In Evil Times

by Melinda Snodgrass

  She realized she had been gone from the Phantasiestück Palace for hours, and wondered if Boho would be angry. She hoped he wasn’t. She had wanted to see her sisters and a day spent not in bed with Boho had seemed attractive. Now that she had the sponge and spermicide she could be sanguine about his constant desire for sex, but it was becoming boring and she still didn’t know what all the fuss was about. She shook her head trying to dislodge the thoughts and stepped off the path and into the trees looking for a stick and a burial site. There was a rustle in the bushes and she tensed. Her sister Beatrisa peeked out through the leaves.

  “There you are. I wanted to say goodbye, but you weren’t in your rooms,” Mercedes said.

  Beatrisa stepped from behind the screening bushes. She was dressed in too-big slacks that were tightly belted at the waist with the cuffs rolled up. Her half-sister rightly interpreted her expression and a defensive frown wrinkled her brow.

  “What? You wear pants.”

  “Only when I’m in uniform,” Mercedes said.

  “Well if I’m going to be going to the High Ground I may as well get in practice.”

  Mercedes relaxed and gave a laugh. “Well, you’ve got a point.”

  Fourteen now, Beatrisa was tall and likely to get taller. Her black hair fell in tight curls to her shoulders and her pale golden-brown eyes set in her dark face reminded Mercedes of a cat. Beatrisa had always been a tomboy and apparently hadn’t outgrown the tendency.

  “I have a feeling you’re the only one of my sisters who is happy about this.”

  “You’d be right,” Beatrisa said. She sighed. “I hate that I have to wait four more years.”

  “Make use of them. Get your tutors to push math and the sciences. I had a terrible time trying to catch up on the STEM courses.”

  Beatrisa made a face, but then nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably good advice. I’ll do that. Whatcha got?” she asked with a nod toward the box.

  “Estella’s pet aria. It got loose and broke its neck. She wanted me to bury it.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “Okay.” They walked along in a companionable silence. Mercedes found an appropriate stick for grave digging and Beatrisa led her to a small pond where the surrounding soil was softer.

  A hole was dug. Beatrisa dropped to her knees and used her hands to shove the dirt over the box.

  “Do you play hooky often?” Mercedes asked.

  “Yeah. As long as I’m there for lessons with my tutor nobody notices what I do.”

  “Now that can’t be true. You’re a royal daughter.”

  “Yeah, one of many useless royal daughters. Too young to get married. Too old to be cute.” Bitterness laced the words. “Not that I want to get married.”

  “You might change your mind. I know it’s hard to believe, but boys stop being yucky at a certain point.”

  “So you say. How’s your boy?”

  “Pretty wonderful.”

  Beatrice gave her a shrewd look. “So why do you sound like you’re convincing yourself?”

  “And when did you get to be such a smart aleck?”

  “Like… forever.”

  Mercedes gave her a hug. “I love you, Bea, you’re the only person who hasn’t cried at me today.”

  Her younger sister made a rude noise.

  10

  THE MONSTERS IN THE DARK

  “Where have you been?” Boho tried to make it sound casual, but Mercedes heard the small thread of annoyance.

  He was seated in the bay window of the morning room with its view of the treble-clef-shaped fountain outside. He set aside his tap-pad. Mercedes had a quick glimpse of the marauder game before the screen went dark.

  “Hoping for some private, quality time with the sisters. Didn’t exactly work out as planned.” She shook her head and sighed… “I can’t believe we leave tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  “You seem upset,” Mercedes said.

  “Not upset. Worried.”

  “About?” She joined him on the window seat.

  “That maybe we shouldn’t have indulged quite so often. I’d—”

  “And whose fault was that?” Mercedes demanded.

  “Oh, mine. I accept all the blame.” He gave her his roguish smile. “I just couldn’t help myself because you are beautiful and sexy and generally magnificent and you drive me mad.” He punctuated each compliment with a kiss and Mercedes giggled. “Anyway, I would hate for us to get out to the ship and discover…” His voice trailed away. “I was thinking maybe we should make sure you’re not pregnant before we leave. The surgeon general does recommend that pregnant women avoid the Fold as much as possible.”

  He gave her a smile that their arms instructor Chief Begay would have described as shit-eating, reached into his pocket and pulled out a home pregnancy test kit. Mercedes felt a twist of guilt. There was no chance she was pregnant, but he couldn’t know that. She took the box and smiled at him.

  “Good thinking. Be right back.”

  “I’ll come with you. This is going to be… well, a special moment.” She obediently followed the instructions on the box while Boho looked on. “It’s really going to be hard to leave you tomorrow,” he continued. “I’ll miss you so much. I don’t know how I’ll stand it.”

  Their heads were together, bent over the stick. Boho had a look of smug anticipation. A red minus sign appeared on the stick. The smug expression vanished and Boho leaned back with a huff that was part surprise and part annoyance. Mercedes noted that Boho wasn’t nearly as handsome when he was frowning.

  “Looks like you won’t have to find out, darling,” she said.

  * * *

  As family dinners went this one was a ten on the horrible scale, though Mercedes did notice that the meal had been all of her favorite foods, beginning with lobster bisque, a delicate caprese salad, crab legs, creamed spinach, crispy shoestring potatoes, and concluding with a chocolate lava cake. Judging by the glares Constanza was sending her way, it hadn’t been her stepmother who had set the menu. As for the rest of the family: Tanis’s nose was swollen from Mercedes’ blow; Julieta had transferred her glares from Mercedes to the Emperor; Estella was looking forlorn; Delia was glaring at Constanza; Carisa was sniveling; Dulcinea was darting glances all around the table and then would go back to staring at her plate and playing with her food. And Boho was sulking. Mercedes assumed it was because she wasn’t pregnant. Only Beatrisa seemed impervious to all the emotional turmoil around her. She ate with happy abandon.

  Her father was pretending to be completely unaware of all the tension, or maybe he really was unaware. He kept up a constant flow of conversation, and didn’t seem to mind it was a monologue. As the servants cleared the cake plates and brought out the port and cheese the Emperor leaned back in his chair, beamed at them all and said, “Well, this was lovely dining en familia. We need to do it more often.” He placed his hands on the arms of his chair and a Hajin footman rushed forward to pull out the chair. The Emperor stood. He smiled down at Mercedes. “I can’t believe you leave tomorrow. Perhaps I should talk to the joint chiefs about making it a two-year tour rather than five.”

  “Remember, Daddy, no unicorns,” Mercedes said, her voice catching on a laugh.

  “All right. I won’t pull rank just to get my girl home sooner.”

  “Oh, Daddy, won’t you come and play Lego Heroes with us,” Delia wheedled.

  He tousled her hair. “I’d love to, sweetheart, but I’ve got some work to finish. Mercedes, Boho, will you join me?”

  Another footman had her chair pulled out almost before Mercedes had processed the request. Boho stood up, wiped his mouth and tossed the napkin onto the table.

  They followed him from the family wing to his office. Once inside the Emperor began activating security measures. Shutters fell across the windows, a low buzz showed that electronic countermeasures were in place. Mercedes and Boho exchanged glances. The readout over his desk projected several pages of a complex tax return.
One side held Arabic numerals, the other the strange symbols that the Tiponi Flutes used.

  “Have the Flutes emptied the treasury, we’re broke and you don’t want the citizens to know?” Boho quipped.

  “Oh, this.” With a sweep of the hand her father closed the file. “Just some tax figures from Xinoxex. I know the Flutes are supposed to be master mathematicians, but trying to make head or tail…” He shook his head. “Sorry. Unimportant.”

  The Emperor sighed, ran a hand through his hair and settled into his desk chair. “This is highly classified,” he said.

  “I sort of got that idea, Daddy,” Mercedes said.

  “You had asked why Rohan and I forced female service in the armed forces.” He tapped his ScoopRing and a hologram appeared in the air over his desk. It showed a section of the Milky Way far out on the reaches of the galaxy. Next to it was a list of ships—nine of them—a crew roster, and next to each entry was the terse appellation—lost.

  “Sector 470,” her father said. “The first ship lost was a scientific survey vessel doing research on dark matter. It was actually going to leave the galaxy to run experiments. We sent a scout to search for them thinking it was a Foldstream communication failure. The scout vanished. The next three were small, fast and armed exploradors. Again all lost without getting out a message or distress beacon. We followed up with a frigate. Same result.”

  “Why did you keep sending in one lone ship after another? Why not a fleet or at least a squadron?” Mercedes asked, hoping it didn’t come across as too accusatory.

  “We did after we lost the Nasiriyeh. We sent a three-ship squadron. They were lost as well.”

  Mercedes’ finger brushed through the name, Nasiriyeh. “Commander Zeng was assigned to that ship.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what you meant when you said he’d been sent on a dangerous mission. You knew he’d most likely die or at least vanish.”

  “Yes.”

  Boho’s head was swinging back and forth between them. “What? Wait, I thought Zeng was promoted. That’s why he left the High Ground.”

  “Oh, he was promoted. Right to heaven,” Mercedes said dully.

  “He was part of the plot against you. Wow.” Boho shook his head then looked approvingly at his father-in-law. “Well done, sir. The actual facts stay hidden, but the message was sent and received for any others who might be thinking about making a move against the throne.”

  The two men in front of her suddenly morphed into one and Mercedes wasn’t sure she liked either of them. “There were one hundred and twenty-four other men on that ship,” Mercedes whispered through stiff lips.

  “Yes. I regretted that,” the Emperor said.

  “You could have just executed Zeng,” Mercedes countered.

  “No, he couldn’t,” Boho interrupted. “I just explained that to you.” There was a sudden sharp pain. Mercedes uncoiled her clenched fingers. Her nails had left imprints in the skin of her palms. “If he had it would reveal the true nature of the plot against you.”

  “The military could not be implicated—” her father said.

  “Even though they were!”

  “This was cleaner.”

  “Your father’s right. If there had been a trial who knows what Zeng or the others might have said.”

  “It’s still murder,” Mercedes whispered.

  The men’s eyes met. “Don’t worry, sir,” Boho said. “I’ll help her.”

  That snapped Mercedes’ control. “I don’t need to be handled! I understand I have to be a military leader and that in war there are casualties. This was different and if the two of you can’t see that… well, that disturbs me.”

  “Once you’re in my position you’ll understand. There’s not a lot of room for idealism. Now can we get back to this?” Her father brushed a hand through the image. “Bottom line we don’t know what’s out there. So we’re preparing for any eventuality.”

  “By not figuring out what’s out there?” Mercedes snapped.

  “We can’t lose any more ships. It became increasingly difficult to hide the losses from the press, the rest of O-Trell and the crewmen’s families.”

  “Have we tried drones?” Mercedes asked.

  “Same result. They never report back.”

  A hard knot formed in the pit of her stomach. There was something in the darkness that killed ships. And she was about to serve on a ship. “So we’re pursuing a defensive strategy.”

  “For now.”

  “Smart,” Boho said. “Build up our forces with women.”

  “You think it’s an unknown alien race?” Mercedes asked.

  “That or some unknown and deadly space phenomenon. Neither makes me very happy.” The Emperor paused, frowning off into space. “And of course the third option— that it’s the Cara’ot. They were the last of the aliens to be subdued and the most technologically advanced. They could be building a massive weapon out there.”

  “I assume SEGU has been watching for Cara’ot activity on the edges of that sector?” Mercedes asked.

  “Yes, to no effect,” her father answered.

  “The last great battle between us and the Cara’ot was almost two hundred years ago. If they had a weapon that could destroy a ship before it can even issue a mayday don’t you think they’d have used it by now?” Boho asked.

  “I think they’re aliens and therefore, ultimately, inexplicable to us.”

  “So we’ve closed the closet door and we’re not looking under the bed. That’s our strategy?” Mercedes asked.

  “For now. There are plenty of other areas where we can advance. For now Sector 470 and all adjacent sectors are off limits.” He gave her a level look. “Unless we find ourselves in need of it again.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is a convenient place to hide the bodies,” Mercedes said, her tone waspish.

  “It’s one of the consequences of rule—there will always be bodies.” The Emperor ran a hand across his face, and shut down the holo. “Perhaps it would be better if there had been a real hot war in the past hundred years. I fear we have become complacent.”

  The security shutters whined back into their slots and sunlight danced off dust motes, echoes of the stars from the holo. The buzz of the electronic countermeasures ceased, to be replaced by birdsong. Mercedes shivered.

  * * *

  An alarm was blaring through the corridors of the battle cruiser Triunfo and the robotic voice of the computer was intoning, “Hull breach. Hull breach.” Tracy came out of his bunk as if he’d been catapulted. He had once again fallen into bed at 4:10 a.m., exhausted from having been on duty from midnight until four. He had been doing this for twelve days despite the rule that he should have been rotated off the middle watch. It was a flagrant violation of the rules by his immediate superior, Captain-Lieutenant Lord Karl Westley, but no one higher in the food chain had noticed so Tracy continued to be on duty in Weapons night after night after night.

  The three men he bunked with also made certain he snatched only a few hours of sleep. Lieutenants Gupta, Eklund and Bellard continually rousted him out of bed for breakfast despite the fact he’d had not quite three hours of sleep. Because they outranked him he had no choice but to comply. Three nights ago he’d gotten no sleep because he’d returned to his quarters to find all his toiletries broken and strewn onto the floor of their bathroom. He had been ordered to personally clean up the mess rather than turning to his batBEM before he hit the rack. It was stupid, juvenile behavior not even worthy of high-school bullying, but lodging a complaint was not an option.

  If it had just been Gupta and Eklund, an uneasy balance might have been achieved, but Bellard had thrown in with Eklund. Cold shoulders and contempt were nothing new to Tracy. He could have ignored that and gone on, but Eklund and Bellard escalated and Gupta went along. An easier choice than defending the intitulado.

  His bunkmates were throwing on battle dress, lacing up their boots. It was a bit past five a.m. Tracy turned to his wardrobe to discove
r his utility uniform wasn’t hung there. “Report to battle stations,” the robot voice continued.

  Eklund smirked at him as he headed for the door. “I had my BEM fold it and put it in your footlocker.” Tracy, sick with anger and exhaustion, leaped to his locker and yanked up the lid. He tossed underwear, socks and T-shirts onto the floor scrabbling for his clothes. His utility dress was at the very bottom.

  Gupta loudly cleared his throat and looked pointedly at the chronometer woven into the sleeve of his uniform. “Out of time, J.G. Hop to it!” He left.

  Tracy had no choice but to gallop into the corridor dressed only in his underpants. The emergency equipment locker was just outside their quarters. His three bunkmates were already pulling on their rebreathers. Tracy pushed past them. The fourth mask was not inside.

  “Where is it? What did you do with it?” Tracy yelled.

  “Watch your tone, J.G.,” Bellard snapped. “I guess the hombre servicing this locker thought there were only three officers in this block.”

  “He’d be right,” Gupta sniggered. “There are only three actual officers.”

  Their laughter was muffled behind their masks. Slapping each other on the shoulders they headed off to their respective posts. Tracy was going to arrive at Weapons without his proper kit and dressed in his briefs and nothing else. Or he could dress, be late and not have his proper kit. It was going to be a shit storm either way. He was damned if he was going to face it dressed only in his shorts. He returned to his room to dress.

  * * *

  Frowning, the drill inspector marked down belated response and insufficient kit as Tracy entered Weapons. The captain-lieutenant on the morning watch took a look at Tracy’s bare face, and said tightly, “You’re dead. Get out of here.” The words were muffled by his emergency breather.