“How did you get out of the monastery when the imperials attacked? It was a bloodbath out there.”
She smiled, almost sadly. “I wasn’t at the monastery when the attack happened. I’d already left. I had given instructions years ago, that when I was dying, I should be taken to my childhood home. That’s where I was when everything happened.”
Hubard walked over to them. “How are you feeling?”
Shrugging her shoulders, Cherish did a mental check to make sure all of her parts were in working order. “Everything seems to be okay. I don’t understand how we got inside though. The last thing I can remember is passing out outside of the base from lack of oxygen.”
His eyes lit up. “That’s actually a really interesting piece of information. Come with me, and I’ll show you.”
Cherish hugged Grandmother Yasta one more time before following Hubard out of the part of the base that was being used as a command post and sickbay. “How are Jiyeon and Arden? Are they going to be okay?”
Hubard pushed his glasses up further on his nose. He didn’t turn to look at her while they walked. “We don’t know how severe their oxygen deprivation was by the time we got them hooked up to the oxygen tanks. They might be looking at permanent brain damage, but we won’t know until they wake up.”
The two of them walked to the main dome of the base where the mine was located. Rix was trying to organize the mining carts, but their limited programming was frustrating him. “You’re as useful as an elevator in a one-floor building! Do you even speak binary? It looks like a water buffalo stomped on a keyboard and someone called it coding!” Cherish could practically hear his processors overheating.
Hubard motioned for Rix to come over to them. “Can you pull up the external feed from when Cherish and the other two were outside?”
Rix whirled, and pulled up a video feed on his screen. “Here it is.”
Cherish watched the feed curiously. “I don’t see anything. It’s just the three of us outside.”
Hubard nodded. “Keep watching.”
The video clip kept playing. Cherish saw herself fall to the ground. A few seconds after she lost consciousness, the living matter that made up the outer wall of the building rippled. It stretched out to envelop each of them in a bubble, and pulled them gently inside. It reminded Cherish of the way some organisms used phagocytosis. “So, the building saved us?”
Hubard replayed it in awe. “It’s fascinating, isn’t it?”
“Hubard,” Alegro’s face cut through the feed on Rix’s screen. “We’ve been monitoring the signals from the carriers. The first one sent out a distress call during the fight. That’s why the second one showed up.”
The scientist nodded. “We figured as much.”
The Aphaian continued. “Yes, but we just learned the second ship sent out a signal for help, too.”
Hubard’s face darkened. “So, there’ll be more imperials coming.”
Alegro’s eyes were dark. “We have to assume so, yes. We just don’t know when.”
Pinching his lips together, Hubard’s face hardened. “I’ll start making the preparations.” The video call ended. He faced Cherish. “We need to get as many ships armed as we can.”
Cherish’s heart raced with fear and determination. “What can I do to help?”
Six
Theo leaned down to give Mari’s forehead one final goodbye kiss. Before he could stand up, footsteps rang out down the hall. They weren’t as heavy as the emperor’s or Karl’s. Looking up, Theo saw two imperial guards. Their eyes flitted to the empty pole that he was supposed to be tied to. One drew his blade, and walked around the perimeter of the room.
The second guard, spotting Theo immediately, pulled a blaster, and pointed it at him. “How did you get out of your restraints? Rictor, did you find anything?”
Rictor shook his head. “It’s all clear. What do you want to do, Sanders? Do we still take him? What if he has those powers the others were talking about? What did they call them? Yasta gifts?”
Sanders glared at Rictor. “Do you want to be the one to tell the emperor that we didn’t want to bring the prisoner to him because you were afraid he might have magical powers?” Rictor’s face went pale. “I didn’t think so.” He threw a loose pair of pants and a wrinkled shirt at Theo. “Put those on.”
Rictor pointed his blade at Theo. “Get to your feet.”
Theo had been sitting silently on the floor. He gently placed Mari on the floor, with her arms draped across her chest. As he stood up, he tugged the clothes on. The guards shackled his wrists and ankles. “Where are you taking me?”
Sanders gripped Theo under his arm, and hauled him towards the doorway. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like you have a choice.”
The second guard had grabbed Theo’s other arm. “It can’t hurt to tell him, can it?”
Sanders tightened his grip on Theo. The more frustrated he became with Rictor, the tighter his grip became. “How you’ve made it this long in the guard, I’ll never know.”
Shrugging his shoulders, Rictor continued walking, always slightly out of step with Theo and Sanders. “My dad is one of the scientists that’s prolonging the emperor’s life.”
Mumbling under his breath, Sanders guided them through a courtyard. “I guess the brains in the family skipped a generation.”
Theo had been unconscious when he was taken to the experimental lab. Now, he looked around at the palace. Smaller buildings seemed to make up inner courtyards. He could smell the char and smoke from forges. Elegant fabrics were being dyed and hung up to dry in the breeze. Fruits and produce in market stalls glinted in a variety of colors that Theo had never seen before. For the first time, Theo noticed that Sanders was repeatedly checking his chronometer.
Planting his feet firmly on the ground, Sanders made them stop. “It’s coming. Brace yourselves.”
Before Theo could even wonder what he was talking about, the ground started to tremble. He had heard about earthquakes before, but had never experienced one. Theo tried to stay upright, but Rictor lost his balance and took both of them down. Theo rolled off of his knees onto his back. The trembling escalated until buildings were rattling. Pieces of roofing tumbled to the ground. A woman flung herself across a stall of fruits, trying to keep them from rolling into the courtyard. Crackling sounds echoed off of the buildings. It sounded like an intense thunderstorm was directly overhead.
Theo watched as a translucent blue dome rose from around the perimeter of the palace, and sealed itself overhead. The shimmering forcefield looked like a much more enhanced and refined version of the shield that had been around Karl’s ship the first time Theo had met him. The air seemed to sizzle for a moment as the interior under the dome pressurized.
The rumbling increased. Theo felt himself being pressed harder against the cold floor. He was unable to get up to look out of the window. From his position on the floor, he could only see a small section of the sky. However, it appeared to be moving! Theo blinked several times, wondering if he was hallucinating under the influence of some drug. But, the stone floor still felt cold and hard.
The clouds above now appeared to be getting closer. Much as they did when Theo was… flying. Surely not? He watched in bewilderment as the view outside became gray and featureless. Then, seconds later, he was looking at a perfect, unbroken azure sky. It was dark enough that he could see stars! Holy Batumah. This entire complex is a spaceship.
Bioluminescent lights came to life, illuminating the courtyard and stalls in the darkness of space. Once a steady speed was acquired the shaking stabilized. Theo was able to push himself up into a sitting position. Sanders hauled Theo and Rictor to their feet. The two guards continued marching their prisoner towards the heart of the complex. Theo noticed that some of the merchants were glancing at him when they thought no one was looking. Whispers followed them, as they walked. He could sense something in the air. It was almost like a cloud of bloodthirsty anticipation mixed with fear was swirling around him.
In the distance, Theo could hear what sounded like hundreds of voices, talking over one another. The closer they got to the center of the flying palace, the louder the noise became. Sanders stopped in front of a circular, coliseum-like building. He flashed one of the guards by the door a sigil. The two guards at the entrance stepped aside, and opened the heavy, wooden doors.
Once the doors were open, the roar of the crowd they had heard from outside was amplified tenfold. Sanders and Rictor marched Theo through the doorway, and along a short tunnel. Hundreds of people were sitting in tiered levels around a ground-level pit. It dawned on Theo that they had brought him to an arena, and in the center of the fighting zone was none other than the emperor himself.
Seven
Cierra gripped the windowsill in the incubation suite. She watched in horror as a blue force field crept up the sky, and out of her view. Soon, the whole building began to shake. She held onto the windowsill harder to avoid falling over. Then, an invisible hand pushed Cierra down harder to the floor. Having ascertained the unbelievable fact that the entire palace was now flying, she was shocked to find her ladies in waiting treated this as an everyday occurrence.
Bealize walked over to her, and bowed her head. “It’s time to dress you.”
Confusion wrinkled Cierra’s forehead. “Dress me for what?”
“A duel is about to happen, and the emperor has requested your presence.”
Cierra scoffed. “Tell him I decline.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “Please, miss, don’t do that. You have to go.”
“Why? It’s not like he can hurt me. I’m pregnant. Just tell him it wouldn’t be good for the baby to have me watching an act of violence.”
Bealize was starting to breathe short, shallow breaths. Cierra saw tears coming to the girl’s eyes. She took a step closer to Cierra. “Miss, the punishment will be taken out on us and your friend. Gita can’t take much more punishment. They’ve already started cutting off her fingers. Please, please, you must go.”
Her pleading made Cierra’s heart break. “Bealize, calm down. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I’ll go, okay? I’ll go. Just breathe.”
The girl took in some slightly deeper breaths, but she was still on the edge of panic. “We need to get you ready. The emperor doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Cierra let Bealize lead her to a slightly raised platform in the corner of the room. The ladies walked over to her, and began to undress her. In a few moments, they were tugging an ornate dress over her head. The weight of it bit into her hips. She could tell that she was going to have bruises later. Beading swirled around the bodice, and skirt after ruffled skirt made her look like a poufy bell. One of the girls pressed her knee into Cierra’s back, in order to tug the laces of the dress tighter. Breathing was difficult. It was almost a claustrophobic experience.
Once the dress was on, they covered her front with a sheet to protect it, and applied thick, goopy makeup to her face. Cierra had never been one for much makeup. Now, she felt like her pores couldn’t breathe. She wanted to scratch the itchy foundation off, but the other women kept swatting her hands away.
Bealize twirled Cierra’s hair up into a fancy swirl. “You know, you really are quite fortunate that you don’t have any large bruises that need to be covered up.”
Her words made Cierra recoil slightly. “Why do you put up with it? Why do you accept that kind of treatment from him? He’s just one man. If all of you stood up against him, you could take away his power.”
Bealize quickly hushed her. “Please, don’t talk like that. We’re replaceable. The emperor has no problem getting rid of us. There are many more worlds out there, with many more poor families that would gladly sell their daughters to the empire.”
“What?” Cierra stared into the hurt, broken eyes of the girl fixing her hair. “Is that what happened to you? Did your family sell you to the emperor?”
Bealize averted her eyes. “When there are so many mouths to feed, and so little food, families do what they need to to survive. The families that are paid are the lucky ones. Sometimes, the soldiers just invent transgressions against the emperor, and take the young girls as punishment for the family’s actions. Some of the really poor outer planets actually have women who continually get pregnant in order to have babies to sell for extra money during hard times. Nowadays though, all there are are hard times.”
Cierra’s eyes were wide with disbelief and disgust. “I can’t imagine selling one of my children to the empire. I don’t know how I could live with myself if I did that.”
The young woman’s face hardened, and her hands stopped styling Cierra’s hair. “Most of the people who sell their daughters do so because they think they are sending her off to be doted on by the emperor. They think she’ll be given all the food and clothing she’ll ever need. When the options are to let your child starve because the harvest died again, or to sell her and give her an opportunity for a better life, it’s not hard to see why they do it.”
“Bealize,” Cierra took the young woman’s hands in her own, “I didn’t mean to insult you, or hurt your feelings. Surely, if your family knew that you were being treated this way, they would have never sold you to the emperor.”
Pulling away from Cierra, Bealize blinked quickly to fight back tears. She turned to walk away. “Excuse me, I need to go get more hair pins.”
Gita stepped up to Cierra timidly. Her voice was soft, like a mouse’s whisper. “Bealize’s family didn’t sell her because they wanted her to have a good life.”
Cierra looked at her in surprise. “They didn’t?”
“She’s a breeder baby. She was grown as a cash crop, like she was no better than an ear of corn. She tries to tell herself that they loved her, and that’s why she was given to the emperor, but it’s just a pretty lie she uses to make the reality a little more bearable.”
A sudden, sharp pain shot through Cierra’s abdomen. She groaned and clutched her stomach. The pain renewed her disgust at what had happened. Not only was the emperor forcefully impregnating women to get more heirs, he was also taking girls and women against their will from planets under his control. If she could just make them see that standing together would be enough to overthrow him, then maybe the cycle of abuse would stop. The problem was that they were all so afraid of him, and with good reason. The man had them beaten and mutilated, until their spirits broke. He made them hollow, until all that was left was a docile void he could fill with his seed over and over again.
A knock on the door made Cierra turn. The lock clicked open, and two guards marched in. “We’re here to escort you.”
“Wait!” Bealize ran back over to Cierra, with a few more pins in her hand. “She isn’t ready yet.”
The lead guard snarled at her. “Well, whose fault is that? You knew when she had to be ready by.”
Thinking quickly, Cierra faced the guard, while Bealize finished off her hair style. Most likely, the guards had never really been informed on how pregnancy worked. She decided to use that to her advantage. “I’m not ready yet, because I was having cramps in my abdomen. Moving too quickly could have caused a miscarriage. You’ve seen what he does to the ladies in waiting, when the mother-to-be does not comply to his desires. What do you think he would do to a guard who rushed me and made me lose the baby? Would you like to find out?” Her eyes glared at him.
The guard swallowed hard. “N-no. I’m sorry. Please, take your time.”
Being weaponless, and wearing a dress that weighed almost as much as she did, Cierra needed all the advantages that she could get.
Once Bealize was finished, she handed Cierra a hand mirror. The reflection staring back at her was almost unrecognizable. The makeup and hair was impractical. It wasn’t poorly done, but it certainly wasn’t who she was. It made Cierra want to throw up. But, her ladies in waiting had worked so hard on her, and she didn’t want to make them feel like they had failed or disappointed her. It seemed that kindness was a limited resource in th
e palace, and the women around her were in desperate need of some.
After shifting in her dress, trying to find a more comfortable position that would stop her hips from aching, Cierra moved towards the door. She made sure to take painstakingly slow steps. Any inconvenience that she could cause the guards was worth it. Besides, they were under the impression that if she moved too quickly now, she might lose the baby.
Cierra could feel eyes on her, as the guards led her slowly towards a wide, low cylindrical building. Her stomach was in knots. “Are duels common here?”
The guards exchanged a wry glance. “They happen sometimes when a couple of the princes are trying to settle a dispute. Today is a special occasion, though.”
As they got closer to the building, Cierra could hear the roar of a crowd. The weight of her dress was slowing her down. It felt like she was wading through water. She trudged along between the guards. “What’s so special about it?”
Before either of the guards could answer, Makram appeared out of the shadows. “I’ll take it from here.” He waited until the two guards had bowed and were walking away, before he spoke to Cierra. “You almost look like a lady in that getup.”
She snapped back at him. “That’s interesting, because no matter what you wear, you’ll always look like a traitor.”
Makram waited for some heavy wooden doors to be opened by the attending guards, then placed her arm through his and guided her firmly inside. “My allegiance never changed, Cierra. All that changed was your understanding of who I was, and what side I was on.”
“Tell me,” Cierra pursed her lips haughtily, “do you ever get tired of listening to your own bullshit?”
He refused to respond to her question. “Come on, I’m supposed to take you to the emperor’s box.” He grabbed her arm a little rougher, and hauled her towards a flight of stone steps carved into the side of the building.
The Relissarium Wars Omnibus Page 61