Chaos Quarter: Imperial Ambitions Read online

  “Do it then,” Vermella said.

  “I-I will, yes…Jake, tell the computer to begin preparing the bots. The quicker, the better,” said Rex with a contented laugh. “It’ll all be better soon Vermella…you’ll be like us; you’ll never have to leave my side…”

  “This is…this feels wrong,” said Cindy.

  “Yeah,” said Jake sourly. He moved to the control console of the sick bay, bringing up numerous holographic displays. But he went no further, glaring expectantly at Vermella.

  “Second goes free, and the old man goes back on the table,” Jake said. “That’s the deal.”

  Vermella hesitated and then lowered the shiv.

  “Fine,” she said coldly. Second broke free, dashing for Jake. Vermella ordered Liam back into the surgery bay, and then stood in the doorway between it and the sick bay.

  “Come here Rex,” she said. The words were sweet to Rex’s ear, and he scuttled over to her. Just being in her proximity was intoxicating. He dropped to his knees, burying his head against her thigh, inhaling her scent.

  “Now,” said Vermella, still glaring at Jake, “I believe you have some work to do.”

  “Indeed,” Jake growled. “Computer, prepare life-extending nanobots, patterned on Vermella’s DNA. Execute immediately.”

  The holograms began flashing data, and a hum arose from one of the computers built into the wall of the sick bay.

  “It can take a while to prepare,” said Jake.

  “That’s okay. I’m not going anywhere, remember?” said Vermella, victory in her voice. She moved the shiv down, placing it against Rex’s neck.

  “And until this is done, neither is he.”

  ***

  Lord Calidus Vasa sat uneasily against the wall of the cargo bay. Jake had done the same trick with him that he had with Vermella, twisting rebar around his wrists and then wrapping it around pipes on the wall. Vasa’s arms were outstretched, and he was perched on an empty crate.

  Lucius likewise sat on a crate, about ten feet away from the man. He had his pistol out, resting in his lap, finger off the trigger. He watched Calidus intently, whereas his former countryman looked back with his eyes half-closed and a lazy smile upon his face. The captive looked like a man in control, supremely confident and unafraid. It figured he would. Calidus was a trained spy. He’d been taught how to put on any emotion he wanted, wearing them as masks. All Europan spies were taught such things. It was one of the reasons Lucius had never been able to trust his half-brother Varius. You just never knew.

  “So it’s been a few hours now,” said Calidus. They were the first words he’d spoken since being brought onboard. Lucius felt no great need to respond to them.

  “Guess your new lord stopped the animals from breaking into the ship,” Calidus continued. “Kind of a shame. It would be so deliciously ironic…you turn traitor, murder your father for the love of a serf woman, and then you die at the hands of angry serfs—perhaps the Almighty’s way of showing the universe the error of your ways.”

  “You know nothing of God,” said Lucius.

  “Eh, more than you…whatever the case, still a bit of irony here, don’t you think? You, a traitor, protecting me from the very people you threw it all away for.”

  Lucius shot him a bemused look.

  “What makes you think I’ve thrown anything away?” he asked.

  “You’re a servant to a Terran spy,” said Calidus. “You’re living in a junker of a ship. Come now Baliol, let’s not pretend. Where is your estate? Where is your harem? Where are your riches and titles? Where is the dignity of nobility? You have nothing. You’ve become nothing.”

  Lucius fought back the urge to say “Alvadile.” On the off chance this man escaped, he did not want the empire knowing Chakrika’s or Quintus’s last name.

  “To you it might look that way,” said Lucius. “But nobles have never been notable for their intelligence or insight. Were they so you would be here, sitting where I am, and not in chains.”

  “You posit that an existence as undignified as the one you now cling to is somehow worthier than God’s True Order? By the emperor’s beard! Your exile has rotted your mind!” laughed Calidus.

  “God has given you no order,” Lucius said simply. “God has given you nothing. It is not God’s will you follow.”

  “And you presume to speak for the Unknowable Almighty? Being among feral serfs seems to have dragged you down to their level. You are as blasphemous as they are!”

  “What you worship is not God,” said Lucius. “And it is not good. You say I threw it all away? How could I throw away what was never mine to begin with? What I stole from others?”

  “You’re a traitor Baliol, not a thief. You know that. What you possessed—”

  “I possessed nothing,” Lucius interrupted. “I earned nothing. I imprisoned and enslaved. That is not possession.”

  “You can’t enslave an animal,” said Calidus, clucking and shaking his head.

  “People are not animals,” said Lucius.

  “Serfs are not people. They look like us, they sometimes even act like us, but they Are Not Us. They are soulless things; you know this Baliol. Had you the strength to see the truth of what a person is, what God intended when he created this universe…perhaps you wouldn’t be here, sitting on a crate, doing the bidding of an animal.“

  “God made us in His image,” answered Lucius. “All of us. You lie to yourself and tell yourself that because you have guns and power that somehow you’re something different—that you’re special or chosen. But you aren’t different. You aren’t special. You’re like every other group of tyrants that humanity has ever seen. The only difference between you and your fellow man is that you are sociopathic enough to hurt and kill to get what you want—like a savage, wild animal.”

  For the briefest of instances, Calidus’s smile vanished, his face tightening into a scowl. Lucius allowed himself a flush of satisfaction. He’d gotten to the bastard.

  “More blasphemy,” declared Calidus, putting his “relaxed face” back on. “To even imagine an image of God—much less to proclaim that we are ‘made in his image’—is sinful, my dear Baliol. To think his chosen are no better than beasts…ahhhh, you are truly lost. I had hoped against hope that some small spark of nobility remained in you despite you’ve all done. It seems I was naïve.”

  Lucius shifted on the crate and with his free hand pulled out his crucifix from under his shirt.

  “I have a spark…a divine one,” he said coolly.

  Again Calidus’s expression broke, more anger coming to his face. The Europan One True Order had never been particularly fond of Christianity. They hated all rival faiths, as any group of extremists would. But the Christians in particular pissed them off. Something about the whole “meek inheriting the Earth” thing rubbed them wrong—that and God walking around the Earth in human flesh, spending his time healing the sick and feeding the hungry. Images like that could put ideas into the heads of serfs, ideas the empire did not want the serfs to have. Lucius figured that for Calidus to see “one of his own” wearing the symbol of such a faith was intolerable, infuriating. And he felt like drinking in that fury a little.

  “You are only making it worse for yourself,” said Calidus.

  “Well, I am already a traitor under sentence of death, so I figured I might as well get my fill. After all, the emperor can only strangle me once.”

  He smirked. Behind him he heard heavy footfalls descending the stairwell—Jake’s. That meant Rex was done with his little scheme to get Vermella under control. Lucius could get a break. He jumped to his feet, turning to find his friend.

  “Do you know what they did with your whore’s body?” Calidus asked.

  Lucius froze. His hand squeezed tight on the stock of his pistol.

  “Your whore and her spawn?” Calidus continued. “Have you seen what a body looks like on a stake? What am I saying? Your father was Septus Mountebatten; of course you know!”

  Lucius paced
closer to Calidus until he was one a few feet away.

  “So does every serf on your estates—even that preggers bitch Helen out there. They passed their bodies every day in the central plaza of your old serf village. They watched them bloat, rot, and decay. They watched rats and crows feast on their putrid flesh. They saw it all—to remind them of what happens to animals that think they are people.”

  Lucius slipped his finger into the trigger of his gun. He held it there for a long while, at his side, a few degrees of arc away from Calidus. Just one simple squeeze…it would feel so nice, watching him choking on his own blood as he died. But he paused, and removed his finger from the gun.

  “You know, my God claims vengeance as his own,” Lucius explained. “He forbids it to me.”

  Calidus laughed harshly, derisively. Lucius ignored it. With practiced skill he flipped the gun in his hand, catching it by the barrel. His arm sliced through the air, smashing the butt of the pistol into Calidus’s temple. The Europan jerked violently, lolling sideways against his restrains. For a moment he was still, and Lucius “feared” for a second that he might have hit too hard and killed the man. But then Calidus’s eyes opened, his pupils swimming to regain focus.

  “But He also says I’m imperfect and a sinner,” said Lucius with a shrug. “It appears He is right.”

  Lucius squatted down next to the unsteady Calidus.

  “Enjoy that headache. What’s in store for you will make it seem positively lovely,” Lucius whispered into the man’s ear. Behind him he heard Jake draw near.

  “Uh…they need him alive, Lucius,” Jake said uncertainly.

  “Yes, I know that. They did not say they needed him to be in good spirits though,” remarked Lucius. He slipped his pistol back into its hip holster, and made for the stairs.

  Jake gave the disoriented prisoner a once-over. Calidus vomited, and then slumped back against the hard steel wall of the cargo bay. Jake sighed, turned off his olfactory sense, and settled in to keep watch.

  Europans like money; they like how it makes a life of extreme comfort even more extravagant and debauched. But it is not the ultimate form of currency in the empire. Status is. Titles are inherited by firstborns. All later-born children are created as counts when they reach sixteen, at the bottom of the noble order. They rise in station by doing impressive things and bringing fame to themselves and their house so that the emperor takes notice. They earn reputation and fame so that other nobles look on them with awe and admiration, so that they’ll speak of them in hushed whispers. They will do almost anything they can get away with to earn such prestige. They will go to great lengths to protect it once they have it, or to remove any “stain” they feel has come upon it. I’ve since come to realize that all of this is necessary for the maintenance of the empire’s twisted social order. What other force would motivate nobles to leave a life of leisure, wealth, and debauchery for the cold, harsh reality of a military man?

  —Logs of the debriefing of Lucius Baliol, taken February to June 2507 Standard Date; Classified; Not for public release

  Naharval System, Chaos Quarter, Standard Date 9/3/2507

  Aetius groaned contentedly as small fingers worked the kinks in his back. He lay on his chest, naked, eyes closed, wanting nothing more than to feel Chestnut Curls’s trained fingers pry out every tight spot. She straddled his hips, hunched over him as she worked. She was as naked as he, having just served his morning needs. He liked a massage after sex. What better way to compliment the relaxing glow of an orgasm than the slow unwinding of all his muscular stress?

  He felt her weight shift, and suddenly he was missing something. Chestnut Curls leaped from his back and sprinted for the bathroom. She dropped to her knees and retched into the toilet.

  Aetius sighed, and bit back the urge to reprimand the female. Unbeknownst to him, her birth-control injection had worn off some time during the voyage. He really should have checked that before leaving. And given that she was his only source of release, he had been taking his pleasure on her ten or so times a day; it was inevitable his seed would take root. He supposed it was a bad thing, in the end. Were this spawn a boy it would grow to be a warrior. He had sired countless soldiers but always on warrior broodmares. Chestnut Curls was tall, but not particularly strong or aggressive. That would put their offspring at a disadvantage, both among other warriors and on the battlefield. But that would be some other lord’s problem to worry about, so he did not waste much time thinking about it.

  “Be sure to rinse out your mouth,” he called out as he lay. “I have no love for that foul stench.”

  “Y-yes my master,” Chestnut replied between retches.

  Minutes later he heard the sink running and the sound of spitting. Chestnut Curls reemerged and took her place on his back again. Her fingers picked up where they had left off.

  “Be sure to go hard around my shoulder blades. Those battle suits are not the most comfortable things in God’s creation,” Aetius remarked. He let his eyes flutter closed again, relishing the feel of Chestnut’s fingers. The warmth of her womanhood lay pressed against his back. He found its heat strangely reassuring.

  A crackle filled the room and then a voice over the intercom.

  “Sire, Lord Hohenzollern wishes to inform you that operations will begin shortly,” a tech announced.

  “Are we jumping to Anglesey?” asked Aetius.

  “No, sire; not at this time. Forward elements are being prepared,” the tech informed him.

  “Then call me back when it’s actually time to do something!” snapped Aetius. The line went dead.

  He pushed himself upward, Chestnut Curls scrambling off of him. She had a shocked look on her face, but he ignored it. Instead he went to a locker in the corner of his bedroom. He removed his service uniform from it and pulled it on. He turned back to Chestnut Curls.

  “You are not to speak to anybody; do you understand? Even if they call for me, you are to remain here and be silent,” he instructed.

  She nodded meekly.

  “If you do speak, I’ll cut the tongue from your mouth,” he snarled.

  She swallowed nervously and prostrated herself before him. He ignored her, slipped on his shoes, and left the cabin. He made his way, down the lifts and onto the tram heading for the nobles’ arsenal. When he arrived he found it mostly empty. Having read the mission profile a hundred times on the trip out, Aetius knew that there weren’t many nobles involved at this point. The Forlorn Hope Brigades were not places for nobles, not with the huge casualties they usually suffered. That’s why they were usually commanded by one noble, and usually a count at that. Counts were expendable, as common as the blades of grass in the imperial isle. Counts knew this, of course. But the payoff for survival and success were immense. Emperors noticed men who commanded his Forlorn Hope Brigades. Emperors promoted such people to higher stations.

  High risk, high praise, thought Aetius as he moved toward the bay where his powered armor waited. He had not known Bentham was such a man when he’d made an example of him, but fortune seemed to be smiling on him.

  He opened his suit, stepped in it, and then let the bay’s mechanical arms close it around him. The Heads-Up Display (HUD) flashed to life on the visor in front of him. He didn’t waste time getting a feel for it. Instead he stepped to a nearby munitions bay and tapped at the computer screen with oversized fingers. Luckily the screen had been designed with powered armor suits in mind, so it proved little hindrance. He selected his loadout and then stood on the bay’s platform, waiting.

  Mechanical arms whirred behind him. A large, bulletproof metal box was slotted into rails on the back of the suit. He felt the weight of it alter his center of gravity, just a bit, before the suits servos compensated. The arms went to work, pulling two belts out of the box. To the left arm went a belt of twenty-millimeter grenade rounds, which the hands slotted into the grenade launcher mounted on that arm; to the right went a belt of bullets, 12.7-millimeter rounds—fifty grenades, one thousand rounds of 12.7,
the standard combat loadout. He tested the swords out. On the underside of each hand, a blade shot out, seventy-seven centimeters past the tips of his fingers. They looked positively medieval from their layered steel construction right down to the fullered center. But they were far stronger, and more flexible, than anything the ancients had possessed. The sword blades were strong enough to punch through an automobile, if they needed to.

  He retracted them, and left the nobles’ arsenal. A short walk down a warrior-filled corridor brought him to an industrial lift. He loaded on with about fifty men, and slowly descended to one of the flight decks. The lift touched down, and its grated doors opened.

  They revealed one of Cannae’s cavernous flight decks. Being eight-tenths of a kilometer from top to bottom, Cannae carried three, separate flight decks, each larger than the single flight deck of a Colichemarde-class carrier.

  This uppermost deck of Cannae carried troop transports. Most of them were the long, tubelike Trebiant-class transports. They were little more than metal cans, with little armor or weapons. But there were a lot of them, and in an invasion like this they would descend in one go, so most would get through. Interspersed between them were tiny landing pods. Little more than a steel can mounted on four thrusters, the automobile-sized pods carried five men packed in tight. They’re job was to put people everywhere, to foment chaos by creating the illusion of men being at all places at once. Just as the Forlorn Hope Brigades created chaos and confusion before the main invasion, the men in the landing pods created chaos and confusion for the brigade.