by Hotter Edge
“I’ll get Tani,” Reina said. “She might have a portable we can borrow, if she hasn’t already commed Supernova Exclusive! about her party’s royal guests.”
***
The pain was getting bad again. It was a constant sharp bark that started at his wrist and buffeted all the nerve endings on his right arm.
Hakan leaned against the wall, his legs crossed, bad arm gingerly held to his side, his other propping up his head with a pinch to the bridge of his nose. Separation was more difficult to find without Lash’s modified euphorics, or maybe because of them—the crash following the high. What had those nanites been originally programed to do?
If he medicated himself, tried to numb the outrageous ache, then the cuff simulating his right hand wouldn’t work. And he needed something that looked like a live hand. It was their best protection at the moment.
His wife might be able to distract him—Hakan felt a smile on his face—but she was concentrating on lists of names, searching for suspicious contracts in Victor’s data. She’d commed the files to her sister, who was also searching on her end, and who’d cursed profusely at the reason for the urgency. But at least the Sol royal family was forewarned about the Black Orchid’s local activities.
“No no no. Try Knudson,” Pilar commanded Reina. Knudson was a corp family who’d once been interested in developing synthetic mica and putting the Sols out of business. Could be them.
In the meantime, Hakan was waiting for word from Sirena, a friendly associate attending the wedding who had a defensive vessel with silent passage clearance, usually used for members of the Starways Congress. If the Congress could trust her, Hakan figured he could too. This time he and Pilar would leave together. If Victor dared to fire upon that bird, all legal transport to Nyer would cease, pending his surrender.
No, his uncle would let them escape, and when charges were laid, he would put on an accommodating face. Commerce would continue as it had. There was too much pressure, too much need, for any other course. Chances were that the Black Orchid would take the sector…for a little while at least. The question was, would they hold it?
“Wait. Go back,” Pilar said. “Ugh. No, keep going.”
Poor Reina kept at it with her. They could be going over those contracts for the next year; his uncle would’ve been very careful.
Now the goal was safety. And until he got word from Sirena that the vessel was ready, this party was just as safe as any other spot. It was a public venue, yet so low-end that no one would think to look for the royal newlyweds here. Their hosts seemed to be relishing their secret guests, and Pilar clearly knew how to manage them, including them in peripheral ways. For the moment, they even seemed loyal, but that couldn’t last, not even with Pilar smiling at them.
The office door cracked—a wave of electronic sound bashed up against the office’s walls. Tani leaned her head in. Her eyes were wide. “Dora says a shadow passed by the gate.”
A shadow without a person attached to it meant illegal tech. Orchid.
“We’re going to be leaving soon,” Hakan said. Reaching the armored vessel would be a death-stalked sprint. “I think you and your friend should come with us.”
Her face bloomed with delight. Somehow the danger aspect of this wasn’t catching hold of her imagination.
“Stop right there,” Pilar said. “Hakan!”
He pushed off the wall and came up beside her. “You found a name?”
Tani came all the way inside too, shut the slider, and the music muted slightly.
“No. Not yet. But I will.” She gestured to a chemical composition model. “But I was right about the bad mica.”
Hakan squinted at the three-dimensional structure of atoms and chemical bonds that floated in front of him. Not his area of expertise. “It’s not labeled.”
Pilar’s dark cat eyes were full of worry. “It’s a form of the synthetic red, and no matter what it’s labeled, anyone who uses it will become progressively ill.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “It’s a good start.”
“It’s a slow death,” she shot back.
“I believe you.” Why were they arguing again?
“We have to tell people,” she said. “Lash and his family are using it right now. Who knows how many others? Where did they get it from?”
“We’ll find out.” Eventually. Lash had refused to name his source. They’d need to ask him again, more forcefully. Maybe they’d be able to trace the source back to his uncle or the Black Orchid. They’d be following a lot of thin threads in the coming weeks and months.
Tani nudged him on his bad arm. He tried not to snarl as he turned to her. “Yes?”
She held out an earpiece—she hadn’t the funds for an implant—which was damn convenient now. He put it in his ear with a nod of thanks. Good news, he hoped.
“We’re ready,” said Sirena, the natural lilt in her voice gone hard. She had experience with the Black Orchid herself. “Ring Seven.”
Here we go. One last dash. And a shadow at the gate.
A flash of sweat misted his skin as if he were already running. “We’re on our way.”
Pilar gestured to the three dimensional structure slowly rotating in the splash of light from the portable. “Hakan, we can’t just let people continue to use it.”
“We’ll take steps just as soon as we can, but we’ve got to go now.” He looked to Tani. “Your friend Dora?”
“Out front.”
“We’ll pick her up on our way out then.”
“Mica!” Pilar said behind him.
Hakan whirled back to find a crisp rendering of Pilar’s sister in the holo. Reina was frozen in shock. She’d spent an hour bouncing the dump of Victor’s files through dozens of comms so as not to connect Tani’s portable with the palace on Sol. And here Pilar was making a direct comm. Traceable. Hackable.
“Ho, Pia—?” Mica began.
“You have to issue a bulletin,” Pilar cut in quickly, though talking fast wouldn’t help much. Their whereabouts were probably already being pinpointed. “People are using the synth red. The chemical composition is in the files I sent you.”
Mica shook her head. “The synthetic never made it through the trials.”
“It’s being bought and sold. People are using it, people with children. Issue a bulletin. My word as…” The phrase falling off his wife’s tongue, My word as Sol, was as good as law on Sol planet if uttered by a member of the royal family. Pilar wasn’t a Sol anymore. “My word as Frust.”
She cut off the comm and turned to face him. “Okay, I’m ready.”
But he’d just been staked into place by a new, beautiful agony—she’d used his name, as if it were good, strong, and unassailable. The number of ways in which his wife rocked him grew with each passing moment. He’d had the vision for the future of Frust, but she somehow knew what was necessary to make it happen. Making his name good again was the place to start.
She smacked a kiss on his cheek. “Come on. The sooner we get there, the sooner I can get these blades off my feet. That blister on my pinkie is murder.”
Okay. For the blister, then, he’d hie their asses through the Hub.
Once outside the No Sleeping gate, Hakan flipped the bird at Barton with his simulated hand. “You’re paying next time,” he called, as if he were one of his entourage. Let any shadows nearby make what they could of that. Hakan Frust had the use of both hands.
The byway was clear until they hit the main thoroughfare where some kind of sing-in was taking place. A banner had been lifted above the street: Pray for the Princess. Media bobs hovered over a solemn, candle-bearing crowd. The current vocal sensation, Pietra La Mode, was leading with an a cappella rendering of her latest hit, Love’s a Black Hole, with tambourine backup and tear tracks down her cheeks.
Pilar slowed briefly to aww at the outpouring of sentiment, but Hakan yanked her along, and the group snaked through the prematurely grieving crowd to a heavy lift, which took them directly to the Ring Seven docki
ng bay.
Hakan wouldn’t believe their luck, not with the anxiety biting his neck to hurry, hurry, hurry. Relief flashed his body when he spotted the mean-nosed armored vessel, like a giant Solian razor bug, its entry flanked by armed men in Sirena’s employ.
Sudden slicer fire from behind them scorched the floor of the bay.
Here they come. Here they come.
The armed men at the vessel knelt, hunkering behind industrial weapons, to return fire. Sirena blasted her slicer from the cover of the door. “Move!”
Hakan thrust Pilar in front of him and into the arms of salvation. He reached for the squealing party girls and then waited for Barton, who was dragging Reina with him. Son of a bitch was a hero after all. The door slid closed, Sirena speaking low to one of her men. In the lull, they all gathered to watch Pilar apply pressure to Reina’s leg, but Reina’s eyes were too bright for the injury to be fatal. Her brilliant smile said what he felt inside—that they’d made it to safety.
Pilar was soon elbowed out of the way by a medic with gear in hand, and she sat back, blood on her palms. Grins spread around their circle for their success. The party girls’ “oh-my-gods” made him laugh. He hadn’t been this happy and relieved since Drummond Sol said yes.
“If you’ll just follow me,” Sirena said.
Hakan had met her on Mars—she’d been wearing a similar flight suit—her red hair always clasped back out of her face. No cosmetics. No frills. Only the beauty of youth to adorn her. A scowl cut her face.
She gestured toward the belly of the bird, where Hakan would make the introductions and where he was sure she expected a briefing on the nature of the cutthroats chasing his group. He hadn’t explained why he needed her, but she’d gone along with his request anyway. Already Hakan could sense the slight gravitational increase of liftoff and the balance challenge of a turn inside the bay.
Wouldn’t be long now before they’d be in transpace headed for Sol. He could leave Frust and Nyer behind if he had Pilar. Had he really made the exact opposite choice not two days ago?
Insanity. She was the heat and light in his life, his sun.
Their group split, the party girls to stay with Reina, and he, Pilar, and Barton following Sirena’s lead. A slider door opened into a large circular room with a view of the receding Hub. Three men stood with their backs to the entry. They were watching a media bulletin warning about the existence of synthetic mica on the market. A follow-up on the impact the synth red had on human longevity related symptoms. A smaller holo, by a less reputable network, displayed visuals of the deterioration that people faced.
Mica had transmitted Pilar’s message. Already some good was to come of this nightmare.
“Gentleman,” one of the men said in Victor’s voice. “I can explain.”
Victor?
Hakan looked to Sirena for an explanation, though the obvious was dawning on him already. A trap. Her guards had followed them, and they were gripping their slicer rifles.
Sirena shrugged and said, “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Seven
They hadn’t been fired upon; they’d been pushed…right into the red-headed woman’s grasp. Sirena was what Hakan had called her. Pilar could think of some other names that would apply as well, but the door slid shut before Pilar could fling them at her, Sirena and her posse outside.
Later, definitely, if there was a later.
The three men turned. Two she didn’t recognize, but the long, curved blades at their sides hinted at Orchid. The man in the middle, with a slicer, was her uncle-in-law.
Hakan tried to push her behind him, but she took his only hand and squeezed it. She wouldn’t show weakness. Wouldn’t let him set her aside again, especially if this was the end. He gripped her hand in return, wonderful and perilous things passing along their connection.
Her pinkie toe was screaming. Maybe blades weren’t the best footwear for life and death adventures. Sirena had been wearing combat boots, but who’d want to die in those?
“Pilar Sol,” Victor said.
Never mind the footwear. She’d shop if she lived—get the perfect apparel after the fact.
She put her shoulders back and straightened her spine the way she’d seen her mother do when faced with the bloodthirsty scavengers on Sol. But she was quaking inside, surely as Mother had as well.
They’d been played. The firefight had been a ruse to maneuver them into the Orchid’s possession. They’d probably been caught all along, but now there were no partying witnesses, no candle-holding truehearts to tell the media bobs what they’d seen.
“I still won’t bow,” she said.
She borrowed her mother’s imperial expression too. She’d practiced it during tea parties as a child and with boys as a teenager. She’d been practicing for this moment and would use it to bear the crush of disappointment and despair. Caught.
“I did it,” Barton said in a rush, coming to stand on her left. “I did everything. I stole your contract files.”
His moment of credit went by without a flicker of interest from Victor, whose attention was fixed on Pilar.
“It’s a small delay,” Victor told his Orchid friends. “And in the meantime, we have a Princess of Sol, and therefore all the red mica her father will give for her life, until the synthetic is perfected. Our arrangement is still intact.”
Pilar cocked her head. Pfft. “The synthetic mica is a long way from being perfected. The transpace resonance of natural red simply can’t be duplicated.” The media would be reporting as much as they cobbled together their stories as fast as they could to air alongside Mica’s bulletin. But Pilar wanted to see Victor scramble for an explanation in front of these Orchids. What piece of him would they take with their long knives?
Barton drew a deeper breath to try again. “I’m the reason Mica Sol posted the bulletin on synthetic red.”
But Victor kept his interest on her. “You’re lying.”
Pilar smiled. The synthetic red had to be the root of Victor’s relationship with the Black Orchid, or he wouldn’t be flailing for purchase now. But the synth wouldn’t bear fruit. “Transpace flight is Sol’s business. My family knows everything there is to know about mica, the real and the engineered. I can make the research available to you, if you’d like.”
His teeth came together, all edges. His gaze twitched in the direction of the nearest Orchid. Nervous.
Victor had the research. Of course he did. He must have learned about the damaging side effects—perhaps recently, perhaps just in time to know that Hakan would overcome him with a union with Sol. Hakan had already beaten him. The rest was panic: kill the Sol princess whose money and connections would stabilize Nyer, take a bloody trophy from his nephew to signify triumph. A violent bluff to buy time in the hopes that the synth red could be made good.
The Orchids in the room observed silently, peacefully. One of those blades had likely cut off Hakan’s hand.
“It doesn’t matter what the research says if we have you.” Victor drew his slicer, ostensibly to scare her. But it wasn’t working; if he fired, he wouldn’t have her anymore.
“Have her for what?” Hakan probed the question too. “As a hostage? Drummond Sol loves his daughter, but you can’t bully him into doing anything. As king, he won’t allow Sol to be manipulated by anyone.”
“Not even for my life,” Pilar added.
Hakan moved toward one of the Orchids. “Do you have the resources to challenge Sol directly?”
“We do not,” the Orchid said, unperturbed. “Not yet.”
“A little more time,” Victor promised the man in black, “and I will give you even Sol.”
Pilar shuddered at what the future would hold for her home world. But Father and Mica could play this game too. They could be ruthless. They’d had ample experience with the scavengers. They could face the Black Orchid. Would face them.
“Father,” Barton said. “You will look at me.”
Pilar heard the soul-stripped frustration in his words. F
utile. They would all be disappointed today. Keep your spine straight, she wanted to tell him.
“The pressure of commerce,” Hakan said to Victor, “the rush for expansion—the corp families won’t tolerate a delay from Nyer while you posture with Sol. Everyone wants their pax, and they won’t let you stand in the way of getting it. You’ve gambled on the red and you’ve lost, no matter what happens in this room today.” Hakan threw a black look toward the Orchids; they’d gambled and lost too.
Victor stepped past Hakan and aimed that nozzle of death at her.
Pilar peered down her nose at him. You are beneath me.
Victor bore down on his gambit. “You can’t tell me that a princess of Sol isn’t worth anything? I’d actually like to hear what Drummond Sol would say when faced with the choice.”
Pilar answered. “My father would say, Do your worst.”
It’d be a bluff while he strategized, while he tried to save her, but if the conflict came down to Sol or his daughter, Hakan was right, her father would choose Sol.
Victor smiled. “I’m prepared to do just that. My worst. Drown Sol in blood. Send your ruined body back to him.”
“Then you concede?” The Orchid spoke to the back of Victor’s head.
“If I’m going down,” Victor said, “the princess will soften my fall.”
Behind Victor, Hakan’s gaze filled with commands. Keep talking. Distract him. Buy time.
When Hakan looked at her she felt real, important, beautiful. First. She sent him a spark in return. If you ever loved me, live.
To Hakan’s side, an Orchid silently drew his blade in a graceful, smoky arc.
A tremor started up within Pilar’s core, and she flexed her belly as hard as she could so that she would not shake when Hakan went down. Fight to the last breath. This is it.
But the Orchid soundlessly handed the hilt to Hakan with a small bow, signifying defeat. A gesture, perhaps, of bygones and sportsmanship?