scoured my mind from within as the heavy wood of the walls shuddered beneath my touch. How long had it been since I had eaten?
Trivial, trivial things. I keyed the code for coffee into the dispenser, stood and waited while it retrieved and filled a small paper cup. I didn’t know where the cups came from, and I never asked. On a planet like this one I was glad to have any comfort at all, no matter how primitive. I sipped my coffee as I keyed for bacon and eggs, stomach lurching as the first waft of sizzling fat stirred from behind the protective cover that had slipped down to hide my view of the creation of my breakfast. Some things were better left unknown, such as the origins of bacon.
It was almost an hour later before I saw the commchip pinned to the wall above my bed. I frowned, then self-consciously smoothed the lines from my face. No medical facilities, I reminded myself. And definitely no plastic surgery. No one to impress, either, so I guess the two went hand in hand.
I snapped the chip free of its plastic sheathe and held it for a moment. There were waves underneath the floorboards that could carry a thing so small to the darkest depths of any one of five nearby oceans. Most modern commchips held a tracking beacon, although it had been a recent and expensive addition when I had first left Quintoris. I considered for a moment watching a D.E.V. team try to find the tiny chip underneath a billion litres of water, then closed my fist around the glimmering square. They’d find me anyway – no sense in making them angry first.
I slipped it into the reader – another gift from the only man who knew where I was, and why I was there – and settled onto the edge of the table to watch. Rustic as my surroundings may have seemed, I knew the wooden walls and all the furniture within them had been hand-crafted rather than simply created, unlike my breakfast. So I placed my full weight upon the trusty tabletop, even swinging my legs a little as the message cycled to reveal a dark man in a dark suit, staring at me with ill-concealed rage. It’s just as well I was sitting down.
“Kiffa?” he said, holographic face reddening with the effort of not shouting. “I know you’re watching this.” Some things never change.
“Sure am,” I replied quietly, and, as I suspected, my voice provided the necessary information to unfreeze the holographic representation of the man who had, at one time, been the only thing protecting me from a fate I richly deserved. Unfortunately, gratitude only goes so far.
“Kiffa, you listen to me, and you listen good – Sanitariat’s gone all crazy on us again; they launched an offensive from Dalbvus two weeks ago. You know the drill, and you sure as hell don’t need me to explain why you have to get here. I don’t know where you are, and I don’t care, but get your low-tech butt to the nearest spaceport or, so help me, by the time the dust from this clears you’ll realise I’ve already kicked your ass to the other side of the galaxy. And there’s another thing, why you gotta go jet-setting or whatever it is…” The rest of his message was lost as I abruptly flipped the commchip into what remained of my coffee. Brown bubbles rose from its surface then subsided, leaving only a faint metallic tang in the air and nothing at all in my paper cup. At least he was efficient, if not especially clever.
I stepped out onto the balcony and ran my hands along the smooth railing, walking around my entire single-roomed house as I did so. The ocean stretched from horizon to horizon, the force-field-shrouded steel pylons holding up my tiny cottage the only artificial things to ever grace these waters. Land was far away, and wherever it was I felt no need to be.
It was evening by the time the ship arrived.
