"Don't rush, Crown Prince! I'll help," Bionica said, walking up to me and helping with the buckle.
"We cannot leave. The air is toxic, even to Iseyek," Rosss warned us all, turning his head and giving a sniff.
I also detected an unpleasant scent a few seconds later but it was barely perceptible, at least for now. Nitrogen dioxide is a very nasty thing, causing suffocation and death in humans and, on contact with water, forming a mixture of nitrous and nitric acid.
"What are we gonna do?" Bionica asked. "We need to fix the crack in the hull..."
I heard the chameleon's voice from the pilot's cabin:
"Every shuttle has emergency kits in a compartment in the wall near the tail with ten light spacesuits and three hours’ oxygen, along with a larger reserve oxygen tank. In the same place, you'll find MRE's, water, and comms devices. There should also be some quick-dry sealant."
Rosss the Alpha Iseyek went to the end of the corridor and, pressing on red circles in the wall, opened both niches. It only took him a few seconds to look it over:
"My Princcce, there's no sealant, tank or food here! Just an emergency beacon and one light spacesuit!"
Well, this was it... And to think, the captain of this ship had just assured me it was the best in my fleet! Everyone went silent, taking full account of the now critical situation. In the silence that descended, the poison gas seeping into the shuttle made a distinct hiss — there was clearly more air pressure outside than in here. Popori de Cacha was first to speak:
"First of all, let's turn on the emergency beacon and inform our people what happened. After that, close the airlock into the pilot cabin and turn off the ventilation systems — that way, we can isolate it from the passenger area and keep the poison gas out. Yes, there won't be much air in there, but it should be enough for one person to hold out until help arrives. Beyond that, Georg will have a spacesuit, buying him three more hours. And the rest can wait in the passenger cabin and hope they survive... Yes, the chances are low, but the most important thing is saving Crown Prince Georg!"
"Thank you, of course, for your willingness to sacrifice yourselves, but I won’t allow it!" I immediately refused. "I have a different suggestion. Bionica, disactivate yourself right now to save valuable oxygen. We can place your body into the wall niche so the aggressive atmosphere won't run your skin. Rosss, how much time will it take you to go into an anabiotic state?"
The huge, semitransparent Alpha Iseyek, twitching his mandibles, answered that he needed about twenty minutes.
"Start going to sleep, but go into the pilot cabin first. You're too heavy for us to move your body, and I don't want the acid corroding you. Popori de Cacha, you take the only spacesuit, lock yourself in the pilot cabin and send constant messages saying what happened and our coordinates."
"But, tuki-tuka-de-sa, what about you?" my bodyguard asked, afraid. I ordered him to be quiet and turned to Miya.
"Can you get us both to a safe place? Even if it's where you hid with our daughter and the chameleons?"
The extremely powerful Truth Seeker, somewhat awkward looking with just the short nighty over her naked body, nodded in silence. She took a reddish stone sphere out of a bag thrown over her shoulder and explained.
"This is a gift I got from Swarm Queen Nai Igir in exchange for my collection of numbered Sivalla emeralds. It's a storage device full of energy, a real boon for any psionic. Anyway, I should have enough energy to get us there, but there's another question: do I have the power? Moving two consciousnesses together with their bodies is a very difficult task. The best way, Georg, would be putting you out temporarily — either get drunk or fall asleep."
I looked at Bionica, already turned off, and the praying mantis Rosss sitting on the floor with his eyes tucked into his armor shell, and appendages folded up along his torso. After that, I moved my gaze onto Popori de Cacha. The chameleon nodded in comprehension and walked up to me. The head of my guard carefully placed his strong flexible fingers on my neck artery and asked:
"When will you return, Crown Prince?"
I didn't know the answer to that question, but the Queen of Unatari answered for me:
"You can be sure we’ll be back in three or four days. I'll first need to have a crystal dream to restore my strength. We'll come back in this very place, so make sure everything is ready: breathable air and a sufficient number of soldiers to guard your sovereign."
"Yes, Ma'am!" the chameleon promised and pressed on my carotid artery.
* * *
When I came to, I was sitting on a leather chair in an unfamiliar room. Next to me was a fold-out couch, already turned into a bed and made up with sheets, but Miya hadn't had the strength to drag my two-hundred-thirty-pound girth onto it. For clothing, I was wearing the same long underwear but, on my right forearm, I discovered a thick fabric sling, not a bandage, not gauze, but some kind of thin many-layered porous polymer. My shoulder was blue and swollen, my arm was hurting quite badly, but I could move my fingers without issue. Of course, I was no doctor and, without an x-ray, it would be impossible to say for certain, but my sense was that it was just a bad contusion or a bone fracture, not a fully-fledged break.
I stood up and looked around the room with curiosity. There were no windows. The only lighting was a dim flat frosted fixture on the ceiling. I couldn’t find any knob or remote to turn it off, down or up. I wondered about the source of light and scooted the chair up, standing on it and getting a closer look. It looked like a crepe — thin and flat, and not apparently hollow. It wasn't luminescent, nor light diode, without a filament, just some construction totally unfamiliar to me. And just as unfamiliar were the magnetic contacts. I had never seen a junction like that. The glass was engraved with some apparently linguistic symbols, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
I twisted out the bulb haphazardly, and accidentally disconnected it from the contacts, immersing the room in total darkness. I didn't get scared, though because I quickly noticed a light at the other end of a corridor. I got down off the chair and went in that direction.
I recognized this room immediately. There was a large cupboard with children's toys and a canopied crib in the corner, which was now empty. In another corner of the room, on a small folding bed, Miya was sleeping in semi-darkness. The Truth Seeker was lying totally naked, not even covered with a blanket or sheet. My spouse's long red hair was fanned out in all directions, her skin glistening white. Her breathing was even and deep and her perky breasts heaved with every breath. It took me a lot of effort to tear my gaze from the tempting curves of my beautiful wife and continue looking around the room.
Next to her on a round table, I noticed an empty box of crystalloquasimetal-cis-isomer valiarimic acid, her drug of choice. It wasn't very likely Miya had brought the crystals with her when fleeing the doomed ship. It was more probable that the Truth Seeker had stashed a secret dose of the drug here. On the floor, there was a canvas bag. Inside was the energy storage ball, now a pale pink. Its color had considerably washed out since I had last seen it. Most likely, that meant Miya hadn't had enough of her own psionic energy to bring us both here, and she had used some of what was stored in the ball.
I already wanted to leave, but my gaze happened to catch on a small patch stuck behind my wife's ear, the same tone as her skin. Normally, her thick bright crimson hair covered it up but, now, the locks were brushed aside, revealing a small piece of scalp shaved bald. My interest piqued, I walked over and carefully pulled back the patch. There was a tattoo under it reading "No. 4734," then a date and a label indicating it had been made one hundred seventy-eight years ago in the Throne World Truth Seeker Academy. Strangely, no hair had grown back on that spot since. As far as I knew, my wife had only one tattoo, a fanciful design on the small of her back, reading: "Mesfelle Family Plaything." It had been ordered by my father, Count Inoky royl Mesfelle forty years ago, long before I had entered Perimeter Defense. As it turned out, the woman's body also had another, older tattoo.
&nbs
p; Miya really didn't like talking about her past, but the time when she had studied in the psionic school run by Krista on the Throne World was an especially strong taboo. I had only heard that it had been governed by extremely strict rules, and that the Truth Seeker school was closed after a series of student deaths. It hadn't been so long ago that I had accidentally figured out that my dearest wife had a direct hand in those murders, but I had opted against reopening her old mental wounds by delving into the details. And now as well, I carefully reattached the patch over the tattoo and readjusted her red hair.
What to do? Probably, I should look into the neighboring dark rooms and get to know a bit more about this place. For a start, walk down the corridor leading away from my room and figure out where it led.
"I don't recommend that," my wife's voice rang out in my head. "This is a totally unstable place. It isn't impossible that it exists only in my imagination, so you shouldn't stray too far from me."
"So, you aren't asleep?!" I asked in surprise.
"I am asleep. And I'll be asleep for quite a long time. But you were looking too stubbornly at my body and thinking about me, so I sensed the attention. All Truth Seekers are capable of sensing attention paid to them, even when in a crystal dream. In the next room, there is a mini-bar and, three times a day, there will be a hot meal delivered pneumatically. You'll find a trash incinerator in the same place. A bit further down the hallway is a shower room and laundry area. Georg, you need to find something to do for the next two or three days while I regain my strength. If you need anything, ask me mentally, and I'll try my best. But now, excuse me, I need my rest."
* * *
The food was unfamiliar, but tasty and nourishing. I still hadn't figured out what it was under the thick spicy sauce, mushrooms or vegetables, although it may also have been some kind of seaweed. It didn't matter. What was important was that the food was nutritious and sated my hunger well. And as for the alcohol, I didn't touch it; I needed a fresh mind. I just had too much to think about.
So then, the Blue House had tried to kill me. And at that, they nearly succeeded. If it weren't for Popori de Cacha's first class piloting abilities, and Miya’s help, the Unatari State would have just gotten a new ruler. What made Duchess Ovella want that? Interesting question. After all, it was obvious that the young Crown Princess had nothing directly to gain from my death. She was probably promised something by someone else. For example, real military aid against her numerous rebelling systems.
Who had ordered my assassination? As they say in these situations, "cui bono?" Who benefits? But the problem was that my death was beneficial to too many people. For example, the Emperor, who would get a more manageable ruler of Unatari, probably a very old regent, conducting politics in total accord with orders from the Throne World. But with time, after the marriage of my daughter Likanna to this or that Crown Prince, Unatari as an independent state would totally cease to exist, first after changing name to the Orange House, then after dissolving back into the Empire.
Also, my death could have been paid for by the Antagonists. After all, that would mean the Empire would lose one of its most capable fleet leaders, with high popularity among the military. But weakened by internal strife and war with the Aliens, the Blue House, disappointed with the support of the Throne World, would soon have been forced to seek out an alliance with the Gold House. That seemed a very probable scenario.
By the way, what did I know about the Antagonists? Crown Princess Eleonora, Emperor August's sister, was older than her brother by a whole fifteen years. Now she would be... if I thought about it... three hundred fifty-five years old! You cannot fool the human body at such an age, even with the best medical treatment, and rejuvenating procedures of the most powerful Truth Seekers. It must have been hard enough without the intrigues and bloody battles. At her three hundred fifty years, the ruler of the Gold House should have been more worried about forgetting to change her diaper or taking her daily pills, not a meeting with generals or admirals. Maybe I was just exaggerating things of course but, still, the age of Crown Princess Eleonora would be quite significant and absolutely not appropriate for planning a military invasion with all the inevitable troubles and meetings with military experts, stretching far beyond midnight. I wondered why no one had thought about this before.
But... the Antagonist invasion was a fact that could not be disputed. No less an authority than Miya had spoken about it at a recent meeting and sworn by her abilities as a Truth Seeker. But then who was leading the invasion, if not the head of the Gold House? Who would be next in line to their throne? I didn't know the answer to that question, but I imagined it would be the Antagonist leader's only daughter, my mother. Was she in any way a bad candidate for the role of shadow ruler?! Perhaps that was exactly what the Dark Mother meant when she had mentioned Crown Princess Elisa royl Clement ton Lavaelle. But if that was so, the Arites sent to the Green House would certainly bring it to light!
Although... my mother wasn't exactly young either. One hundred eighty-three is a very respectable age for a person, even if they had been under the watchful eye of medics caring for their health from the day of their birth. So, she also didn't have the most appropriate physical condition to be military leader or brain center of the conspirators. But here, I unwillingly remembered Miya. Despite her respectable age, no one would think a day older than twenty or twenty-two. And her physical abilities would never make you question that. But the Queen of Unatari was unique in that sense, as one of the strongest Truth Seekers in the Empire and could rejuvenate her own body. Although, perhaps my mother also had a Truth Seeker maintaining her physical condition. I knew nothing about that, but that didn't mean such a person didn't exist.
The very strongest argument against Crown Princess Elisa as shadow ruler of the Antagonists was the fact that my mother had been the subject of very stubborn observation by the Empire's secret services after the Gold House had left the Empire. I mean, come on, she was the daughter of the head of the Antagonists! Everything she wrote was probably opened and inspected. All her contacts must have been checked carefully, all conversations recorded and poured over. In order to lead an invasion in such conditions, there would have to be a simply genius conspirator or... her role was to keep the heightened attention of the secret services on her, to distract from the true leader.
Alright, I’d leave Crown Princess Elisa as a suspect and look at all the other options. Her daughter, my twin sister Violetta royl Inoky ton Mesfelle-Damir. The Ice Princess, who had hammered together a huge income selling radioactive isotopes from her space-ice processing facilities. A nebulous, utterly unprincipled figure, chasing after power by stepping on the heads of all other claimants and ready to kill even her own brother just to get one step closer to a throne. She caroused with upper aristocrats and possessed colossal financial income, even by Imperial upper crust standards, as well as a personal space fleet more powerful than even that of Perimeter Sector Seven. Was there any reason she couldn’t be ruler of the Antagonists? I was inclined to say no, especially if I considered her subversive activity in the Purple House and her striving to drive a wedge between Imperial allies. Violetta was always close with our mother and probably worked side by side with her.
Who else had I overlooked as a suspect? I thought hard, running through known political and military leaders in my head, and wasn't able to hold back a smile — from an outside perspective, the most appropriate candidate for role of military leader of the Antagonists was me. Just think, the grandson of the ruler of the Antagonists, having proven himself time and again to be a capable commander. Also, I was currently in a feud with the Imperial authorities and possessed not only a massive space fleet with four and a half thousand starships, but also well-trained crews. Well then, that's probable exactly what the Empire thought, so I could look at the assassination attempt from that perspective as well...
* * *
Miya woke up on the third day. First of all, she limped over to the kitchen and spent a long time
greedily drinking water from a glass bottle filled with small porous stones. After that, she walked over to the peeping pneumatic delivery box, took a bag of toiletries and locked herself in the bathroom for three hours. Only when she'd finished, did she come out to me, looking flawlessly beautiful, rested, smelling of her beloved violet perfume and dressed in an incomprehensible, frivolous nothing of pink ribbons.
"I see you made good use of your time here," she said, turning her head in surprise, commenting on the walls I'd marked up with a lead pencil. "Georg, did you seriously draw out a whole star map of Unatari and the Blue House from memory?!"
"Well, without Sector Fifteen. It's the farthest from us and occupied by the Aliens, and I also didn't remember it well. I didn't draw Sector Sixteen either. It's cut off from the Blue House now and has no influence on current events. But I did include a fragment of the Imperial Core. Just the nearest star systems, which contain all the exits into the Perimeter."
"Well I'll be damned! And what is that?" Miya pointed at a carefully drawn web and lots of little markers placed on it. "No need to answer, I already get it."
"You didn't 'get it,' you read it in my thoughts," I said strictly, correcting her. "Yes, I was trying to figure out who will be in control of the Forepost-22 system three days after the attack on our ship, based on the Blue House and Unatari fleets located nearby, their military might and the time it would take to get there. It isn't the most reassuring picture. If our Yayho Border Fleet came to the help signal sent by Popori de Cacha, and the station warp beacon is not turned off, it will soon be destroyed by the Blue House Second Strike Fleet. And our main forces won't have time to get there. And then you and I would be returning right into the hands of our enemies, who will take us warm as soon as we arrive."
A Game With No Rules (Perimeter Defense Book #4) LitRPG Series Page 6