A Hero for the Empire: The Dragon's Bidding, Book 1

by Christina Westcott

  “What the bloody hell is going on here?” His voice was hard as ice.

  While the guards kept their pistols aimed in her direction, Fitz searched the walls and ceiling, taking several seconds to locate the artfully disguised scanning devices. She imagined the image of her displayed on their monitors.

  “You can’t bring her in here.” The woman at the desk nodded toward Fitz.

  “And why the bloody hell not?”

  “She’s an augie, sir. A cybernetic augmented…”

  “I’m aware of that. She’s my augie, and I take full responsibility for her.”

  “But you don’t understand, sir.”

  “I understand that the Atrium’s standards of hospitality have plummeted since my last visit.”

  “Sir, I’m sure if you and the lady would care to step down to our security office, we could sort this matter out quickly.”

  The men on either side of Fitz hooked her arms, leading her away. Wolf stepped in front on them. “Take your hands off of her.”

  A burly guard attempted to push him out of the way. When that didn’t work, he pulled his pistol. Even with her enhanced senses, Fitz had trouble following the speed of Wolf’s movements. He ripped the gun from the surprised guard’s hand and tossed it into one of the pools. The big man swung, but Wolf caught the fist, twisting the guard’s arm up behind his back and shoving him face first into the water after his pistol.

  Fitz’s captors pulled her clear of the melee as the remaining three guards swarmed Wolf. Lister might hire street toughs and bouncers for security, but they never stood a chance against a trained professional. She admired his ease of movement as he spun, kicking, punching and elbowing. To Fitz it looked more like a ballet than a brawl, and it was over in seconds. Three black clad figures sprawled on the carpet, groaning. Wolf straightened and adjusted his jacket.

  The man on her right raised his pistol. Fitz pulled her arm free and batted the weapon aside as it fired. The high pitched whine and explosion of a shattering flower pot told her the setting had been well above stun. Lister had decided to play rough. She drove an elbow into the man’s stomach, followed up with a left to the jaw. She moderated her punch. These were Normals, and she didn’t want to take anyone’s head off.

  The other guard grabbed her from behind, sliding his arm around her throat. She flipped him over her hip, pinning him to the floor with her knee in his gut and one hand resting on his chest. He struggled to rise but he might as well have been trying to lift an aircar. She smiled at him. “I’d stay down if I were you.”

  Black clads poured into the lobby from every door and opening, all headed in their direction. “Wolf, I think things are about to get interesting,” Fitz yelled.

  Her sensitive hearing detected running steps behind her. She rose, whirled and planted a knee in her would be assailant’s groin.

  The woman at the desk had her little stunner aimed at Wolf’s back. Fitz flashed across the room at hyperkinetic speed and snatched the weapon, ejecting the power core. She crumpled the pistol in her hand. The clerk’s eyes bulged as Fitz dropped the ball of twisted metal on the desk.

  Wolf went down, cursing and swinging, buried beneath an avalanche of bodies. Fitz waded in, picking up anyone wearing black and hurling them across the lobby.

  “Stop.” A woman’s voice cut through the pandemonium. Every Lister employee froze.

  Fitz dropped the body she held and watched the woman stalk across the marble floor. The newcomer was the first person she’d seen associated with the corporation who didn’t wear black. The tall, athletic figure was draped in a silver spangled red suit that set off her porcelain skin and blue-black hair.

  “What in the Goddess’ Name is going on here?” Her dark almond-shaped eyes flashed. The Lister employees scrambled up and rushed to form a neat—if battered and bloodied—line.

  Fitz helped Wolf up. He casually dusted off his trousers and wiped a trickle of blood from his split lip before he turned to the woman Fitz realized must be Miah Lister.

  Every bit as tall as Wolf, Lister faced him eye to eye. “Are you crazy? Pardon me, you’ve always been crazy, but are you just more insane than usual right now? Bringing that thing in here?”

  “She’s a woman, not a thing.” Wolf’s voice was tight.

  “Woman, thing, whatever. That’s an Imperial agent.” She jabbed a finger in Fitz’s direction.

  “She has as much right to be here as any citizen of the Human Sector. This isn’t the Midworlds. You elected not to sign on to the Baldemar Accords because you wanted to keep all your lucrative military contracts, so her presence isn’t illegal here. As long as she does nothing wrong—and I’ll vouch for her good behavior—you can’t detain either of us.”

  “Things have changed.”

  “I gathered as much. You let your bloody employees beat up old friends and body scan your guests like common criminals.”

  “Well, what did you expect?”

  “Common courtesy would be nice.”

  “I’m sorry, but those things go out the window when the missiles start flying.”

  Fitz’s mouth went dry. Wolf glanced at her, frowning, before he asked Lister, “Miah, what are you talking about?”

  “What do you mean? Have you had your head under a rock for the past three days?”

  He rubbed his chin. “No, but I did spend the better part of that time locked in a stasis box.”

  “A stasis box?” Lister shook her head. “Then you haven’t downloaded any updates or seen any tri-D newsies?”

  “We’ve been a little busy trying to stay alive since we left Rainbow four standard days ago.”

  “Oh, Goddess, Wolf, you don’t know?”

  Fitz wouldn’t have thought it possible but Lister’s perfect complexion grew paler. All traces of the women’s earlier anger were gone, leaving only profound sorrow. Fitz edged closer to Wolf and slipped her hand into his.

  Lister’s voice quivered. “Fifty-two hours ago, Alliance time, the Empire invaded the Midworlds. They hit Rainbow, Meyerbridge and Beckswold in a coordinated attack.”

  Wolf’s fingers tightened on her hand in a crushing grip.

  “When they cleared the hyperlimit at Rainbow, they launched kinetic rounds before anyone even knew they were in-system.” She rested a perfectly manicured hand on Wolf’s arm.

  “They took out Ishtok, Wolf. Your base was destroyed.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Running usually brought Wolf solace but not tonight. He raced through the stark utilitarian corridors of the Underworld, the working station beneath the Atrium’s glitz and glamour. No wealthy ship owners came down here, no tourists, only the pilots, dock workers and freighter crews that kept any commercial spaceport functioning. He avoided the main concourse with its tri-D screens blaring continual coverage of the invasion, or Murder in the Midworlds as they called it.

  A surveillance camera recorded the instant the kinetic rounds struck Ishtok. The newsies replayed the image repeatedly. Wolf couldn’t run fast enough to escape the picture of that fireball consuming his home, his friends and his life.

  He slowed at a familiar sign and walked toward the bar, trying to catch his breath.

  There had been a Padraic’s Tavern for as long as there had been a Hideyoski Shipyards. A jumble of scavenged ship parts, pieces of loader bots, and broken tractors welded into a tunnel formed the entrance to Paddy’s. Pieces of ships—hulls, bulkheads, consoles—covered every centimeter of the interior, from bits of scrap lining the wall to the entire side of a nacelle from an old Lister T-18 holding up the bar. If a ship wrecked or went to the breakers, its crew would salvage a piece, bring it to Paddy’s and laser weld it into the hodgepodge. Each year the walls grew thicker and the interior of the bar shrank, but that only added to the ambiance. Somewhere, under all those layers of ceramics, carbon fiber and plexisteel, Wolf knew he’d
find scraps of the black skin of old Imperial warships. Those dated from the time when Lister and the Empire were on better terms.

  He walked to the bar locating the spot he sought with no problem. His fingers brushed the smooth transparent coating. A thick plank of bloodwood once topped the nacelle, but patrons had taken to carving their names, ship logos and obscenities into the priceless wood, so the second owner—Paddy’s daughter—incased it in armorglass. Beneath succeeding layers of graffiti, he could still make out a faint set of initials carved into the wood by a very young Lieutenant Youngblood.

  In those days, he could still get drunk.

  A massive balding man came out of the back room, a keg of beer under each thick arm. He stopped dead when he noticed Wolf, his mobile features transforming from surprise to shock to joy. He put down his burden and rushed to grab his old friend’s hand.

  “Praise Hansue, Colonel. It’s good to see you. I thought I’d lost one of my best customers.”

  The faintest flicker of a smile crossed Wolf’s face. “Actually, Royan, you worried about what you were going to do with that case of vilaprim you ordered for me.”

  “You got that right. No one round here drinks that green slime.” Royan Kenryk’s smile disappeared. “That crazy cat of yours was in here earlier tonight with some wild tales—wildest of which was that you was still alive. Didn’t know if I could believe him or if he was just trying to bum a meal, like usual. I do know he lit out of here real quick when he heard the news of the attack.”

  Kenryk looked around. “That cute little sergeant who follows you around like a guard dog, did she make it out?”

  “Bartonelli?” Wolf shook his head. “I don’t know. If they had enough warning and time to evacuate to the lower levels, maybe. We always knew we’d be the first place the Empire would hit if they ever made a move on Rainbow. Hell, we were the only military the planet had, so we drew up plans for just such a scenario—even practiced them a time or two. That bloody base was built to survive just such an attack, but I’m not hopeful. I know how the Empire operates, and they wouldn’t have given much warning, just rounds screaming down through the atmosphere.”

  “That’s too bad. I always thought about hitting on her, and now I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  “Making a pass at Bartonelli can be tricky business. If she’s not partial to you, she might break, uh, have broken your arm.” Wolf grimaced. “Royan, I could use a bottle of that vilaprim. And three shot glasses.”

  The barkeep leaned close. “That might not be a good idea, Colonel. Anti-Imperial sentiment is running high in the Underworld, and, well, you look Scyran. That’s bad enough, but don’t make matters worse by sitting around drinking that green shit. No one guzzles that stuff but a snake…uh, sorry, Colonel. A Scyran.”

  “Don’t apologize. Snake, Lizard Licker, Dragon Fucker—I’ve heard them all, even been called most of them at one time or another.”

  Kenryk gestured to a table. “They’re from Transgal Limited. One of their ships was inbound to Beckswold when the Imperials shut down the gate, and they have another one stuck at Meyerbridge. Who know if they’ll ever see it again? They’ve been drinking all night and are spoiling for a brawl.”

  Wolf looked over his shoulder at the six people at the table and nodded. “Just give me the bloody bottle.”

  The bartender rolled his eyes and sighed. He disappeared into the back, returned with the ornate bottle of 110-proof liqueur and plunked it on the bar.

  He carefully lifted the front of Wolf’s jacket to peer at the weapons underneath and hissed through his teeth. “Just do me a favor. When the shooting starts, don’t use that hand cannon.”

  “This far inside the station, there’s no danger of a hull breach, and with your décor, no one would notice a couple more projectile holes.”

  “No, but that thing is loud, and it gives me a headache.”

  Wolf patted his shoulder holster, “I’ll be sure and use my nice quiet laser. Now, my bloody shot glasses, please?” He wiggled three fingers.

  As he crossed the bar, Wolf passed close to the group from Transgal. He nodded to a woman who followed him with hard eyes.

  He chose a table against the wall with a clean line of sight to the now glaring spacers and sat facing them. When the glasses were neatly aligned in front of him, he poured two fingers of the green liqueur into each.

  The three toasts were a Scyran tradition. The first was to the Dragon, the second to the Triumvir and the third was to the ship. Wolf would do it a little differently. He tossed back the first one. That was for Fenton Donkenny. The second was for Ski and the third for Sergeant Bartonelli. Bloody hell, he couldn’t even remember her first name. Alia, Thylia, or something like that. She hated the name and hadn’t wanted it on her personnel records. She had always been just Bartonelli.

  He refilled the shot glasses. At last count, he had four thousand, five hundred and seventy-five active duty troopers, dependents and civilian workers on his base. That left only four thousand, five hundred and seventy-two shots to go.

  Fitz cried. Not the tears trickling down the cheeks, runny nose kind of crying, but deep body racking, end-of-the-world sobbing. Unable to sleep, she sat on the edge of her bed with her head in her hands and let all the pain, grief and anxiety of the past few days pour out. Crying was cathartic, but she’d wrung out enough tears to fuel the Atrium’s waterfall, and she didn’t feel one damn bit better. Now she had the hiccups.

  There had been no romantic dinner for her and Wolf. Fortified by coffee and sandwiches, they’d retired to Lister’s plush office atop the station and watched the news reports. The first accounts had gotten out by Gate Comm. On all three worlds, it was the same story. No threats, no demands, just kinetic rounds streaking out of the sky. On Rainbow, the Empire had destroyed the governmental complex at Landsdown in addition to Ishtok. Each time the newsies replayed the footage of the base’s destruction, Wolf winched as if he’d taken a body blow.

  After the rounds stopped falling, the main body of the Fleet arrived. Their first action was to capture the Gates and shut them down—three of the busiest Gates in the Human Sector. There had never been a gate failure, let alone an intentional shut down, so the fate of all the beings in transit at the time could only be guessed at. The newsies speculated that the ships had been kicked out of that mysterious unreality between the Gates and were stranded somewhere in deep space. Talk of organizing search parties was bandied about, but Fitz didn’t think the physics of Gate travel worked that way. When there was no portal to receive the incoming traffic, tens of thousands of beings and hundreds of ships simply ceased to exist.

  Only a madman would order the shutdown of a Gate with traffic inbound.

  She lurched to her feet, grabbed her pillow and flung it across the room, knocking a metal figurine from its pedestal. She snatched up the sculpture and drew back her arm to fling it against the armorglass window, but stopped. Still augmented, trashing the entire suite would be no problem, but that wouldn’t put her world back together.

  Miah Lister had demanded she surrender her spike, but Wolf talked the woman out of it by agreeing to accept responsibility for all of Fitz’s actions. She placed the statue back on its stand and tossed the pillow on the bed. She wandered to the window she’d just contemplated smashing and leaned her forehead against the cool surface. The Atrium was in its night cycle, the artificial sun extinguished. Lights from the encircling hotel rooms glinted from the falling water. Too much like frainies. Fitz shivered and opaqued the glass.

  Before she’d left her familiar office aboard the AriR, the Gold Dragons were only a name in a file. Now there were faces behind that name; faces she would never see again. Ski and Major Donkenny. Bartonelli with her weird haircut. All gone. Murdered by Fitz’s Empire.

  She hiccupped.

  No, not her Empire. The ideal she’d pledged her fealty to all those years ago no longer existe
d. Perhaps it hadn’t then, but was only a glorious, dying dream.

  She paced out a path across the darkened room and back, her fingertips pressed against her mouth, trying to decide what to do now. She could go on. With Lizzy repaired, the trip to Baldark would be easy enough, but should she continue? Did she have the right to ask Ransahov to risk her life to save an empire that in all likelihood was too diseased to survive? It was one thing to throw her own life away—what little time she had left—on a hopeless crusade. She couldn’t ask the woman she so admired to do the same. She felt bad enough about involving Wolf.

  No, that wasn’t entirely true. Operations like the Midworlds invasion weren’t thrown together in a couple of days. Ashcraft have been planning this for months, and eliminating the mercenaries’ base was the logical opening salvo for any move against Rainbow. The attack on Ishtok would have happened regardless of her involvement. Wolf was alive now only because he’d been with her.

  She and Lizzy could go out to the Back of Beyond and work as real independent freighters. It would be decades, if ever, before the Empire attempted to bring those far-flung frontier worlds under its control. She’d be long gone by then.

  Perhaps she could persuade Wolf to sign on as her pilot. No responsibilities beyond getting the cargo delivered on time. No one shooting at them. Nothing but the long hours in transit between stations eating chocolate cake and getting to know each other…

  Fitz hiccupped and that pleasant dream evaporated along with all her doubts and indecision. She was SpecOps. She didn’t have a life; she had a duty. If there was the slightest possibility Maks Kiernan and his handful of conspirators had fought their way out of that attack and made it to the rendezvous point, then she had to be there, on time and with Ransahov.

  Fitz staggered. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept. The two days in the stasis box didn’t count. She must be exhausted or doubts wouldn’t have crept into her mind.

  A cup of hot chocolate would help her get to sleep.