Princess, p.1
Princess, page 1
Princess
Last Stand
Book Ten
Blaze Ward
Knotted Road Press
Contents
Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Scene Four
Scene Five
Scene Six
Scene Seven
Scene Eight
Scene Nine
Scene Ten
Scene Eleven
Scene Twelve
Scene Thirteen
Scene Fourteen
Scene Fifteen
Scene Sixteen
Scene Seventeen
Scene Eighteen
Scene Nineteen
Scene Twenty
Scene Twenty-One
Scene Twenty-Two
Scene Twenty-Three
Read More
About the Author
Also by Blaze Ward
About Knotted Road Press
Scene One
Fin wouldn’t say that he didn’t get out much, but he didn’t get out much. Mostly tinkered aboard the ship if he did anything other than set out his trains and play, helping Auntie with maintenance or stuff, because he was probably the second most technical of everybody.
Barely.
Today, he’d needed sunshine. Or whatever it was. Not a lot of sun out there. Raining and sleeting like hell, as a matter of fact. And about four centimeters of slush on the ground slowly melting as the temperature was above freezing for the first time in a week, according to the locals.
He’d flown in and landed in it last night, being lucky to get a spot where a larger freighter had been parked earlier, so the ground beneath Last Stand was clear about four meters all the way around.
He had good boots on today. And the heavy wool socks that went with his breeches and jacket, all of them shades of bright green that didn’t mesh well with winter around here. And a long raincoat with a hood that was keeping him generally dry.
Fin didn’t care. He’d really needed to get out of the ship for a while. Go into Astoria and spend some time. He’d never been on Newhall in the local winter, so he still had no idea what to expect.
At least there weren’t many people about. Smart ones stayed out of the rain.
He was getting there as soon as he got somewhere. Promise.
“You want to go anyplace in particular?” Auntie asked as they got to the main square at the gateway between Astoria and the docks.
“Nope,” Fin replied. “Following you around like a puppy. At least for now.”
She rolled her eyes at him. Like usual. Wasn’t like Auntie Maru didn’t know what he was like. Her niece had married him, after all.
He fell in as she turned left and started walking. Roadway mostly pounded flat by traffic and vehicles, but nothing under it. Draining okay at the moment, but there were puddles you needed to avoid, unless you remembered how deep they were when it was dry.
No sidewalks. Not a lot of awnings, though most buildings did something over their front door.
Fin followed Maru into a shop. Somewhere between a tinkery and a pawn shop. Maybe it had been the one and accidentally wandered into the other at some point, like you did in places like Astoria? Bits and pieces, sometimes jumbled. Sometimes organized. Bins. Lots of bins. Brass and stainless steel, twisted into things he didn’t understand.
Didn’t need to. He had Auntie.
“Morning, Maru,” Ambrose the shopkeeper cheerfully called as they meandered.
Big fellow, though not as big as Wyatt. Still, one hundred and ninety centimeters tall, give or take. And bulky in the way of a guy who ate well and enjoyed himself. Three days of chestnut beard, tending to white on the chin. Bright, friendly eyes.
“Morning, Ambrose,” Maru called back.
Fin was always captivated by the mustard-colored bowler hat the man wore everywhere. Never went with any of his shirts or suits. Didn’t matter. Ambrose and that hat.
“Looking for anything in particular?” Ambrose asked as Fin intently tried to figure out what the hell the thing was that he was looking at. Brass. Skinny and square, about as long as his finger, half as wide as the narrowest part of a fork. Bent in the middle like a fork, except that it was more curved than bent.
He picked one up and looked at it, noting the letter carved at one end. Lots of letters.
Oh, typewriter strikers. Huh.
“We came into possession of a Musician a while back,” Maru was saying, so Fin put the G back and wandered over to listen.
Two experts about to expert all over things. A fellow might learn a thing or two if he was sharp.
And he liked the way she phrased it.
Came into possession.
Never once suggested how you got it. Or where.
Like stealing it out of a police evidence room on Bernadette, for instance.
In this lifestyle, Tessa occasionally merely ended up with things when some passenger got arrested in town for outstanding warrants. Occasionally an Analytical Engine, but those were rare. Usually, book reels someone had forgotten after they left.
Not all of those ended up at pawn shops. At least immediately.
“A Musician, huh?” Ambrose said, scratching at his beard fuzz.
“I know, uncommon in these parts,” Maru nodded. “Looking for some parts to repair it. Failing that, maybe bar and plate stock of the right quality that I can use to fabricate replacements. A user’s manual would be a prize worth chasing.”
Ambrose laughed.
“Those never make it this far out,” he said. “How old is your model?”
“Maybe a century at the most,” Auntie replied. “At least half that, from what I’ve been able to determine from taking it apart.”
“Origin?” he pressed, eyes unfocused on anything closer than the horizon.
“Inleah, of all places,” Maru laughed. “Like my sidekick here. Both a ways from home.”
Shit, that was a ways. He’d only come this far because he didn’t figure his parents would bother to send bounty hunters to kidnap him and drag him back to the family banking business if he was all the way out in the Hawkswold Sector.
But folks and gadgets can both find their way, given time.
“Okay, so Inleah, and prewar,” Ambrose mused. “I’d say look at the stock on aisle three. They tended to use an alloy that was stronger but more brittle than Ergrove. At least in those days. Dunno if you’ll want to replace it directly or try something with a little more give.”
“Thank ye kindly,” she said.
Fin followed her down and over as she touched things and muttered under her breath.
Ambrose made and repaired watches, rather than bigger gadgets like Analytical Engines, but the theory and metallurgy were both similar. Metal parts carved to exacting standards and assembled via esoteric formulae that ended up making a kind of magic when you did it right.
Telling time on one of Ambrose’s doohickeys. Making music—or at least writing musical scores—when you fixed the gadget they’d stolen from the cops.
Fin didn’t really believe in watches. You ended up having to have a different one for every planet you visited, because they all had a different orbital rotation. Easier to just tune in to a radio station where someone would call out the time every five or ten minutes.
On the Periphery, it was rare that you needed to be exacting about anything but dawn, noon, and sunset. Except timing when robbing banks, but even then, most folks who were professionals could count that sort of thing accurately enough.
At one point, Auntie even turned to him and started to ask a question but thought better of it. Which was good, because he just flew things.
Still, she ended up grabbing a couple of this and some of that, none of which made a lick of sense to Fin.
But if they could fix the Musician, they might make somebody extremely happy when they sold it.
Scene Two
Maru had her parts. Fin was clueless about most of it, but he didn’t fix things. That was what he relied on her for. And Tessa. And everybody else.
Auntie can fix it.
And she generally could. Machines spoke to her. Told her their woes. Begged her to tweak things. Add some oil. Loosen a screw. Tighten another.
That damned Musician had been beaten nearly to death before they got it. Almost like that Tabulator that Blakeslee Julian had been abusing in that one bar, on that day when she first met the man.
Just remembering him brought a smile to her face. That and the fact that they’d stolen her old Musician and all those other Analytical Engines in the process of stealing all the evidence the cops on Bernadette had on the man.
She didn’t know if he’d beaten the rap, but without all those revolutionary tracts and books he was either reading from or writing, the authorities didn’t have much to actually prosecute him on beyond general vagrancy.
And they’d thought she was nothing but an old whore turning tricks on a younger man.
Fools.
She had stock to repair the machine now if she had to lathe things. Turned to Fin, then decided not to ask him if he thought her next step was wise.
It most certainly wasn’t. But what the hell?
She nodded to the boy and went to bother Ambrose instead.
That one could already tell she was up to no good. Even as she put her purchases on the counter, he just watched her from under heavy eyebrows.
“Got a need,” she said quietly, even though they were alone in there, just the three of them.
Ambrose nodded like a whisper in the darkne ss. Fin came to careful stillness beside her but didn’t speak.
“I have reels for an Analytical Engine,” Maru said precisely. “Came off a Tabulator originally. I would like to acquire a two- or three-reel punch copier, to duplicate them. Know anybody I might talk to?”
Maru watched both men grow even warier. Single-copy reels were uncommon, but available. Your tape would wear out eventually, so you would thread it through and have the machine punch fresh copies in a blank reel. Necessary, out here where technology was never electronic and folks had to read from rolling punch cards.
Ambrose glanced at Fin, but he knew who the boy was. And that he was safe. Then the big man studied her.
“Such things pass through the shop occasionally,” he offered vaguely. “Sometimes, they are too broken to repair. Or at least the owner didn’t want to pay that cost. Other times, maybe somebody got themselves a new one and dumped the old one on a pawn shop that had no idea what it was, so those folks called me.”
Maru nodded. Made perfect sense, if anybody was listening. And left out the bit where maybe Ambrose was dealing in goods that had been stolen out of some warehouse or office.
With the manufacturing marks subsequently obscured or removed.
As Tessa liked to say, too many people and not enough jobs meant that folks got desperate around here.
And other places.
“Doesn’t need to be big,” Maru replied. “Or even fast or fancy. Spend a lot of downtime traveling between worlds and hauling cargo around. Would like to make sure I have safe copies of some of my favorite books, in case of an emergency.”
“You be in town for a couple of days?” Ambrose asked carefully.
“Just arrived last night,” Maru nodded. “Tessa will be delivering a cargo here, then looking for the next one before heading out.”
“Check back, day after tomorrow,” he told her. “I’ll put the word out and see what I find.”
Maru nodded and paid. Got everything bagged up neatly and tucked into a thigh pocket.
Outside, it was still miserable wet, but Fin had wanted to get out, and she’d taken the opportunity to drag him to Ambrose’s.
Fin caught her eye as they walked through the rain.
“We going to start disseminating revolution?” he asked quietly. Carefully.
“Uh huh,” she replied.
“Told Tessa yet?”
“Not until I know I can actually do it, no,” Maru replied with a sly grin.
Fin was a wise man. He kept his mouth shut.
Tessa would complain, but only because she hadn’t put as much thought into the process yet.
There was sneaky, and then there was invisible.
Some of the things Blakeslee had written would threaten governments when people started asking those same questions he had.
But those government folks all had it coming.
Scene Three
Fin wasn’t ready to go home yet, so he’d talked Auntie into stopping by one of those quieter dives. A bowl of clam chowder had just sounded like exactly the right thing. She was having some beer.
Who was he to judge?
Place wasn’t wall to wall with people, but it was also not that long after breakfast, and lots of people were still wisely asleep and hoping the storm would pass.
Early birds and worms. And pretty good chowder.
Fin didn’t know how to broach the subject, so he didn’t. Not while surrounded by yahoos and locals who might be too dumb to keep their mouths shut. Which described a lot of Astoria and most of the Docks when you got right down to it.
And was also why Last Stand was still in business long after a lot of other folks had been sentenced to breaking rocks or reeducation somewhere. He wondered what had ever happened to Blakeslee Julian, but now was most CERTAINLY not the time to talk about the fellow.
Especially with that knowing look in Auntie’s eyes.
Let her and Tessa have it out, while he sat safely out of the line of fire and sipped tea.
Wasn’t like he was in charge or anything.
Eyes caught his attention.
Watching him. Interestingly. Calculatingly.
Up to no damned good, but that also described most of the Docks.
And while he might be dressed like a dandy, most folks generally assumed he was some Ergrove squire with pretense, rather than actually being dressed down and a lot more colorful than an Inleah banker might have done it.
Gray men in gray suits. Most of them had never robbed a bank with anything more dangerous than a fountain pen.
Fin had to wait until certain statutes of limitation expired to compare notes with his distant relatives, if he was dumb enough to actually go home.
But eyes.
Dark ones. Older face. Male. Not a lot of wrinkles, but a lot of miles. Hair on top was still in good shape, though a little thin. Gray to white down both sides.
Friendly face, which was the first sign of trouble in Astoria. Weren’t a lot of friendly folks here. Hustlers, like this fellow. Making eye contact across a crowded restaurant and asking polite questions.
Fin leaned enough into Auntie to feel her stiffen as she caught the man looking. He felt her nod.
Good enough.
He was a pilot who dressed nice and nerded out on model trains. Auntie might shoot your stupid ass dead if you gave her enough reason.
Fin smiled at the stranger. Invited him over. Crowded place. Only a fool discussed crime or insurrection around this many people.
Hell, the wrong sportsball team loyalties might get you beat up around here.
Locals on Newhall took their sportsball a mite too serious for Fin’s taste.
Fellow rose. Nodded to a pretty blonde woman next to him.
Or girl. Hard to tell. Right on that edge between the two, when teenage lankiness settled into a woman’s curves. Or didn’t.
She also looked like a hustler, but the junior partner in such an enterprise.
Kinda like Fin was when his badass, war-goddess wife was involved.
Tessa would eat these two like bonbons.
Older guy moved close and nodded to the space. Lots of trestle table and bench in here. Not any chairs. Better in bar fights. Harder to pick up and hit someone unless you were seriously committed.
Fin had known a few folks.
Man ended up across from him, girl across from Auntie.
And she was still a girl. Face said late teens. Eyes said old crone who made Auntie feel young.
“Help you folks with something?” Fin asked politely, aware that Auntie had already calculated the arc and velocity to put a beer in somebody’s face, prior to hitting the other one with the mug.
Auntie didn’t fight fair. Part of why he felt safe in here.
“I’m given to understand that you own a commercial freighter working the local circuit?” the guy asked carefully.
“Technically correct,” Fin nodded. The BEST kind of correct. “But I’m just the pilot. My wife runs things. Her niece.”
That as they started to turn to Auntie with confused faces. Both of them.
Newcomers on the Periphery, obviously, because love and family were whatever worked out here.
He’d been spotted by Tessa and promptly pounced on, for which he gave thanks daily and made regular offerings at whatever church he found himself robbing.
“Do you carry passengers?” the girl asked.
Woman. Something.
She gave off strange signals. Thank the gods she hadn’t decided to flirt with him, because she had no idea how to from the look of her.
“We have been known to, yes,” Fin agreed. “Last Stand, out on the Docks right now. A little past halfway on the outer edge. You’ll have to talk to my wife about that.”
Someone had pointed these two in his direction. Fin wasn’t sure if he’d thank them or sic Wyatt on them for it later.
“How soon will you be departing?” the fellow asked, which just set Fin’s hackles to rising.
