Chaos Quarter: Imperial Ambitions Read online

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Go put a shirt on Second.”

  She frowned, glancing down at her naked upper body.

  “I intended to take a hot shower first,” she explained. “It would be counterproductive to dress first and then—”

  “Okay, fine. Just…just go do it then,” Rex said with a wave.

  Second paused for a moment, looking at him inquisitively. He knew the look. She knew she was missing something and was trying to puzzle out what it was. When she failed to, she frowned and turned toward the stairs. He heard her whisper as she disappeared upstairs.

  “I do not understand…”

  ***

  Lucius did not want to do this, not to her. But what choice did he have? Rex had told him of Jones’s visit and their new mission shortly after he’d returned from the home site. Up until then the day had been going splendidly. The foundations of their new home had been finished, and work on the walls had begun. Soon they’d be able to move out of Rex’s mother’s house and into a place of their own. It was a middle-class home, four thousand square feet, much smaller than what he’d known in the empire, but much larger than what he’d had in the Chaos Quarter. Then Odell, who had been such a gracious hostess these past months, had arrived to announce that not only was her contentious marriage to Eric Gadman finally over, but also that she and the man she clearly loved, Theodore Vahl, were expecting a child. It had struck Lucius as odd that Rex, fifty-five years old himself, would soon have a new brother or sister. Just another oddity of a 160-year life span, he supposed.

  On his return he’d seen the large carcass of a bush-antlered Deer hanging up to drain and had concluded Rex’s hunt had been successful. But then upon entering the house he’d seen Rex staring at a piece of electronic paper with a ship on it, and a shadow had come across his heart. Rex had explained Jones’s visit to everybody, and now, hours later, Lucius couldn’t bring himself to move. He just stood in the doorway of his bedroom, a tall, stern-looking man with close-cropped, blond hair and cool-blue eyes. His eyes never left Chakrika, his wife.

  She sat, their sleeping son Quintus in the crook of one arm, in front of a hovering holographic projection, a sphere several feet across. Numbers and mathematical equations dominated one half. On the other a congenial-looking women spoke in soothing tones about how to solve the equations, pointing to the various numbers floating on the right. Chakrika had a piece of electronic paper on a thigh and a stylus in her free right hand. The equations were duplicated on the electronic paper. Any number Chakrika scribbled onto the sheet appeared in the projection. She struggled to answer the problems, but was working her way through them methodically.

  The sight made him proud. Chakrika had an innate ability to learn. It had simply never been put to academic use until recently. She’d spent her adolescence, and too many of her tender years, being sold as a concubine from one pirate to the next. Her education had been pain and misery. Most people in that life didn’t live for very long.

  She had, because she was unique. Chakrika had been born on Maratha, a planet whose people, for reasons that didn’t make much sense to Lucius, worshipped tigers, or their spirits, which somehow were the soul of the universe. He wasn’t sure exactly how that worked, though neither was she. She’d been a child when she’d left and unlearned in Marathi spirituality. But anybody who knew who the Marathi were would be able to tell she was once one of them.

  Chakrika’s skin was a dark-orange/red color. Interrupting it ran foot-long vertical tiger stripes. Her people, long ago, had tweaked their genetic code to get this result. They wanted to exist in the image of their god, so they’d done it. But merely being exotic wouldn’t have kept her alive forever in the Chaos Quarter. Her beauty and the stripes had done that.

  His wife was a stunning woman. Raven-black hair cascaded just past her shoulders, silky and straight. She had yellow eyes with catlike slit pupils and finely chiseled features any man would notice. Her hips swelled outward invitingly, flowing to a taut stomach with just a hint of muscle beneath it. He’d always found that strangely inviting: a superficially feminine softness over a core of strength. That was as good a description of her as any, given what she had survived. After escaping sexual slavery, she had been forced to turn to prostitution to make a living. It was how she’d met Rex and ended up on his ship, where he’d made her the ship’s cook to give her something “honest” to do.

  Old beliefs from a long-abandoned life reminded him that he shouldn’t be married to such a woman, that as one of God’s Own Selected Nobles he should treat her the same as her captors had, as a serf, as property. He hated that irritating voice, hated even the memory of the empire. This woman had raised his son as her own when she’d only been hired to breastfeed him. This woman had looked at Lucius with compassion even after she’d learned of his dark, foolish past. This woman made him feel, for moments at least, like he was living a normal life. How could he not love her? How could he feel anything less?

  “I can hear you breathing, ya know,” she said.

  “My apologies,” he offered. “I just wanted to remember this moment.”

  “Well, it makes it hard to concentrate on these lessons,” she said, not at all convincingly. Lucius knew well that she’d only come up here and started her lessons to distract her mind from the news. He couldn’t blame her. He was being sent out into the most savage, chaotic section of Explored Space. The Chaos Quarter was not a fortunate place to be, and the chance of his dying out there was all too real.

  And unlike last time, she would not be with him on this trip. They’d discussed it shortly after settling down on Paphlygonia and come to an agreement. It was stupid to bring Quintus along on missions even if Rex would allow it. He was nine months old. He spent his days walking around furniture, taking his first tentative steps, and babbling gibberish in an attempt to speak like the grown-ups around him. He deserved a safe, normal upbringing. He could have that in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was safe, settled—the superpower of Explored Space. Here he could grow and only have to worry about little-guy stuff.

  And here he would have at least one parent to be there for him. Since Lucius’s visa status was contingent on him working as a consultant for the EID, Chakrika would be the one staying behind and watching Quintus.

  “We knew this would happen eventually,” he sighed.

  “I know,” she said, not turning from her lessons.

  “Well then…” he mumbled, not knowing what to say.

  “Well, perhaps instead of staring at me you could start packing,” she instructed curtly.

  Lucius drew back, surprised.

  “The new vessel doesn’t arrive for a week,” he said.

  “Yes, I know. But I told the Sea Sprite Inn we’d be there by eight,” she explained. “And I don’t want to be late.”

  “What? Sea Sprite?” he asked. The Inn was down in town, overlooking the ocean. It was the island’s nicest hotel, with a fantastic view of neighboring islands. And since Paphlygonia’s islands had been mountaintops before terraforming, all of them rose dramatically out of the sea, clad in thick temperate rain forests. The crash of the surf against the shore, the lights of distant isles shrouded in rising mists, the soft breezes blowing off the ocean at night…it was easily the most romantic spot on the island.

  “Yes. I booked us for two days,” said Chakrika. “Odell volunteered to watch Quintus, said she needed to get back into the habit.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “So while I’m finishing this you should pack a bag.”

  “I shall.”

  “Good,” she replied, turning to give him an inviting smile. “And don’t pack too many clothes. You won’t be needing them.”

  Lucius felt his heart race but maintained his composure. If there was one good thing that had come of his twisted, aristocratic upbringing, it was that ability. But Chakrika had recently taken it upon herself to get him to break his dignified bearing, and right now he was just short of letting
her win this one. He didn’t really think it would be considered a loss if he did. But instead he just smiled back.

  “So if I’m not bringing many clothes to this getaway, what is it you want me to pack in the bag?” he inquired.

  “Oh I’m sure we have a few things in the closet that could liven up the stay,” she mused out loud. “Surprise me.”

  He chuckled.

  “As my lady commands.”

  ***

  Lucius had made the walk to his father’s chambers before, when visiting as a child. But not for years had he come this way, and never had he made this walk as an adult. Yet his father, Earl Septus Pyrrhus Anjou-Mountebatten, had commanded it. And who was he to refuse the command of one he owed fealty to?

  He did not like the feeling he had as he reached the open floor to his father’s personal apartment. The smell of sex wafted out of it, mixed with something else, something that was vaguely familiar yet stubbornly unplaceable. He wondered at that for a split second as he entered the room.

  Then he stopped wondering. On the floor of the room, lying naked and spread-eagle, was Yvette. She made no movement, but how could she? Her head lay in a pool of blood. It streamed from her slashed throat and stained the carpet of the sitting room.

  Over her, equally naked, stood his father. He had seen Lucius enter and flashed him a disgusted sneer.

  “You have much to answer for,” Septus growled, his voice distant and echoing.

  “Indeed husband,” said another voice—his wife’s. Julia—she was here. Glancing over, he saw her, fully clothed, a knife in one hand and a small towel in the other. She wiped at the blade, cleansing it of blood. But it only caught Lucius’s eye for a moment. On the dresser next to her, also soaked in crimson, lay another form. It was a tiny form, a baby’s form—his baby’s form, his daughter.

  Chardae!

  “The shame you have brought upon yourself is immeasurable,” said Septus. “To let yourself fall in love with a serf female? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? What such behavior could do to us?”

  “Oh he knows,” Julia declared wickedly. “He takes pleasure in it. Don’t you? Humiliating me by raising up this animal to my place. It’s his sick way of hurting me.”

  He didn’t hear the next words. His hand went for the gun on his hip. Except it wasn’t there. It was always there—but it wasn’t! Something was wrong. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. He was supposed to bring his gun up and shoot them both—Julia first, between the eyes, and then his father, in the forehead. Instead he couldn’t move.

  Suddenly his wife was behind him, and something sharp pierced his back. A blade exploded forward through his stomach, spraying blood and gore on his dead lover. Julia smiled wickedly as she twisted the blade.

  “Such ignoble deeds deserve the harshest of reprimands…”

  Lucius shot upward, his body bathed in a cold sweat. His eyes struggled to take in what he was seeing. Flashes of black and silver and dark blue filled his vision. He knew he wasn’t in his father’s palace anymore…where was he?

  Chakrika’s soft breathing next to him broke his confusion. He was in Sea Sprite, in the hotel room. He was in bed with his wife, his true wife—a wife he loved. Septus and Julia were dead, nearly four years dead. He closed his eyes and recalled the memory, the actual memory. He saw them fall, saw them lay as lifeless as Yvette and his daughter—their faces, masks of shock. They were dead. Gone.

  He got to his feet, pulling on one of the complimentary hotel bathrobes. Chaki slept on, thankfully oblivious. The last thing she needed was his nightmares. They had enough to deal with as it was, with the reality of another trip into the Quarter looming over them.

  He padded to the balcony and walked out into the cool air. He was surprised by the brightness that greeted him. The sky was clear, filled with brilliant stars. This was unusual. He wasn’t sure that he’d ever seen a clear night since he had come to this rain-soaked world.

  Directly across from him he could see the dark silhouette of Telbyree, a neighboring island separated from Mecong by a half mile of water. The scattered lights of homes cast small points of illumination down the island’s flank as it sloped toward the sea. Each point seemed to light up a few of the surrounding conifers, casting patterns of light and shadow against them—patches of the rain forest that faded quickly into the engulfing darkness. It looked a bit like the stars in space above.

  At that moment a pair of hands slipped around his waist. He felt Chaki’s body fit against his and could tell instantly that she hadn’t bothered with a robe. Her chin nestled against his shoulder.

  “Another nightmare?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Nothing new.”

  “I worry about you sometimes,” she admitted. “Who is gonna wake up with you when you have nightmares out in the void?”

  “I can deal with it,” he assured. “I’ve been dealing with it for years.”

  “And if you run into any of your old countrymen? What then?”

  He paused for a moment and then said, “If I run into any of my own countrymen, I’ll probably have to shoot them.”

  She frowned and buried her forehead against his shoulder. There was a long moment of silence before Lucius finally spoke.

  “If something happens—”

  “Don’t. Just don’t,” she pleaded.

  “If something happens to us, to me, please look after Quintus.”

  “You don’t have to say that,” she replied. “I adopted him when we arrived, remember? He’s my son, our son.”

  Lucius nodded at the words, closing his eyes to try and drown out the image of Chaki holding Quintus in her arms as she stood over his grave.

  “But since you brought kids up…when I went to the doctor yesterday he did a full internal image, said the bots were doing better than expected, that I was nearly…repaired.”

  She didn’t mention the specifics; she didn’t need to. He knew all too well. She’d been tormented as a child, abused and passed from person to person, thug to thug. There had been…damage. Enough that she’d had four miscarriages and given up thinking she’d ever be able to have a child of her own. At least until she’d been introduced to Terran medicine. The medical nanobots the Commonwealth used excelled at repairing damaged cells, scarring, and the like. Slowly but surely they’d been fixing her, repairing what had been done to her, physically at least.

  “So when you get back…” she began.

  “We could,” he replied.

  “You know, when we’re ready,” she said. “Quintus is still so little…”

  “And if Odell is any indication, we have at least seventy years left to have a family,” he figured.

  “So there’s no hurry.”

  “No, unless you want to hurry, that is.”

  “Maybe. But maybe I want some more time with my husband first.”

  She kissed his neck playfully.

  “We will have to sleep eventually,” he said, enjoying the tingles running through his skin as her kisses made their way upward.

  “Eventually…but you woke me up, so now I’m all revved up again. What you gonna do about it?”

  He pulled his mouth to hers. The kiss did not last long, however, as a heavy footfall caught his attention and then another. It was a familiar sound, one he’d heard a thousand times because it belonged to his friend Jake. It was the sound of the footsteps of a six-hundred-pound, seven-foot-tall cyborg.

  “Oh lord…” he groaned.

  “What is he doing here?” asked Chaki.

  Lucius didn’t know, but feared the worst. Had the EID pushed up the mission? Were they leaving now? Had something happened back at the house?

  Then the thoughts came to a stop. He heard more heavy footfalls, but they sounded curiously muffled. It took him a moment to realize that the steps were coming from downstairs. They grew louder and then the sound of a sliding door being flung open filled the air.

  “Good-bye Paphlygonia!” Jake’s voice slurred as h
e stalked out on the balcony below them. Lucius rolled his eyes. Jake’s mechanical body had the ability to filter out alcohol from his bloodstream. And he could modulate that ability so he could get buzzed, or lightly drunk. Or, as seemed to be the case tonight, he could turn it off altogether, leaving his biological liver to do the job. The problem was all of Jake’s biological bits together weighed less than fifty pounds, so when he got drunk he got rip-roaring drunk very quickly.

  “But I will not be gone for too long,” he declared, a bottle of whisky in one hand. “I assure you, I will return!”

  “Get back in here; you’re gonna get yourself in trouble!” they heard a female voice say from below. Lucius should have known. Since coming to Paphlygonia, Jake had never been too shy about using his “Hey baby, you know metal never goes soft” line on Mecong’s single ladies. And enough of them were intrigued by the thought of sex with a cyborg that Jake had spent as many nights in someone else’s house as he had in Odell’s. And apparently news of their new mission had been just the excuse he needed to push his luck.

  “But before I go, I must say, Paphlygonia…” Jake went on. Lucius marveled at what a wonderfully literate drunk he was. “…you have provided with me with so many soft bodies that I would be remiss if I did not share with you what little softness I have remaining…”

  “Did he just refer to himself as ‘soft’?” asked Chaki, suppressing a chuckle. Both she and Lucius knew, from previous nights at the bar and Jake’s “talkative” nature when drunk, that the only external part of Jake that was still flesh was the one part you could never reveal in public. Lucius really hated that he knew that.

  “Should we stop him?” Chaki asked.

  “Probably,” Lucius said, but made no move to.

  “But I assure you…” Jake slurred, “It will not be soft for…”

  He paused in his speech. Soft footsteps were heard.

  “Get in here you idiot!” the female voice said. “People will see you! And I’m not doing you on the freakin’ balcony!”