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too!
"Maris will not `surrender'," I spoke, Valerie only a dark shadow there
beside me. Like me she wore the black of the Warri- oress. Tunic and hose, the
common attire of the fighting woman. A sword at her hip, a long slim fighting
dagger in its sheath. I recalled others who had stood at me side. Others who I
had later seen slid over the side of a ship with a shot at their feet to speed
them to their final destination at the bottom of the sea.
"Perhaps it is for the best," Valerie answered me back.
*****************************************************************
Suddenly Maris saw a soft glow for an instant there ahead of the North
Star, the glow suddenly then winking out, the young Queen having little doubt
of what she had seen! A cold shudder going through her as she quickly snapped
orders in a low voice to the man at the helm, the stars swinging in the sky as
the North Star came about! "Close!" Maris breathed, well aware of what had
laid ahead. For a brief moment she saw a tall stern featured brunette standing
there on the deck before her, saw the woman's eyes now burn into hers even
although it was totally pitch dark!
*****************************************************************
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"Mistress," I heard Yvette speak softly as she came up on deck with
another. The other girl one of those who served aboard the Corsica as a
"ship's girl". A collared wench, short skirted. Her legs a pale shadow like
her face there in the darkness of the star-lit night. Valerie only a darker
shadow standing beside me.
"Something wrong?" Valerie then asked from beside me. It was not the
time for any slave girls to be up deck. Not now. We had given orders that the
collared wenches, including my Yvette, were supposed to obey! I wondered if
the Corsica had suddenly sprung a leak and was sinking beneath us! I rather
doubted it!!!
"I,..I," the other girl spoke in a soft and obviously terri- fied voice,
no doubt fearing what Valerie and I might do to her!
"She showed a light in the stern cabin," Yvette spoke then. There was no
need to "explain" further. At sea even a candle's glow can be seen for miles
at night. And if Maris had seen it?
"Our stern was pointing south only a minute ago," Valerie pointed out.
And I could trust the Dularnians to be "alert" giv- en the situation! And
Maris was, if nothing more, "competent"!
"Are you aware of `what' you have done?" I challenged the terrified
slave girl. The wench going to her knees, putting her head down, making a
small ball of her body there before me. She doubtlessly knew as a rightless
slave that I would have been com- pletely justified in such a case in actually
ordering her death!
"I did not think!" she wept there on the deck before me. I had no doubts
that she spoke the truth. It did, however, not in the least alter the fact
that she had no doubt "cost" us Maris!
"Your punishment is for your captain to decide," I spoke.
*****************************************************************
"We will sail to the south for the night, then swing north again," Maris
spoke, her first officer nodding there in the dark- ness of the night. Hers
had been the only eyes to see the light.
"It would be `safer' if we put more `distance' between us and their
Warlady," the man smiled back. He had no wish to con- front a force such as
what the Imperial's Warlady now possessed!
"`Safety' is not something found aboard this ship," Maris smiled back,
her azure eyes glowing into his as he nodded in re- ply. He thought it might
be time to seek a bit of "comfort" in the arms of a slave girl, and try to
"forget" about his Queen if only for an hour or so. Maris was obviously
determined to die in battle rather than to return to Dularn "defeated" by the
Warlady!
"You have responsibilities to your people," he replied then.
"I am fulfilling them," Maris snapped back at him in reply!
"I am trying to give you a `second chance'," Aurora had an- swered only
a week before. "I suggest that you sit down with my daughter and negotiate a
peace settlement of some sort that both of you two can `live with'." The
silvery disc had come floating down from a clear blue sky as the North Star
sailed out of sight of land. Maris had no doubt that the Leaderess had used
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the awe- some instruments on Deimos to find her ship here on the open sea.
"The matter is out of my hands now," Maris replied in turn, aware that
Darlanis had refused to allow the people living in the "disputed territories"
the opportunity to "vote" upon the issue. "I am fighting for `ideals' even
older than my civilization," the young beautiful blonde haired Queen of Dularn
had answered back.
"`Truth, Justice, the American Way'?" Aurora smiled back. A smile
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