We were led to a large stone chamber. It was bare save a large table and chairs made of what appeared to be marble. The guards didn’t bother asking to take my blades this time. I supposed that was a good sign. Either they were treating me with respect, or the Queen had no intention of making an appearance, and I was walking into an elaborate trap. I ran my fingers over the hilt of my blades and took a deep breath. A sense of calm settled into my bones. They would surely find that I wasn’t as easy to kill as they would have imagined.
We all breathed a collective sigh of relief when her Majesty not only showed, but left her retinue standing dutifully by the door.
“There should be no interruptions, Diem Sava. I hope you had a pleasant trip.”
“It was uneventful,” I replied.
I found myself watching the way she moved. Once again, I was taken aback by the overtly feminine way she looked and dressed. It was no less powerful than the other Troitek, but unnerving in its elegance.
“Good. Shall we begin?”
“Your Highness, my terms are simple. I want my people back, and I want my planet protected.”
She seemed startled by my bluntness but recovered quickly. It was clear she was used to people bowing low and groveling for her favor. But I was not her subject. I was a Queen in my own rights, a mother to a new nation, and I would not bow.
“And why would I agree to either of those things?”
“Because if you don’t, I will be forced to negotiate with the Council, and I do not doubt that they would love to prove to the people that the Dragon and the Star have shown them favor.”
The Queen wrinkled her nose. “And so, absent any power, resources, or expertise, you come to me to demand that I do what you will, or you will strengthen my enemy’s hand against me?”
She said it softly, but she may as well have been shouting. The rage on her face was barely contained. She was not a female who took kindly to threats.
“I didn’t say I was absent anything else, but those things are not the reasons why you will assist me,” I said. I could feel Puva, Mora and Nedan tense up as I spoke. I was treading on thin ice. I could be killed for any one of my statements so far.
“Ah, and so you have made an assessment of me and have found me to be a fatuous ruler.”
“No, not you.”
A smile tickled the corner of her lips, and her body relaxed a bit. I took it as a good sign.
“No, not me indeed. You have been well informed, I see.” She glanced at Mora and then took her seat on the opposite side of the table. We had finally come to what she saw was the crux of her problem. Perhaps it wasn’t the Council that she feared as much as it was the weakness of the King.
“Not as well informed as I’d like to be.” I took my seat. Puva and Mora followed suit. Nedan stayed on his feet, standing right behind me.
“You may leave us. I doubt that the Great Mother intends to assassinate me this cycle,” she said over her shoulder. Her attendants bristled at the command but bowed respectfully and left the room. Only a single guard stayed put. I gave him the once over and smirked. Nedan could best one such as him easily. He was too large to be as agile as Nedan was in a fight, and palace life often made warriors complacent.
“As you have correctly assessed, Diem Sava, the Council is keen to gain advantages over me. But the Council can be managed. Like all systems, there must be a balance of power in government. But, my brother, the King, is a danger to the homeostasis of the empire. He is erratic and easily manipulated. His ego knows no bounds, and he is prone to solving problems through cruelty. We both know that isn’t sustainable. To rule, the people must have some trust and confidence in the Crown. Left unchecked, he would dismantle centuries of progress.”
“That sounds like a very familiar tale. There are lots of empires on Earth that fell after one bad ruler came to power,” I said.
“It is so across a thousand planets through a hundred solar systems,” she said wistfully.
“But how do you want us to help with that? You and the King are a single entity. Keeping his impulses in check is your duty.”
“I am inclined to agree to your requests. Having you on the fringes of the Empire on a protected planet is better than having you here on Troiken or in the capital. But you must help me eliminate the King.”
“Eliminate? As in kill?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and hoped that I didn’t begin to sweat. I was prepared to kill in self-defense, but I hadn’t thought that I came all the way here today to negotiate the assassination of a nation’s monarch.
“I cannot do it, nor can I have one of my people do it. The Council would never do such a thing. As long as he lives, they can make things difficult for me. But if you do it, the people will readily accept it as divine judgment. Your flight over the city was recorded a thousand times and has spread throughout the empire like wildfire.”
“I’m sure you had something to do with that,” I scoffed.
“Indeed. Protecting the Red Dragon and his mate is in the best interest of the Empire. We put to bed any rumors that would suggest otherwise.” She smiled cruelly. I caught the twinkle of bloodlust in her eyes for just a moment, and it sent shivers down my spine.
Try as she might, she couldn’t hide the fact that she wasn’t above acts of cruelty. If I helped her, what might I be unleashing on the planet? Could she be just as dangerous as her brother, but just better at hiding it behind her delicate features and elegant manners?
“You say the Council interferes with you—what do you mean?”
“My reforms. The Troitek empire has only one aim, expansion. For centuries, all we have done is conquer and colonize. It has brought us success and power, but we are crumbling on the inside. You don’t have to look very hard to see all the cracks in the system. Our breeding programs are less and less effective. There are regular revolts on the slave planets. Our culture is stagnating. We have to shift our attention to building instead of expanding.”
“And so?”
“And so,” she continued, “I have commanded several rounds of reforms over the years, only to see them counteracted by the King or the Council. But they were working. They just needed a little more time.”
Her eyes were ablaze with excitement.
“Which leads to killing the King,” I added.
“Unfortunately, there is no other way. If there were, I would have found it by now. I do not ask this thing of you lightly.”
I believed her. She might have been the world’s best liar, but I believed that she didn’t want to have the King killed. It was political. Somehow that made it worse.
I looked over at Puva. She seemed unmoved. Mora, on the other hand, seemed nervous. Although she was perfectly still and quiet, the muscles in her face were tense, as if she were holding her placid expression by force. That was the first indication that something was wrong.
“If I do what you ask, how will you ensure that I get back to my planet?”
“Start by not getting caught, but even if you are somehow apprehended, rest assured that I will publicly exile you to Earth.”
I paused for a moment. It was exactly what I wanted, but was the cost too high?
“Of course, you can walk away from this negotiation with your crew members as a show of my good faith,” she added.
Nedan exhaled loudly behind me, and I took it as a good sign.
“I accept your offer, Your Majesty,” I said.
“Good, we will drink to our agreement.” She stood to her full height and lifted a glass that sat on the table. Her bodyguard filled it and then took it from her, sniffing it before tasting it himself and then handing it back to her.
I reached for the other glass, but Nedan stilled my hand in midair.
“Sava let me.” He poured himself a glass and then lifted it to the Queen.
“Our Mother is not Troitek and cannot drink,” he said as an explanation, and then downed the entire glass in one gulp. The Queen hesitated but finally sipped
her own.
Before she could put the glass down, there was a commotion in the hallway outside of the room. All our eyes went to the door where several elite guards had been.
“What is that noise? This is the palace, not some brothel,” the Queen growled, the viciousness of her features seemed more grotesque coming from her delicate features.
“I will check it out, Your Highness,” said the bodyguard.
Nedan gripped my wrist and yanked me up out of the chair. He pushed me behind his body and began to back up until I was pressed against the wall on the far side of the large chamber.
“What is it? Is it one of ours?” I whispered into his ear.
“No, Sava, it is not,” he said.
He crowded me so much that I struggled to unsheathe my blades. Puva produced a device that I assumed was a weapon of some kind and came to stand beside Nedan and me.
“Mora, what are you doing?” Puva called to the young courtesan who continued to sit still. “Mora!”
The courtesan turned slowly to look at Puva, a pained expression on her face. She didn’t say a word, simply shook her head three times. The look that they exchanged was pregnant with meaning. I had been right about one thing. This was a trap; not one set by the Queen—but one for her instead. And if I was right, her brother was the mastermind behind it, and Mora was his spy.
“We are under attack,” her bodyguard announced. He attempted to return to the Queen’s side, but a dazzling blast penetrated the door and left a hole in his chest cavity. The big guy fell to the ground; the spark of life instantly left him.
Despite it all, the Queen didn’t shriek or run. She and Mora stood perfectly still, awaiting what each of them now knew was an inevitability.
Through the chaos in the halls, three figures emerged. The King, looking like an elf in silver battle armor, and two other males who wore the Elite Squad uniforms.
“So, they were right about you all along, sister! They told me you would be here, conspiring against me with this interloper and her band of traitors and defects! And here you are,” he said, sounding drunk with madness.
“This is an official negotiation. How is that a conspiracy?”
“Oh, well, if it’s a negotiation, then why aren’t I invited? Aren’t I the king?” He collapsed into a nearby chair and put his boots up on the table. The Queen looked away from him as if the sight of his boot heels made her physically ill.
“I am the Queen, I do not need your permission to engage in negotiations,” she said calmly.
Outside the door, the battle raged on, but neither sibling seemed to care.
“That is true. Perhaps we should change that rule. All negotiations must be approved by the King,” he said with a smirk.
“Is that what they told you? That if you helped them attack the palace, they would give you greater responsibility and power? Are you that much of a fool?”
He pounded the table with his fist, his pretty face twisted in rage.
“I am not a fool!” Spittle flew from his lips as he screamed.
I began eyeing the room for possible escape routes. Unfortunately, there were no windows, and we didn’t have the aid of a giant red dragon to bust through the roof. We were going to have to fight our way out.
“You are the fool! Trusting this perverted female to bring you the head of the rebels was a foolish decision. Trusting a contaminated warrior and his mate to handle the problems you are too weak to handle yourself was foolis! Ignoring me, manipulating me, pushing me around, that was all foolish!”
Nedan began inching towards the door as the two monarchs argued. Puva followed, but her eyes never left Mora, who made no move to leave.
“And what did you give her in exchange for your victory, brother?”
The King reached into his chest and handed Mora a small tablet. She accepted it in her hands but seemed to find no comfort in it.
“I am returning her maternal rights to her female offspring and acknowledging paternity of her male child.”
The Queen gasped.
“You have sired offspring?”
“You see? I am not as useless as you assume! What? Did you think I would believe all that nonsense about not being able to find a suitable female? Of course, there are suitable females. She may be a twisted little deviant, but her genes are still good. And the fact that I know her secrets just made it easier for me to see this day.” He laughed in her face, but the sound was hollow.
“No, brother. It has sealed your doom.”
A Council guard ran into the chamber and knelt before the King.
“Your Highness, we are under attack. We have been ordered to pull out and assist in defending the city,” he blurted out.
“What? From whom? Where?” The king spun around wildly, as if expecting assassins to emerge from the stones themselves.
“I don’t know, Sire. They are coming from everywhere, to the weapons depot and the ports. It’s impossible to tell where they will hit next.”
“Tell the Council to forget about the other attacks. Save the palace, protect your King,” he screamed.
“I’m sorry, but we have our orders,” said the kneeling warrior.
“Damn your orders!” He struck so fast that I barely saw the glint of his blade as it sliced through the neck gap of the guard’s uniform. Blood poured out, hot and thick, and the warrior fell to the ground with a gurgle.
The Queen cast a glance in my direction, and I nodded, confirming what she must have already suspected.
“This was all your doing!” The King screamed at his sister.
“How could I have done such a thing? Didn’t you have spies watching me closely? Aren’t you the cleverest male in the palace? How could I accomplish something this elaborate without your knowledge?”
She was mocking him, throwing him further into chaos, hoping that his madness would provide a way out. I didn’t see that happening without further bloodshed.
“Let’s go, Sava,” Puva whispered.
“No.” What I was thinking was crazy. Pure insanity. But I was learning to trust my instincts, and right now they were telling me to do the insane.
I slid out from behind Nedan and advanced on the King, my blade at the ready.
“Back me up,” I yelled over my shoulder.
I put on a burst of speed and struck him before he had a chance to react. My blade contacted something flexible but impenetrable under his clothes, and he fell backward from the impact of the blow.
Armor. Shit.
I had to assume that his armor was a replica of the one I was wearing.
“Get the Queen out of here,” I instructed Puva, spinning around and preparing for the King’s counterattack.
“Sava?” Puva hesitated.
“Now!”
She grabbed the Queen by the arm and pulled her behind her. I saw the Queen flinch with pain as Puva dragged her out of the room. By the time this was all said and done she’d probably be covered in bruises, but at least she’d be alive.
The King scrambled to his feet, and his hair and eyes were wild with rage. Still, I felt no fear.
He launched himself at me, attacking me with his blade, trying to use his tail to throw me off balance. His attacks were straightforward. He was hoping to back me into a corner and leave me nowhere to run. I redirected the fight, moving in circles, deflecting his glancing blows and parrying with my own.
The more we danced, the angrier he became.
“Your plan is unraveling,” I taunted. “The Queen’s guard will be here any minute. You will die a traitor.”
“This was all part of your plan. I should've known that my sister wasn’t devious enough to do something like this. You’re trying to rescue your comrades, aren’t you?”
I nearly choked. Trust a madman to see through my plan.
“They’re dead, you know. I had them killed. I ordered it,” he hissed.
My heart thundered in my chest.
“All of this for nothing,” he giggled, spittle dripping d
own his chin.
I forced my face to remain calm, focusing on his body language.
He’s lying; He’s lying, the King is a liar! I chanted inside my head.
“Sava! We have to go!” Nedan yelled.
I had to finish this quickly.
“Okay little buddies. I need your help,” I whispered, hoping that the nanites had learned to speak English.
“Are you afraid? I’ll skin your mate and wear his scales as a cloak,” he hissed.
I took advantage of the moment and slashed at his face.
He screamed in anger and grasped his mouth. Droplets of blood ran through his fingers.
“She cut me!”
In my vision, I could see tiny pops of light. My little buddies were gearing up for something big.
I launched myself at him, catching him off guard. He backpedaled quickly, but he was already off balance. He tripped and landed on his back. I jumped on his chest and drove my blade down to the gap between his armor and his throat. He caught my hand and struggled to keep the deadly tip from his skin.
But I was stronger than I had been, and he was already weaker than the warriors he wanted to rule. I leaned in, using all of my weight to drive the blade down. He let out a blood curdling scream as the blade plunged into his neck. The sound seemed to go on forever and ended with a sickening click as his throat flooded with blood, and the tip of my blade severed his spine.
Chapter Nine
“Well done. I thought you would never get him to shut up.”
Councilor Shan stood in the doorway, a blade in one hand, and a plasma rifle in the other. Nedan jumped in front of me, putting himself between me and the Councilor.
“I have to say that I am slightly relieved that my daughter didn’t die at the hands of a weak little chit. Despite your look, you are a formidable opponent,” he said.
“I know that you’re upset about losing Oda, but her death wasn’t my fault.”
“I know,” he nodded. “Oda was obsessive. She wanted Rakesh to sire her offspring, and when he turned her down to rut around in the mud with a creature like you... well, all true Troitek can sympathize with her feelings.”
A Pet For The Commander: The Complete Series Page 26