Chaos Quarter: Imperial Ambitions Read online

  “Then we’re at an impasse,” said Keith.

  “Not if you tell her,” said Lucius. “Tell her what I just told you. All of it.”

  “All of it? You want me to tell my wife that you will kill her, and her unborn child, if she attempts to take her revenge?” Keith asked, staring coldly at Lucius.

  “Mutually assured destruction,” said Lucius.

  “We stay peaceful out of fear of each other?” said Keith.

  “Exactly. Not the nicest way to do it, but it might be the only way all of us walk away from this.”

  Keith huffed, and crossed his arms. Now it was his turn to pace, and he did so, wandering toward the rear of the ship. Lucius waited where he was, letting the man think. He returned with a determined look on his face.

  “Since this village may benefit from a relationship with the Terrans, I will do as you request. I will tell her. But I give no promises. And no matter how alike we may seem to be, if she asks me…”

  “I know,” said Lucius. “Let’s pray it doesn’t come to that.”

  “Indeed—”

  He stopped dead, something catching his eye. Keith hurriedly paced to the edge of the ship. Lucius followed, seeing the cause of the distraction.

  “Is that…?” asked Keith.

  “Jake,” said Lucius.

  In front of them, sprinting for the tarmac, ran Jake. And thrown over his shoulder was a human form. A din rose from the town. Behind him, among the city streets, crowds of people sprinted in pursuit of the cyborg.

  Lucius sighed heavily, and turned to his wrist console.

  “Rex, we’re about to have some trouble.”

  ***

  As Rex moved from the common room toward the bridge, he heard footsteps behind them. He turned, seeing Cindy moving toward him quickly. He paused.

  “Something we didn’t cover?” Rex asked.

  “Yes, but something I didn’t think was best handled in a meeting,” she said, smiling broadly.

  The smile lit up her face, and he couldn’t help but notice how attractive she was. At forty-three unaltered years, she had some signs of age, a few lines around her eyes, and a stray gray hair or two, but they did little to detract from her beauty. Cindy was all warm, brown eyes and straight, black hair. Her head sat atop a graceful, long neck. She had a tall figure, with some noticeable, though not voluptuous, curves. And at this moment, she clearly noticed him checking her out. Her smile became a smirk.

  “Mr. Vahl? Are you listening?” she said.

  “Of course. What was it you wanted to talk about?” Rex asked.

  “Well, I actually wanted to apologize,” she said, as they approached the bridge. He showed her in, and she took a spot on Lucius’s seat.

  “Apologize?” asked Rex.

  “For the whole mess when you first landed…for pointing a gun at you,” she said.

  “Well, I did bring one of your worst enemies to your secret colony,” said Rex.

  “Under the guise of truce and welcome,” said Cindy.

  “You clearly knew what was going on beforehand,” said Rex.

  “Yes…yes we did,” she admitted. “I’m not going to lie to you, Mr. Vahl; we wanted to kill Baliol. Instead he reveals a spy on our own council…the universe is a funny place sometimes.”

  “Indeed. God, mysterious ways, all that,” Rex said with a wave of his hand.

  “I’m not familiar with that phrase,” she said.

  “Ask Lucius to explain it to you,” Rex snarked.

  “Right…” she said. “Well, consider this an official apology on behalf of the Valley Town council.”

  “You speak for all of them?” asked Rex.

  “No, not really. Most wouldn’t utter the word ‘sorry’ within five hundred miles of someone like Baliol, much less admit that he helped us,” said Cindy. “But the words needed to be said all the same. Kate probably shouldn’t have deceived you, and we probably shouldn’t have pointed guns in your face.”

  “Well, on behalf of my crew, apology probably accepted.”

  Cindy chuckled and leaned back in the gunner’s seat.

  “So you’re really a Terran? She asked. “And you’re really fifty-five?”

  “I am.”

  “Unbelievable,” Cindy said with a shake of her head.

  “Believe it. My mother is eighty-eight, has no gray hair, and is currently pregnant,” Rex said with a dramatic sweep of his hands.

  “Now you’re just making things up,” said Cindy.

  “I wish. My home life would be a lot quieter if I were,” said Rex.

  “And here I’m used to being the youngest-looking ‘old’ person in the room,” said Cindy.

  “You don’t look old,” said Rex. “You don’t look a day over seventy-five!”

  “Thanks…?” said Cindy.

  Now Rex chuckled, amused by it all. When she wasn’t pointing a gun at your face Cindy was quite pleasant to talk to.

  “But I’m serious,” said Cindy. “I was bred to age slowly. It’s why I still look as good as I do.”

  Rex’s smile vanished, Lucius’s stories coming to mind.

  “Bred?” he said.

  She nodded, maintaining a slight smile.

  “You think Kate’s the only bed serf who escaped the empire?” Cindy asked.

  “I…uh…I hadn’t thought about it,” Rex said. “I mean I know this stuff happens. Lucius has told me…disturbing things.”

  “All of them true,” she said. “I am, in the eyes of the nobles, a Travowski Straight-Hair. Bred to age slowly and recover quickly from pregnancies.”

  “Wait, they breed serfs to recover quickly from pregnancy?” Rex asked.

  “They do,” she answered. “Lower-level nobles generally do not have stables, but they still owe a quota of warriors to the emperor. So they breed their concubines. And no man wants a concubine with pregnancy weight, so they created us. Bred to ‘bounce back,’ you might say.”

  “That’s…awful…in so many ways.”

  “Yes, it is that. And they wanted us to age slowly so that the bottom-rung nobles would always have an attractive concubine available. Small estates have limited numbers of serf women, and among the wild born, attractiveness is as rare as it is among any normal group of human beings. So a serf who stays pretty longer…” Cindy explained.

  “Lucius told me that Europan lords tire of their concubines after a few years—that it’s an ever-rotating thing. If that’s the case, why spend resources on creating people who keep their looks?”

  “Because when you have no alternative, the beautiful woman you’re ‘tired of’ suddenly looks pretty good,” said Cindy. “A low-level noble, with no attractive wild-born women on his estate, tends to keep his favorites around longer than his betters. And there are many such nobles. Among the counts and viscounts, people like me are a very valuable commodity to have.”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t refer to yourself as a ‘commodity,’” said Rex. “It’s messed up.”

  “Yes, very much so. But it’s how they thought of me,” she stressed. “Not how I think of myself. I assure you that I am not a commodity, and I’m not a Travowski Straight-Hair. I’m Cindy, nineteen years free, chairwoman of the Valley Town council.”

  Rex leaned forward in his chair.

  “Now that’s something I understand,” he said with a grin. “If I had a drink, I’d toast to that.”

  A new type of smile came to her face. “If you get us something to drink, I’d join you…”

  She trailed the words off perfectly. Rex felt his heart rate jump.

  “Let me see what I can wrangle up in the kitch—”

  His wrist console chirped, interrupting him. He glanced down, seeing Lucius’s face floating a few inches above his wrist.

  “Rex,” Lucius said, “We’re about to have some trouble.”

  ***

  “How many now?” asked Jake.

  “At least fifty,” said Cole, a muscular man in his late forties with salt-and-peppe
r hair and a stubbly beard. He was one of Keith’s militia commanders whose day job was apparently to run the jail. So he was normally in command, but Jake had the distinct feeling that he wasn’t used to running the jail when somebody was in it, much less when that someone was a Europan lord. A worried look marred his face as he stared out upon his fellow freedmen. Since Calidus had been brought in they had not left. Some had gone and others had come, but the crowd remained, ever present. They’d been there all of yesterday, last night, and now this morning.

  And their numbers seemed to be growing. Worse, they were getting louder and inching closer to the front of the jail. Looking on, Jake spotted two people, a man and a woman, who seemed to be shouting the loudest. He couldn’t hear what they were saying through the glass of the window, but they gestured aggressively and moved through the throng with impressive speed. Agitating, instigating…

  Crap.

  “Keep sharp,” said Cole for the twentieth time that morning. There were five armed men in the jail besides Cole and Jake, and they were frowning as much as their leaders. Some gripped the butts of their pistols for assurance. Others darted about, from one window to the next, watching nervously.

  One of the female instigators lit out from the mob, walking a dozen steps toward the jail. She yelled something, and motioned violently toward the building. Some of the mob moved forward a few steps and then paused, milling about uneasily. The woman shouted something else, and took a few steps forward. The mob inched closer behind her. A rock flew from the crowd, smacking into a window, sending a spider web of cracks through the glass.

  Crap, crap, crap, Jake thought.

  “I’m not going to shoot my friends to protect a Europan,” said one of the militiamen.

  Cole glanced warily at him and then looked at the other five men at his disposal. None of them looked particularly resolute.

  “No,” said Cole and turned to Jake. “Take him to your ship.”

  Jake cocked his head in confusion.

  “When they break in, we will not resist,” Cole said. “If you want the bastard to live, you better get him out of here.”

  Jake glanced about, seeing the relief in the faces of the militiamen.

  “Give me the key then,” Jake said with a sigh.

  Cole handed it over, and Jake broke off, moving down the corridor. He unlocked the door and swung it open, the sudden noise interrupting the Europan’s sleep. Calidus jolted upward, surprised and confused.

  “What the devil do you want?” the Europan sneered.

  Jake didn’t answer. He ran in, seized Calidus by the belt, and hurled him over his shoulder.

  “What are you doing? Put me—”

  “Shut the hell up,” Jake said, sprinting from the cell and down the hall.

  “Hang it all; I Will Not!” roared Calidus.

  “My hand is resting right above your spine. Keep talking, and you’ll spend the rest of your worthless life in a damn chair!” snapped Jake as he exploded through the jail’s rear door.

  He was out in the cool air, and sprinting for the landing pad. A noisy din arose behind him, a mix of angry shouts and shattering glass. He routed his rear camera to his right eye, seeing behind him. People streamed out of the back of the jail, others filing around it. They pointed and screamed, running after him. Their figures shrank as he pulled away, the bulk of Longshot growing larger in front of him. The cargo bay doors were still open.

  Jake found Longshot’s frequency in his data-store and opened a line.

  “Rex! Somebody! Start closing the damn doors!” Jake shouted.

  The line cracked for a second, and then a voice emerged.

  “Jake? What’s going on? Lu says you’re being—”

  “No time! Just start closing the doors! A whole lot of angry people are following me!” cried Jake.

  “What…uh, damn. I see it. Doors are closing!” said Rex.

  Jake felt the concrete of the tarmac under his feet. A few seconds later, he was staring up at the massive cargo bay doors as they rose upward. They were almost perpendicular to the ground, and rising quickly.

  He leaped, streaking through the air. He landed hard on the door as it closed and then sprinted down to the floor of the cargo bay. He turned, seeing the mob reach the spaceport. But the doors were finishing their arc, and the mob disappeared from view. A loud clang, followed by the hiss of an air-lock seal, filled the cavernous bay. The doors were closed.

  He glanced about anxiously, making sure none of his pursuers had gotten into the ship. He didn’t see any, though he did hear the pounding of footsteps come from the other end of the bay. Rex and Cindy appeared at the top of the staircases on the far side.

  “Is that who I think it is?” shouted Rex.

  “Yeah,” said Jake, hurling Calidus to the floor. The Europan struck hard against the metal floor, the sound of it echoing through the bay.

  “Why is he here?” said Cindy, moving quickly down the stairs. “What is going on?”

  “There’s a lynch mob following me,” said Jake. “And they’re pretty pissed.”

  “Well, lynch mobs are rarely known for their patience and understanding,” Rex snarked.

  Cindy spun and gawked at him.

  “Fine,” Rex said with a roll of his eyes. “Let’s go deal with this.”

  ***

  Vermella had to time this perfectly. As soon as the cuffs came off, the ship’s computer would detect what she was up to, and if the blond whore wasn’t in the room at the time, her captors would simply lock the door. She’d be stuck in this damn closet with no leverage.

  So she waited. The plastic shard was already inserted into the handcuffs, in perfect position. It had taken some doing, getting it there without the camera seeing it. Hours of subtle movements had gone into it, always making sure that her body was between the cuffs and the camera. Then even more time had been spent getting the tip to the right place inside the lock. Luckily for her the Terran cuffs were not much different from the local varieties.

  She hoped the wait would soon end. She had heard a door slide open, muffled but audible. The whore they called “Second” was in the med bay, no doubt coming in to swap out her shit pail—all part of the daily routine. Vermella hoped that, weird as the woman was, she was still vulnerable to the comfortable predictability of routine. In fact, Vermella was counting on it.

  She heard another door open. Second was in the surgery bay. Vermella smiled in the dim light of her makeshift cell. There was no doubt now. Second was on her way to her.

  The door to the isolation bay slid open, bathing her in a yellow light. Instantly Vermella pushed down on the plastic shard. Something inside the cuffs resisted for a moment and then gave way with a soft click.

  The noise caught Second’s attention, but by the time it registered, Vermella’s hands were free. Crouched and ready, she flung herself forward, bowling into Second with great force. The whore shrieked and fell backward, Vermella on top of her. Instantly her right hand flashed up, bringing the sharpened shiv to Second’s neck, right above the jugular.

  “Move and I’ll cut your throat,” Vermella hissed. With her left hand she tore off the duct tape on her neck, exposing her pheromone glands to air. Instantly she began pumping out sex pheromones, as much as she could.

  Her target, to her chagrin, lay motionless on a nearby surgery table. It was an old man who’d suffered some sort of serious injury, enough to lay him up. The weak rise and fall of his chest was the only indication that he was alive at all. Vermella frowned at the realization, but did not stop. He was what she had to work with, so he would have to do.

  “I do not understand,” Second said. “You cannot escape; the ship has already noticed your actions.”

  “That’s why I got you, moron,” she snapped, her neck pulsing furiously. Finally she saw what she wanted. On the table the old man stirred, slowly sitting up, groaning painfully as he did. He pulled at wires connected to his skin, freeing himself from the sensors monitoring his condition. They
retracted up into the automated surgeon, which pulled back away from the man.

  “How will your threatening me affect your ability to open the doors on this ship?” asked Second.

  Vermella raised an eyebrow, wondering again what the hell was wrong with this woman.

  “Your friends will let me out, or I’ll kill you,” she said.

  “Oh,” said Second, clearly in thought. “Hostage taking, I understand.”

  “Well, thank the Goddess…” grumbled Vermella with a shake of her head. The old man slipped off the table, standing on shaky legs. Stitches on his chest flexed, blood leaking from beneath the bandages.

  “You,” she said,” get between me and the door.”

  “The door…” the man said, uncertain. Vermella frowned. This happened sometimes when she had to rush things. The man’s mind hadn’t reconciled itself with the lust racking his brain. A few more pulses of her neck drew his attention and got him staring at her with unconcealed lust. She hated being this blunt, but there was no choice.

  The man lurched toward her, hand extended in anticipation. Vermella switched to a calming pheromone, pushing it out into the air. The man’s lurching stopped, a torn look on his face. He clearly wanted her, but something was now telling him to move no further. Vermella knew that right now his mind was an agony of conflicting, amplified emotions.

  “Not now,” she said. “Later we’ll have fun. Right now I need you to protect me. Stand in front of me, between the door and myself. Understand? You do that, and I’ll show you just how much fun I can be.”

  The old man froze for a moment and then swallowed nervously. He nodded. An expectant smile spread across his face. He turned around, standing in front of the door, a perfect human shield.

  “Now we’ll see how much Vahl cares about his little whore,” said Vermella, pulling the shiv tighter against Second’s neck.

  Second’s face screwed up in a confused look.

  “I have never worked as a prostitute—”

  Vermella snapped,” Will you shut the hell up! I don’t want to hear another word out of you! You understand?”

  She waited expectantly, but silence filled the room.