by Hotter Edge
Hakan watched the firebird light and lift. “Did you send the assassin?” he demanded of his uncle. “Or did they?” They being the entity behind his uncle’s influx of pax.
Pilar only needed a few more minutes.
“Careful, son,” Victor said, “how you speak to me.”
For once, the old man had no idea what was going on. That satisfaction was the one spark in the black hole that was Pilar’s impending absence. Hakan’s life as it should’ve been flashed with the ignition of the firebird: celebration, commerce, business, wife, and children. He’d almost had everything.
“Oh, we’ll speak,” Hakan promised, as the airlock closed once again, Pilar on her way back to Sol. “I’m coming to the banquet now.”
“Let’s keep this quarrel private, shall we? I’ll meet you at home.”
Quarrel? This was light-years past a quarrel, but in this they agreed, Hakan didn’t want to confront his uncle in front of all those buzzy-buzzy media bobs. Home meant his uncle’s residence, where Hakan had spent most of his childhood. Funny that the term still somehow applied, though his uncle was now his enemy.
Hakan still couldn’t believe this was happening. His uncle. Turning against him.
Victor had raised him alongside Barton. He’d sworn to keep Hakan’s birthright safe—that the Hub would be waiting when he’d completed his education and was ready to assume control.
And yet, his uncle hadn’t seemed to have received the message: Hakan was home and he had taken control. The Hub was his.
The bay opened into a busy customs, where cargo was scanned for illegal or dangerous content. Smugglers were always testing the scanners for new ways to get their contraband either into the city or onto another vessel headed deeper into the Sector. The Hub’s charter forbade weapons and volatile biomatter.
A scanner flashed with a dimensional image of white orchids suspended in transport gel. Bridal. Purely decorative. And probably the most deadly thing on the Hub.
Gods, he’d been blind. The flowers had been suggested in the planning arrangements put together by his uncle’s staff.
The galling part was that Hakan had signed off on the flowers himself. Weddings had flowers, and orchids were rare and lovely, just like his bride. The selection seemed appropriate.
But what he’d failed to consider was that everything had been white-washed from its true color for the wedding. These orchids had a more notorious hue—black. Black orchids were well-known throughout the four settled sectors for the violence they presaged.
Once out of the bay ring, Hakan took a redi-cab to his uncle’s large residence. Square-meters in the hub was the premium. The stuff that filled it, less important. Stuff went in and out of the Hub every day.
His uncle’s leisure space featured a large, low white room. One wall was made of glass-enclosed flame. The other looked out into the void. Victor sat on a high-backed chair, a tumbler in his hand. A small table was at his side, large enough for the crystal bottle of amber fluid and fat white vase, filled with black orchids, out in the open.
White orchids were bridal. Black were death.
Disappointment slowed Hakan’s stride. “I can’t believe you allied with them.”
Hadn’t Victor been the one to spout family and dynasty and legacy when anyone would listen?
“I told you I would.” Victor took a sip.
“I’d found another solution.” Pilar and her considerable dowry. The future contracts with Sol. It meant peace—no more violence, no more looking the other way.
“Technically you went after the sister, Mica. But we’re all still in awe that you got either of the Sol women. You, hat in hand, with only your…charm to offer.”
No one was bought or sold in the marriage transaction. It was an alliance, the same that had been forged over and over throughout human history. The Nyer Hub would be saved and Sol would begin to expand its reach beyond the mines from which it drew its wealth. It was good for both sides, no charm necessary. The fact that Hakan was crazy about Pilar was an unexpected bonus that made the tedium of business pure pleasure.
Victor set his glass aside. “Sol would have too much influence over us.”
“No. Sol will have too much influence over you. No more dark deals.”
“We are in space. Darkness reigns. And those deals saved this city while your father pissed and fumbled through fifty years of contracts. It was either deals or chaos.”
“And then his son returned,” Hakan cut in, “assessed the situation, and acted accordingly.”
After he’d completed his education on Earth, he’d acquiesced to his uncle’s encouragement to take the opportunity to travel and experience the settled worlds, then the Santisakul Hub, and then on to the lightways to study the vast transit system that operated from Earth to Mars. Victor had said life experience was critical to running Nyer, the most distant of the Hubs. It wasn’t until two years ago that Hakan surprised Victor by returning to Nyer…and discovering the truth.
The Hub was in financial ruin. Frust would shortly lose it. Uninvited foreign parties already threatened control, one entity in particular.
Humanity was ever expanding, and leading the push was none other than the Black Orchid, a criminal, if enterprising, organization that operated by violence. The Nyer Transit Hub, once humankind’s furthest light of hope and promise, had become the frontier line for a new manifest destiny. The Black Orchid wanted to help themselves to the sector’s riches before anyone else got there.
Victor had welcomed the scum.
“I’ll need your hand.”
Hakan’s mind twitched, as if assaulted. The Black Orchid was infamous for mutilation; the news-comms delighted in graphic bob captures of disfigurements at their blades. That Victor would think to take up their bloodier practices was beyond belief.
“Your hand.”
Hakan almost laughed. Here? Now? With the banquet still waiting upon the happy couple’s arrival? His uncle was playing at farce.
“Nyer is mine,” Hakan said, “I’ll deal with the Black Orchid personally.” Get rid of them. Without Pilar’s fortune, it would be more difficult. Everything would be more difficult without Pilar. She’d made this fight worth it.
“Such tenacity.” Victor lifted his glass in salute. “I wonder from whom you learned it. And why didn’t my children learn it too?”
“I was educated elsewhere,” Hakan said, denying any connection between him and his uncle. “They only had you.”
Victor’s smile soured. “I require your hand, since you’ve forced mine.”
The request was absurd. How his uncle could be so casual about violence, about allowing—no, inviting—the Black Orchid on the Hub, made Hakan wonder if he’d known the man at all. He’d loved him once. He’d actually thought of him as a father. His real father.
“You’re not leaving until I have it,” Victor said.
Hakan’s brain refused to contemplate the threat, but a worm of anxiety ate through his heart. He mentally queued his comm to signal for help, but received only the deadtone of a null line. No communication.
Victor couldn’t be serious. To act against blood…
“I won’t submit.” Ever. In any way.
“I think you will.” The glass wall behind Victor’s chair lit with a vantage of Pilar’s firebird from a pursuing vessel. “Your hand.”
Hakan forced calm over the tremor that swept his body. His scalp itched with sweat.
His uncle had traced Pilar. So fast?
This was insane: the whole sector’s attention was fixed on the Hub. Would his uncle be this audacious?
And yet, the old man sent an assassin…. And Barton had seemed overly confident, as if he’d known just how buggered Hakan was.
“Now, if you please,” Victor said. “I must return to my guests and make your apologies.”
Hakan had thought he’d solved the problem—the imminent financial ruin of the Frust family, now reversed by Sol’s wealth in mica. But that was never the issue. He
knew that now. The issue was his uncle. Hakan just hadn’t realized how far gone his uncle was from Frust. Victor was Orchid now.
“Your hand for Pilar’s life.”
Honor demanded that Hakan disregard the flyer and its passengers. The Hub’s charter was to serve, even at the expense of life, the greater safety of its citizens. Hakan couldn’t submit to his uncle, and by extension the Black Orchid, who was underwriting him. Pilar Sol, regardless of wealth, and Reina Campion, regardless of expertise, were but two lives compared to the hundred thousand in Hakan’s care.
He should say no and allow Pilar to perish. Hopefully, she still slept.
Call his uncle’s bluff.
But Hakan was selfish and weak, just like his real father. He felt it in the tremor of his nerves, a longing that he couldn’t deny.
“Right or left?” His bones went space-cold in anticipation, but his tone had surprising levity, considering.
His uncle smiled and stood.
They wanted his hand. What did they intend to do with the rest of him?
Nausea gripped him. Heat rushed him.
In Hakan’s peripheral vision, two men shimmered out of invisibility. Illegal tech. Orchid tech. They wore black—of course they would. One emptied the small table next to the chair—setting the alcohol, glass, vase of flowers off to the side. The other drew a long, fat knife, suitable for butchering.
Terror gurgled up Hakan’s throat, though he wasn’t afraid of the pain exactly. He shivered in a sudden dank sweat as he knelt and put his right arm on the table. Pain he could handle. He’d been taught, after all. So it had to be something else.
Pilar.
Hakan almost didn’t recognize his own face. His reflection was superimposed on the black of space beneath the flyer, and he was grinning like a madman. His eyes were wide, dry and unblinking, as if hallucinating some surreal horror. This was not happening. He was sleeping, having a nightmare.
That it should come to this…
Thank the gods he got Pilar off when he did. Thank the gods.
If he submitted, would his uncle really let her go?
When his hand separated from his wrist, he jerked out-of-body. But even floating above the scene, looking down in wonder at the red splashing on the glossy white floor, he heard himself scream.
***
Thirsty.
Pilar swallowed and found her tongue uncooperative. Her throat ached with the movement.
The hard edge of something unforgiving was hurting her head, but she didn’t have the will to do anything about it. Each thin breath was enough to keep her heart beating, but to move her body, she’d have to pull something more substantial.
Her sleep cycler must’ve malfunctioned and put her under deeper than she’d wanted. The schedule had been grueling and wasn’t going to let up any time soon.
Her mind turned. What next?
Right. The banquet.
An image of the gown she was going to wear came into her mind. High collar, deep V, mica-silvery fabric molded into a corset, then released into a rainy swish of long skirts. And for her hair, she had a fat, low bun in mind. Elegant and regal.
Water and oxygen were no motivation, but for her gown, she’d stir.
She lifted her head. It throbbed its displeasure. Her dry throat seemed to crack. Breathing became imperative.
Gods, she was going to throw up.
She planted her hands on the grate beneath her—where am I?—and pushed herself up. When she raised her eyes, she stared, lacking comprehension. Someone—Reina?—was staring back at her. Her attendant had an ugly black beetle plug in her mouth, nostrils flaring. Her hands and feet were secure-tied, dried blood crusting her wrists. Fury radiated from her person.
A hard pump of Pilar’s heart propelled her to lunge to her attendant’s assistance. The gag released at the back of Reina’s head. The plug came out of her mouth with a mess of saliva and hacking coughs.
Pilar bent to Reina’s hands. “How do I release the ties?” If they’d been kidnapped—who would dare? Hakan’s uncle?—they might only have moments before their captors returned.
Reina sputtered. “In betw—” And hacked some more.
Pilar pinched the connecting tab, and the bonds fell open, fresh blood oozing. Then did the same to the secure-tie at Reina’s feet. Whoever had restrained her attendant had also made it easy to get free.
“Your husband,” Reina rasped.
Oh, gods. Pilar sat back as if she’d been punched in the belly. Hakan! What had happened to him? Where was he? Did he live?
“He did this.” Reina straightened her legs.
“He did what?” Pilar wasn’t going to cry. The assassin. The conflict about his succession and the Frust family. She didn’t care about any of that. Hakan had to be okay. She’d find him. And he’d be all right. All she wanted was him.
“He bound me. Drugged you.”
Pilar frowned. Her dry throat cracked again, though a tear streaked down her cheek. He what—?
Reina used her elbow on a crate to help hoist herself up to kneeling. “Hakan threw us on this bird. Says it’s headed back to Sol.”
Pilar wheezed in confusion. “What?”
“Said you insulted his family.” Reina laboriously stood, bracing herself against the wall for a deep breath.
Pilar shook her head. “His family tried to kill me.” They’d insulted her first.
“Then he must’ve caved to them, because he’s sending you home, and not in the luxury with which you arrived.”
Pilar went very still. Sending her home? They were married. He couldn’t return her like an unwanted pair of shoes. Mortification seared her face. “He loves me,” she said. “He must be trying to protect me.”
That had to be it. An assassin had breached their inner-most place, and Hakan was concerned that his family would try again. This was a qualified rejection, not a complete one. Gods save her from protectors.
“He loves your money,” Reina said.
Pilar took the impact as she would a slap in the face—by staring the truth dead-on. “I knew going in that Frust needed financial support. I read every word of the reports.” Contrary to popular belief. This was her life, her future children’s lives, in the making. She’d weighed every detail and had chosen the man over the number on the balance sheet. And she still trusted those instincts.
“It’s a matter for the lawyers now.” Reina headed into the neuro of the firebird. “Your father is going to eat Frust alive, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.”
Go home to Father? Have him take care of it?
No. She’d chosen her mate, the contracts were signed, and Hakan would damn well honor them. “We’re not going to Sol.” Though the white-bright of transpace filled the windows. The tell-tale dizziness of space travel was just kicking in, buffered by the red mica in the engines.
“The coordinates are set and locked,” Reina said over her shoulder.
“Yeah, well I tend to snoop.” And she would never feel guilty about it again.
Pilar tried Hakan’s personal code, the one he didn’t know she’d observed him entering into his funds account. So she’d wanted to know his balance, so what? The wedding celebrations were costing so much, and she didn’t want to insult him by suggesting frugality. Sol had its pride, but Frust had just as much.
The console telemetry commands came up like magic. The firebird was theirs.
Reina huffed a laugh. “Your father will never allow you to go back.”
“My father doesn’t have a choice,” Pilar said. “And neither do you.”
Reina turned, shock in the ripple of her brow.
“You were released from my father’s service and sworn into mine. Or will you be like Hakan and ignore your contract?”
“My lady…” Reina hadn’t used that title in years.
“Let’s get one thing straight. I am in charge now. My life is my own. What I say goes. Period.” As the words left her mouth, Pilar knew their intended recipient w
as the man who’d just jilted her. Well, he’d get a similar speech soon.
She was seething to compose it in her mind.
“Do you want me to take us back to the Nyer Hub?” Reina’s tone had leveled to the deference she’d used with Pilar’s mother and father.
Pilar preferred her friendship, but this would do for now. “Yes. Absolutely.”
And now that their destination was settled, the edge of hurt sharpened.
Hakan had treated her like chattel. She’d been silly about him. She’d let herself get carried away with the excitement and the raw luck that he’d been among the suitors deemed worthy of a Sol princess’s hand. She’d thought they were invincible together—had felt it inside, like some super power, just waking.
She burned, humiliated, recalling her joy. Tears itched her eyes.
How much of their story was in her mind? Because at least part of it had to have been fiction, or she wouldn’t be on this firebird, streaking for home.
They should’ve decided what to do about his murderous family together.
This was as cold and as abrupt as if they’d never really known each other.
She’d made a mistake somewhere. And it was a big one. The knowledge made her heart pound hard, as if she were in a free fall off a high precipice.
No. She wouldn’t collapse, be weak, not now. She blinked her tears away and focused.
“The last thing he told me was about his uncle,” she said out loud. “Victor has controlled the Hub so long that he’s unwilling to give it up. He wants it for himself and his children, though that Barton is an imbecile.”
“If you go back, his uncle will try again,” Reina said. “It’s inevitable.”
“But he needs Sol funds just as much as Hakan does.”
“Makes no sense.”
Pilar was raised with more pax than almost anyone. She knew how it could motivate. “The answer is in a simple question: if not me, who’s paying?”
“I could make some inquiries.” Reina’s deadpan expression implied her inquiries would employ force.
Pilar smiled; she liked Reina so much. “I’ll join you.” Damn Hakan.
Reina bowed her head slightly. “As you wish.”