Serial Saturday: "Clan of Outcasts", Season 3, Part 12 (2 of 2)

Part 12
"Keep In Touch" (Part 2)

The Brigadier's Ransom creaked and rocked on the tidal waves and currents that trudged by underneath it. The morning's disruption had dissipated into an uneasy stillness.

Reva sighed as she toyed with the loose ends of the tack lines. They were all in order, and had been since they moored at the dock. It wasn't her fault Sally liked to pick fights--so why did it feel like the Captain had put her in time out? Her eyes wandered over to the Elfin swashbuckler seated on the foredeck, placidly tending to that shining sword that, as far as Reva knew, barely saw combat. Yet the way the others treated her, one could easily assume that she was as deadly as she was docile. Reva snorted and shook her head, ducking to avoid a swooping raven.

"Oi, Keaton!" She shouted up to the nest on the foremast. "Watch where you aim those things!"

The wiry young man with the long rat-like ponytail reached out an arm, and the raven landed on it. Reva rolled her eyes. He had an affinity for those winged scavengers that bordered on obsession, it seemed sometimes. They took to him well enough.

Behind Reva, someone sniffed.

"What do you care about those things getting too close, Reva?" Cori, the ship's navigator, sniffed and leaned against the railing beside her. She eyed the brown-haired rigger up and down. "Their claws barely scratch you, and you never style your hair, so it's not as if they could ruin it!" The tall, slender redhead reached up to smooth down an errant lock of hair on her own perfectly-coifed head.

Reva tilted an eyebrow at her friend. "I don't like things flying at my face, is all."

"If that's true," came Keaton's heavily-accented voice from above them, "then I don't know why you signed on to be a rigger!"

Reva scowled in the direction of the fore-topyard, her boots resting on the top of the railing as her hands found purchase on the taut rigging. "Half a minute!" she howled. "I'll show you why I'm the best damn--"

"Reva, get down, and stop your shouting!" The boatswain, Watson, came staggering up from the galley, a half-full tankard in his hand. He squinted against the lengthening shadows around her as Reva landed lightly on the deck again. He ran the back of his wrist over his nose. "You want something to do?" he grunted. "Cook needs to pick up some more provisions in the market," he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the small, dark-skinned girl in the ragged dress cowering behind him, "and she needs somebody to go with her."

Reva curled her lip. "You expect me to babysit the pipsqueak in this squalor-hole?" She smirked and added, "After the rabble-rousing you all did just an hour ago?"

Watson glared at her. "I expect you to do as you're told!" he snarled. "Take Seline with you if you're feeling jumpy. They trust her."

Reva glanced up toward the Elf. Seline's pale-gold pixie cut never looked messy, greasy, or overgrown--as if some kind of magic preserved her appearance exactly the same day in and day out. The rest of the crew might smell like the ripe end of a barn after a week at sea, but Seline hardly smelled like anything, at least as far as Reva could tell.

Seline came to stand next to Reva as the galley-maid handed her a large basket with several bags inside. The expression on the young girl's face was a mix of fear and apology. Reva let her lips tighten in a small scowl. She was nobody's packhorse--least of all the pipsqueak!

Beside her, Cori had perked up at the idea of an excursion into town. "Can I go too?" She asked.

"No," Watson objected almost immediately. "You stay on the ship."

Reva just about pushed the galley-maid down the gangplank with the basket in her hands as Cori's complaints reached her ears. Maybe by the time they got back, Haggard will have found this "old shipmate" he was looking for, and they could leave.

<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>

Denahlia frowned at the long list of alarm messages from several locations throughout the Harbor. Markus had used the admin privileges to dispatch all the Peacekeeper troops, for who-knew-what reason, and yet there were still tripped alarms because he didn't know enough to turn them off, or even inspect them. She checked on them, saw that nothing was currently amiss, and re-armed them. She had other matters to attend to before she could get to the bottom of why he was currently rifling through her database.

She sidled up to the butcher shop on the edge of the marketplace. She found out very early on that a lot of the businesses who were used to being extorted by the authorities and bribed with protection in return for information on whatever and whomever passed through their shop were even more willing to deal with someone who was actively invested in their benefit, rather than just threatening them if they couldn't provide. Few people made a point of watching a man covered in blood wielding a knife capable of splitting bone for any length of time--but also, they were unafraid to conduct business and carry on conversations in front of him.

Denahlia put on her biggest smile and swaggered inside. "Tertus! Good morning!"

The brawny man set down his cleaver and barely glanced in her direction. He turned his back on her to deal with a pile of cut meats on another counter. "Madam Watch," he returned amiably, "Good to see you."

Denahlia leaned against the wall, resting a hand on the counter. "Everything all right, Tertus? Business as usual?"

Tertus didn't turn around, didn't engage--merely grunted.

Denahlia stood a little straighter. "Something I should know about?" She asked.

This time, Tertus turned. He looked straight at Denahlia and said in a low voice, "No."

The former Hunter frowned. With a wave of her hand, she accessed all the footage from her camera mounted in the corner (much to Tertus' chagrin, but he didn't know enough about it to really object, so it stayed.) She saw a few moments in the last two days where a few customers got a bit out of order, but none of them stayed long, and there didn't seem to be any evidence that things were amiss when she looked around now.

So why was he acting so strangely?

"Tertus, why the could shoulder?" Denahlia cajoled him, trying to keep her smile.

"I've got nothing to say to you!"

Denahlia's wrist implant sent a electric shock buzzing against her skin. The pirates she had flagged as suspicious were moving through the busy marketplace--why were they still here? She ignored it and voiced her query to Tertus, hoping that his initial reticence was only temporary, like a bad mood. "I'm looking for information on a certain black-market hire."

"Don't know anything."

"Come on, Tertus! You said once that you're good for that kind of information!"

"No good."

"Tell me if you've heard--"

"Not happening."

"Somebody paid for a knife--"

Denahlia couldn't finish before Tertus whirled on her. His face was an impassive mask. "Get outta my shop," he growled.

She opened her mouth to speak again, and he just pointed to the door.

Denahlia sighed and walked out. She visited a few more haunts of her regular informants, but the reception was the same every time: They didn't know anything. Raedyn who? They couldn't tell. They wouldn't talk. She headed toward the marketplace, where the "threat level" was steadily increasing, still with no sign of Markus or any kind of security activity happening to mitigate the growing threat. The closer she got to the central market, the more she saw signs that troubled her: smashed doors, broken crates, ruined merchandise--and the repeated motif of some kind of bird silhouette painted on the wall or the door. Some places she could have sworn it was merely a random smudge, a chance occurrence--but the more she saw it, the more she got the feeling that it had been deliberately placed... But why?

She found Hayden's office and banged on the door.

"All right, all right!" he hollered back, fumbling with the door. He nearly dropped his pipe when he realized who stood at his door. "Den--Ah, Madam!"

"Hayden, what the heck is going on around here?"

He fidgeted, badly discomfited. "Um, what do you mean? Nothing's--It's nothing!"

Denahlia glared at him. "Nothing? The Market is a mess, someone's vandalizing the walls and doors of this community, there's unrest brewing on the streets as we speak--and you call that nothing?"

Hayden shrugged. "Your... Um, well, Master Markus told me he had it all under control."

Denahlia crossed the room. Even now, she could hear some shouting going on, and when she flicked her wrist to display the x-ray scanner, she could see a couple of the pirates jeering at another crew out in front of the tavern. She huffed and opened her mouth to dispense orders to her Harbormaster--but just then, a warning sign superimposed over the viewing window. Denahlia read the alert and her heart dropped into her belly. Markus had accessed the one file she had intentionally wanted buried beyond any outside knowledge.

She needed to get up to her office now. Denahlia turned heel and marched back out the door. "Hayden, if you don't get Peacekeepers down there to arrest the ruffian currently picking pockets in the Marketplace, then I'm going to find a Harbormaster who will actually do his part to ensure the safety of the Harbor!"

Hayden was scrambling for the intercom to summon the squadron before the door even closed.

Denahlia reached the stairway to her office just as Haggard was making his way down the winding steps. She threw her cowl over her head and stepped aside, averting her face, in case he recognized her. When she finally entered the courtyard, Markus met her at the door with a satisfied grin on his face.

"Denni, you're back!" He said. "Did you stop the assassin in time? Is the Queen safe?"

Cold fury gleamed in her eyes. "Markus Gardiner Firron, what have you done?"

Markus' smile dimmed. "What do you mean?" he asked in obvious confusion. "I'll have you know I handled that pirate captain with professionalism and diplomacy."

"Diplomacy!?" Denahlia felt her pulse accelerate as the adrenaline coursed through her veins. "What were you doing going through my files at his behest? You call giving out redacted information to known criminals diplomacy?"

Markus snorted. "Criminal? Hardly! Haggard was all politeness... He just wanted some information on an old crewmate, and the only name he had was Harlock--you only had the one file, it wasn't like I gave him access to a bunch of secrets!"

Denahlia glared at her cousin. "You idiot!" she seethed. "HARLOCK IS PRINCE BEREN!"

Markus stumbled back a step, his prosthetic hand reaching out to steady himself on the wall. "W-what?" His face paled. "Then I just... That file I gave him..."

Denahlia nailed her cousin with a hard stare. "You just might have put the rulers of this Realm into a whole new world of mortal danger." In the window between her hands, she began drafting a message to the others at the palace. "No word about who might have hired Raedyn, nor why they would want to come after the Princess. A pirate captain has asked for a man named Harlock..."

Denahlia winced as a pyschic pulse lanced through her brain. Beside her, Markus clapped both hands to his head and grimaced. "What is that?" he groaned.

She heard a shrill whine--a sound she never expected to hear, ever since she set up the device that produced such a sound as a warning that it would activate. Her eyes honed in on the orb sitting in the corner, a placid piece of decoration disguising a powerful device that could only be deactivated if the threat that triggered it were removed...

And the initial sequence had already begun.

"What's it doing, Denahlia?" Markus asked, as the noise and the flickering lights increased into a large beam extending through the ceiling, into the sky above them.

Denahlia grit her teeth and watched the progression of the flickering holographic dome forming over the Harbor. She had to get the mental message out.

Azelie? Denahlia thought frantically, hoping against hope that the Queen could read her thoughts from this distance. Azelie, I hope you can hear me! There are pirates here, looking for Harlock! They want Beren--we might have caught Zayra's murderer, but they are all still in danger! Azelie, don't let Beren leave--

She hadn't finished thinking through all the information when the bright cluster of lights flashed, and what little sheen of the dome they could see vanished to an invisible spectrum of light.

Denahlia leaned back, as Markus tilted his head, feeling the marked difference in connection and access within his cerebral implants.

"Denahlia?" he asked. "I... I can't get online. What's going on?"

Denahlia slumped as tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. Burying the file should have been enough--she should have destroyed that file once Beren reclaimed his father's throne. "It's no use," she said. With a tilt of her head, she indicated the glowing orb. "That's a psychic dampener, and it also works on any kind of distance technology--satellite, wireless, anything sending signals in or out. We're cut off."

Markus stared askance at her. "But why?"

Denahlia's chin trembled. The last report she could access came from the dampener, notifying her of a strange transmission, and its point of origin. She glared at Markus. "Because someone that you all didn't keep track of just tried to transmit some kind of information out of The Realm, and that signal is what triggered that device to activate!"

Markus frowned. "So... we can still physically leave the Harbor, right?"

Denahlia shrugged. "Sure... but isn't that what these pirates would want? We're impotent where we would do the most to defend the Harbor, and if we cross the barrier, it could scramble these delicate pieces of tech we have embedded in our bodies."

Markus sighed and joined his cousin sitting on the floor. "I don't understand. Where would you even get tech like that, and why would you set up something like a dampener?"

Denahlia sighed. "It was for my own protection, I guess. See, a couple years ago, somebody hacked into my implants and I ended up conscripted into an assassination plot on another world. I didn't want that to happen again--I just didn't know that it would put the whole Realm in danger the next time it happened."

Markus twined together his long fingers. "So..." he murmured, "What do we do now?"

<<<<<<>>>>>>

The twisted spires and angled buttresses gave a looming, clawed effect to the castle's appearance. Inside the great dark throne room, she waited on her obsidian throne, her long, dark nails drumming on the glossy surface of the throne's arm as she stared maliciously into the shadows gathering around her.

At last, she heard the rasping croak she had been waiting for, and a large, ugly black bird flapped into a landing on the windowsill.

At her crook-fingered beckon, the crow hopped into the air once more, but instead of flying upward, it seemed to drop straight toward the floor. Booted feet hit the stones, and in one more flap of its wings, the crow was no longer a bird but a man, dressed in shiny black chainmail. He knelt before her throne.

"What is your report?" she asked.

"The Knife has been lost to us, Milady," the man-who-had-once-been-a-crow answered. "They have him now."

Her dark lips scowled, but her brow did not furrow. "I suppose this is what comes of paying for efficiency, not skill. No matter, I still have a piece in play. And what about the other matter?"

The soldier kept his head bowed. "The search continues, Your Majesty. No word yet on whether anyone has found--"

"I know what it is!" She snarled before he could finish. "But that bloody Gate is useless unless we have The Key!" She shifted in her seat and stood up, stepping past the bowing messenger to dismount the dais. "Send word for all of them to head for The Gate at any cost." She sniffed, closing her eyes and drawing in breath as if she could scent all the knowledge she needed. Her eyes narrowed. "We must gain entrance before He finds out what we're up to!"

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