by Skyler Grant
“It needs house security to get access to it, but its own security run from inside will keep the unwanted out,” Mara said with a grunt. “It should have medkits.”
It didn’t. Food, water, entertainment—and a complete lack of medical supplies.
Mara was tapping furiously away at the console, blood smearing over the keys. A warning siren began to wail and Quinn felt a telltale rumble beneath him.
“This place is a ship?” Quinn asked, amazed.
“More an escape pod. We’ll be in orbit in the next sixty seconds and we can try screaming for help. Not for long, they’ll bring us back down soon, but it gives us some time. If we’d rather not die like they have planned, it gives us a choice,” Mara said.
A pretty poor one. Without medkits Quinn made the best he could, tearing strips off his clothing and binding the wounds. It helped, but it was a matter of dying slow instead of fast.
37
“You mentioned a rebellion. That means he has much of a space force?” Quinn asked, leaning back against one side of the pod.
“He does. If they all weren’t busy doing wicked things right now, we’d be finding ourselves towed aboard a ship within a few hours. Instead he’s going to have to hire a salvage crew. I figure we’ve got a day, maybe two,” Mara said, shifting herself up onto the bunk. It gave both her and Quinn a bit more room to stretch out.
“More than I figured. Since we’re probably about to die together, mind explaining to me just who you are?” Quinn asked.
“Pod could have recorders running. This could all be a setup, although if so you went to considerable lengths. I’d say we could talk about what isn’t related to the secrets I keep but …” Mara stopped, shrugging.
“When you’re a highly modified whatever you are, you can’t even talk childhood memories I guess,” Quinn said.
“Not so much, no. What about you? Core accent, although you hide it well. Belepheron quadrant?”
With a wry smile Quinn looked up at the bunk. “Linguist too? You nailed it, although I got out as soon as I could. When a man needs seven different permits from three different bureaucracies just to take up a trade, it’s no fit place to live.”
“There is some truth to that, but the Rim must have been a shock.”
“Course it was. I was a young idiot. Got taken for everything I owned my first week and spent the next six months getting strong enough to take it back. Bounced around awhile before finding myself with the marshals, an experience so bad it drove me right to crime,” Quinn said.
“I don’t believe that. You’re involved in too much to be a common smuggler,” Mara said.
“Maybe I’m an uncommon one then, but I’m not whatever you are. Just a man trying to keep his ship flying and his crew safe.”
“You mentioned a Centauri. Really?”
Quinn shrugged. “I’d tell you, except—well, I can’t blame you for not sharing your secrets, and I think you’ve earned a few of mine. But you’re right though, this pod is probably recording and I’m not going to share with the man who kills me.”
Mara considered for a moment and sat up, groaning as she slid over to the console. “Then let’s find the recorder and kill it dead. I’d like to hear it.”
It was good to have a project. No tools, but their hands and whatever they could scavenge from the supplies in the pod. A metal tin of food wound up transformed into a crude pair of pliers, a duraplastic support a crowbar. It took a few hours of exhausting work and by the end it was more Mara than Quinn. Whatever enhancements she had didn’t help her to shake off damage like Kara, but her physical capabilities did seem beyond his. Quinn wondered just how much this applied to Tamara as well? How much hadn’t she shown him?
When they were finished Quinn talked, and talked. He told more than he probably should have, delirium starting to kick in, the desire to sleep growing by the moment. Mara listened insightfully the whole time, asking questions, pulling details.
“I can’t decide if you are a fortunate man or a terribly unlucky one,” Mara said.
“Lucky. Even with this, I’m glad I met Tamara and the others. I’m the better for it,” Quinn said.
Mara rested her chin on her hand, looking down at Quinn from the bunk. “I’m sorry, I think you’ve been honest and I still can’t repay you with my own secrets. Yet, I might know more about one of your crew than you do. Do you want it?”
Did he? Even if he could believe Mara, what good would the knowledge do? Still, Quinn preferred truth to shadow.
“Please,” Quinn said.
“Tourmaline Steele is one of the senior partners of the law firm Delecrox, Miller, and Steele, which represents some of the most influential in the Empire. Beautiful, vicious, and she’s achieved immortality by the use of cloned daughters. She creates them in her image and throws them at challenges. When she wants to lose a few years she resets herself, adding her memories to the most successful of these daughters as a form of rebirth.”
Quinn rubbed his eyes. “And you just have that floating around in your head? Is that sort of thing common?”
“That particular thing, no. But the Imperium …” Mara paused and frowned. “I must be careful here. The Imperium is filled with horrors and wonders well beyond what most know. Stability requires secrecy and the powerful aren’t inclined to share that which made them that way. Whether it be wealth, magic, or something else.”
“So you think Tamara is one of these cloned daughters?”
“Or the woman herself. Don’t discount the possibility. There are rumblings that the old guard is ending. There are those who would end the Imperium. Survivors like Steele often reinvent themselves in times of such turmoil,” Mara said.
“I wouldn’t be risking my life to help her survive, if it were Steele,” Quinn said.
“No? But for Tamara you’ll try to steal the records of a man who has been planning rebellion for fifteen years? Anyway, I doubt it is Steele, you’ve had too many close calls already. Yet, even one made in her image is formidable. Be cautious.”
“Hardly matters now, does it?” Quinn asked.
Mara chuckled. “You still think we’re going to die here?”
“You know something I don’t?”
“Your friends sent a message on your behalf. Someone else has joined the game. Can you guess who they are?” Mara asked. “It’s just three letters.”
They wouldn’t. Taki wouldn’t. Would she?
The pod didn’t have proper sensors, but it did have a view port. Crawling over to it Quinn could get a look out, observe the ships heading for the surface. Hulks with weapons crudely grafted onto them, ugly brutish vessels. Pirates.
Ice.
38
It had been two weeks since death seemed so close in the escape pod.
Kulo didn’t have a proper spaceport, but they were making it work.
Mara had used the transponder signal to broadcast their location and the Kathryn picked them up. The word was that Ice had lost three fourths of her fleet, stolen a fortune in artifacts, and captured over a dozen nobles now being ransomed back to their families.
None of that would have been possible without Quinn bringing down the estate security systems. Ice was now very notorious, and soon to be very wealthy.
It had taken a week for Mara to crack the security for the sarcophagi that held her “sisters”. Since then they’d all been working tireless to help update and repair the ship. Unmarked shuttles filled with supplies arrived and flew off.
Today Mara had asked for a meeting with their family and everyone gathered in the kitchen. Melody had made waffles.
“Thank you all for coming,” Mara said, dressed simply in red engineering coveralls.
“You’ve been helpful, more than we could have expected,” Taki said.
That much was true. Outside, the ship had kept its classic First Imperium lines, now with all the signs of old neglect gone. Inside almost everything had gone through some updating, although nothing except their comm relay w
as especially top of the line. Still, the difference was stark.
“Family always matters,” Mara said.
“Not to cut you off, but we agree. Want to join ours?” Tamara asked.
It had been her turn with Quinn the night before and they’d discussed it.
Mara pursed her lips. “My sisters were wondering if you’d ask. While tempted, I have other obligations that would have to take priority. However, that segues into what I wanted to talk to all of you about. We’d like to make a suggestion on what you do next.”
“We’re listening,” Quinn said.
“You have nowhere to go and a lot of places aren’t safe for you to go again. I’m sure some of you will know of the Anawari Empire.”
Quinn recognized it—being a fan of heroic stories you’d be hard pressed not to. The Anawari were rumored to be one of the founding members of the First Imperium.
Jinx said for them all, “Supposedly a pre-Runestone human culture that helped to form the First Imperium. Also the source of my particular bloodline—as you likely know. It is believed to be located within the Galatid belt in the Core.”
“Wrongly, as I imagine our guest is about to tell you,” Tamara said.
“The actual location is on the deep Rim. Populated by, among other things, pirates and scavengers, great merchant houses, truly ancient bloodlines trying to be great again, and nearly a dozen unfriendly alien races. The Anawari are barely a part of the Imperium these days and I suspect with the recent chaos they soon won’t be at all,” Mara said.
“What does this have to do with us?” Quinn asked.
“We want you to go there. Operate there. If you do, I may accept your invitation if a proper arrangement can be made. They’re a distrustful people, but presenting yourselves as a Centauri on the run from an Imperium in collapse, you’ll find work,” Mara said.
“And you’ll have a pair of eyes,” Tamara said.
“Would you be paying us?” Taki asked.
Mara shook her head. “No. We’ve repaid our debt and if we do any more, you’ll look like an Imperium spy. You don’t want that. I’ll aid you as best I can as a member of your crew, but you won’t have my full resources at your disposal.”
Quinn looked around the table. “Big decision. I’m not going to make it for us. If anyone wants to chime in, now is the time.”
“I’m just going to say I really like the thought of being as far away from the Imperium as I can get,” Melody said.
“Aliens everywhere and their ruins? And ancient human civilization ruins? I’m so in,” Dela said.
“It pushes me a bit more towards a future I don’t want. I’m a no,” Jinx said.
Taki said, “I’m with Jinx. You know how it is, sir. Too much civilization or too little and we stop earning a living. We go that far out and I’m not sure how we’ll get by.”
“It sounds like a brutal place. Fuck yeah, I want to go,” Kara said, cracking her knuckles.
That made it three to two in favor so far. If Tamara agreed it was decided, and if not it would be up for Quinn to break the tie.
“I will figure out your game,” Tamara said with a long look at Mara, leaning on the table.
“I’ve already guessed yours. Prove me wrong,” Mara said with a smirk.
Tamara smiled briefly at that. “Not today. We need a new start and a place we can put our past behind us. I say we go.”
That settled it then. A new start.
Quinn had been thinking of something else for awhile, pondering if it was the right time. If it was a step he was quite willing to make.
Yes, it was time.
“We accept your suggestion. You can speak with Tamara about these conditions of yours to join the family. I’d like to bring up other business. If this is a new start, I think this ship needs a new name. The Kathryn is going to become the Centauri Bliss.”
Taki gaped, her eyes suddenly glistening. “You sure, sir?”
“I’m sure. It’s time we moved forward, as a family. Wherever we go, we’ll face it together,” Quinn said.
Also by Skyler Grant
I write a lot of books. If you enjoyed this one you might want to follow me on Amazon or Goodreads or subscribe to my mailing list at the end of the list. Here are a few other of my big efforts.
The Laboratory
. When a crazed AI reactivates deep in an abandoned complex in a post apocalyptic hellscape there is only one thing to do. SCIENCE. Dungeon Core with a completely different twist.
Now up to 7 books in the series, with audio for those of you that like to listen to your reads.
The Laboratory
Glitch Hunter
Dark Fantasy and LitRPG with a bit of a mystery thrown in. Alex is a Glitch Hunter, hunter of monsters in a terrifying world where the average citizen is little more than prey for the horrors that lurk in the night. My longest novel to date, for fans of those wanting a long read and something a bit different than the typical LitRPG. Also in audio if that is your thing.
Glitch Hunter
The Crucible Shard
Liam lives in a world where gamers are held up on a pedestal and their competitions are high entertainment where only the elite get to complaint. When he enters the virtual world himself he finds reality is far weirder than he could ever have anticipated, and when sometimes you think you are the hero you really wind up being the villain. Brutal action, real character development over the series, and many plot-twists.
Book 1: Dungeon Crawl
Book 2: Spawn Campers
Book 3: Corpse Run
Book 4: Gank
Book 5: Area of Effect
Book 6: DLC
Book 7: Endgame
Audio
Book 1: Dungeon Crawl
Book 2: Spawn Campers
Book 3: Corpse Run
Book 4: Gank
Book 5: Area of Effect
Book 6: DLC
Sign up for the Skyler Grant mailing list
Afterword
This was a fun one to write. The growth of harem-lit has really been dividing the LitRPG community lately. I knew I wanted to try my take on the genre, but rather than a lot of the more recent books I found my inspiration going back further to the days of Heinlein.
Heinlein was fond of throwing the morality of his day out the window and presenting these big complex families that always struck me as tremendously real. Instead of relying on some sort of game mechanic to bring people together I wanted a bunch of lost souls looking for a place to belong, looking to move on with their lives.
The space-opera setting is one I’ve wanted to play with for awhile. I’ve started to get there with my Laboratory series, but this is on a whole different scale. I’ve always loved the scruffy smuggler just working to keep the ship flying. This has all the elements of a big galactic empire, space opera, and the fading of that empire and a brewing civil war, but it is focused on the fate of this ship and the lives of the people who call it home.
Like a lot of my recent series, I’ve tried to make a book that stands alone. There are obviously some hints at the end there of what the future will be, and if this book does well enough, to provide a sequel. My plans as an author are always in flux—if you are a frequent reader of my author’s notes you know that well. If you love this, please let me know, let others know. Your reviews and word of mouth are tremendously important.
Next up in the writing queue is a bit of comedy LitRPG. A gnome inventor for the main character, heavy on satire about the genre, myself, and the world. I’ve been wanting to do something with a more comedic bent for awhile, I loved writing Glitch Hunter, but it was dark. A sequel is on the way there, but I need to cleanse myself with something light-hearted first.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for being family. I hope you all find those who are going to be important to you.
Thank you for reading books on Archive.