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

by Christina Westcott

  “Why the change of heart, Doctor?”

  “This wasn’t supposed to involve murdering Lazzinairs. Or working with those damn bugs.” Anger glinted in Von Drager’s eyes. “It started as a project for Special Operations. I wanted to unravel the mystery of August Lazzinair’s original experiments, find out what went wrong. They wanted to discover a way for augies to tolerate their implants longer, like you have. Last year DIS stepped in and took control of the project. Tritico strung me along with promises of his blood and tissue to study, then relocated me to this Yig-forsaken planet. That’s when he told me he’d killed Ari Ransahov. He expects me to dissect you for the answers, and now he’s pushing to have the procedure ready to use immediately.”

  The doctor scrubbed his hands across his face. “Gods, I can’t destroy one of you. You’re beautiful, perfect organisms. You could well be the next step in human evolution.”

  “I’m not your perfect organism, Von Drager. Just a poor bastard who survived a sadistic maniac’s experiment.”

  Von Drager’s head snapped back as if he’d been slapped. He turned away, placing the scanner carefully on the counter.

  “The attack on your base, Youngblood… Is it possible Cheril survived?”

  Wolf’s mind struggled to follow the other’s sudden change in direction. Cheril? Dr. Rauschtonkowski? “You know Ski?”

  “Yes, we’ve met at several medical conferences.”

  Wolf laughed. “You’re Logan, the young stud she talks about.”

  Von Drager looked up, surprised. “Is that what she called me? Her young stud?”

  “Doctor, I would be very unhappy with you if I discovered you were stringing Ski along just to pump her for information about the Lazzinairs.”

  “No, of course not. Cheril is a remarkable, beautiful woman. I’d never do anything to hurt her.”

  Wolf considered Cheril Rauschtonkowski one of his dearest friends. She’d talked him through nightmare-filled nights and helped him come to terms with what his body had become. She was a mother and a sister, his shrink and his confessor, but never had he considered calling the freckle-faced, ginger-haired woman beautiful. There was obviously more going on between her and Von Drager than she’d told him about.

  “If she was down in medical, and if the Empire used standard kinetic rounds and not penetrators, there’s a possibility she could’ve made it to an escape tunnel and survived.” Wolf felt an odd affinity for a man who wanted to know the fate of a woman he cared about.

  Von Drager nodded and started to say something when the comm unit clipped to his lab coat crackled to life.

  “Hey, Doc. You’ve got a monitor out again. I wouldn’t bug you, but it’s the room where the prisoner’s located and Smiley’ll have my ass if anything happens with him.”

  “Let me take a look. Maybe I can get it back online. If I can’t, I’ll call you in a couple minutes.”

  He crossed to the monitor. “There’s only one guard on this level overnight, and he’s used to seeing me work late. I’ll arrange another failure and make up a problem to lure him in here so you can subdue him and take his weapon.” Von Drager plugged in the cable and stepped in front of the pick-up. “Did that fix it?”

  “Looking good, Doc,” the voice replied. “I’ll try to get someone down there tomorrow to take a look at it.”

  “Tomorrow would be fine, Corporal.”

  He nodded at Wolf. “Until later.”

  As he stepped through the door, he blundered into Tritico entering the room.

  Wolf bit back a curse. Had Jan been standing there long enough to overhear all of their plans? Von Drager’s shocked and guilty expression should have been all Tritico needed to realize something was amiss, but he pushed past the doctor, eyes locking with Wolf’s.

  “I ordered you to keep our guest sedated. Not only have you ignored my wishes, I find you’ve tucked him in all nice and cozy like he’s a guest at a high-priced hotel.” Tritico stripped off the blanket and tossed it on the floor.

  The chilly air washed over Wolf’s body, raising goose flesh, but he kept his gaze locked with his tormenter’s in a silent battle of wills. Tritico looked away first.

  Von Drager picked up the blanket, folded it and placed it on the counter, covering the spike and injector case that lay in plain sight. “I’m a physician, and my pledge is to reduce suffering. What does it matter to you if he’s warm?”

  Tritico leveled a finger at the doctor. “Wrong, you’re a researcher, and this is just a test subject, who will be destroyed when the studies are complete.” He jabbed the finger down on Wolf’s chest. “If you don’t have the objectivity to kill him when this is finished, I will. Now, why have you stopped collecting blood?”

  “I have enough…”

  “For a full blood exchange?” Tritico asked.

  “I certainly hope so, Doctor,” a tremulous voice interrupted them. Two people entered the room.

  From his tense and watchful demeanor, Wolf knew the larger of the two was a bodyguard, no doubt an augie. He wore the black of SpecOps with three purple bands around the cuff of his uniform jacket. Von Drager’s clumsy attempt at a bow confirmed his identification of the wizened figure leaning against the augie for support.

  “Your Majesty.” The doctor’s face paled.

  Wolf had never seen a live tri-D newsie of Vladimir Ashcraft, only the official portrait. He compared the silver-haired man with the hawkish features seen in that image with the emaciated and palsied figure shuffling along beside his bodyguard.

  “You were right, of course, Doctor.” The old man’s speech was halting, the words slurred. “The progression of the disease has accelerated. The nan…ah…nanites have little effect on this thing eating my brain. And the axa…axathyline injections don’t hold it at bay for long now.”

  “I haven’t had time to begin any trials,” Von Drager said. “There’s still no explanation for the high mortality rate in the original experiments. I think I’m close, but I need more time to be sure of the results.”

  “I no longer have time, Doctor. This thing inside my head will kill me; your treatment…might. I’ll take that chance.” Ashcraft drew several wheezing breaths before he continued. “You will begin the transfusions…immediately.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty, but I’d like to do a quick examination before we start. If you’ll follow me to a treatment room.” Von Drager shot a desperate glance in Wolf’s direction before he led the Emperor out of the room.

  Tritico halted at the door and turned a toothy smile in Wolf’s direction. “Until later?”

  Bloody hell, their later threatened to become never. In all likelihood, the doctor would be tied up with Ashcraft’s treatment most of the night, and with the Emperor on the Medical level, the entire floor would be crawling with guards—at least one of which was an augie. Even if Von Drager could manage to slip away, their chances of getting off the base were growing slimmer with each passing second.

  Slim, but not gone, so he still needed to plan. He remembered every remote base he’d been stationed at during his career, recalled their every maintenance tunnel and environmental system, each emergency exit and lift shaft. When the time came, he’d have his escape route ready.

  And the planning kept him from thinking about Fitz.

  Von Drager returned several hours later, tapping at his datapad as he stepped through the door.

  “Finished already, Doctor?”

  “I convinced Ashcraft to wait until morning. I’d like to use this operating suite, so I’m going to relocate you later this evening, and then I’ll need time to get the room set up.” Von Drager’s gaze flickered toward the monitor.

  “The Emperor has access to some the finest medical teams in the Human Sector. No offence, Doctor, but why is he betting his life on your crackpot scheme?”

  “None of those high-powered teams have been able
to come up with a treatment. No one’s seen this disorder before. Ironic, isn’t it? A new disease. If the rest of the medical community knew about his condition, they’d no doubt want to name the syndrome after him.”

  “Couldn’t they just download his mind into a robotic body?” Wolf chuckled. “That’s right, he doesn’t have much of a mind left. How could they let a screw-up like this happen to the most powerful man in the Empire?”

  Von Drager opened one of the drawers and began rearranging his surgical instruments. “Ashcraft’s first duty assignment was with Survey. Apparently, he picked this up on a newly charted planet—either by accident or he broke protocol and ingested something. It behaves like a prion disease, a neurodegenerative disorder. It apparently lodged in his brain, but stayed dormant for decades. When it first began to express itself, the symptoms were vague. A forgotten word or difficulty with a minor task. By the time his doctors became alarmed, the progression had become so rapid there was nothing they could do.”

  “So introducing the Lazzinair symbiont, and letting it repair his brain is your only option?”

  The doctor opened another drawer and sorted through its contents. “Yes, but that presents another set of problems. The symbiont will rebuild the physical structure of his brain, but that’s not all that makes up a human being. It can’t recover what’s been destroyed. The memories, the personality, the very essence of what made up the being called Vladimir Ashcraft is in large part gone. In some ways, he’ll be a blank slate.”

  “A slate on which Tritico can write all his own ambitions,” mused Wolf. “And if your experiment fails, Jan is in a position to step up to the Emperor’s throne. It seems as if my old friend is in a win-win situation. Even if he doesn’t get his army of immortal augies, he still has his bug friends. Doesn’t bode too well for the future of mankind, does it, Doctor?”

  Von Drager took the blanket from the counter and draped it over Wolf, tucking it around him. “While I was examining the Emperor, Tritico received a comm. Seems as though that transport never arrived at the breeding facility, so they sent out a team to locate it. They found it still at the crash site, destroyed, and its crew dead.”

  Hope kicked Wolf’s heart rate up.

  “They found signs that a band of locals had been at the site,” the doctor continued. “But they hadn’t attacked the ship. It appeared to have been torn apart by energy weapons.”

  Lizzy’s dorsal laser cannon had survived the crash.

  Von Drager leaned close and tucked the blanket under Wolf’s chin, his voice almost too soft to hear. “There was no sign of your woman, only the tracks of a small person wearing military-issue boots running away from the crash site.” He left the room without a backward glance.

  Wolf laughed. Lizzy and Fitz against an Imperial transport? No question in his mind how that would turn out. His laughter grew, bordering on hysteria, but he didn’t care if the surveillance tech thought he’d gone mad.

  Fitz was alive. And she was coming for him.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  As the sun went down, so did the temperature. Fitz shivered, her breath a ghostly plume in the darkness. Too visible at night, she’d left her white fur cloak behind with the horses back in the forest. Instead, she had the hood on her jacket up and her face darkened with a mixture of charcoal and cooking fat.

  Fitz knew she could sneak onto the base alone, find Wolf and free him, but Ransahov’s insistence that they accompany her threatened to destroy her chances of success. The former Triumvir’s wild plan was reckless. She must have lost her edge in the time she’d spent on Baldark. Three people—four once Wolf joined them—against the reduced manpower of the base was risky enough, but that shuttle could have brought in replacements. She had no idea how many soldiers they could be facing. More intelligence on the ship’s crew compliment was necessary, but in the end, the need to free Wolf immediately won out over caution.

  They’d spent the afternoon picking their way through the forest and up the back side of the pinnacle, encountering more Tzraka sentinels, most dormant from the cold. Faydra gave them advance warning, and they’d been able to detour around the bugs. The one before them now however, would require a different strategy.

  They crouched beneath the last fringe of trees near the summit of the rocky prominence. Loose shale and debris covered its crest, making it impossible to creep across silently in the dark. They waited for moonrise. The sky over the mountain grew brighter, heralding the appearance of the satellite.

  The cats had led them to the ventilation shaft, following the scent of men and machinery expelled by the huge fans. The nearby maintenance entrance had been easy to spot by the Tzraka posted in front of it. The creature was a spiky ball of protruding limbs wrapped about by its long tail. Damn nice of Tritico to use a sentry that went dormant in the cold.

  “Do not underestimate them. Even torpid they are deadly quick,” Faydra warned her.

  Accustomed to Jumper’s one-way mental communication, she’d forgotten the pale cat could read her thoughts. “Yes, I’ve seen what they can do when they’re sluggish, as Wolf called it.”

  Ransahov tapped her arm and pointed to the bright flash just visible above the dark bulk of the mountain range. “Are you ready, Commander?” Faydra relayed the message to maintain their silence, then she and Jumper padded toward the sentry.

  Fitz nodded and unslung the sniper rifle. She stretched out on the cold ground and braced her elbow on a rock, following the pair’s progress through the scope.

  When the two cats spoke, they kept their conversations unheard but Fitz noticed the looks that passed between them. Perhaps Faydra had managed to change Jumper’s mind on the subject of calicos. He certainly was a willing participant in the dangerous game the pale cat called bug-dancing.

  The two felines clambered up onto a boulder and began to howl, the screech part terrified infant, part ravenous beast. It raised the hair on the back of Fitz’s neck. And woke up the Tzraka.

  The bug reacted to the caterwauling with blinding speed, rearing and flicking out its blades. Fitz caressed the rifle’s trigger—once, twice and again. There was no kick, no flash, and the weapon made absolutely no sound. The only indication she’d fired was the Tzraka’s thorax exploding in a spray of ichor. The bug fell, twitched and went still.

  “All clear, Boss Lady,” Jumper said. “That was the only one.”

  Fitz dashed across the rocks, loose scree twisting and clattering under her boots. The outcropping that disguised the entrance appeared natural but up close turned out to be plastcrete. A recess held a plexisteel door with a standard military keypad access. She stripped off her glove and stepped up to the door.

  Ransahov slipped in behind her. “Can you open it?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I’ll only have three chances to enter the correct information, then it’ll lock me out and alert security.”

  The long alphanumeric sequence of the SpecOps password was impossible to remember without her computer. She’d have to rely on the manufacturer’s back door codes and hope base security hadn’t gotten around to removing them. Fitz took a deep breath and imagined herself back on that rooftop at Ishtok Base. She searched her memory for the number sequence. Only seven characters. It should be easy.

  It wasn’t. The screen flashed denied.

  Chuft. Was it 87 or 78? Concentrate. 78. It had to be 78. She tried again.

  Denied.

  She wiped her upper lip, smearing the sticky mess of sweat, grease and charcoal onto her lips and swallowed against the vile taste. She only had one more chance. If she blew that…

  “Commander, is this base run by a standard military AI?” asked Ransahov.

  “Yes, ma’am. A clone of Arachne.”

  Before Fitz could stop her, Ransahov punched in a string of characters. The screen turned green, and the door clicked open.

  “What did you do?”

/>   “Triumvirs have an access code that can override any locks, no matter how high the security clearance. I took the chance they hadn’t changed it.”

  Ransahov started to step through the door, but Fitz pulled her to a stop, pointing to the top of the opening. “Wait, there’s a security camera here.”

  Perhaps Triumvirs never had to learn the finer points of breaking and entering. She reached inside and brushed the unit’s housing. As she pulled her hand back, she noticed the sticky mess coating her fingers. “We need something to smear on the lens and this will work.” She scraped the black grease from her cheeks and forehead, then packed the mixture on the lens. It wasn’t as elegant as nano-glop. They’d know someone had been here, but by the time they discovered it, she’d have freed Wolf, and the diversion they planned would keep the Imperials busy.

  Fitz consulted her handheld and started down the hallway to the right; Jumper padded ahead of her on point while Faydra guarded the rear. She led them down, taking the stairs carefully to avoid the clatter of footsteps on the metal. A doorway at the end of a short corridor opened into a locker room, revealing firefighting equipment and protective suits hanging on one wall. Fitz pointed to a hatch on the other bulkhead.

  “The hanger deck is through there. This room provides access to the flight line in case of an accident or fire.” Fitz checked the room’s terminal. “The second shift is almost over. The tech in the control tower will be tired, anxious to get off duty and, hopefully, a little inattentive. We need to move now, before his replacement arrives.”

  Fitz brought up the feed from the camera outside the door. The screen was black, but she began to pick out shadows and angles, little scratches and imperfections that told her she was looking at the skin of a starship close up. She switched to an overhead display.