The Queen's Gambit
Page 4
Commander Adams hadn’t been wrong, either—the Kos Empire did have a bounty on my head. If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up the one captured. I needed to stick to the script and get my head in the game.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to herd my thoughts into some semblance of order. I pasted on a too-bright smile and met Valentin’s gaze. “Sorry about that,” I said. “I didn’t expect the painkiller to affect me so strongly, but that’s no excuse. I apologize.”
“Samara—” Valentin started.
“Let’s get you patched up,” I said. “Where were you hit?”
He started to argue further but changed his mind after a glance at my face. “A pulse grazed my back,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s too bad. It can wait.”
I motioned him around with a little twirl of my fingers. He grumbled but turned around. His shirt gaped open from his shoulder blades. The pulse had burned through the fabric and just grazed his warm golden skin, leaving behind a long, narrow burn.
“Take off your shirt. It’s trash, anyway. I’ll find you a spare,” I said. “The wound is shallow, but I’ll put some renewal gel on it to speed up the healing.”
Valentin pulled the shirt over his head revealing a surprisingly muscled back and sculpted arms. He might have genetics on his side, but he’d worked hard to build this much muscle. The real question was how—and why.
He half-turned, trying to see the wound over his shoulder. I caught a glimpse of a smoothly muscled chest before I forced my eyes away. The man was gorgeous. I didn’t need any more mental images of his body haunting my dreams.
I focused and carefully dabbed renewal gel on the wound and then covered it with an elastomer bandage. It wasn’t deep, but sometimes shallow plasma wounds stung worse than their deeper counterparts.
“Do you want a painkiller or just an immune boost?” I asked, already preparing the injector.
“I don’t need either,” he said. He turned to face me.
I frowned at him. “That wasn’t an option. Painkiller: yes or no?”
“No, thank you,” he said. “And I’m augmented to improve healing, so you might as well save the immune booster, too.”
“I’m not risking you getting an infection when the ship has such limited medical facilities. Give me your arm.”
“I’m not going to die of infection in a few hours,” he said with a smile, but he gave me his arm.
I pressed the injector against the skin of his upper arm—and hesitated. I met his eyes. He was still smiling, his expression warm, like he was trying to soften the blow of rejection.
Valentin wasn’t what I expected, but that didn’t change anything, not really. I pulled the trigger with a sigh and blamed the flash of regret on the painkiller still swirling through my system.
He stopped me before I could turn away. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I will be,” I said. Still, I couldn’t quite shake my melancholy mood. “Do you ever wish you were someone else?”
His expression turned wistful. “When I was little, I’d sneak out of the palace to play with the boys in the city. It gave my nurses heart attacks, but those kids didn’t care who I was, they just knew I was ready and willing to join the fray.”
He paused, then continued, “I wasn’t raised to be the Emperor; my life took a different path. But then Father secretly changed the line of succession two months before he died. He didn’t ask me, didn’t offer any explanation—hell, he didn’t even tell me. My older brother Nikolas thinks I stole his crown. He refuses to talk to me and as you suspected, would likely prefer me dead.”
Everyone knew about the last-minute succession change, but everyone assumed that Valentin had stolen the crown from his brother. If he truly hadn’t, then it cast a whole new light on the past eleven months.
Valentin would’ve had to work fast to build support in a hostile house because no doubt his brother had been collecting allies and making deals since he was a child. And none of his brother’s allies would be happy with Emperor Valentin Kos.
The fact that he had kept the crown—and his head—meant Valentin was far more cunning and determined than his recent actions had led me to believe.
Valentin’s gaze dropped to the scar on my left collarbone. A plasma pulse had shattered the bone. I’d spent five days in hell before an auto-doc patched me up. I could’ve paid to have the scar removed, but I kept it as a reminder to not fuck up.
A reminder I dearly needed right now.
Valentin blinked slowly. “What about you, Samara, do you—” He shook his head and clutched at the wall behind him as he staggered backward a step. He leaned back against the wall, then slowly crumpled to the floor. He looked up in confusion.
“What’s happening?” he asked, his voice slurred.
“It’s just a little sedative. You’ll take a nice nap while I get us out of here.”
The confusion gave way to such a look of sheer betrayal that my heart twisted. Anger clouded his features as he slumped sideways. He glared at me from the floor.
“I… trusted… you,” he ground out.
Sadness crept through me. “I know,” I said softly. “Sleep well.”
5
I left Valentin sleeping in medical and went to find him a shirt from the crew bunk. With his augments, I wasn’t exactly sure how long he’d stay out. It might be as little as fifteen minutes, so the faster I got him into a cell, the better.
It was more difficult than I expected to wrestle his limp body into a shirt, but I finally managed it. With him fully dressed again, I picked him up and carried him two doors down. Pain stabbed down my right leg with each step but the bandage held.
I put Valentin in the cell across from the door and turned on signal isolation to prevent him from linking outside of the cell. After a moment’s hesitation, I picked the lock on his remaining leg shackle and removed it. He’d be more comfortable without it.
With Valentin contained, I headed to the bridge. We had cleared the planet’s atmosphere. And as far as the sensors were concerned, no one had followed us. If someone had followed us, their stealth system was better than mine. In a few more minutes we could make our first tunnel transit and hopefully lose any tagalongs.
“Invictia, close all neural link connections. Accept only my spoken commands and authenticated terminal commands until further notice.”
My mental connection to the ship disappeared. “All neural connections have been closed,” the ship said over the bridge loudspeakers.
I severed my connection to the net and closed all of the neural link sockets that listened for incoming connections. It might be overkill, but without knowing exactly how Emperor Kos’s neural ability worked, I couldn’t be sure.
At the thought of the Emperor, my mind drifted back to our almost kiss. I touched my lips. The painkiller had loosened its grip and I still wanted him. He affected me more strongly than anyone I’d met in a long, long time.
But he could have anyone he wanted, and while I was self-aware enough to know I was attractive in my own way, I was far from the stunning women he was likely used to at court.
I scowled. Jealousy wasn’t a good look, especially not when the target was so far out of reach he might as well be a distant star in the night sky. I needed to keep my eye on the prize and get over the fact that he was the rare combination of smart, surprisingly kind, and damn attractive.
To keep myself busy, I plotted the course to the Rogue Coalition’s headquarters on Trigon Three. The direct route required two tunnel transits. The stardrive needed a four-hour recharge before the second transit, but even so, I could be home in time for brunch.
However, I also needed to let the Kos Empire know that I had Valentin. Right now, we were in the middle of Quint space and communication was restricted, so if I wanted Kos to get the message sometime this century, I needed to be closer to a large communication hub.
I could hit the nearest hub in a single tunnel transit but it was still in Quint Confeder
acy space. I needed something in disputed space and the only nearby option was two tunnels away: Caldwell Prime 57.
Once a tiny frontier space station, Caldwell Prime 57 had grown to epic proportions. Rumor had it that seventy-five percent of the universe’s black-market goods moved through CP57. Both Quint and Kos were desperate to control it, but CP57 had grown tired of the constant fighting and declared themselves independent—and they had the money, power, and numbers to back it up.
I plotted the course. Stopping by CP57 meant adding an extra tunnel transit—and another four-hour recharge—but it was safer than hanging around in Quint space. It also put me closer to Trigon Three if things went south. Decision made, I locked in the route. We would complete our first transit in ten minutes.
With the course set, I decided a shower was the next highest priority. The door to my quarters slid open, revealing painted walls of pale gold that reminded me of sunlight on a summer’s day.
A large bed dominated the room. Because of the bed, I didn’t have space for the typical sitting room, but I had managed to squeeze in a comfy overstuffed chair and a footrest. I rarely had company; I didn’t need a second chair.
Designed and decorated for me alone, this room had been my haven for far longer than I’d been Queen Samara Rani.
I dug through the wardrobe looking for clothes that would be easy to put on with a busted-up shoulder and thigh. I decided on loose utility pants and a button-up shirt.
My tiny private bathroom had a sink, shower, and toilet. The mirror above the sink did not reflect a flattering picture. Dark circles shadowed the skin under my eyes and my right eye was ringed in black—Commander Adams had hit harder than I thought. And thanks to the blood loss, my light brown skin had taken on a sickly pallor. I looked like a dark-eyed, dark-haired wraith.
I stripped out of my underthings and stepped into the shower to let the water wash away the remnants of our escape. Bloody rivulets ran down my arms and legs.
Lulled by the warm water, I lost track of time, but the unmistakable vibration of the stardrive kicking in broke me from the daze. I washed my hair and then carefully washed around the bandages.
By the time I was done, my thigh throbbed in time with my pulse, a deep, stabbing pain that the painkiller couldn’t completely alleviate. And after my last experience in humiliation, I wasn’t eager to give myself another dose.
Clean and dressed, I headed across the hall to the galley to find something to eat. The thought of food made me vaguely nauseous, but I at least needed to drink some juice to make up for the blood loss.
“Samara!” Valentin shouted. “Samara Rani, I know you can hear me. Let me out of here!” He banged something against the wall of his cell. “Samara!”
In the galley, I grabbed two energy bars and two bottles of rehydration fluid—I wasn’t wasting apple juice on Emperor Kos. With no reason to delay further, I went to face the dragon.
Valentin stopped shouting when I entered the room. He stood close to the wall of his cell, and with all of his anger and annoyance focused on me, I was very glad we were separated by five centimeters of clear thermoplastic.
“I trusted you and you lied to me,” he said without preamble.
“I didn’t lie,” I said. I pushed the bottle and energy bar through the narrow opening designed for food trays. Valentin ignored both items.
“You let me believe you were rescuing me,” he bit out. “A lie by omission is still a lie.”
“I did rescue you,” I said. “You’re safe. I won’t torture you. I don’t care what the Quint Confederacy wanted from you. As soon as your advisors pay me for my trouble, I’ll deliver you directly into their loving embrace.”
His eyes widened. “You’re ransoming me?” he asked.
“Yes. How much do you think you’re worth to your Empire? I was thinking ten million credits.”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe the rumors about you are true after all.”
My own temper ignited. “Which rumors?” I asked. “The ones about how your stupid fucking war is sending thousands and thousands of refugees into neutral territories like mine, territories that can’t feed the people they already have because that same war closed borders and shut down trade? Because that isn’t rumor, that’s fact.”
Some emotion I couldn’t name passed over Valentin’s face before being replaced by a sneer. “No, I was the referring to the rumors that you’re greedy and heartless.”
I laughed. “Oh, I’m far worse than that. I will do whatever it takes to keep my people safe. You had better hope your advisors pay up quickly, Emperor Kos.”
“They won’t give you a single credit,” he said with calm certainty.
“Then you’d better get used to that cell because you’re going to be enjoying it for a long, long time.”
He slammed his palm against the wall separating us. “Dammit, let me out of here. We can work something out.”
“No,” I said. “If you really want out, then start thinking of a way to get your advisors to pay your ransom faster—or pay it yourself.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said with cool menace, “but I will if I have to. I don’t have time for this.”
“You do what you have to do. But know this: if you do manage to hurt me, I’ll leave you to the same fate my people are currently suffering. And starving to death is a terrible way to die.”
“You can drop the act,” he said coldly. His rage was being replaced with cool calculation, piece by piece. “We both know the people of the Rogue Coalition are fine. Playing for my sympathy won’t save you.”
I blinked at him, momentarily thrown. “Just to be clear,” I said slowly, “you think my people aren’t starving and that I risked my life to rescue you from Quint’s clutches because…” I trailed off, interested to see how he’d finish that sentence.
“I thought you did it because the Kos Empire had hired you to. That was obviously wrong. Now, I think you did it to prove you could,” Valentin said. “You saw an opportunity to further line your coffers and you took it.”
“Wow.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Wow,” I said again. “Okay, here’s a free piece of advice: fire your intelligence advisors. They’re incompetent or they want you to look incompetent. Either way, you’d be better off without them.”
Valentin narrowed his eyes and said nothing.
I opened my bottle of rehydration fluid and drank half of it. It tasted like I imagined sweaty old socks would taste, but I forced it down. I also nibbled on my energy bar while I let my temper settle.
Advisors were vitally important for a ruler, a lesson I’d had to learn after running myself ragged trying to stay on top of every issue. And the entire Rogue Coalition was just a few hundred thousand people on five planets—the Kos Empire spanned half of the known universe.
By design, advisors had an enormous amount influence. By filtering the data they passed on, they could shape an issue however they wanted. A few advisors working together could do a lot to undermine an unwanted leader, especially one whose attentions were occupied elsewhere.
Finally, I asked, “Did you replace the imperial advisors when you took over as Emperor?” If he truly hadn’t stolen the crown, then the likely answer was no. He’d need the old advisors to keep some semblance of stability.
Valentin stared down his nose at me, every centimeter the forbidding, untouchable Emperor. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” he said coldly.
“I don’t know what your advisors are telling you,” I said, “but if they are lying about the Rogue Coalition, they are likely lying about other things. You need to clean house. And maybe check a news outlet or two.”
“Of course I check the news,” he said, expression closed and calculating.
I rubbed my face. “Then dig deeper when you get home. Don’t just swallow whatever your advisors are telling you. I thought you were incompetent or indifferent, but now I’m not so sure. I think your advisors are sabotaging you.”
I blew out a breath. It wasn’t my problem, but I couldn’t let it go without one more attempt. Despite everything, I actually liked him.
“Just do some independent research,” I said. “Your people deserve that much from their Emperor.”
His mouth flattened into a hard line.
“I’ve blocked all outgoing communication and shut down all neural link connections,” I said, “so if you need me, you’ll have to shout. Abuse the privilege and I’ll turn on the soundproofing in your cell. We have four hours until our next tunnel. I suggest you sleep.”
“If you let me go right now, I give you my word that I won’t declare war on you, Queen Rani,” Valentin said.
“You won’t declare war anyway because it’s going to be part of the ransom agreement. Believe it or not, I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were stupid,” he said.
“No, just heartless and greedy. And you’re about to get a first-hand look at just how much of both I am. I hope some of your advisors are smarter than you,” I said as I turned to leave. “At least the ones who don’t want you declared incompetent.”
“Dammit, Samara, let me out,” Valentin demanded.
I stopped in the doorway. “Invictia, turn on soundproofing in the cells,” I said.
A chime sounded and Valentin’s mouth moved but no words reached me. “I can’t hear you,” I said, “so feel free to shout yourself hoarse. I’ll be back to check on you in a few hours.”
The soundproofing was one-way, so Valentin could hear me just fine. He paused and then slapped his hand against the cell wall. He very clearly enunciated, “Fuck. You.”
I looked him up and down. “While I appreciate the offer, I’m going to have to pass. That ship has sailed. You’ll just have to use your imagination,” I said with a wink.