They’d barely stepped out of the infirmary when Mercy stopped, placing a supporting hand against the smooth, nano-graph wall of the corridor. A diagram lit up in blues and greens under the touch of her hand, looking like a map. Mercy barely glanced at it. The sheer number of Talented minds around her was staggering. They blazed like individual stars, lighting the darkness with warmth and energy. It was at once comforting, familiar, and frightening.

“Mercy?” Cannon’s voice held concern. “Should I get Doc…?”

“No.” She definitely didn’t want a return to that medical bunk. “No, I just need a minute. I’ve never felt so many Talented minds before, all at once.”

“Ah.” Cannon leaned against the opposite wall, giving her as much space as the small hallway permitted. “I see. I imagine it’s a bit disconcerting. Doc has inhibitors up that shield the medical bay, so you wouldn’t have felt it until now.”

The idea of some kind of tech capable of blocking Talent was a new and intriguing concept. One she set aside to ask about later.

“I guess it’s different for you, having lived with it your whole life,” she said.

He hesitated. “It is different for me. Very different. Not all of us can sense the Talent in others, Mercy. It’s…an extremely rare gift.”

“Oh.” She closed her eyes. “Lucky me.” When she opened them again, Cannon was watching her with an odd look on his face, an expression she couldn’t quite identify that made her uneasy. “What?”

“Nothing. I just keep forgetting that you know basically nothing about us. I’m wondering how to explain it all without overwhelming you.”

Mercy laughed. She shook her head as she straightened away from the wall. “I’m already overwhelmed. But I’ll get over it. I’ve always been a quick learner.” Now she eyed the diagram, noting that it only covered a single deck, but one that contained a confounding amount of space. She frowned. “What class of ship is this?”

Cannon smiled, crossing over to stand beside her. He swiped a hand over the diagram, and it expanded and shrank at the same time, new lines of light tracing over the wall too fast to follow, until the entire ship was outlined. Mercy’s jaw dropped. There was only one class of ship with that silhouette, or that sheer size.

“A Monarch.” She stared at it, then looked at him. “We’re on a Monarch? That’s a military vessel.” The biggest class, the flagships of the Commonwealth Navy.

“I know.” Pride radiated from him. “We stole it.”

Mercy laughed, in disbelief for the first few seconds, then in realization.

“You’re serious,” she said.

“Two decades ago, this ship was the first Monarch off the production line out of the Ivaldi Shipyards.”

Mercy stared at the diagram. “The first military vessels to be built using nano-graph.”

“Yes. Taking her was an enormous victory for us.” He placed his hand against the wall, and the diagram disappeared. “Lilith was a young Queen at the time, and she immediately transferred her transponder flag and made this the flagship of our fleet. The Commonwealth was so embarrassed to have misplaced their prototype, they hushed up the whole thing. They said Nemesis had to be returned to Ivaldi and overhauled for design flaws that didn’t work with military needs.”

Mercy frowned. She vaguely remembered reading something about that when she was studying A History of Shipbuilding under the direction of Captain Hades. He’d insisted on a staggering amount of database learning, on top of the much more engaging lessons on piloting, navigation, and gunnery both Mercy and Atrea delighted in.

“Ivaldi couldn’t have been pleased by that.” She remembered the shipyard had taken a brief hit to their reputation over the whole debacle.

“No. We suspect a government payoff was involved, not to mention the exclusive contract with the Commonwealth Navy that Ivaldi has enjoyed for the last two decades. Then the CSS Phoenix came off the line as the first officially recognized Monarch-class ship. Nemesis was forgotten, and Ivaldi went into the history logs as the most influential innovator of spaceship technology in a century.”

Mercy shook her head, amazed. “We’re standing in a piece of history right now.”

Cannon grinned. “Yes. The Commonwealth’s, and our own. Now, if you’re finished admiring antiquity, let’s get that lunch I promised you. This way.”

Mercy couldn’t help but look everywhere as she followed Cannon. He led her down one corridor and another, into a lift, and down two decks before they reached the ship’s galley. Now that she knew what to look for, she thought she could see some of the changes made to what had been intended as a military vessel. The hallways and hatches were on the narrow side, as one might expect from a military ship. But the lift they used was spacious enough to allow for cargo, if necessary, and some of the walls contained a variety of artwork, very much not to military regulations. When they entered the galley, it didn’t have the narrow columns of tables a typical mess employed, but instead round or oblong tables throughout the room. It made for a more relaxed, conversational area.

Mercy didn’t have time to notice anything more, because in the next moment Wolfgang Hades was suddenly in front of her, a familiar, tall figure in a battered flight jacket. She had time to notice the uncharacteristic growth of white beard over his usually clean-shaven face, and then she was engulfed in a bone-crushing hug. She was struck speechless. Through the shredded remnants of her shields, his thoughts were disturbingly clear.

Still too damn thin. Thank the Mother she’s awake at last. At least one of them is awake and well. My girls.

To her shock, Mercy could feel a fine tremble in his arms. She was horrified to realize tears were prickling behind her own eyes, and fought them off. Wolfgang was the closest thing she had to a father, but she’d never realized how deeply her own emotions ran, or that he considered her in the same light as Atrea, his actual daughter.

What the hell were they doing on Yuan-Ki?

He finally pushed back from her, and Mercy was grateful her eyes were dry. Cannon, she noticed, had stepped aside to give them at least the illusion of privacy.

“What the hell were you doing on Yuan-Ki?” the old Wolf asked aloud, his voice gruff, unaware that his thought had already been heard.

“I…Atrea found information. A tip. My mother.” Appalled, Mercy closed her mouth. She’d just stumbled over words she never intended to say, reduced to babbling incoherently, explaining something she knew was bound to piss him off. She felt like she was thirteen years old again and he’d caught her doing something she wasn’t supposed to.

Eyes the same dark blue as Atrea’s narrowed, and Mercy knew with a sinking feeling that she hadn’t been as incoherent as she’d hoped.

“Your mother! I told the two of you to give up that nonsense, that it was too damn dangerous.” He studied her face for a moment. “I see. You never gave it up, did you? I suppose Atrea never did, either. Damn it, Mercy.”

Mercy suddenly found her feelings of guilt giving way beneath a surge of her own frustration and anger. She glared at him.

“Don’t,” she said. “Just don’t. You knew I wanted to find my mother. You always knew from that first day. When did you figure out the rest?”

He stood there in that stupid, scarred flight jacket three decades old, all of the military patches painstakingly removed so long ago you could no longer make out where they’d been. The lines of age usually marking his face were hidden beneath that growth of beard, and he just stared at her in infuriating silence.

“When?” she insisted. Mercy flung a hand toward the galley and the handful of curious people seated there. “You obviously know these people. My family. You sent them to find us and bring us back. You know them. When did you figure out who I was?”

“Mercy.” He said just that, her name, in this voice so weary it hurt to hear it. His shoulders, always so strong, slumped at her words, but he shook his head, saying nothing.

“When?” Mercy shoved at him as she said the word, hands against his shoulders, then immediately stepped back, dismayed. She curled her hands into fists at her sides. “Damn you, answer me.”

“I suspected that first day,” he said finally. “You look so much like the Bitch Queen. Later, I put together little things you did, and knew I was right. Remember that crate that fell on Atrea? It should have crushed her. It didn’t even leave a bruise.”

Because Mercy caught it with her Talent. Atrea had been fifteen, and some lazy dock worker had stacked the damn crates wrong. She wrestled with this revelation for a moment, filled with conflicting emotion at his words. She was still angry, but also sad that he could have known for so long who she was, and never said a thing. There was also an unexpected spurt of amusement, as well, at the title.

“My grandmother?” She phrased it that way on purpose, had the satisfaction of seeing him wince.

“Lilith, yes.” His voice held a surprising amount of bitterness. The kind only someone who had known her personally could possibly feel. Mercy stared at him as coldness swept through her. How much, she wondered, did she not know? The sense of betrayal was acute.

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“You knew her.” The words were barely a whisper.

He sighed. “Not really. Tess did. Atrea’s mother. Mercy, none of it matters. Yes, I’ve known the pirates for years, worked with them now and then, done small jobs, passed information their way. Yes, I knew they were your family, but you were so afraid, so obviously running from something. I never would have told them. Never. I knew you were safe with me, or safer than you would be on your own. So no, I didn’t tell you I knew. I was afraid you would run if I did.”

Mercy stared at him for so long, his brow finally furrowed in irritation. The old Wolf wasn’t used to being questioned.

“Damn it,” he said, “I was protecting you. You’re like my own daughter, Mercy. I would have done the same for Atrea.”

“You mean if she had Talent?” A sick kind of guilt spiraled up through Mercy. She tried to hold onto her anger, and couldn’t. Oh, Mother. Atrea. How was she going to tell Wolfgang she’d as good as gotten his daughter killed?

“Of course. If she’d been born with Talent, if she didn’t want to be brought to her mother’s people, I wouldn’t have. I’d have kept it a secret.” He shrugged, a jerky movement. “She wasn’t, so the point became moot. But I would have.”

“Nice to know our partnership was so equitable,” said Cannon dryly, ruining the illusion of privacy. Mercy abruptly became aware of all the stares and attention being directed their way, and her cheeks burned.

Wolfgang glared at Cannon. “You know I don’t agree with everything you do, Cannon. I especially didn’t agree when Lilith was in charge. You tell me things have changed, but how do I know that until I see it with my own eyes?”

“Enough.” Mercy closed her eyes. “Go to the infirmary, Wolfgang. Be with Atrea. I’ll come by later, and we can talk.” She hesitated. “Please.”

He stared at her for another minute, then dipped his head stiffly, spun on his heel and marched out of the galley.

“Well,” said Cannon. “That was an enlightening conversation.”

Mercy gave him a sharp look. “Don’t start. Where is that food you promised me? I don’t think I can take much more enlightenment until I’ve eaten something.”

“This way.” He guided her to a table, set apart from the others. Mercy avoided looking at anyone as she followed him over, but she could feel the curious stares.

As Cannon gestured for her to sit, a figure darted around him, dancing back a few steps to avoid running into Mercy. It was a boy, maybe fifteen, with messy dark hair and familiar green eyes. Family, she thought automatically. The resemblance to Cannon was unmistakable. And, she supposed, to herself. He wore a flight suit that had seen better days, the top half open and tied haphazardly around his waist. Dirt of some kind streaked his chin and smudged the undershirt he wore. No small feat with self-cleaning fabric.

“Sorry,” he muttered, throwing her a shy smile and ducking his head.

“Max.” Cannon said the name with a frown, but his voice held an infinite patience that made Mercy smile. “Aren’t you supposed to be working for Bruzer today?”

“I am.” Max sounded defensive. “Just wanted to grab something quick. I was up three hours before shift start this morning.”

“Working on your secret project again.” It wasn’t a question. Cannon picked up two trays and set them on the table while Max stood and fidgeted. He was a gangly youth, thin and awkward with it. But Mercy could see the flex of muscle in his arms, and the suggestion of the man he would become in the stubborn set of his jaw. Cannon eyed him. No hint of a smile softened his expression. “I told you that project could only go forward if it didn’t interfere with your duty station.”

Max’s chin lifted, his green eyes sparking with a familiar hint of temper. “It doesn’t!”

Cannon lifted an eyebrow.

“Sir.” Max looked away. “I just missed breakfast.”

Cannon held a chair out for Mercy, then took a seat himself. Max cast a longing look toward the trays, but made no move toward them. Even without telepathy, Mercy could almost hear his thoughts. She hid a smile.

“If it wasn’t clear before, I am making it clear now,” Cannon said as he picked up a fork. “Skipping meals isn’t acceptable. Even if it means you’re eating a ration bar.”

Mercy winced, thinking of her own recent experience. Max grimaced, evidently familiar with the bars as well. But he heaved a sigh.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you better get back before Bruzer misses you. If he reports any delinquency to me…” Cannon left the threat unfinished, but clearly Max understood.

“That’s why I was running.” He muttered the words under his breath, but stopped when Cannon narrowed his eyes.

Mercy hid a smile as her cousin made the boy wait, watching as he fidgeted restlessly from foot to foot for an agonizing stretch of time. When Cannon finally lifted a hand in dismissal, Max darted away as quickly as he’d arrived.

The savory aroma from her tray made Mercy’s mouth water, but she glanced at Cannon as she picked up her fork. “Secret project?”

He flashed a quick grin. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be secret.”

Mercy huffed a laugh, and focused her attention fully on her tray. To her surprise, it wasn’t a rehydrated s-meal, though even that would have been delicious at this point. A colorful array of fresh greens and chunks of some kind of fish filled the plate. They were covered in a dark sauce, the source of that savory scent, and so appetizing her stomach growled.

It had been so long since she had real, actual food, she could have wept. Eagerly, she took a bite and then closed her eyes, relishing the savory, lightly herbed flavor that filled her mouth. She’d taken three bites before she could tear enough of her attention away from the food to speak.

“Where,” she said, picking up the cup Cannon placed in front of her, “did you get real food?” She took a drink, and was shocked by the wash of refreshing, hoppy liquid across her tongue. She stared at the cup in amazement.

Cannon looked amused. “We do have our own colonies, you know. Farms, and the like.” He grimaced. “Those deep space nutritional bars are enough to survive on, but who wants to just survive? We do, of course, stock a variety of s-meals to be rehydrated and eaten if the need arises, but we always stock our stores with fresh ingredients whenever we make port.”

She took another drink, eyes closed. “I think this is the best meal I’ve eaten in my entire life.” For the moment, it was true. She tapped a finger on the rim of her cup as she set it down. “This beer, it tastes like Thalian ale.”

It was arguably the most popular ale in the Commonwealth, with limited batches brewed each year via a secret recipe out of Thalia, a colony world that started out as just another mining operation. It quickly rose to much greater prominence for its beer.

Cannon smiled. “Does it?”

Mercy leaned forward. “It really does. What did you do, steal a shipment?”

“Stole the recipe.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”

Cannon shrugged. “We enjoy good things. Several years ago, one of the ships we took happened to be carrying one of their brewers as a passenger. He bartered the recipe and process in exchange for his freedom.”

Thalia never produced enough beer to meet the demand. Mercy gestured to her cup again. “You could be selling this and making a nice profit.”

“Who says we aren’t?”

Mercy shook her head, returning her attention to her meal. “I’m getting the feeling that you people are a lot more than just pirates.”

“Oh, make no mistake. We are pirates.” He eyed her. “How much do you know about our history?”

She shrugged. “What everyone does, I guess. Talent started out as a military thing. Then, when the government united under the banner of the Commonwealth of Sovereign Planets, they didn’t need Talented people anymore.”

“That is true, to a point. The reality is, Talent was engineered by scientists in a lab, centuries ago. They created telepaths, telekinetics, people with highly specialized gifts rooted in both. We were made to be soldiers, spies, and assassins, and yes, the government did decide they didn’t need us anymore. More to the point, they decided we were far too dangerous to keep around. They spread that idea among the populace with that Mori Shinjo farce.”

“The Admiral who killed his entire crew, right? Mass suicide?” The images were still broadcast throughout the Commonwealth. The Talented Admiral responsible for many of the victories that led to a united Commonwealth, a decorated war hero. He went mad and killed himself, his gift inspiring his entire crew of more than three hundred people to do the same thing, at the same moment. It was the catalyst the Commonwealth used to finally outlaw Talent and sweep up the Talented, to either imprison in some remote location or, more likely, execute.

“Yes. But it wasn’t suicide so much as murder. Nothing like it has happened before or since, and the timing was extremely convenient for a government that wanted us all dead.” Cannon shrugged. “The way I understand it, the Commonwealth executed hundreds under the guise of preserving public safety. Talented people, realizing they were facing genocide, stole whatever ships they could get their hands on and escaped. The location – in fringe space, and thus outside the reach of the core worlds – was broadcast telepathically until enough of them had gathered to make some kind of life.”

“And then they turned to piracy?”

“It was the only way to survive. They needed supplies. Terraforming equipment, food, medicine, clothing.”

Mercy could picture it all too clearly.

“We still do. We may have colonies now – I grew up in one. But everything we have, we gained by taking from the Commonwealth, and then pooling our resources and building on them.” He smiled. “I’m sure it really pisses them off that we have not only survived, but thrived out here. Now, we take Commonwealth ships not just because we have to, but because it’s fun to remind them we’re still here.”

Mercy looked down at her empty tray regretfully. She would have liked to ask for more, but at the same time, having gone so long without meant her stomach probably couldn’t take much more. She pushed the tray aside.

“But the Commonwealth has a Navy. Surely they’ve tried to retaliate.”

“Oh, they’ve tried several times. Early on, before we were organized, they nearly succeeded. But they did create us to be the very best soldiers and assassins government money could make. Every time they’ve come against us, they’ve lost ships and people. We added to our fleet, and became stronger as a result. The media glamorized the conflict, so every loss became bad PR for the government. It became cost prohibitive for them a long time ago.”

Mercy couldn’t imagine the Commonwealth giving up so easily. “Are you saying they’ve left you in relative peace?”

Cannon’s easy smile faded, and a look came into his eyes, one that spoke of old pain and bitter anger.

“No,” he said. “They turned to other, less direct methods.” He took a breath, let it out. She realized he was about to talk about something that was deeply, personally difficult for him.

“Eleven years ago, they devised a way to deal with us that didn’t involve a messy war in the media headlines. They sent the trade ship Hermes on a shipping lane we’d hit before. She was a fat target – a heavy transport filled with medical supplies and, most irresistible of all, a group of Talented prisoners, rumored to be on their way to a scientific outpost for use as experimental subjects. We had to take it. It was armed and escorted, but we handled it with minimal losses. We took the ship, distributed the take among half our ships and colonies by the time we were done, and welcomed the newly-freed Talented among us.”

He paused, looking down at his hands, fingers laced together.

“We didn’t know those Talented people we freed had already been the subject of experimentation. They were carriers. According to our own doctors, the Commonwealth developed the Matera-D virus to attack the portion of our minds associated with Talent. It was quite effective. It spread quickly, invisibly, and killed indiscriminately. It yielded to none of our attempts to treat it. It should have meant our extinction, but something went wrong. It didn’t work quite as intended. Only our women died. Infants, children, mothers and grandmothers – it didn’t matter to the virus. We lost over eighty percent of our female population before we got the victims effectively quarantined and sent the unaffected safely away. The death toll was in the tens of thousands.”

Mercy felt the meal she’d just eaten congeal in her stomach. Eleven years ago…so this would have been well after she and her mother left. After they fled to the Commonwealth. If they hadn’t, if they’d still been here… Words failed her. She had no idea what to say in the face of such massive losses.

“By the time the virus was done with us, our population was nearly cut in half. And when you get down to the level of basic survival, we had perhaps one woman to every eight men, and that figure is generous. We had to adapt to survive, again.”

“I don’t…what does that mean?”

A humorless smile ghosted across his face, there and then gone again.

“It means women are precious to us. You could even say revered. And it means we don’t have enough of them.”