Xena's Arc

Chapter 6 of 13

The biscuits were still warm when Xena set the last plate down. Seven of Nine ate without hurry. Tom Paris drank his beer and watched the door. The innkeeper cleared the pot and left them to it. Xena stayed standing. The sword hung at her hip in plain sight, the blade wrapped but the hilt bare, its stones catching lantern light through the leather. She had shown it on purpose. Now she had to speak for it. Xena stepped back from the table and drew the sword free. The blade woke as it always did, a slow prism running down the steel, thin lines of light crackling near the guard. Tom Paris pushed his chair back an inch. Seven of Nine did not move. Xena went to one knee on the plank floor and laid the sword flat across both palms, edge toward herself, hilt toward Seven of Nine. "I came weeks for this," Xena said. "I hid it in a feed bin. I cooked for strangers to keep it near me. I want to carry it for you. Not as crew. As your sworn protector. If you take the hilt, the pledge holds." Seven of Nine set her spoon down. She looked at the blade, then at Xena's face. "You understand what I command. A starship. A crew that was told I should not have it." Xena said she understood. Seven of Nine stood. She walked around the table. She did not touch the sword yet. "A captain does not need a swordsman." Xena kept her arms level. "A captain needs someone who will not leave." Seven of Nine studied her a long moment. Then she closed her hand around the hilt and lifted the sword clean off Xena's palms. The light along the blade steadied under her grip. "Accepted," she said. "Rise." Xena rose. Tom Paris let out a breath and drank. Seven of Nine returned the sword hilt-first. "Dusk is in two hours. You will be on my shuttle." She turned to Tom Paris. "Her contract with you ends tonight. Settle what she owes." Tom Paris said there was nothing to settle. He said the galley was clean and the ledger was closed. Seven of Nine nodded once and walked to the porch to speak into her comm. Xena sheathed the sword. Her hands were steady, but her shoulders had gone loose in a way she did not recognize. She had won the pledge. She had also just been given a place on a starship she had never seen, under a captain whose crew had been told to doubt her. The lodge door stood open. The shuttle waited on the pad.