Chaos Quarter: Imperial Ambitions Read online

  “And yet, that wasn’t the worst thing I saw that day,” said Lucius.

  “There’s something worse than inbreeding?” exploded Rex.

  Lucius was quiet for a long moment, staring off into space again. He moved to speak a few times and then stopped, clearly struggling. Rex said nothing, letting the man work through it. He couldn’t imagine having to deal with all this. He’d known Lucius had seen and done some pretty terrible things, but actually hearing it made him wonder how the former Europan got out of bed in the morning. He knew Lucius wasn’t the person he had been; he knew it from the way he looked at Chakrika, the way he played with his son, even the way he served loyally on this ship. How he did all that with this kind of evil churning around in his memory was beyond Rex. Add to the fact that he was only twenty-five, practically a kid…Rex didn’t want to ever feel the kind of strain that must’ve been tearing up Lucius’s insides.

  “The tour ended with warrior broodmares,” Lucius forced out.

  “Warrior broodmares? Dare I ask what that is?” said Rex.

  “Most lower-level nobles, counts and viscounts, who make up the majority of the nobility, breed warriors from their bed serfs, their harem. We are expected to create at least two per year, by law, so that’s how it is done. But as I mention, middle and upper levels of nobility, those that have enough serfs to maintain stables, don’t breed their personal harems. They like their concubines thin and petite, and recognize that thin and petite women generally are not conducive to creating large and aggressive children.”

  “Where are you going with this?” asked Rex.

  “You must understand, no noble is allowed to keep the warriors he has sired. There would be too much risk of familial loyalty, and the emperor could not allow that out of fear of civil war. But every warrior is branded with the mark of the house that their sire belonged to. Warriors that do great deeds in battle, or who earn a sterling reputation, bring honor to their sires. Nobles regularly brag about the exploits of the warriors that they or their house have fathered,” Lucius said.

  “That’s crazy. Good leadership and training make good soldiers,” said Rex.

  “Yes, that is taken into account. Noble commanders of these warriors win just as much repute. But Europans believe in the consequences of birth, so they assume any good warrior received at least some of his skills from his noble father. So, to ensure that the warriors they sire are powerful, aggressive, and fit, many nobles breed large, aggressive, physically strong female serfs. There are many breeds of them, but collectively they are known as warrior broodmares. It is ‘stacking the deck,’ as you might say. Since a warrior can only be bred from the seed of a nobleman, noblemen have taking to impregnating these large, aggressive broodmares, in hopes that the resulting child will itself be large and aggressive.”

  “Okay. Like most of this conversation, that’s pretty screwed up, but I’m not sure it’s as bad as the brother-sister thing,” said Rex.

  “It is. I had the misfortune of seeing how it was done. My father and brother demonstrated it to me,” Lucius informed.

  “Oh,” said Rex heavily.

  “Now these broodmares are not bred for looks. They are often quite unpleasant to gaze upon. And since they are bred for violence and strength they cannot be trusted to ‘behave’ for a nobleman. My father had them chained to a bench, face down, on their hands and knees. Ever their heads were strapped down. And since they were physically unpleasant, he would have a bed serf, a petit beautiful woman, lie naked on their backs. He and my brother started on the beautiful petit woman, and when the moment was near, shifted to the sheaths of the large, aggressive ones—”

  “Okay, all right!” interrupted Rex, waving him off. “Yeah, that might be worse.”

  “And the worst thing about it was that, at the time, I remember thinking that it was an excellent way to deal with the ugliness and bulkiness of the broodmares,” Lucius said calmly.

  He said no more, staring back into the distance, at the viewscreen, and at the endless expanse of space before him. Rex let him have the silence. He paced idly for a second and then fixed his gunner with a hard stare.

  “As truly terrible as all that was, nowhere in these stories did you act. You were made to watch your mother and the emperor, and made to go through the stables. When we started this, you said you didn’t think you had any place to go off on Vermella for what she did, but it wasn’t you who made these things happen. You were powerless to prevent them. You were just a kid.”

  Lucius shook his head. “I first slept with and impregnated a woman at the age of thirteen. She was my nanny.”

  Rex moved to speak but stopped dead, mouth gaping.

  “And before you try to rationalize it, let me say that this was normal for Europan males. So much so that there was a saying about it: ‘When Nanny’s belly begins to swell, the boy is a boy no longer.’”

  Rex closed his mouth, shaking his head to try and ward off the words he’d just heard.

  “I did terrible things Rex. So many terrible things,” he said, his hands instinctively gripping the crucifix around his neck. “I’ve often wondered if forgiveness is even possible for a person like me. Other Christians say God is all powerful and capable of forgiving anything if a person is sincere…but I don’t know.”

  Rex sighed heavily, not sure what to say to that, or to any of this really. He knew the argument he’d used before. Lucius hadn’t known what he was doing was evil; he’d been raised to believe such things, his mind filled with nonsense passed off as the will of the Europan “One True God.” Logically Rex knew that it made sense and that all these things had to be taken into account. But it all seemed small to him, after listening to Lucius’s words. It felt small. If he had met Lucius then, in his imperial days, what would have happened? Would he have hesitated to kill the man?

  But you didn’t meet him then, his mind countered. He steadied his thoughts around that. He’d met Lucius after he’d seen the light, after he’d abandoned his upbringing and all the evil crap that had accompanied it. And that was the Lucius sitting in front of him—the man who’d fallen in love with a serf and killed his own father to avenge her, the man who was devoted to his son’s every need, the man who had loved and married Chakrika and had dedicated his life to her, the man who’d fought his own former countrymen, the man who was man enough to feel terrible about his past sins. Would old Europan Lucius have done that? Would any Europan do that?

  Of course not.

  “Look, I’m not gonna try and speak for Jesus or God or anything, but I don’t think you’re a monster. Not any more at least,” Rex declared, sitting back down in his command chair. “And since after this I don’t think I’ll be getting any sleep, I have a proposal to make.”

  “And what would that be?” said a still sullen Lucius.

  “That we watch the most innocent, heart-warming movie I can possible think of,” said Rex.

  “A movie? That’s your solution?” said Lucius.

  “You got a better one?” asked Rex.

  Lucius stared at him for a moment and then shook his head.

  “Excellent. Computer, play The Cowboy Rides for Christmas,” ordered Rex, who then turned to Lucius. “You’ll like this one, used to be my favorite when I was a kid. It’s got cowboys teaming up with Santa to stop bandits from stealing a coach full of toys bound for a small mountain town.”

  “Santa?” said Lucius, clearly confused.

  “Yeah, Santa. You know, jolly, fat man who brings kids presents on Christmas?”

  “Oh…Christmas, that’s Jesus’s birthday, right?” said Lucius.

  Rex blinked twice.

  “They don’t celebrate Christmas in the empire?” said Rex.

  Lucius shook his head. Now that he thought of it, Rex realized that last Christmas they’d been on his previous ship, out wandering the Chaos Quarter and being chased by Hegemony warships. He hadn’t really paid much attention to the holiday at the time.

  “Well then, you’re g
oing to be in for quite a surprise come December,” said Rex. “Best we start introducing you now. Computer, play the movie!”

  …it is not just among the more civilized nations that the prohibition against destroying living worlds is respected. Even in the Chaos Quarter, it is observed with an almost absolute reverence. Their reasons for this are the same as our own: terraforming is an incredibly expensive and lengthy process, millions of noncombatants live on these worlds, a comfortable world of your own is the whole point of conquest, and there are not many nice places for human beings in space, so every terraformed world is worth more than its weight in platinum. Even the warlords, pirates, and tyrants of the Quarter know these truths. This is why rumors of what happened to Sirizonia are so unsettling. If what is rumored to have happened actually occurred, then it is in our interest to discover what drove Sirizonia’s neighbors to such a blatantly genocidal act…

  —Excerpt from an EID report on rumors and hearsay of the Chaos Quarter, 2477; Classified; Not for public release

  Porter’s Star System, Chaos Quarter, Standard Date 8/11/2507

  Vermella shifted uneasily in her cell, the isolation room of the ship’s medical bay. They had thrown her in here after the confrontation in the cargo bay. She wore only the robe they’d put on her, that and a pair of handcuffs that kept one arm shackled to a niche in the wall. They’d put a bucket in one end of the room to act as her toilet.

  And that was it, except for the damn duct tape. The cyborg had put a little sensor on it, the size of the fingernail on her pinkie. If she tried to remove the tape alarms went off and her captors came running, no doubt with gas masks ready to neutralize her pheromones.

  Captors!

  She was furious with herself. She couldn’t believe that she, a Sirizon, was sitting it this four-by-eight room, the prisoner of men. It was an insult to the Goddess, to the memory of her people. These men should be groveling before her, like so many had before. They should be what they were born to be: her slaves.

  And she should’ve known better. That’s what really ate at her. She’d heard rumors of the Terran “medical machines” before. She’d thought they were just rumors, like so many other bits of gossip about the Terrans. Who knew that they were true?

  You should have known! Or at least suspected!

  She frowned at the thought. She’d gotten cocky. The Drake Company had been too easy. They’d been barbarians, rough men living a rough life, simplistic even, the kind who fought, got paid, and fought again. People that simple didn’t build vast empires like the Terrans or Europans did. She should’ve been sharper, spent more time learning about what she was facing.

  Her mind rebelled at the thought, instinctively. Learn about men? They were not hard to figure out. They liked sex and power, that was all there was to them. It shouldn’t be hard to break them to the will of a nuanced and complex woman such as herself. It seemed…unnatural to her that she was sitting here now because she had misunderstood and underestimated her opponent.

  Men…and cyborgs…the priestesses probably had never foreseen that problem. Again she cursed herself. She’d heard rumors of a world where men changed themselves into robots, but she’d never given them much heed. Talk like that was rife in the Quarter, and usually turned out to be bullshit. And even if she had believed in cyborgs, how could she have expected to run into one on a Terran ship? And if she could have expected it, how could she have prepared for it?

  It was a comforting excuse, but it was just that. She should’ve expected the unexpected, should’ve realized that people from a nation as powerful and vast as the Free Terran Commonwealth would have some trick up their sleeves.

  Idiot!

  The door to the isolation unit slid open. Vermella glanced up, seeing a female form backlit by the lights of the adjoining room. It was their blond whore, the one they called “Second.” It figured she didn’t even have a name. She had a plate in her hand, several chunks of processed protein sitting on it.

  “Of course those cowards sent you,” Vermella sneered.

  Second cocked her head quizzically.

  “I do not understand. Your pheromones do not affect me. It only makes sense for them to send me,” she said.

  “I know,” said Vermella with a sigh. “That’s why they are cowards. If they had any balls…”

  “Both of them possess testicles, though I have only seen Rex’s personally—”

  “Shut up!” Vermella snapped. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Another quizzical head cock followed.

  “Are you asking about physical ailments or social ones?” asked Second.

  “What do you think?” said Vermella.

  “Social, but I have been known to misread people’s intentions,” Second admitted.

  “Just give the food already,” said Vermella, gesturing with her free hand.

  Second placed it down and then straightened up. It took a moment for Vermella to realize that she made no effort to leave.

  “You gonna stand there and watch me eat?” she asked sarcastically.

  “That was not my intention,” Second replied but still remained stock-still.

  “What then?” pressed Vermella.

  “Why did you attempt to enslave Rex and Lucius?” she asked bluntly.

  Vermella laughed and turned her attention to her plate. She took a bite out of the tasteless protein, chewing mindlessly as she glared at Second. The woman still made no movement; she just stood in the doorway, fixing her with a curious yet distrustful look.

  “Do you really need me to explain it to you? You’re a woman,” said Vermella.

  Second glanced down at her body as is to verify that she was indeed female.

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  Vermella sighed dramatically, and placed the protein back on her plate.

  “They’re men. They can’t be trusted,” Vermella said as if lecturing a child.

  “That is untrue,” said Second. “There are men who can be trusted, and men who can’t be.”

  “You’re a fool if you believe that,” said Vermella. “Men see you as a warm cunt, nothing more.”

  “My vagina is not visible to men, unless I am naked,” Second informed her.

  “Unbelievable…it’s an expression,” Vermella seethed.

  Second thought for a moment. “I have never heard that expression. Is it common in your homeland?” Second asked.

  “My ‘homeland’? Hah!” Vermella laughed bitterly.

  “I do not understand. Is your world a humorous place? Is that why you laugh?” asked Second.

  “My world is a cinder,” Vermella fumed. “Bombarded with asteroids by those same men you think you can trust.”

  “That is incorrect. Rex and Lucius have never bombarded a planet with asteroids,” said Second.

  “Not them personally, you idiot! Men like them!”

  “I find it hard to believe a person like Rex would destroy an entire—”

  “Goddess curse you! How stupid can you be?” Vermella snapped. “They’re all like that. All of them! All men! You’re fooling yourself if you think these two any different! They’ve been dominating and enslaving us for thousands of years!” Vermella roared.

  This caught Second’s attention. She moved to speak, paused to think for a moment, and then sat down cross-legged in the doorway.

  “Slave…I was a slave,” she said.

  “See? You know what I’m talking about,” Vermella growled. “Maybe you’re not so dense after all.”

  Second sat silent for a long moment, clearly in thought.

  “Why did they destroy your world?” she finally asked.

  “Because they feared strong women,” Vermella said simply.

  “Did they fear your abilities?” asked Second.

  “Of course they did. Men have used their superior strength to dominate people like us for centuries. The Sirizons evened the odds, and the bastards couldn’t take it,” Vermella explained in a throaty rasp. “They feared
it so much they did the unthinkable.”

  “Did you use your abilities against them?” asked Second.

  “Of course we did,” said Vermella. “Men evolved to be violent and aggressive in the extreme. Against such an opponent, you can’t afford to be timid. We took actions to ensure our neighbors would never be a threat to us. We made sure the right people were under our ‘influence.’”

  “Oh,” said Second simply, and then thought for a moment. “If you controlled their leaders, then how did they destroy your world with asteroids?”

  Vermella frowned, annoyed by the innocent matter-of-factness in her voice. She sounded like a child thinking something out for a first time. What in the Goddess’s name was wrong with this woman?

  “One of the worlds had a doctor, a traitorous woman. Like all women she was immune to our pheromones. She was an obscure physician, so we did not learn of her work until it was too late. She figured out our secrets and developed a cure for the men of her world, something to break the hold our viruses had on men’s brains,” Vermella explained. “Within a year his people were hurling rocks at our world.”

  “But you enslaved them,” said Second. “Is not reacting to enslavement to be expected? Slavery is evil.”

  “Payback for thousands of years of oppression is not evil,” countered Vermella. “It was nothing they hadn’t done to us for millennia!”

  “But Rex and Lucius did nothing to oppress you,” said Second.

  “They’re men. They’re cut from the same cloth,” Vermella replied. “You said that you were a slave. You should know.”

  “My master was the ambassador of the Perfected Hegemony. He was not male,” Second informed.

  “Even worse. Women who buy into these male paradigms, who imitate the oppression of—”

  “The ambassador was not female,” said Second.

  Now it was Vermella’s turn to cock her head.

  “He had no sex as you understand it. He regularly moved his brain from one body to another. Most of his preferred bodies had genitalia from both sexes.”

  “‘Preferred bodies?’ What the hell are you talking about?” asked Vermella.