She scowled. “You’re not lying?”
“Believe me, you’re the last woman in the universe I’d want for a concubine,” he said firmly. “Besides which ... I have no interest in any human woman, period.”
Jira thought of Qloe Apta. The Nu was onboard the Steadfast now, helping to hide the Protectorate vessel while staying in constant contact with the Lusus. She didn’t seem like the kind of creature that would tolerate faithlessness.
“Fine,” she gritted out. “I’ll do this. But only for as long as it’s absolutely necessary.”
He sighed and lowered himself before her on one knee. He handed her a glittering bracelet. “Remember, my dear. You were a complete and utter failure as an Imperial concubine. You survived years in the Imperial palace, no doubt dodging hideous Satori princes day and night. You have my respect and admiration for that achievement. I have no doubt that you will continue to be a complete and utter failure in your role as my concubine.”
She picked at the bracelet and allowed a faint smile to appear on her lips when she noticed the locator node disguised as one of the stones. “You’re right about that.”
“This bracelet will allow me to find you. You’ll need to focus. Look for any opportunity to hack into whatever systems are available to you, and search for information about where Redeker might be. My job is to shield you and get you access. Try to hide your general hatred and loathing of me and the rest of the Empire as best you can, or you’ll blow your own cover.”
She slid the bracelet onto her wrist. “I’ll try not to do anything stupid,” she promised at last.
“You’re young. I expect half the things you say and do to be stupid,” he said, drawing on all the patience he’d developed dealing with ensigns fresh from the Academy. “Get it all out now, before we reach the shipyards. Get dressed. We’re going fishing for information on one of the stations first, and I need a pretty thing on my arm to put a captain or two off his guard.”
“Lees!” A stout man in a crisp captain’s uniform reached out and clasped his hands around Tarillion’s arms, his tone surprised. “What the devil are you doing here? Got tired of the frontier patrol circuit, at long last? I never thought it would happen!”
“Hoc,” he acknowledged just as warmly. He grasped the man in friendship before he gestured to Jira. “This is Amraali,” he said. “She’s the one who got tired of life on the frontier. You know me—I’m a creature of habit. Amraali, Hoc and I were classmates back at the Academy. He’s the captain of the Tachi now.”
“Ah, my lady Amraali,” said Hoc, taking Jira’s hand and kissing it. “It appears I have you to thank for hauling Lees out of his hopeless rut. Welcome to Alpha Station.”
Jira showed some teeth, hoping that she looked soft and inviting. “I’ve heard so much about Albion from Lees. It took me ages to convince him to take me here, but I wore him down eventually. I’m good at that.” She cast a coquettish look at Tarillion, whose face was impassive as he gazed back at her.
I can’t do all the work here, Captain, she thought irritably. At least pretend like you’re attracted to me.
“I’m sure that all the young ladies on the frontier want to see Albion Prime, my lady,” said Hoc. “Buy some pretty dresses and trinkets in the capital, yes? But what a pity—Lees took you here to Albion Secundus instead. Not much to interest a lady here, I think.”
She flashed him another toothy smile. “Oh, you might be surprised.”
Tarillion clamped a hand around her wrist. It was a warning. The gesture no doubt looked like jealousy to any casual observer. “Amraali is ... curious about everything,” he said to Hoc. “I found her on a pig farm on Ultaxe. Wouldn’t want to overwhelm her with Albion Prime just yet. Her little brain might just explode.”
A pig farm? Jira kept her smile but gritted her teeth. You’ll pay for that, Tarillion.
She laughed. It sounded shrill and false to her ear but Hoc was either too polite or too oblivious to notice. “Believe me, Hoc, you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to get his attention on Ultaxe when there were such attractive pigs in the vicinity,” she said with a sigh. “You’d think he was more interested in livestock than women. It’s such a trial keeping Lees entertained.”
She felt his fingers tighten on her wrist. Victory, she thought to herself.
Hoc smiled. “It must be a credit to your charms that you’ve convinced Lees to bring you here. He’s all too leery about coming back to Secundus. Too afraid you’ll get a promotion that takes you away from all the frontier lovelies like you, eh?”
“Well now I’m here,” said Tarillion, seeming all too glad to lead the conversation away from Ultaxi swine farms. “Can I buy you a drink, Hoc? Consider it an apology for having stayed away for so long.” He let go of Jira’s wrist and pressed his hand firmly against her hip. “Amraali, my sweet, why don’t you go amuse yourself why the men talk? I don’t want to bore you, my darling piglet. I know you haven’t the mind for ships and battles and that sort of thing.”
She placed her hand over his and dug in with her nails, just enough to send him a message. “Of course, darling.”
He leaned over and brushed his lips against her right earlobe. “One quarter subcycle,” he murmured. “And no more.”
As Tarillion turned his full attention to Hoc, Jira walked away, hoping that she wasn’t fuming too visibly. He was rubbing it in, she was sure of it. Well: she had to focus on more important goals than retribution against Tarillion. For now.
She strode through Alpha Station, praying that she didn’t look too conspicuous. There were, thankfully, enough doctors and a few other women walking through its halls that she didn’t look entirely out of place; there were even a few other women who were undoubtedly wives or concubines, dressed in gowns and jewelry. Even so, she could feel the eyes of the station’s men on her as she walked through, her head held high and her eyes blank. For a moment, she felt as if she were back in the Imperial palace.
There. It was a general comm center, open to anyone. She found an empty niche and slipped in, leaning over the terminal as she entered a string of instructions and then a datapiece with a virus of her own design on it, deleting her tracks as quickly as she made them.
Search one. All arrests in the Seo system for the past standard quarter year. She ran a filter through the results, searching for men of Conrad’s description and age.
No pertinent results.
Frowning, she typed in another set of parameters. All male prisoners taken into Imperial custody within the past year. She scanned the results. Still nothing.
She checked the time. Not much remained.
Fine, she thought defiantly. We’ll do this the hard way.
She circumvented the obvious safeguards, probing Alpha Station’s AI for weaknesses. She couldn’t enter the fleet’s sprawling network of systems and databases herself, but an AI could.
All I have to do is commandeer the AI for a few seconds. That’s all I’ll need, and then—
“My lady.” A heavy hand fell on her shoulder. “What exactly are you doing?”
She froze, then forced herself to relax just as quickly. With all the disdain she could muster, she pushed the hand off her shoulder and spun around, grateful that even now her virus was removing all traces of her activity. I hope.
It was a man wearing the uniform of a station guard.
“Who in all the hells are you?” she snarled in a preemptive attack. “And how dare you touch me.”
“The station AI sent me. You’re trying to do something prohibited to the—”
Jira drew herself up, touching the bracelet to open a line to Tarillion. She wasn’t tall, but she knew how to use what she had. “I’m a captain’s concubine,” she said. “How dare you. You’ll receive more than a reprimand for this—you’ll be lucky to keep your head. My master is a very jealous man—”
Now the guard was beginning to redden. “You—er, I have no interest in anything, ah, like you, madam.”
“Are you i
nsulting me, now?” she demanded. “Not good-looking enough for you, am I?”
“You’re very attractive,” he said, beleaguered. “It’s only that—I, uh ...”
“That’s why you touched me,” she declared loudly. “You’re a deviant.”
“My lady,” he said weakly. “If you could please just—”
Jira heaved a sigh of relief when she saw him, walking quickly—but not too quickly—towards them.
“Young man,” said Tarillion, moving to intervene. “Has my concubine been giving you trouble?”
“Sir,” the guard said, looking increasingly ill as he recognized Tarillion’s rank. “Ah—she tried to—”
“He touched me,” Jira said, “here.” She pointed to her chest.
“No! I certainly never—sir, I touched her shoulder—”
Tarillion merely smiled and shook his head. “Amraali, you’ve wandered off again. Causing trouble, I see.”
The guard pulled himself together. “She was attempting to circumvent the safeguards to commandeer the station AI,” he said in a rush. “It sent me here to arrest her. Sir.”
“My Amraali?” said Tarillion. “Young man, you vastly overestimate her intelligence. She’s a sweet girl, but I didn’t purchase her for her brains, if you understand me. What’s your name?”
Jira’s face flushed but she knew better than to say anything now. The guard looked between them, dubious. “Fraker Hobe, sir,” he said. And I do believe you, of course,” he said. Jira felt her indignation rise. “But in the interest of station security, I should—”
“Leave the girl alone, Mr. Hobe,” Tarillion interrupted. “Yes. That’s precisely what you ought to do. Listen to me, now,” he said, a steely edge entering his voice. “I plucked her off a pig farm on Ultaxe when she was fifteen. She hasn’t the education to do what you’re accusing. In all honesty, the girl can’t even read Canonic, much less attempt an attack on an Imperial AI. Now, I need to report to the Citadel and directly to Admiral Karsath within the next standard cycle. If I am delayed because of accusations made against my concubine, I will hold you and the station AI responsible. Understood?”
The guard shrank back. “Admiral Karsath?”
“Return to your post, Hobe,” Tarillion ordered. “I’ll discipline this girl myself.”
He grabbed Jira roughly by the arm and yanked her away from the terminal, so quickly that she barely had time to pocket the datapiece. She shot him a dirty look. He merely raised an eyebrow, shook his head, and marched her away.
“Stop saying that I’m a pig farmer,” she hissed.
“I never said you were a pig farmer,” he replied. “Farming is respectable. I said that you were an illiterate harlot, to be precise.”
“How Qloe Apta puts up with you, I’ll never know.”
“Qloe Apta isn’t an illiterate harlot or a pig farmer.”
“If the Lord High Admiral doesn’t kill you before this is over,” she muttered under her breath, “I’ll do Apta a favor and off you myself.”
Tarillion watched Jira carefully as the shuttle began its descent through Secundus’s atmosphere. To his relief, she had been more subdued after the incident on Alpha Station. She looked properly miserable, for which he was glad. He was reminded of why he never particularly liked young women. Their looks were, he decided long ago, not worth the trouble. Fortunately for him, Qloe Apta was hundreds of years old—at least.
He turned his attention to the planet below. There was something in the air, he thought, shifting his focus. Something electric. He remembered the feeling; he knew what it was.
An annexation was coming.
Hoc had whispered it to him over a mug of shiroppu-spiked beer. Annexations were top secret, technically never to be discussed except with explicit permission from command. But for major annexations every soul on Albion Secundus knew what was happening and yet no one spoke of it in the open until the orders were given.
“Where are we going, exactly?” Jira demanded. Tarillion sighed. She seemed to have a pathological inability to stay quiet.
“The Citadel.” It was the soul of the military, the place where admirals and generals lived. He had temporary quarters there—appointed by Karsath after the annexation of Moruus. At least, he hoped that they were temporary. There was nothing that Tarillion wanted more than to return to the relative peace and quiet of the frontier. Fate, however, seemed to have other ideas. As did Admiral Karsath. He could feel Jira’s stare on him and sighed again.
“There’s nowhere safer?” she asked. “You’re taking me directly into the belly of the beast.”
“It’s where you’ll want to be,” he said. “We’ll only be there for less than ten hours. If you’re still keen on infiltrating the databases after your disastrous attempt on Alpha Station, that is.”
“That AI was programmed to be unnecessarily suspicious. Too many people coming and going. I’ll have better luck with the Citadel computers. They’ll have let them go soft, guarded as the planet is.”
“I sincerely hope you’re right, and that this won’t end with our headless bodies nailed to the Citadel walls.”
She frowned at him before picking up the data tablet that provided an overview of the systems and databases contained in the Citadel. It was easy enough for Tarillion to have pulled the summary—and he hoped that she could deliver on her promises.
He noticed that a light on the comms panel was blinking. With dread in his gut he checked the message—it was on relay from the Lusus.
“Ah, hells,” he said to himself.
“What’s that?” Jira said, looking up from her tablet.
The Lusus relayed the summons from Admiral Karsath himself—along with a notice of permanent reassignment to Albion Secundus.
“Emperor’s arse,” he muttered darkly.
Chapter 26
The Satori rumbled as it rose up from its burial chamber, dirt and ashes sluicing down its sides. It had been contained in a vault that opened slowly, shunting aside vast amounts of earth. The mechanism had been put in place a long time ago, but it still functioned flawlessly.
He wondered how long it had been since it had last been used. Kazu talked about the ship in the past and present tense. Sometimes it seemed as if he was uncertain of what era he lived in. The recluse had no doubt gone partially insane on Arkona’s wastes.
But as he prepared the Satori for flight, he detected no hesitation or erratic behavior in Kazu. He performed as calmly as if he resurrected the massive ship every day, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
Kazu leaned over an instrument panel behind the cage. The officers’ chairs were empty, but the screen slowly flickered to life, showing the churn of earth and then the abrupt transition to flying in atmosphere. Arkona’s red-gray skies were stormy with warning as the Satori ascended, her body groaning from neglect and disuse.
“I can’t believe she still flies,” he said, thinking that Kazu couldn’t hear him over the clattering.
“She was never meant to fly in atmosphere. This ship was designed for a long voyage through deep space. Once we get up there—you’ll see what she’s made of, old friend.” Kazu was in a warm mood, as if he hadn’t almost slit his student’s throat a mere two days ago.
The rattling faded once they exited the mesosphere. Suddenly, the ship seemed to glide, no longer constrained by the gravity of the planet. He heard only the soft hiss of the ventilation system.
He exhaled, resting a hand on the back of the captain’s chair as he gazed at the screen. It showed the tempestuous planet below, and the inky blackness of space beyond.
“The portal lies half a day’s travel from Arkona,” said Kazu. “A modern ship can traverse the distance in half the time ... but the Satori requires patience.”
He felt restless. He paced around the bridge as Kazu looked on.
“You lack patience,” he said. “That does not bode well, Southwark.”
“I’m tired,” he said curtly. “Tired of not knowing. Tired of all t
he Lords-damned mysteries about this ship and this place and who I am.”
“Impatience will not serve you.”
“Serve you, you mean.” He stared at Kazu. “You’re not the one with an empty memory. I’ve been gutted and hollowed out. I’m empty. What memories I have aren’t really mine. All this to serve the Empire, and no one can even give me the dignity of a name.”
It was the first rebellion he could remember uttering, and it felt foreign and dangerous and good.
Something like regret glinted in Kazu’s eye. “You do have a name, old friend,” he said, approaching him.
“Southwark? That’s not my name. I can feel that now.” He felt a hint of triumph. He’d spent every day on Arkona ruminating over the name.
The name’s not real, he thought.
He took a step towards Kazu, unafraid. “You can’t keep the truth from me forever.”
“The truth?” Kazu smiled, as if humoring him. “That is the last thing I would ever do, old friend. I am giving you the truth.” He swept his arm towards the cage. “This is your destiny. It has been for every Southwark who has ever lived within the Empire. This cage will give you purpose, not freedom—if you are strong enough.”
“I won’t enter that cage again,” he said with conviction. “Not until you tell me everything you know.”
“Everything I know?” A rough chuckle escaped Kazu’s throat, and then his gaze grew serious. “Your father was the same way, you know,” he said. “Stubborn. Tadao fought me every step of the way. But he understood the grand design.”
That name. Something sparked again in the depths of his memory.
“Your father did what you are about to do. He was trained for it from childhood. He was a conqueror, as you will be.”
He was speechless at this revelation. Kazu drew closer.
“He was a great man,” he said, his eyes still looking at the screen, as if unable to face his protege. “And my oldest friend. He and I—we took on the galaxy together.” He clenched a fist. “We subdued hundreds of worlds. Brought them all into the Empire. We were brothers-at-arms to the very end of his life.” Kazu’s gaze was fond as he reluctantly turned to look at him.
Sanctuary's Gambit: The Darkspace Saga Book 2 Page 16