www.thevalentinechronicles.com presents:

The Witch

by Paul L Mathews

The Troika was an old cutter bordering on antiquation, but her age belied her speed as she swooped and dived between the warring Oridian and Long Knife starships. And just as the Troika contrasted with the massive battleships and tiny fighters, so too did the utter silence contrast vividly with the colour and movement around her. Silent explosions blossomed and died like flowers in the fall; invisible maser beams shattered lumbering capital ships; intelligent torpedoes dived and swarmed between the warring vessels and crew were ripped from their depressurised ships like spilt blood.

To the Troika’s portside a crippled destroyer gave its last by ramming a dreadnought, the bigger vessel speared like a fish. To the Troika’s aft a flight of fighters was caught in the concussive fury of an exploding frigate. To the Troika’s starboard side a squad of ugly, blade-like Long Knife vessels leached onto an ornate Oridian battleship as the Long Knife marines onboard disembarked and began their assault. And in front of the Troika, the battle raged as far as the eye could see, all centred around the glittering jewel that was the planet Oridia.

Diving to one side, the Troika deployed her own countermeasures: tiny pods that confused pursuing torpedoes and fooled them into detonation. But all the while she was stalked by the Long Knife flagship. Implacable and silent, the mammoth vessel, built in the semblance of some bastard-sword, cut through the battle as it shrugged off torpedoes, masers and fighters. It was only a matter of time until it caught her.

Regardless, the little ship pushed on, her thrusters opened to the maximum as her pilot tried desperately to keep the ship—and crew—in one piece.

#

The compact flight-deck was all noise and colour. Klaxons bayed for attention as systems—pushed to their limits—begged for respite. Alarms flashed red. Status bars glowed green. Fuel readouts burned a deepening amber. Monitors flashed bright white as explosions flourished about the vessel.

Terror-stricken, Tatiana Valentine tried to ignore it all, the sky-blue of her half-human, half-Oridian skin shimmering with sweat as she wrestled with the Troika’s controls.

She couldn’t focus. The ship was shaking so badly she felt her teeth ache. The constant assault of light and noise from the instrumentation was overwhelming, and she was sure she could smell burning.

Oh God, she thought, are we hit? Oh, please no, I don’t want to die!

“Matinee?” she shouted over the cacophony.

“It’s okay, your highness, it’s just a fire in the main relay casing,” replied her co-pilot, Matinee. Sat behind Tatiana, the thirty-something punk—all tattoos and Mohican hair—span in her chair and grabbed an extinguisher. Seconds later, the tiny fire was doused.

“Matinee? Please,” Tatiana implored, turning slightly so she could shout over her shoulder without looking away from her consoles.

“You’re doing great, Princess, really,” Matinee replied as she turned back to her engineering station. Her accent was English with a hint of the East-end.

Tatiana felt a hysteria rising within her. I’m supposed to be having a painting lesson today, not fighting for my life! “I can’t do this!” she shouted. “Where’s everybody else?”

“You have to do this!” Matinee shouted as she concentrated on her own instruments, her pierced face and husky voice intense and forthright. “Boyd’s with Ivan in med-bay, your sister’s cack-handed, and Vast’s nursing the engines…”

The alarm bleated in their ears. Damn it! Fighters! Tatiana despaired as she looked to the scanner. Six fighters were slicing their way toward them like scalpels.

The Troika bucked and shrieked as the fighters spat at it, their venom and contempt scored in the little cutter’s hide by maser beams. More klaxons sounded, and Tatiana was ripped from her stasis. The ship couldn’t take another hit like that.

Leaning hard, she pushed the Troika into a turn the compensators shouldn’t have been able to handle, and raced headfirst toward an Oridian destroyer. Holding her nerve, she waited until the destroyer opened fire, the volley of maser beams lancing past the Troika before—the pursuing fighters destroyed or crippled—she pulled the Troika out of its collision course with the destroyer. She avoided collision with the bigger vessel by such a narrow margin that the two metal hides grazed each other, sparks cascading in the Troika’s wake.

“… And nobody else on this bloody ship could have done that.” Matinee said with a dark smile.

Tatiana ignored her. How has this happened? Is this some sort of uprising? It sure looks like it—but these ships aren’t from Oridia.

“Who are these people?” Tatiana pitched the Troika into a spiralling dive between two Oridian cruisers as the bigger ships engaged a Long Knife dreadnought. “Why are they trying to kill us?”

“They’re the Long Knives. Been after Oridia for centuries, and, judging by those markings, that flagship looks like it belongs to the Blind Admiral.”

“The Blind who? What..?”

“Not now, Tatty—concentrate!”

Tatiana looked to the scanners, and her heart sank.

The flagship was gaining.

It was too much. Tears stung her eyes. Father. Oh God, where are you? The last words she’d heard him speak came back to her,

‘Get them out of here,’ he’d ordered their Uncle, Ivan, as the palace—their home—burned down around them. ‘Get them on the Troika—we’ll hold them off.’ Then he and her mother had armed themselves. ‘Go. Go now. We’ll see you on the farm.’ He’d looked every bit of his sixty-plus years as the weight of a world at war fell upon his Herculean shoulders.

That was the last she’d seen of her parents as they strode off to face the insurgents—a heaving mass of Oridia’s peasantry that had battered its way into the palace was tearing the place apart.

Oh, Father, what have I done? Why did I leave you?

Finally breaking, Tatiana cried.

#

“Tatiana?” Katarina Valentine yelled over the ship’s ‘net. “Can’t you keep this damned ship steady? Uncle Ivan’s hurt down here, y’know?”

“What? What’s going on?” Katarina thought there was a constricted element in Tatiana’s voice, as though she were crying. “Isn’t he stabilised yet? Boyd said it was just a flesh-wound!”

Katarina couldn’t answer straight away. She didn’t quite know how to describe what had happened to Ivan. She could only stand and watch the developments unfold around the examination table for now, while feeling altogether useless. She held two Nandomine packs loosely in one hand.

There’d been a savage enough fire-fight as their bodyguards—fighting to get Ivan and the twins to the Troika in one piece—had gunned down the marauding peasantry, and Ivan had taken a glancing blow. But this? she thought as she watched Uncle Ivan convulsing. The old man was thrashing, thick white hair plastered to his sweating brow. His massive frame—more than capable of overpowering most, even in his sixties—bucked and kicked and pushed as Boyd and Doll Two tried to stabilise him. This doesn’t make sense. He’s shrugged off worse shaving cuts.

“Katarina?” Tatiana insisted.

“Nandomine,” Boyd demanded.

Katarina thrust the one-use needles into his big hands. The brute didn’t even acknowledge her. A bullish Scot with a stocky girth, he was kitted out in body-armour and a kilt. His face read like a war story punctuated with scars. She didn’t like him. At all.

“Katarina?” Tatiana demanded again. “How’s Uncle Ivan?”

Katarina finally managed to respond. “He’s in a lot of pain.”

As if to underline the statement, Ivan bucked on the table, his back arching. The white of his wide, stark eyes matched that of his “sans chin” beard. Something half-way between a cry of anguish and defiance escaped from behind his clenched teeth.

“Hurt?” Tatiana pressed. “How? He was okay when we came aboard.”

“Look!” Katarina snapped, “I don’t know, okay?”

“Well, who does know, Kat?” Tatiana snapped back. “Boyd? Boyd, are you there?”

“I’m… here, Princess,” Boyd replied, still struggling to hold down Ivan. The big man let out an agonised howl as he tried to claw at his clothes.

Useless meat-head, thought Katarina. Father would know.

“What’s wrong… Oh God…!”

Katarina felt the Troika lurch violently and shudder. “Tatty!” Katarina shouted into the intercom as she watched Boyd and Doll Two struggle to stay upright, “Will you please—”

“You know where the flight-deck is if you think you can do better, Kat,” was Tatiana’s acidic reply. “Boyd, what’s wrong with Ivan?”

Boyd expression darkened still as he watched the featureless Doll Two inject the Nandomine into the old man, the android moving with typical android grace and precision. “I’m… I’m not sure, Princess,” the Scot said, his voice loaded with confusion and anger, “but I can guess.”

He continued holding Ivan down, grimacing with the effort. Even as the drug took hold, Ivan fought it with typical grit and stubbornness. Finally he was still, and—the med-bay shuddering as Tatiana no doubt put the vessel through another barrel-roll—Boyd took a firm hold of the old man’s shirt, ripping it open. “Damn,” he muttered. “I was hoping I was wrong.”

Katarina could barely believe her eyes. A Japanese dragon tattoo, bright and stylised, was moving about Ivan’s torso, squirming and racing across his skin. Its eyes were alive with mischief, if not malice, and Katarina fancied it smiled and winked at her as it continued to swim across Ivan’s body. Red welts and boils festered in its wake.

Katarina was mesmerised. In all the fairy tales, gothic stories and ghostly tales she enjoyed so much, she’d never seen anything like this—yet here it was, as real and as vivid as ink on a page, ravaging her Uncle.

Despite herself, she felt a slight thrill. “What..?” she said, “What is that? What does it mean?””

“It means,” Boyd hissed as his hand fell to the various pouches on his military webbing, “That we’re in worse trouble than I thought.”

With that he drew a knife—a small, military model—from his belt and brandished it as he leaned over Ivan, raising the weapon as if ready to stab down.

“No!” Katarina shouted, lurching forward. What’s he doing? Is he going to stab Uncle?

She tried to reach Boyd, only for Doll Two to intercept, grabbing her firmly by both arms and holding her back. “Now now, Mistress Katarina,” the android said gently, “I’m quite sure Mister Boyd knows exactly what he’s doing.”

Katarina—despite herself—acquiesced. Putting her trust in Doll Two, as she always did, she watched helplessly as Boyd—his big, rough hands as steady as could be expected with the ship bucking and lurching—took his knife to Ivan.

The tip of the wicked blade bit into the old man’s skin, and the Scotsman, face creased in concentration, began scoring a shape into Ivan’s chest. Soon it became apparent he was drawing a stylised heart, with some tribal flourishes leading off it at right angles.

No sooner was the heart drawn in blood, than the tattooed dragon, its face transforming into an expression of terror and pain, started to convulse and shudder. Katarina could swear she heard a howling—a vague, distant howling that seemed to echo from a distant valley—as the creature shrivelled and contorted before her eyes, the colour fading until the tattoo vanished altogether.

Katarina stared in astonishment.

That, she thought, was awesome. “What is that?” she asked, mystified.

Boyd didn’t get chance to answer. “Katarina? Boyd?” It was Tatiana again, her voice urgent and querulous, “I think you’d better get up here!”

#

Tatiana span in her chair to see Boyd and Katarina enter the flight-deck—but it was already too late.

The Long Knife flagship had caught the Troika, and now huge magnetic clamps held the tiny vessel in place, lengths of monstrous chain reeling it in like a fish. Above them, the Ragnorak of the flagship’s holding-bay was about to swallow them whole.

“I tried, Boyd! Really I tried!” Tatiana said, feeling wretched as she struggled to control her voice. “…But it was too fast!”

“It’s okay, Princess, it’s okay.”

He moved to lean over the Troika’s controls and pushed against Tatiana as he did so, his flak-vest pressing into her as he looked up and out of the flight-deck. Tatiana felt her pulse quicken a little, and she blushed, looking away. She caught sight of Matinee smirking at her and turned away sharply as the punk winked.

“It's no use, Boyd,” Matinee said. “They’ve got us clamped good an’ proper.”

“Okay, let’s get off the flight-deck—there’s nothing we can do here.” Boyd leaned back. He took hold of Tatiana by the arms and looked her in the eyes. “You did great, Tatiana, really,” he said, and she thought she was going to drown in his dark eyes right there. “We’d have been blown to bits if you hadn’t been flying the Troika.”

“What? You’re kidding…right?” her sister protested. “She gets us captured and you say ‘well done’?”

Tatiana didn’t have to look at her to know she was seething. Typical Katarina.

“Believe me, Katarina,” Boyd said, “if I’m right about who’s on that ship, there’s nothing Tatiana could have done. …Or anybody else for that matter. “Now, come on—we’ve got work to do.”

#

The main airlock—like the rest of Troika—was old, but clean and well maintained. Katarina knelt by a bulkhead as she watched the rest of the crew gather. From Boyd and Matinee, to Vast—seven Amazonian feet of bright red tattooed bitch—and Doll Three—a military version of the android in med-bay—they were all here. Tatiana dithered on the periphery of the room, fiddling with her hair, an absent look on her face—a sure sign she was nervous. Only Doll Two and Ivan’s cyborg dog, Stalin, were absent, having elected to stay with the old man in med-bay.

How are we gonna get out of this? Katarina thought. There’s, what? five of us here? She let her head sink into her hands. What the Hell’s going on? Where’s Father? Is he dead?

The conspiratorial whisper intruded on her turmoil: “Hey Kat, wanna cig?”

Katarina turned to see Matinee hunker down beside her. Her favourite amongst the bodyguards, Katarina smiled as best she could at the Earther.

“Um, no. I’d better not,” Katarina whispered, looking at the cigarette regrettably. She didn’t usually say ‘no’, but now wasn’t the right time. “Y’know what Uncle Ivan’s like…”

Matinee looked up, her attention caught by something above them. Katarina looked as well, to see Vast looming over them. A mute, she raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Matinee.

“The Long Knives, Vast,” Matinee said, as if reading her mind,. “It looks like they’re in league with the revolutionaries somehow. Looks like they’ve finally made their move…”

Katarina’s brow furrowed. She was sure she’d heard something about these revolutionaries. Gemma—her best friend and daughter of the Terran ambassador—was always asking how the Oridian royalty had been trying to deal a fairer hand to the peasant classes, about how they were trying to diffuse their growing disenchantment and the rise of violent activism. Katarina—sheltered and ignorant of such matters—never had an answer.

Nor, it suddenly occurred to Katarina, had her parents, obviously.

“An’ I don’t think the Long Knives are alone either.” Boyd continued. “I think The Witch is with them.”

Matinee didn’t respond straight away, and Katarina saw something in punk’s face she’d never seen before: Fear. Even the normally inscrutable Vast looked faintly disturbed.

“The Witch?” Matinee said finally. “Shit. Isn’t she dead?”

“Apparently not,” Boyd replied.

“Who’s this ‘Witch’?” Katarina demanded.

“She’s an old friend of the family,” Matinee replied, and Katarina detected the sarcasm there. “We thought your father had killed her years ago. What makes you think she’s here, Boyd?”

“We caught one of her dragons on Ivan,” Boyd replied.

“Did you kill it?” Matinee asked.

Boyd shrugged. “Christ knows. I know we drove it away, but whether it’s actually dead…”

“So what do we do now?” Tatiana asked Boyd.

“Me, Vast an’ Doll Three are going in there,” Boyd replied as he jerked his finger back toward the airlock door. “We’re gonna board the Long Knives before they board us.”

“Board them?” Tatiana grabbed at the Scotsman’s arm.

Katarina nearly snorted in derision. Tatiana was so into Boyd it wasn’t even funny. An’ he was what? Thirty five? Wasn’t all that pretty either.

“Aye. We need to get you and the Troika out of here,” Boyd said, taking hold of Tatiana’s hand and moving it from his arm gently, “and the only way we can do that is to disable the flagship. From the inside.”

Matinee smiled. “You dressing up as Stormtroopers too?”

“Not today.” Boyd smiled back. Grim and heavy, it betrayed his apprehension.

“Shame,” Matinee said with a wink, “The Wookie look suits you.”

Boyd turned back to Tatiana and took her arms again. “Tatiana, I need you to get back to the flight-deck and be ready, okay? When I give the signal we’re gonna need to get outta this holding bay quickly, understand?”

Katarina watched as Tatiana tried to speak, only to choke on the words and nod instead.

“Take care of her,” Boyd urged, turning back to Matinee.

“Don’t worry, Boyd—we’ll be fine,” Katarina said, pointedly, her jibe earning a sharp, withering glare.

“Did you bring the aerosol?” Boyd asked Matinee.

“Yup,” Matinee replied.

“Then you know what to do. Good luck.”

Matinee and Boyd exchanged a brief, silent instruction: Be careful.

Then the Boyd opened the airlock, the iris valve door dilating as its hydraulics hissed and groaned. On the other side of the door a surprised unit of Long Knife engineers were setting up cutting equipment, their black armour flashed with red and bedecked in cumbersome tools. They were gunned down immediately, afforded no chance of survival by Boyd’s heavy SMG, Vast’s two pistols and Doll Three’s shoulder mounted masers. The report from these weapons boomed about the airlock, battering Katarina’s ears and making Tatiana, hands going to her ears, cry out in surprise as the Long Knives died in utter silence. Whatever grimaces the dead engineers allowed themselves in death were concealed behind their stoic armoured masks, and they fell to the floor—some of the svelte bodies still twitching—whilst Boyd, Vast and Doll Three pushed on, weapons still blazing.

The engineers may have been despatched easily, but Katarina could see a squad of marines lurking behind them. Bulkier in their augmented armour, but still as silent, their weapons were at the ready. These would be—Katarina knew—a different proposition.

The airlock slammed shut, cutting off the sound of the escalating gun-battle, and Katarina found herself begrudgingly admitting that Boyd was actually pretty brave.

No sooner had the airlock hissed shut than Matinee stepped up to the door, and used the aerosol to spray a symbol on the metal—the same symbol Boyd had carved into Ivan’s chest.

#

Tatiana and Katarina ran after Matinee as the punk sprinted through the Troika.

“What was that you sprayed on the airlock?” Tatiana asked. Her voice was even and measured, a life-time of horse-riding, fencing and gymnastics having kept her pretty fit. In contrast the wheezing Katarina was struggling to keep up.

“I don’t know, exactly,” Matinee answered. She didn’t seem to be struggling with the sprint across the length of the Troika despite the smoking. “It’s some kinda magic shit. Your Dad and your Uncle used it to ward off the Witch back in the day. Don’t know why it works, but it does.”

“When did they meet her?” Katarina asked through panting breaths.

And Tatiana, despite the dire straits they found themselves in, shared her sister’s curiosity. Father and Ivan always refused to talk about their past, and both she and Katarina were greatly intrigued by these little glimpses into the days before they settled on Oridia and Father married into the royal family.

“They met her on Oridia,” Matinee said. “Back then she was known as the Witch of Bleakwinter. The Royal Family—your grandparents—hired Ivan and your Dad, who were mercenaries—”

“Mercenaries!” Tatiana knew Daddy and Ivan knew how to look after themselves, but mercenaries..?

“Yeah. The Royal Family hired ‘em to protect your mum from the Witch, who was terrorising her.”

“Why” asked Katarina

“Dunno. No one knows. But they dealt with her. Your Dad always swore he’d killed her, though…”

“Is she dangerous?” Tatiana asked. Suddenly, despite her self-assurances that Boyd would be okay, she feared for his life. Acutely.

Matinee laughed, but didn’t answer.

By now they’d finally reached the corridor leading to the flight-deck. Before them lay the flight-deck door.

It was covered in frost.

“What the…” breathed Tatiana.

“Why’s it suddenly so cold in here?” Katarina gasped, her breath steaming as she spoke.

Matinee looked about them, and Tatiana looked too. Just like the flight-deck door, the corridor walls were frosty. Tatiana touched one. The cold bit her fingertips.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Matinee muttered as she turned to the twins. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“What? Why?” Tatiana cast sight around once again, trying desperately to see something she might have missed.

But it was too late.

The door hissed open, shards of ice splintering from its surface, revealing a figure glittering in the corridor’s artificial light.

Her skin was sky-blue, just like Tatiana and Katarina, and her exposed curves were covered in frost as she spilled out of a brass, two piece outfit. Two tattooed dragons swam and gambolled about her azure body, moving over naked thighs, belly, and arms. The dragons stared at Matinee and the twins, laughing silently.

This, Tatiana realised, had to be the Witch.

“So,” the Witch said, “you must be Gregor’s other kids. It’s nice to meet you. Finally.” Her expression shifted immediately, going from one of feigned geniality to utmost contempt. “Go,” she whispered.

Instantly the two dragons shot down her legs to swim over her bare feet and onto the deck, moving across the metal just as they had moved about her skin. Tatiana thought, absently, that maybe she should run. But she couldn’t. She was mesmerised.

Matinee, however, was not.

“Run!” the bodyguard shouted as she pushed at the twins, putting all her weight into it as she shoved them forward.

They fled, racing headlong up the corridor. Behind her, Tatiana was vaguely aware of Matinee stopping and bringing down a blast-door. Stopping, Tatiana looked back in time to see the door sealing just as the dragons reached the threshold. Seconds later, Matinee had sealed the door by spray-painting that familiar heart-shaped symbol on the metal.

“What’s she doing on the Troika?” Katarina demanded. “I thought that symbol was meant to ward her off?”

“It does,” Matinee said. “She must already have been aboard when we sealed the airlock.”

“So now we’re trapped on the ship with her?” Tatiana could barely believe it.

“Looks that way,” Matinee said.

“Then what are we going to do?” Tatiana asked. “This is just going from bad to worse!”

“I’m gonna do what I’m paid to do,” Matinee said evenly. “I’m gonna get you two to safety.”

#

Corridor by corridor, Matinee shepherded the twins through the Troika.

“Do you have to seal every blast-door?” Katarina asked, feeling exasperated as she watched Matinee spray the heart shaped symbol on yet another door.

“Yup,” Matinee said. “The more doors I seal, the longer it takes the Witch to chase us. The longer it takes her to reach us, the more time I have to get you two to safety.”

“Us two?” Tatiana said. “What about Uncle Ivan? And Boyd—”

“I’ll worry about them later,” Matinee said, “My first priority is you, okay?”

Katarina’s eyes narrowed. There was something shifty about Matinee’s reply, about her expression, that Katarina couldn’t put her finger on. It was the kind of expression she wore when the two of them shared furtive cigarettes and whisky together. What are you up to, Matinee? she wondered…

#

They pressed on. But it didn’t matter. It was obvious the Troika belonged to the Witch.

The lights were failing, and it was becoming very, very cold—so cold, in fact, that the all-pervading frost that now hugged every wall and bulkhead was beginning to thicken into crisp ice. Katarina’s gaze flicked about. What little light there was kept playing tricks on her. She was sure she could see the dragons gliding across the ice, or the Witch crouching in the shadows.

Katarina stood and shivered, hugging herself as she watched Matinee seal another blast-door. She switched attention to her sister. Tatiana was looking into the middle-distance as she played with her hair—no doubt fretting about Boyd.

As for Katarina, she too found her mind wandering, despite the cold and the danger.

The Witch. Katarina couldn’t get over the sight of her. She’s so bold. So confident I bet she’s never had to skulk about on a spaceship, fleeing for her life. I bet she’s never been chased out of her home. I bet she’s never been over-shadowed by her damned sist—

“Damn,” Matinee muttered, looking away from the blast-door and shielding her face as a shower of sparks erupted from as its controls. “All this frost must have started to get into the systems.”

“Is it me, or is the air getting stale as well?” Tatiana asked

Katarina took a deep breath. Dammit—she’s right, she realised.

“Great, the life support’s gone too,” Matinee said. “We’re gonna have to get a move on before we run out of oxygen.”

“Should we go via the med-bay? Collect Ivan?” Tatiana pressed again.

“No,” Matinee said, flatly.

“But—”

“No buts, Tatiana,” Matinee said. “We haven’t time to keep arguing about this.”

“There must be another option!”

Tatiana continued to protest, and Katarina wondered just who her sister was the most concerned about: Ivan or Boyd.

“What about the Witch?” Tatiana said. “Can’t we just… well, kill her?”

Matinee laughed. “Not unless you’ve got a house to drop on her, no.”

“A house?”

“Y’know, a house? Dorothy? Ruby slippers? ‘Ding dong the Witch is dead’?”

The twins looked at her blankly.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

The twins shook their heads.

“Jesus,” Matinee muttered shaking her head, “what do they teach kids these days?”

#

Behind them the last blast-door slid drunkenly into a half-shut position, then ground to a halt.

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Matinee said. “We’re here.”

The Troika’s shuttle bay was every bit as cold and dark as the rest of the ship. Sitting in the bay were three shuttles, quiet and forlorn. They reminded Tatiana of apprehensive cats, crouching and listening to the dull booms of the space-battle as it reverberated through the Troika.

Matinee gestured toward the nearest—and newest—shuttle. “Right, get aboard,” she ordered.

“But… But Boyd? Ivan?” Tatiana protested. This isn’t right. We can’t just leave them. We won’t! “What are you doing, Matinee?” she went on, clenching her fists. “Tell me you’re not going to just leave the others, because I won’t allow—”

“Get…aboard!”

“What? No, Matinee!” Tatiana yelled back, “Why are you being like this? Uncle Ivan…Boyd…they’re your friends! I…” She paused a moment and looked into Matinee’s eyes. This woman had been her friend for so long, Tatiana just hoped she could touch something inside her. “I don’t understand, Matinee, How can you be so—”

“Because I’m paid to be ‘so’, Princess,” Matinee said, her voice low. “I’m paid to keep you two alive, okay? Not Ivan. Not Boyd. Not even myself. Just you two, understand? Now, please, get aboard one of those bloody shuttles whilst we still have the t…”

“Matinee?” Tatiana asked as the punk’s voice tailed off, her gaze going up and over Tatiana’s head. Tatiana turned around.

The dragons. The dragons had found them.

Defying the term “hermetically sealed”, the two tattoos slipped into the bay through the shuttle-bay doors, grinning and winking.

“Oh, that’s priceless.” Matinee laughed, humourlessly. “All the time we were sealing the inner doors, an’ they just went ‘round the outside of the ship?”

The dragons moved into the hangar and began to circle their prey. All the while they leered at the three women, mocking them.

No! Tatiana’s stomach knotted, her eyes stung by tears, that’s so unfair! We tried so hard! Matinee tried so hard!

And Matinee, it seemed, would continue to try.

“Run!” she shouted as she drew two pistols—antique broom-handle Mausers strapped low to her sturdy thighs—and began to fire at the dragons as they swept toward her and the twins.

Tatiana tried. She turned and grabbed Katarina, trying to urge her sister into motion. But Katarina, hypnotised by the unfolding scenario, didn’t move.

The dragons reached Matinee’s boots and rose swiftly up each leg on her fatigues as if printed on the fabric. Reaching the waistband in a flash, they vanished under the bodyguard’s body-armour.

Matinee screamed long, and she screamed hard.

#

They ran in blind panic. It was only when Tatiana stopped running that she realised that somehow she and Katarina had become separated, and her moody sister was nowhere to be seen.

Now even Tatiana was breathing hard, pressed into the corner of bulkhead. She pressed her hands over her ears.

Matinee. Her screams were stabbing at her, echoing throughout the Troika. Screams as guttural and Hellish as her torture must have been protracted and painful.

Tatiana squeezed her eyes shut, only to open them again, paranoid that the Witch would loom out of the darkness at her. She looked about her though a blur of tears. I don’t even know where I am. The Troika it… it looks so different.

The main lights were gone now and the frost that clutched at every surface twinkled red as the alarm lights blinked. The resulting red sheen on every door, every wall, every panel was shot through with thick white veins of frost, and to Tatiana it looked like everything was made of meat. Meat in cold storage.

Of the Witch there was no sign.

Matinee. Matinee was being tortured to death, and Tatiana didn’t know what to do.

#

Their escape form the corridor had been frenetic and desperate, but now Katarina was in Matinee’s quarters, squeezed into a corner of the jumbled room.

Matinee’s quarters. Katarina liked it in here, just like she liked the bodyguard’s quarters back at the palace. It was jammed full of old movie posters, clothes, guns, cigs and booze. She’d spent so many nights with Matinee, drinking and smoking as they watched some old film or listened to old Earther music, that she felt safe here, despite it all.

Presently she drew heavily upon a bottle of the punk’s whisky before—teeth clenched—she resumed cutting herself with an old hunting knife she’d found in among Matinee’s junk. God, that feels better, she thought as each stroke of knife brought its own unique type of release. The blood soaked into her vest top and wound its way down the blade like the smallest of rivers.

It was only a matter of time until the Witch found her here—and Katarina knew she had to be ready.

But it isn’t that easy, is it? Katarina thought. Sure, Matinee, or Ivan, or Boyd’d know what to do—but me? I’m just a kid. How am I supposed to know what to do?

She took another hefty swig of the whisky.

Okay, she thought, what would Matinee do? Or Boyd? Or Ivan? Run? Shoot the bitch? Bluff?

She looked at the whisky bottle.

Get blind drunk?

Shoot the bitch, probably. But Ivan doesn’t shoot anyone anymore. He doesn’t even touch guns.

Okay, so what would Ivan do? Bluff?

But the sight of the Witch—so glorious in her magic and majesty—lingered in Katarina’s mind, and the young woman suddenly found herself fantasising just what it must be like to be so powerful, so confident, that you could just swat somebody as tough as Matinee like a fly.

She found herself, as she dropped the knife to the floor and lit a cigarette, wondering what it must be to be a witch.

#

Having made it back to her cabin, Tatiana was beside herself, clutching her scented pillow as she sank to her knees in her quarters. She began to cry.

The screams had shuddered to a halt. Matinee was dead.

Tatiana had liked Matinee nearly as much as Katarina did. She was cool, with her guts and her antique guns. But now she was dead and Tatiana had just left her to die.

“Oh, God!” she moaned into her hands. “Oh, Matty, I’m so sorry. I was just… I was just so scared…”

She raised her head a little, stared into the middle-distance. Matinee. Ivan. Boyd. The Witch. Long Knives. God. What should I do? God. God help me. Help me to help them! Please!

Suddenly her vision cleared as she focused on something on the deck of her quarters. A pencil, thrown onto the floor by the bucking of the ship and almost lost amidst a sea of teddy-bears make-up and clothes.

“Jesus.” Matinee’s words sprang to life in Tatiana’s mind. “What do they teach kids these days..?”

“Painting,” Tatiana muttered, almost delirious, as she brought herself to her feet. “I should have been painting today.”

She stumbled to the tidy desk in the corner of her cabin. Reaching it, she sat down and tore the pillow from its case, casting the pillow aside as she laid its delicate cover on the desk.

Ivan always liked to have the Troika ready to take his nieces on trips, and always insisted the ship’s quarters were ready for the girls to leave at a moment’s notice. As such, the desk’s drawers—like the wardrobe, bathroom and linen chest—were fully stocked, stuffed with pencils, drawing books, tubes of paint and brushes. Now Tatiana was grabbing handfuls of tubes in a daze, dumping them on them on the desk.

“Painting,” she repeated, with determination.

#

The drop in temperature had been the first indication, and now Katarina stared at the door. Sure enough, the door rapidly became covered in frost—a frost that soon crystallized into thick ice.

“Katarina?” she heard a voice inquire. “Katarina Valentine? Are you there?”

A gentle knocking.

“It’s time to die, Katarina Valentine.”

Another knock—heavier now—and the door shattered.

Katarina didn’t cry out, she didn’t panic. She just watched the Witch enter Matinee’s quarters, pausing at the threshold of the room.

Okay, Katarina told herself, it’s time to decide. What are you going to do? “Wait!” She raised her hand. “Just, wait, okay?”

“Wait?” the Witch asked with a demure smile. “For what? Do you want time to beg? To plead? That’s what usually happens.”

“No,” Katarina answered immediately, her mind racing as she scrambled around for something—anything—to say. Her train of thought was quickly derailed, however, as she studied the Witch.

Look at her, she thought. She’s magnificent. So confident, so secure. She’s not worried about her weight, about her hair, about which boys fancy her or if her tits are too small or if she’s going to die a virgin. She’s just… awesome.

“No, I don’t want to beg,” Katarina finally whispered. “I want to be like you.”

#

Tatiana had stopped painting the pillow-case, and was now painting her face. Her frenzied, attacking application of lipstick froze, however, in mid-stroke. She looked up, swollen, red eyes losing their focus.

Katarina. The Witch had found her Katarina.

It was a pain in her stomach and a wave of nausea. It always came to her whenever Katarina was in trouble. Like the time Katarina had fallen off her horse in the woods. Or the time she’d poisoned herself by drinking too much at Gemma’s house. Tatiana knew. She always knew.

Instinctively, without thinking, Tatiana rose to her feet, and headed for the door.

I’m coming, Kat. I’m not leaving you to die the way I left Matinee.

#

The Witch laughed long, and she laughed hard. “You? Be like me? And how would we achieve this? How would we achieve this…glorious transformation? How would we turn the sullen little Princess into an evil little witch?”

Katarina swallowed, shaking. Tatiana. Tatiana was coming, Katarina knew it—she could feel it. Tatiana was coming and she’d know what to do. All Katarina had to do was stall the Witch long enough.

“Teach me,” Katarina said.

“Teach you? Why would I want to ‘teach’ you anything? I came here to kill you, not take you under my wing.”

“Because it’d be the greatest form of revenge you could get over my Father.”

For the first time, Katarina thought she detected the slightest stir in the Witch’s composure as she paused, staring hard at Katarina. Katarina tried to maintain what Matinee called her ‘poker face’.

It wasn’t all that hard. In fact, Katarina found herself surprised by how easy it was. It was just like a stream of consciousness, flowing from her unchecked and burbling. It was so instantaneous, so easy, that she began to wonder exactly how much of it was a bluff…

“Revenge?” the Witch finally asked.

“Revenge,” Katarina nodded. “Think about it. Ask anybody what my father—and Uncle Ivan—loves the most, out of anything, and they’ll tell you it’s us. Me and Tatiana.

“By you—the one woman my father has ever been afraid of—taking me under your wing, by making me your apprentice, by turning me into what he fears and hates the most—you—well, wouldn’t that be so much better than just killing me?”

“And what do you get out of it?” the Witch asked. Her hands were on her broad hips, her head lowered as her gaze bore into Katarina., who, once again, felt her own sight wandering the Witch’s generous body.

“Look in a mirror,” Katarina said, her mouth dry.

The Witch didn’t answer. She stood and stared at Katarina, obviously ruminating. And as she did, she idly stroked gloved fingers across the top of one ample, semi-concealed breast. Katarina stared at the hand, at the fingers, at the breast and she felt something... something strange, stir inside her. It was that same kind of breathless and tight-chested strange that she’d felt whenever she was near Gemma or her brother. That kind of strange that made her want to reach out and touch...

No. No! Don’t think like that, Katarina thought. She’s hurt everybody you love. She wants to hurt you too. Concentrate! But she could feel her courage, such as it was, withering in the cold.

Finally, Katarina tore her gaze from the Witch’s chest and looked instead into her eyes. “Please?” Katarina whispered.

The Witch smiled. It was a cold smile. “Kill her,” came the answer.

The dragons shot from the Witch’s body, and across the deck, reaching Katarina’s heavy, untied boots…

… And stopped dead, recoiling from the young woman, momentarily static in their obvious confusion.

The Witch’s face darkened. “What?” she demanded, just as perplexed.

Katarina smiled, pulling her vest-top down just enough to reveal the heart-shaped symbol she’d cut into her own chest. With other hand she reached behind her, drawing the old pistol—one from Matinee’s collection—from her waistband and pointing it at the Witch.

“Surprise,” Katarina sneered, trying to look menacing. The bluff hadn’t worked, so it was time for “Plan B”: Shoot the bitch.

She fired—a clumsy, inaccurate shot that jerked her arm back as she yelped in surprise. By more luck than judgement, the bullet bore down on the Witch’s face, but Katarina watched with a mixture of fascination and deflation as the bullet—seemingly robbed of all its energy—slowed to a halt before falling at the Witch’s feet.

In two strides the Witch reached Katarina, slapping the pistol from her hand before grasping the young woman by the throat with a grip like steel. “Surprise, indeed. You think that’s going to save you?” she growled as she squeezed hard. “You think a gun and a silly little shape cut into your skin is going to keep me from throttling the life from you?”

Katrina felt her windpipe closing as the Witch’s fingers bit into her neck. She felt her knees buckle as she grabbed the Witch’s arms. As their bare skin made contact, Katarina’s augmented by that arcane symbol, the Witch’s flesh began to burn.

But the woman did not release her hold. Her face contorted in anger. “Do you think I’ve waited all this time for my revenge to be stopped by a doodle?!” she screeched. “I think somebody has over-estimated its power over me!”

Katarina’s mind raced as she began to choke. She couldn’t just die like this—Father had taught her to be a fighter. She couldn’t just let this woman squeeze all that out of her. Think! she demanded of herself. Go for her neck? No use—it’s covered with a brass collar. The face! Go for the face! Burn it off! See how pretty she looks with her eyes poked out!

But the Witch’s eyes made contact with Katarina’s, and Katarina was lost.

“Just die,” was all the woman said, and Katarina suddenly knew. She understood. The Witch’s power wasn’t just about tattooed dragons and the cold and shattering metal. It was about mind over matter. Her will against yours—and right now Katarina’s will was totally enslaved.

Yes, she thought. Just let me die. I don’t need to fight you. Take me…

“Just die, Katarina Valentine,” the Witch whispered again, and Katarina’s body went limp as her vision dimmed before the cruel beauty of this woman. Soon she could see nothing but the Witch’s cold visage, and she felt glad. To die looking into the ice behind those eyes, to be ushered into whatever damnation the Witch had waiting for her, was heavenly.

Everything went black.

Black…and just a hint of blue?

Is that… Movement…? Is that…Tatiana?

Emerging from behind her, Tatiana threw something over the Witch’s head—and the woman screamed every bit as long as hard as Matinee had done.

Katarina fell back and onto the bed, coughing, as the Witch let her go, and the Princess looked on to see Tatiana, teeth bared as she drew the pillow-case tight about the Witch’s head, snarling as she forced the bitch to her knees. Smoke curled from beneath the material, and Katarina saw it had been painted with the heart-shaped symbol. The Witch was clawing at it as her dragons snapped and danced about Tatiana’s feet—but to no avail, the same symbol was scrawled across her face in bright red lipstick.

“You!” Katarina heard Tatiana hiss, “you come here—you and your Long Knife friends—and you take all this from us? From me? You take my friends? You take my home? You take my parents?”

There was no answer, only more screams and an increasingly weak struggle to get free.

“Kill her!” Katarina heard herself shout—scream, even—the Witch’s hypnotic hold over her broken. “Kill her now, Tatiana! Do it! Do it now!” Katarina went on, her relief spewing out of her in a torrent of malice and desire for retribution.

Tatiana looked up. Tatiana looked up and into Katarina’s eyes…

… And Katarina knew. She saw it wasn’t there. That hard dullness in Boyd’s eyes, in Matinee’s, in Vast’s: it just wasn’t there. For all Tatiana’s anger, Katarina could see she didn’t have it in her to kill the Witch. She was too afraid, and it was written all over her face in streaked mascara and smudged lip-stick. No matter what the Witch had done, no matter who she’d killed, Tatiana just didn’t have the backbone to pay her back in kind. She was too weak.

Katarina felt sick.

“You,” Katarina heard Tatiana breath into the Witch’s ear, making a visible effort to gather herself. “You can go. You can go, and you can tell your friends that we’re Valentines, and we don’t die. Ever. And if any more of your friends come looking for us, looking for trouble, they’ll need more than a few magic spells and parlour tricks to get out alive. Do you understand?”

There was no answer as Tatiana let go. The Witch, now limp and motionless, fell heavily to the deck, her breath as shallow and directionless as the smoke that curled from her covered head. Of her dragons there was no sign.

“Do you?!” Tatiana bellowed.

There was still no answer. Tatiana looked at Katarina again, but not for long. She looked away, her shoulders sagging slightly, shame and confusion scrawled across her face every bit as clearly as the lipstick symbol.

Katarina turned away, only to hear Tatiana dragging the Witch from the room.

#

“Tatiana,” Boyd had said, “I need you to get back to the flight-deck and be ready, okay? When I give the signal we’re gonna need to get outta this holding bay quickly, understand?”

Tatiana sat and waited, at the Troika’s controls. Gripping the idle yoke, she stared beyond the canopy at the holding bay beyond. She waited for Boyd and tried to ignore all she’d seen, all she’d heard and all she’d done.

Matinee’s death. Katarina’s bargaining with the Witch. Her own inability to finish the Witch off.

She closed here yes, squeezing them tight, trying to block it all out.

Am I that weak? Is Katarina that… dark?

“Tatiana!” the voice—Boyd’s voice—finally bellowed over the Troika’s ‘net, rescuing Tatiana from her inner turmoil. “We’re back. Go! Go! Go!”

Seconds later—the flagship’s magnetic clamps disabled by Boyd’s party—the Troika blasted out of the holding bay and scythed through the battle as the dwindling Oridian fleet fought the Long Knives to the bitter end.

#

The Long Knives’ flagship still squatted in the thick of the waning battle, the Oridian resistance now dying away. In stark contrast to the motion and fury outside, the flagship’s bridge was hushed and almost serene. Orders were issued and executed without fuss or panic, and the humanoid crew—dressed to a man in their black naval uniforms and black, ornate masks enriched with red legends—were the image of calm and confidence.

At the centre of this quiet machine sat the Blind Admiral. Thinner even than the rest of his slender, graceful crew, his uniform and mask were devoid of medals or decoration. Hands placed placidly on his knees, aged head bowed, he was listening intently to the hush of his ship and its laconic crew.

The Troika, it appeared, had escaped—and the Valentines along with it.

“Admiral,” one of his lieutenants murmured, bending to whisper in his ear, “Oridia has fallen, and the capital is ours. Vice Chancellor Mass orders you to report to him there immediately. In person.”

The Blind Admiral hesitated. He wanted to pursue the Troika. He wanted to make sure the royal line was extinguished with the deaths of Tatiana and Katarina. He wanted to know Ivan was finally dead.

Orders were, however, orders. Especially when issued by Mass.

“Bring us about, and place us in stationary orbit over the capital,” the Blind Admiral ordered as he stood, his words ringing with that confidence and authority that only military conquest brings.

He turned to leave the bridge, the tapping of his cane piercing the bridge’s bubble and noise. Reaching the exit, he paused to listen for another moment.

The Troika had reached the periphery of the battle now, and had engaged its graviton drives, vanishing into space—but not before jettisoning an escape-pod bearing shallow life signs. An Oridian. The Witch, no doubt—kept alive and returned to the Blind Admiral as a warning.

How very Ivan Valentine, the Blind Admiral thought with a smile. Well, Ivan, if I can’t chase you, I know others who can. “Captain,” he snapped just before leaving the bridge, “have a frigate recover that escape-pod and stabilise the Witch. Then bring her son to me. And Sachskurve.

“They have work to do.”

The Valentine Chronicles will continue with After the Ordeal

© 2007 Mathew David Spaull. All rights reserved.