by Carysa Locke
Pirate Throne
Carysa Locke
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Afterword
Also by Carysa Locke
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Prologue
The palace lay cloaked in winter. Someone’s sense of irony, no doubt. The white mechstone walls shimmered against a backdrop of snow which dusted the Starlotus trees and the winding garden paths, blanketing the ground cover in pristine white. Flowers that had bloomed and filled the air with fragrance only weeks ago hung shriveled and withered; dead.
It was the sort of dramatic symbolism Casimir detested. The Commonwealth was without its monarch. Small battles and larger wars were already breaking out all across the galaxy. No one needed to see the palace draped in death to understand what had happened.
Overhead, gray clouds hid the sky, threatening more snow. Casimir’s breath frosted the air as he looked up at the palace, his gaze roaming over the walls until he caught the telltale glint of a security screen. Blue shone faintly, nearly invisible against the white.
“The security field is in place,” Gideon said beside him.
Yes. Someone was home. If the virtually created winter theme hadn’t been evidence enough, the palace security web was solid proof. It could only be activated by someone from inside the palace, and it was designed to repel an army. Not only was someone home, they were hiding inside like a frightened child.
“Time to see if our codes still work.” Casimir strode up the main path. His footsteps left a trail through the thin layer of snow. His unit followed him, fanning out and waiting for any sign of movement on the palace walls. Although they looked majestic and pretty, like a fairy tale castle, they hid robust defenses designed to keep anyone from breaching the walls. Casimir was pretty sure his symbiont would survive being cut in half by a plasma turret, but he didn’t want to find out. And his men had no such protection.
Only three weeks ago, the White Palace had been deep in its summer season. Casimir and his unit had been on a distant world at the edge of Commonwealth space, investigating reports of increased pirate activity on the fringes. A fool’s mission, but one Casimir couldn’t refuse. Where his King ordered him to go, he went. Sereya had never been at ease with him at the palace. The King used every excuse to send Casimir away. This time, it had cost him his life.
He stopped in front of the massive security archway that was the only entrance from the outer courtyard into the inner sanctuary. A security console stood next to it, silent and unmanned. In all the times he’d come and gone here, Casimir had never before seen this place so empty. No guards patrolled the garden paths. No sentries stood beside the archway.
To the untrained eye, the palace looked empty and abandoned.
He passed his hand over the console, and it lit up in response. No alarm sounded, and a holoscreen rose before him.
“You’re still in the system,” Gideon said. His second-in-command sounded surprised.
“I doubt they know I exist.” Another monarch might have bragged about having someone of Casimir’s capabilities in his inner circle. Not Sereya. Even if he had, Casimir had been here when the palace was built. His clearance was input when the system was designed, into the very bones that made up the palace AI and governed its every aspect.
First, he tried his Crown code, the unique ID Sereya had assigned him. Nothing happened. He and Gideon exchanged a look.
A voice issued from the console, courteous, female, and familiar. Vera, the palace AI. “Incorrect code. Please identify.”
Gideon cast a worried look up at the walls, as though expecting artillery to start raining down on them at any moment. Nothing broke the winter stillness. Nothing would, unless Casimir failed to pass this next part.
“Casimir Aleksandr Mazur,” Cas said. “One, one, zero, seven, three, six, two, zero.”
“Voice identification confirmed. Access code confirmed. Casimir Aleksandr Mazur, what is my name?”
Gideon looked at the console in shock. “What kind of security question is that? She’s a bloody AI—”
Casimir lifted a hand, and Gideon stopped talking instantly.
“Casimir Aleksandr Mazur, do you understand the question?”
“I do, Vera Yelena Vasiliev.”
“Access granted.” Vera’s voice warmed with familiarity. “Alik, you’re back!”
Gideon looked at him, mouthing the name, a question on his face. It had been a long time since Casimir had accessed Vera using this method, and Gideon had never before heard her address him by a nickname no one else used anymore.
“Vera,” Cas said, “how many people are currently in the palace?”
“At this time, there are five occupants present.”
“Five?” Gideon said in disbelief. “Where the hell are all of the guards? The servants? The court?”
“All previous occupants were ordered to leave when Miles Eugene Vandencourt arrived with his entourage and took up residence,” Vera said.
“Miles Vandencourt.” Gideon frowned. “Why do I know that name?”
“Miles Eugene Vandencourt is the sole heir to the Vandencourt banking conglomerate, and the eleventh wealthiest man in the Commonwealth.”
“Only the eleventh?” Gideon asked with a wry look at Cas.
“How did he gain entry?” Cas asked. “The Vandencourts are private citizens with no position in the government.”
“A Crown code.”
She meant the type of code Cas had tried first; personally issued by the Crown to those sworn to serve it, changed on a random rotation, and granted to a select few. Personal advisors, the highest ranking of the palace guard, other key figures in the palace staff, each of them personally known to Cas.
“That’s not possible,” he said.
Vera stayed silent. She couldn’t lie. As far as the AI knew, one of those personal codes was exactly how Miles had gained entry. And how had he ordered away every person here? How had he gained access to the security field?
Asking, Casimir thought, would be futile. AI’s were supposed to be impossible to hack. They had multiple levels of quantum encryption. But as he knew well enough, nothing was impossible. Vera clearly didn’t have the answers he needed.
“Where is Miles now?” he asked.
“In the throne room.”
Of course he was.
“Vera, my team needs clearance for the palace archives.”
“As you wish, Alik.”
An interface opened up in the console, and a holocard slid out. “Access will expire in ten hours. If more permanent access is needed, please apply to the Royal Archivist.”
Casimir handed Gideon the card.
“Get to the archives,” he said. “Take everything dated from the Ascension Wars.”
“That’s going to be a lot.” Gideon was careful not to question him directly.
“Clean it out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Booted feet moved as one across the mechstone. Casimir took a moment, staring up at the palace windows.
“Sir?” Gideon hesitated on the other side of the security entrance.
“Where will you be, sir?”
“I’ll start with the throne room, I think.”
“Sir?” Gideon hesitated. “Do you want—”
“No.” Casimir held back his impatience. Gideon didn’t normally question his orders, but they were all on edge coming back here. This didn’t feel like coming home. It felt like entering enemy territory.
He met Gideon’s concerned gaze. Still young at thirty-three, sometimes he made Cas feel ancient. Then again, everyone made Cas feel old these days.
Gideon was a good soldier. Stocky and strong, with short black hair and sharp brown eyes that missed nothing. He had a forgettable face, an average build, and coloring that tended to blend in. He was the perfect asset for the more clandestine work they did. Better at it than Cas himself, who had to work not to be noticed.
He also fancied himself Casimir’s friend. More than any of the others, he was aware of the cold rage that burned within Cas, that had been burning steadily for three weeks, eating at him.
It should have been his job to protect the King. They all knew it. If he’d been here…if he’d been here things would be different.
“I’ll be fine,” he said to Gideon. “Go.”
His second didn’t dare question him again. All of them knew that tone. His men moved on with their task.
Casimir walked into the inner courtyard. He stepped through the security web, the faint buzz as it passed over his skin barely detectible. Everything stayed silent. A few stray snowflakes drifted past his face, and he cast an irritated glance skyward. He’d always hated the conceit of the White Palace’s virtual seasons. Never more than in this moment.
He stepped inside the great doors as the snow began to flurry in earnest. The cavernous entry greeted him, for once devoid of the guards who should have been stationed here. He paused, listening, but he couldn’t even hear his men anymore.
The place was silent as a mausoleum.
He didn’t turn toward the throne room as he’d told Gideon. He would get there eventually, but he had a different stop to make first.
He strode down empty corridors boldly, not troubling to hide his presence. His boot heels clicked on floors of polished marble, daring someone to confront him.
No one did.
When he came to the royal wing, he stopped. Three weeks was a long time. Someone could have accessed the security recordings. Erased them. But the Commonwealth didn’t just lose the royal family that day. The entire Council of Sovereign Planets had been assassinated in what could only be a surgical strike at the heart of humanity.
He had evidence that the attacks on the Council members had been carried out by Talented. The majority of the population believed the only Talented left were pirates out in fringe space, rarely seen and easily avoided here in the heart of the Commonwealth. It was naive to think so. The attack could have been pirates. Or, someone else…one of the many powerful corporations which secretly employed Talented in their board rooms, or bought and sold them as slaves. Or, perhaps someone who wanted the crown. A rival.
He didn’t think so, though. No corporation or rival family had done this. This wasn’t squabbling over a throne. It was war. The question was, who was on the other side? Pirates? Or something worse?
Everything was in chaos. Just getting here had been a test of his skills. The usual law and order that ruled the galaxy had fallen to distrust and suspicion, not to mention the fools grappling for power. Planets with jump points normally open and secure were closed to outsiders.
Just the word left a bitter taste in his mouth. Less than a month ago, no one in the Commonwealth had been an outsider. Everyone was a citizen. Now, no one knew where they stood. With the monarchy dead, without the Council, the entire universe was without leadership and guidance, and all anyone could say when someone tried to step in and calm the discord was Why should we listen to you? Who are you? What blood runs in your veins?
Former allies and enemies alike vied for a chance at the throne. The Ashir royal line was dead. Everyone wanted to be the next to rule. The longer this instability continued, the more they risked the utter destruction of the Commonwealth and all it stood for. The galaxy teetered on the edge of an abyss. If nothing changed, they would fall back into the Ascension Wars.
Casimir would do anything to stop that from happening.
He eyed the wall in front of him, just to the left of the entrance to the royal apartments. On a normal day, guards would have been stationed here. No security console stood nearby. It was all controlled in a distant room, levels below him. He didn’t have time to make the journey down.
“Vera,” he said aloud.
“Yes, Alik?” Her voice resonated from all around him.
“I need to access the security holorecorders.”
“As you wish, Alik.”
“Start with this cross section. Wait.” He thought for a moment. “First, show me the throne room.”
A projection of the room appeared before him. His body tightened with anger as he watched Miles pour himself a drink from Sereya’s private selection. The Vandencourts were corporate, a banking family with ties to human trafficking. Wealthy, elite, utterly corrupt, and with no business within light years of the White Palace, much less anywhere near its throne.
Four other figures also occupied the room. He studied them, but from the recording they looked like standard corporate types. He doubted that very much. Miles didn’t gain access to the palace and then empty it out with a board of directors at his side.
“Vera, show me the recordings for this hallway starting twelve hours prior to the King’s death. Twenty times speed.” He would have no trouble visually keeping up with the pace.
A normal evening at the palace unfolded before him. Guard changes. Servants. Visitors. The royal family. He ignored the twinge in his chest as Sereya walked by with Queen Jessa on his arm. The unexpected wave of regret caught him off guard. As much as he and Sereya had disagreed, Jessa had always been kind to him. She’d smoothed over their arguments, offered a cool voice of reason when Sereya’s temper flared. She’d been a true gem, a Queen in every sense of the word. And Sereya, for all his fears and faults, had been a good man. Cas would miss them both. Not just as monarchs, but as people.
“Slow,” he said. “Four times speed.”
He watched as the royal couple nodded to the guards, exchanging a few words. They were obviously headed up to retire for the night.
More servants. More guard changes. A long period of little to no activity. He sped it up again. And then—
There. “Slow. Normal speed.”
All of his attention was on the projection before him. It was muted in color, nearly transparent, but three dimensional and visible to the smallest detail. Two guards stood at the entrance to the royal apartments. A third figure approached them with a determined stride.
“Stop.” The recording froze.
Casimir circled the figure, studying.
“Continue.”
She was nothing but a girl. Sixteen, seventeen perhaps? Of course, he knew better than anyone that appearances and age did not necessarily correlate. But watching as she spoke to the guards, noting the gleam in her blue eyes, the faint smile that tugged at her lips, he thought she was very young.
The guards passed her through as though they knew her. She wore a palace guard uniform, but Casimir knew every single one by face and by name. She didn’t belong here.
He followed her down the hall and up the stairs to the nursery.
Mother, how he’d hated that term. It wasn’t a nursery if the children in it were half grown, kept in a kind of stasis and forbidden to experience life. He’d shouted those words at Sereya once, but the King would not be budged.
Irritated with himself, he shoved aside the old argument. It was a moot point now. He watched the young woman dispatch the guards in the hall with ruthless e
fficiency. Watched her access the nursery and murder those within.
A soul blade. A weapon from the Ascension Wars. Very few had survived to this day and age, and they were almost always wielded by Talented. The almost kept him from jumping to conclusions. Even so, he strongly suspected what she was as he followed her to the King’s apartments.
“Vera, why didn’t you employ security measures when an unknown entered the palace grounds and drew a weapon?”
“There were no unknowns on the palace grounds on the date in question. All visitors passed through security. No weapons were drawn.”
Casimir stared at the evidence to the contrary on the holofeed. “Vera, how did the palace guards die?”
“Natural causes. Heart failure.”
“The royal heirs?”
“Mechanical failure in the nursery.”
“How did King Seraya die?”
“Natural causes. A brain aneurysm.”
“And Queen Jessa?”
“Natural causes. A brain aneurysm.”
Watching the girl kill the King and Queen from behind a locked door, his doubts vanished. She was one of them. The Talented. Worse, she was a Killer.
Old ghosts and long buried memories stirred deep within him. Ruthlessly, he shoved them back down. Nothing that had happened centuries ago could help him today.
AIs could be incredibly pedantic, but that was not all that was going on here. Someone had tampered with Vera. Likely, someone Talented with the ability to directly interface with the AI’s brain.
He didn’t need to follow the girl’s trail any further. Once outside the palace, he would lose her anyway. He let the recording fade and turned away from the royal family’s rooms. His own quarters weren’t far, and he went to them now. He’d be leaving soon, and this time he needed all of his things with him.