John Wright - The Phoenix Exultant

He brushed the wires aside, which interrupted the circuit holding the lock shut. The pavilions turned transparent, slid open, and spread wide, admitting the night sky.

Smoke and stink, trapped beneath the canopy, now poured out from beneath the upper peaks, spilling off of higher canopies, and flowing up to be lost in the air. Daphne stepped to the rail and drew a deep breath.

Across the bay, rose a cliff. Stepping out from a place where the hillside below the burnt houses had fallen away, was a figure in streamlined brown-gray armor. In one hand he held a long thin implement of some sort. When the figure stepped to the top of the cliff, and the night sky was behind him, the armor changed color, turning night-black.

Phaethon squinted, pointed. "There's your answer. He must have known all along. About the invasion. About everything. He lied to you, you know. He may be the only person in the Golden Oecumene who is allowed to lie and get away with it. No wonder people hate him."

Daphne looked at the black figure. The armored man saw they were watching him, he drew a length of silver metal, a sword from his side, held it overhead, and saluted them.

It was Atkins, of course.

Phaethon said, "My access to the mentality was cut off by a barrier which was intended to trace outgoing messages to their destination. His plan was to have the monster succeed, kill you and kill me, and then see where the creature took my head. But I don't understand why Atkins was not stationed here, watching me, from the very first. He must have known where I was."

Daphne sighed in exasperation. "I should have seen this a mile off. This is intrigue, just like in all my stories! He knew they had to be following me. So he must have known my poor Sunset was carrying a monster. He followed us to see what the monster was up to." She shook her head in self-dismay. "I'm simply going to have to read more romances!"

They were both leaning with their elbows on the railing. Both sighed, either with pent anger or with surprised relief. Both turned and looked at each other.

It was only a small motion. Perhaps she only tilted her head a bit toward him, or moved her shoulder. But, somehow, instantly, he had flung his armor clattering to the deck in a swirl of black nanomaterial, and found her arms around him, his arms around her, her warm lips surrendering to his fierce kisses, his mouth stung by her return kiss even more fierce, their bodies pressed together, locked tight, and sighs, cries, and muffled sounds surrounding each extended kiss.

It was Phaethon who drew his head back first. "You know, miss..."

"Shut up," she said. She was as boneless as a sleeping cat in his arms, her head thrown back, her eyes half-closed, her lips half-opened, slender hands without strength against his shoulders. She looked helpless, utterly overcome, and utterly in control. "You talk too much. I'm coming with you."

And she raised her lips to kiss him again.

Her face was just like his drowned wife's face. Her kisses were almost the same as the kisses of her twin.

He put his hands on her shoulders and firmly drew her away from him.

Impish humor, impatience, impertinence all flashed in her gaze, and she opened her mouth to speak. But then she saw the sober look in his eyes. Her expression grew sad. She said nothing.

He dropped his hands away.

"I'm sorry," he said, half-turning away.

Her eyes flashed. "Don't worry. I'll wait. Or maybe I'll just go find some other man. Atkins is pretty cute." And she turned toward the cliff shore and waved her hand high overhead, calling out "Yoo-hoo! Hey, sailor! Over here!"

Atkins had been standing with his hands clasped behind his back, pretending to study the stars and cloud formations, while the two of them were kissing. Now he nodded toward them, and jumped.

Phaethon could not see what engine or flight-system he was using to make the leap all the way across the bay, and Phaethon lost sight of the black armor as it passed overhead. But then Atkins landed on the deck in a crouch, like a cat, and he made no noise at all when he landed.

Atkins turned. His helmet opened into a black halo of hovering beads; but some of the beads fell to the deck, and became simple seashell shapes, and scampered back and forth across the deck and the diamond pavilion surfaces above him.

His face was still immobile, grim, and lined. But there was a sparkle in his eye, which made him look refreshed, alert, and perhaps slightly cheerful.

Phaethon could not hide a hostile expression. He snapped his fingers, and had his black coat reach down and fit his armor back onto him. He left his helmet off.

Atkins had only his katana in his belt. Daphne pointed, and said, "What happened to your big, long gun? The one you shot the monster with?"

"It's not called that, ma'am. Its called a field-disruption directed-energy remote-manifest aiming unit. Or it's called a Hell-hammer. It projects a group of remote micro-units at near-light speed to form a high-energy web assembly around the target, investigate and confuse any anti-disintegration gear, neutralize counter-measures, and then the web negates me-sonic fields coupling basic particles together. It's got an effective range of about fourteen light-minutes, so I could not hit any target outside of the inner system with it, so it's no good for long-range work. Also, the energy-web-targeting capacity falls off sharply if your mass is greater than that of, oh, let's say, thirty thousand metric tons, so it's no good for naval bombardments. But a little bit of close work like this ... ?"

Daphne, seeing Phaethon's eyes narrow in a look of distaste, stepped closer to Atkins, and said in a cooing tone, "That's all very fascinating! But where did you put it... ? You're not carrying it."

"Oh. It was a pseudo-material projection, ma'am."

"Really?" Her eyes sparkled, and she took another step closer.

"Yes ma'am. I carry templates for all possible weapons and other combat systems in my armor, with a long-range pseudo-matter projector, so I can project units of equipment, and fighting machines into my environment, as needed. The thing I put between you and the blast when your husband here set off his little fireworks display, that was an Iron Wizard Heironymous Fifth-Era War Car with attached entrenching blade ..."

She blinked. "What?"

Atkins spoke in a voice of polite surprise: "You did not notice a large, square-treaded vehicle of heavy mobile armored cavalry appear on the deck between you and the blast when the blast went off?"

"I had my eyes closed," she said. "I think Phaethon was looking the other way. Weren't you, Phaethon? Aren't you going to thank the nice man for saving my life? I had evolved back up from 'miss' back to 'wife,' at least at that moment, so don't you think you should say something nice instead of standing there glowering?"

Phaethon said, "Perhaps I should thank you, for saving my ... for saving Daphne's life." "Just doing my duty, sir."

"... Or perhaps I should punch you in the nose. Seeing as how it was you who put her life in harm's way in the first place. Or are you going to say that that was just doing your duty as well?"

The tiny twitch in his jaw, which Atkins used instead of a smile, appeared. "As to that, sir, I cannot say. But, if you're going to try to take a swing at me, you'd better do it now. Because, if you do it later, it will be a court-martial offense."

"What? Why?"

"Because striking a superior officer has always been a court-martial offense for people who join the military. And you are going to sign up, aren't you? Because there is no way you are ever going to get your Starship back out of the hands of the enemy if you don't."

Phaethon turned his back to both of them, irked and angered, but unwilling to show his exasperation. He found a wall socket leading to the barge power-core, and pretended to busy himself programming an adapter out of his nanomaterial cloak, to recharge his drained armor batteries.