Cypher (The Dragon's Bidding Book 2)

by Christina Westcott

  Praise for Christina Westcott’s

  Dragon’s Bidding Series

  "No one does Science Fiction Romance like Westcott. Her signature style is a mix of blood-pumping action, sarcastic humor and romance to die for. CYPHER benefits from all three in a perfect balance that kept me turning pages well past bedtime. Highly recommended!"

  —Rhonda Mason, author of The Empress Game Trilogy

  “Fast-paced, hard-hitting and fun. A Hero for the Empire has action, romance, galactic political machinations and a snarky telepathic cat. A winning combination!”

  —Linnea Sinclair, award-winning author of the Dock Five Universe Series

  “…there are some pretty heart-racing adventures happening in A Hero for the Empire…. I liked that there are plenty of surprises and a lot of action. The adventure is great, but mostly I loved the characters in A Hero for the Empire, human, cat and ship. If the series continues, I hope to see more of Fitz and Wolf. For adventure, intrigue, spaceships, cybernetics, heroines, heroes and, let’s not forget, cats, I recommend A Hero for the Empire.”

  —Whiskey with my Books

  “(Christina) Westcott enters the world of space operas with a rousing tale that combines romance and science fiction without being too heavy-handed in either genre. The heroine is a kick-ass soldier committed to doing the right thing and the hero is more than the sum of his parts. The worldbuilding is solid, the aliens are creepy and the addition of telepathic cats is pure genius.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Cypher

  By Christina Westcott

  CYPHER

  Copyright © 2016 by Christina Westcott

  Cover by The Killion Group, Inc.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, locations, and events are solely a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or any events, locations or organizations is purely coincidental.

  All Rights are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except for brief quotations used in articles and reviews.

  First electronic publication: August 2016

  First print publication: August 2016

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BONUS MATERIAL

  Cypher. (Late Scyran Empire—532 to 893 ER)

  (1) n. A secret way of writing; a code

  (2) n. A person of no importance, especially one who does the bidding of another and seems to have no will of their own.

  (3) v. Military. To erase all records of an individual, rendering them nonexistent.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Wolf Youngblood tapped his knuckles against the shuttle’s armorglass window. “Too easy,” he muttered, but Kimber FitzWarren’s augmented hearing picked up the words. She studied her partner’s profile and chuckled.

  “Easy? You must have a different definition of the word than I do. I recall taking a slug to the chest. You getting shot. My ship crashing. Being swarmed by mind-sucking parasites, attacked by giant bugs, and tangling with a pair of imperial warships. Not to mention the past two months of non-stop political wrangling, deal making, and ass kissing to set up a workable new government for Ari Ransahov.”

  The shuttle banked, and through the window Fitz spotted their destination below. A crowd surrounded Dragonhalle, the site of every Scyran Emperor’s coronation for the past two centuries. Onlookers surged around the building and overflowed into the streets and surrounding parks, altitude rendering their colors into a restless pointillist painting. The people of the Empire had come out en masse to celebrate the passing of their old ruler and greet the arrival of the new.

  Wolf squeezed her hand. “You know what I mean. Since we left Baldark I’ve expected to run into some kind of resistance from the old Emperor’s cronies. Ashcraft had over two decades to corrupt everything he touched—senators, contractors, functionaries, even the military. I thought someone would take a shot at us.” He tapped the armorglass again. “Not this walk in the park.”

  “It’s not over yet,” Fitz said. “I keep expecting to see Janos Tritico grinning from the crowd just before the world blows up in my face.”

  “You’ll never see Jan. He stays in the shadows, keeps his hands clean, and pulls the strings, like a good puppet master.”

  “And I let him get away.” Fitz grimaced, remembering that smiling face in her gun sights, and her hesitation.

  “I couldn’t hang onto him either,” Wolf said. “Jan’s slippery. We’ll get him, but until we do, he’s the reason all this quiet is grating on my nerves.”

  “Leave it to you to get antsy when things go right.”

  Fitz guessed Wolf wasn’t the only one spooked by the quiet. Arianne Ransahov rose from her seat and made her way down the passenger aisle toward them. The tall, copper-haired woman had been a legend, a hero to Fitz and every other graduate from the Imperial Academy, but in the last few hectic months, Fitz had come to know her as a charismatic, if flawed, human being. And a friend. As the shuttle turned onto its final approach, Ari stumbled and dropped into a seat across from them.

  “Careful,” Fitz said. “Wouldn’t do to break your neck on the way to your own coronation.”

  Not that it would matter to Ari—to any of them, not with the alien symbiont living inside them and healing their wounds with incredible speed. A short time ago Fitz had been dying of Tinkerman-Kasahari Syndrome, the disease that shortened the life of all cybernetically augmented personnel. Now she was a Lazzinair, named after August Lazzinair, the doctor who stumbled across the life-extending procedure decades ago. Virtually indestructible, perhaps even biologically immortal, she could die of catastrophic injuries, but the symbiont would continue to repair all but the most horrific damage and stave off the ravages of age for only the gods knew how long. She hadn’t quite got used to that; the thought still made the breath catch in her throat.

  Ari’s hands twisted together in her lap as she stared out the window at the spires and sky bridges of Striefbourne City growing closer as the shuttle descended.

  “After all this time, it’s hard to believe that I’m back, and in a matter of minutes, I’ll be stepping up to the Dragon Throne. It all seems…”

  “Too easy?” Wolf asked.

  Fitz shot him a sideways glance before turning to Ari. “Easy or not, it looks like you might get that bloodless coup you wanted.”

  Ari’s hope to bring change to the Empire without a protracted civil war had been little more than wishful thinking, but when they’d jumped back to Scyr, a taskforce half the size of their little fleet of co-conspirators had awaited them at the hyperlimit. With the bulk of the Imperial Fleet at Rainbow, Meyerbridge, and Beckswold, and the carrier group securing Hideyoshi Shipyards, little remained in the Scyran system beyond a single group of outdated ships making up Home Guard.

  Fitz had stood at Ari’s shoulder as Home Guard’s commander, Admiral Aloi
s Pettigrew, contacted them. A short man, his white uniform stretched across a paunch that suggested a predilection for sweets. Whether it was seeing the legend of Ari Ransahov alive and defiant, or realizing his current Emperor was a bent and drooling husk, Pettigrew had sensed change in the wind and ordered his fleet to stand down and let them pass.

  Fitz’s stomach had been a hard knot during the long fall into the system, barely able to keep food down. She’d waited for the wail of battle stations or a pulse rifle fired from a shadowy corridor, but they never came. She sighed in frustration. Wolf was right—too easy, but in a few hours it would be over. Ari would be the Emperor, and Fitz would begin her new job of protecting her liege every waking hour.

  The ship’s landing skids crunched onto the pavement, and a shudder rippled through the cabin as the engines spun down. Fitz leaned across Wolf to the window, studying the crowd encircling them.

  A cordon of white-and-gold armored Praetorian Guards struggled to restrain a crowd of people anxious to get their first look at their new leader, and their last at the man who had created so much terror and destruction in their lives. The circle tightened as the press of humanity drove the guards forward.

  “The Emperor’s Guard,” Wolf said. “Do you trust them?”

  Fitz knew that Wolf’s interaction with the Praetorian Guard the last time he’d been on Scyr had been less than pleasant. “Their loyalty to the Emperor and the Dragon Throne is legendary.”

  “Yes, but Ashcraft is still Emperor for a few more minutes, technically.” He nodded his head toward the figure slouched between two marine medics. Vladimir Ashcraft’s hands quivered against his seat’s arms, and a drop of drool hung at the corner of his mouth.

  “Trust me, they realize the best course for the Empire is to put him aside and let Ari take control,” Fitz said.

  “I hope you’re right. I wouldn’t trust them to dig a latrine.”

  “I’m sure they’ll do what’s right, if only in self-interest—and besides, as Ari’s Chief of Security, they’ll be under my command. Don’t worry. As long as I’m in charge, I won’t let them lay a hand on you.”

  His blue eyes twinkled. “Can you say the same for their commanding officer?”

  Fitz matched his grin. “I can guaran-damn-tee you, soldier. Tonight I’ll lay way more than my hands on you.”

  “I’m looking forward to holding you to that promise, Colonel.”

  As Wolf pulled on his black armored gloves, Fitz caught the glint of the platinum ring on his finger, the mate to the one she wore. Exchanging rings during pair-bonding was a custom on Willcommin, Wolf’s homeworld. On the trip back to Scyr, they’d posted an open-ended bonding contract. Neither a dry-sounding legal agreement nor rings made her want to spend eternity with this man, but love—an emotion few augies ever had the chance to experience.

  “Weapons check.” He slapped down his tinted visor and stood, a tower of black armor. They each carried an Acton Mk IV strapped under their arm and a standard military-issue pulse pistol on their belt, along with one of the old-fashioned slug throwers. Since tradition stated that Emperors couldn’t go to their coronation armed, Ari had loaned Fitz her unique Koenigsagg-designed pistol. They also carried various knives, hide-out guns, and other lethal devices—some not entirely legal—secreted around their armor at Wolf’s insistence.

  Unarmed, Ari should have been accompanied by a phalanx of augmented bodyguards, but she trusted only the two of them. Fitz joked about her protection unit consisting of one and a half augies. Wolf couldn’t match her in strength and speed, his modifications being old and long out of date, but what he lacked in cybernetic assets he made up for in years of experience, first as an imperial officer and then a mercenary commander.

  The medics helped Ashcraft to his feet. Before they’d left their flagship, the Arianne Ransahov, he’d been given an injection of axathyline to stave off the ravages of the neurodegenerative disease eating away at his brain. Ari wanted him lucid enough to facilitate the transfer of power. As he shuffled past, flanked by his minders, a glint of intelligence showed in his eyes. And hatred.

  Fitz followed the trio into the airlock, waiting as the outer door opened and the ramp extended. She wanted Ashcraft to be the first out, to show the crowd what the madman who’d terrorized them had become. Immediately after the coronation, he would be ensconced in a plush, high-security sanitarium for whatever time his disease left him.

  A broad cross-section of Striefbourne City’s population had turned out, judging by the whiff of unwashed bodies and pricey colognes flowing through the hatch. Business suits blended with gray work coveralls and thrift store rags, but at the sight of their old tormenter, their voices united, swelling into chants and screams.

  “Murderer.”

  “Kill the bastard and his augie monsters.”

  The hair on the back of Fitz’s neck bristled at that remark. This could get ugly real fast. She commed the medics. “Get him inside. Protocol be damned. If he won’t walk any faster, sling him over your shoulder and carry him. Move now, before someone gets killed.”

  At first the Praetorians held the tsunami of protesters back, opening a path to the bronze doors of Dragonhalle, but the crowd poured forward. Raised hands clenched into fists, and debris flew out of the crowd, pelting Ashcraft and the marines. At first only garbage—half-eaten meat pies, food wrappers, and cups, many still full, splashed around the three, but then a rock smashed into one of the medics, staggering him. With vengeance’s floodgates open, anger poured out as people began stripping the nearby flowerbeds, hurling rocks and ornamental pots.

  The mob pushed toward the object of their hatred, and one of the guards holding them back slipped, falling to his knees. The crowd rolled over him.

  With the situation teetering on the verge of chaos, Ari brushed past Fitz and moved to the bottom of the ramp. Only those closest noticed the tall woman, at first. Missiles in their hands forgotten, they quieted, and a sigh rippled across the crowd as more and more turned to stare. The marines seized the opportunity and pushed through the wall of protesters, hustling Ashcraft into the safety of the hall.

  Ari stepped from the shadow of the aircraft’s wing and sunlight illuminated her, turning her hair into a halo of red-gold. She reached into the crowd, squeezing extended hands, grasping shoulders, and ruffling children’s hair. Fingers reached out to touch her, stroke her sleeve. A white haired man in a military jacket several decades out of date braced to attention and saluted her. Ari returned the gesture, and hundreds of voices roared their approval.

  Fitz pushed her way through the crowd to reach Ari. Due to the noise, she could only contact Wolf over her comm. “What does she think she’s doing?”

  She could hear a chuckle in his voice. “Being Ari.”

  “If one of Tritico’s assassins is here, she’s a tempting target.”

  “If someone shot her, she’d only get back up again.”

  “And that would raise more questions than we want to answer right now.” Fitz tried to urge Ari into motion, steering her through the parting crowd.

  “Maybe not,” Wolf said. “Listen to what they’re shouting.”

  At first she heard only noise, but then her acute hearing began to pick out words and phrases.

  “A miracle…”

  “She hasn’t aged, not a bit.”

  “Great Hansue be praised. The gods have sent her.”

  They moved in the eye of a hurricane of adoration. Hands stretched out toward their messiah, and Ari seemed intent on touching every one of them. The trio reached the building, but not until the huge doors clanged shut behind her did Fitz allowed herself to heave out the tight breath she’d been holding.

  “I can’t believe what happened out there.”

  “Just a little of the old Ransahov magic,” Wolf said.

  “But the sunlight. Even she couldn’t control that.”

  “She saw the opportunity, figured how they’d react, and made the most of it. That’s what she’s good
at.”

  They fell in behind Ari as a pair of Praetorian Guards led them along a wide hallway, its plush carpet swallowing the sound of their footsteps. Forced to move at Ashcraft’s shuffling pace, Fitz inspected the rich wood-paneled walls and old 2-D paintings, probably looking like a gawking tourist. Statues of heroes and emperors flanked them, and she half expected to see one wearing Ari’s face. Admiral Kiernan had brought her to Dragonhalle once as his bodyguard, but that had been to the Assembly room only, not this posh area of private office suites and conference rooms.

  More than just the site of the Dragon Throne, senators, elected by their constituents, met here to hammer out legislation and present petitions, but the ultimate power remained with the Emperor and the two Triumvirs—military and civilian. The Scyrans’ hybrid Imperial Republic served them well, as long as the Emperor remained fair and just, but two decades of Ashcraft’s rule had showed how horribly things could go off the rails with a despot in control.

  Wolf leaned close to whisper, not using his comm. “We should have brought the cats.”

  “Too many people. They’d have been trampled in that mess we came through.” Behind the tinted visor, she couldn’t see his face to judge his mood, but he held his shoulders tight, his back rigid.

  “I’d like to be able to tap into Jumper’s empathic senses about now, or perhaps Faydra’s telepathic ability.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Before he could answer, their guards stopped at a double door, pulled it open, and ushered them into a room, its desk and over-stuffed couches suggesting a waiting area for an inner office. A second pair of white-armored guards flanked the exit in the opposite wall.

  “Can you download a map of the building and tell where we are?” Wolf asked.