by Terry Mixon
She nodded. “He came with me on the expedition. He taught me everything I know about being a diplomat. I like to think he’s a close friend.”
“In our universe, your brother sent a gift from the palace to Jared Mertz in your father’s name. Something it happened the admiral didn’t care for, so he gave it to Mister Vega. One piece was poisoned. Carlo Vega died before you even found Pentagar.
“I watched the recording your brother made after the expedition left. I saw the hatred and glee at the likelihood Jared Mertz would die. In our universe at least, he was not the brother you know.”
“I want to see it. All of it.” She would see through the lies and deceptions. Of that she had no doubt.
“I’ll see to it,” he said with a nod. “Along with the exhaustive verifications that prove none of it was doctored.”
Since there was nothing left to say on that subject, they traveled on in silence until the Imperial Palace came into view. It was miraculously intact. A sight she’d never expected to see again.
The grav car came down onto the main pad and everyone exited. The Imperial Guard was out in force, armed for trouble. It both saddened and amused her that she was the threat today.
Her Marine Raider implants made her a force to be reckoned with, but she wasn’t a danger to her father. Not only did she love and miss him, but she desperately needed his assistance. Particularly if Coordinator West’s tales about the Rebel Empire were true.
She’d left her precious armor and weapons back on their ship. If they wanted to take her, they could. A number of guards had neural disruptors that could kill or stun her before she could take them all out.
Lisa Devonshire, her father’s majordomo stepped out and bowed as if meeting a new Kelsey was an everyday occurrence.
“Highness, welcome to Avalon. The emperor is eager to meet you. If you and your escort will follow me.”
Seeing the familiar corridors intact as she passed through them was surreal. She allowed the familiar sights to distract her from the heavy contingent of guards surrounding them as they proceeded toward the official audience chamber.
That wasn’t like the father she knew. He hated the place. Every meeting that could happen under more intimate circumstances was done that way.
Maybe it hadn’t been his choice, she decided. If they wanted to keep her under the gun, they’d need a lot of room to assure the emperor’s safety.
“Do you have restraints?” she asked. “Arm and leg shackles that I can’t easily break?”
Sean frowned and opened his mouth to respond, but Devonshire interrupted him.
“We do,” the majordomo said as she came to a halt, stopping everyone around her.
“Use them before you take me before my…the emperor. His safety is paramount. It’s not going to offend me. If you wanted to take me prisoner, you could do so right now.”
“That isn’t necessary,” Sean objected.
The majordomo seemed to disagree as she gestured for one of the Imperial Guardsmen to bring over a set of handy restraints.
Kelsey smiled wryly at Sean. “Don’t take it personally. I’m not. Hell, I’m a dangerously unknown and unknowable threat. I’d lock me up, too.”
“This is only until we get to know you well enough to dispense with them,” Devonshire said.
She allowed the guards to pull her hands behind her and lock her wrists down. A belt around her waist provided an extra point of attachment for the arm and leg restraints that followed.
The chains looked flimsy, but she took the opportunity to throw her fully enhanced strength against them. Might as well. The restraints kept her arms securely locked behind her. She wasn’t going anywhere or hurting anyone without them being able to take her out.
Walking was more difficult once they resumed moving forward. The chains between her ankles only allowed for short steps. It was kind of funny, seeing the large group around her creeping down the long corridor at her pace.
After what felt like forever, they arrived at the main doors to the audience chamber. At their approach, they swung back and half the guards entered, no doubt to join others already waiting.
Kelsey held her head high and strained to catch sight of her father. When she did, a giant fist clamped down on her heart and she found she could no longer see out of her natural eye because of the tears welling up.
He was alive. Oh, God, he was alive.
And he was angry.
Her father hadn’t been on the Throne, but pacing in front of it. At the sight of her, his face contorted with rage. A sight she rarely remembered seeing on the gentle man.
He strode toward her with his lips tightly compressed. “What is the meaning of this? Get those things off her this very instant!”
Kelsey only barely suppressed the laughter that threatened to burst out of her. How very like him.
“I asked them to do it,” she said, her voice rough. “I may look like your daughter, but to them I’m a potential threat. This way you can be certain of your safety.”
He brushed her words aside just as quickly as he did the guards that tried to step between them. “Take those damned things off my daughter right now. Right. This. Second.”
The majordomo looked at her liege for a long moment before she gestured to the guards. They quickly removed the restraints.
Kelsey opened her mouth to say the words she’d settled on as the best greeting from another universe, but only managed to squeak when he yanked her into a tight hug.
“Oh, my poor darling. What had happened to you? You’re safe here. Always and forever.”
Her planned speech died as emotion overwhelmed her and she sobbed on her father’s shoulder. A shoulder she’d never expected to see again this side of death’s veil.
9
Sean stood with Olivia as the tearful meeting between the emperor and his daughter from another universe took place under the watchful eyes of every Imperial Guardsmen in existence. Or so it seemed.
Not that any of them could do a damned thing if something went wrong.
Thankfully, it seemed as if this Kelsey had no evil intentions toward the emperor. She merely clutched him and cried. From what Sean could tell, she’d been through more than enough to need the comfort.
“It’s nerve-wracking,” Olivia said quietly. “Not knowing how she differs from our friend.”
He nodded. “I’m glad I don’t have to make the hard decisions this time.”
She poked him a little. “You’re a Fleet commodore. They pay you to make the difficult decisions.”
“Not this difficult,” he disagreed. “The people in her universe are so far behind that I’m not sure we can change their outcome. And that’s even if we had help to give her this very second.
“By the time we’re in a position to help her, the New Terran Empire might be under the Rebel Empire’s heel there.”
Olivia scowled at him. “You are a ray of sunshine on a dark day.”
“I’m a realist,” he countered. “Plan for the worst while hoping for the best.”
“Have you considered who you are over there?” she asked after a long moment.
He had, but wasn’t sure he could adequately put his feelings into words. He liked that he was someone Princess Kelsey considered a friend, but he’d seen how wrong about Captain Breckenridge he’d been here. His judgment was questionable.
Of course, she hated the one man that had saved the Empire here, so that Princess Kelsey was doing even worse.
“I hope I’m not much different. It sounds as if Captain Breckenridge died there, too. The circumstances were different, but I suspect I’m the senior Fleet officer in the ships with Kelsey. For her sake, I hope I do better this time around.”
Someone behind them cleared their throat.
He turned and found a man in a white lab coat behind him. “Pardon the interruption. I’m Rueben Beecher, his Majesty’s personal physician. Might I have a few moments of your time?”
“Of course, Doctor,” Sean
said. “What can we do for you?”
“His Majesty directed me to look into Princess Kelsey’s medical condition. Ah…this Princess Kelsey. I see that she has some kind of prosthetic eye. Are you aware of any other health issues she might be suffering from?”
“I am,” Sean said with a sigh. “I haven’t personally seen them, but I’m told the regeneration of her original implantation procedure left most of the scars on her body. I’m guessing, based on that and some other things she said, but I don’t believe her medical nanites are operational.”
Olivia sucked in a deep breath, obviously horrified. “God,” she whispered. “I’ve seen the video. Those are still there?”
He nodded grimly. “All over her body with the exception of her head, hands, and arms. Several female marines saw them. Kelsey also had no idea what I meant when I told her that her father might rule for centuries.”
His lover seemed to be thinking furiously. “That explains so many things,” she said. “I’ll wager without Jared there to come for her, the Pale Ones turned her to one of them. The good guys must’ve recaptured her and overwrote the corrupt code. We should’ve checked it before we came down.”
“I suspect that is fine,” the doctor said. “She has interacted with her own people and you without overt violence. Still, for the sake of everyone else’s blood pressure, we’ll verify that first off.”
Beecher narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips to one side as he considered Princess Kelsey. She was walking with her father toward a table he must’ve ordered brought in.
“I suspect they’ll be talking for quite some time, so I’ll have plenty of opportunity to prepare for an exam. If she’ll allow it, I might be able to do something with her remaining injuries, though the amount of time that has passed will work against us.
“At the very least, I should be able to improve upon the ocular replacement. There’s no reason it has to look so slapdash.” The last word was said with a moue of distaste.
Sean wasn’t sure how amenable the woman would be to allowing someone she didn’t know to mess with her like that. If anything, this Kelsey might be even more adverse to the idea than he was.
The Pale Ones had made her one of them. Forced her to do things against her will. He only prayed they hadn’t forced her to fight and kill her friends.
“Realistically, what do you imagine you can do, Doctor?” Olivia asked softly.
The man shrugged. “I can certainly get her nanites working. We have some of Princess Kelsey’s on hand for study and the fabricator is probably still inside this young woman. If we seed it correctly, the population should take hold.
“That said, it may be too late for them to repair all the damage done to her, even in conjunction with regeneration. Marine Raider nanites are incredibly capable, but even they must have limits.”
His eyes narrowed as he considered his potential patient. “I’d imagine the visible scarring can be dealt with, given time and repeated regeneration sessions. Those might not erase the damage at a cellular level, but we should be able to restore her physical appearance.”
The man sighed. “And we can’t forget the elephant in the room. She lost an eye. Even with Old Empire technology, that’s probably more than we can undo. That said, I can create a lifelike replacement and regenerate the skin and muscle she lost around the injury. No one has to look like that.”
Sean considered the man’s words and nodded slowly. “I can’t speak for her, obviously, but I suspect she’ll at least consent to an examination. I’ll stretch that and wager she’ll agree to have her nanites restored once she learns what they can do for her. She’ll probably jump at the chance to get rid of her scars, too.
“As for the eye, I just can’t say. I don’t know how deeply she’ll trust us. Not until she knows us far better than she does right now.”
The man nodded, obviously already thinking ahead. “I can prepare for every aspect of care. If she rejects treatment, then I can try to sweet talk her. Or ask her father to do so.”
He refocused his attention on them. “Thank you very much for your input. It has been quite helpful.”
“Do you think she’ll agree to all of that?” Olivia asked after the doctor had hurried off.
Sean shrugged. “Probably not, but all she can do is say no. Anything we can do to give her comfort is worth the effort.”
The emperor and Kelsey were deep in conversation at the table. He had her hand in his and was saying something with an earnest look on his face.
Her expression was just what Sean imagined a daughter would look like if a beloved parent had come back to life and she wanted to remember everything.
He understood that, too. Even if everything worked out here, she’d one day return home and likely never see him again. He’d be dead once more. Lost to her forever.
Sean vowed at that moment to do everything within his power to help her.
Jared rose to his feet when his father came into the room. “How did it go?”
Emperor Karl rubbed his face tiredly and poured himself a very stiff drink at the small bar. He didn’t speak until he’d downed half the glass. Only then did he turn to his son and sag a little.
“As well as could be expected, I suppose,” the older man said. “God, she’s so like my girl, yet hurt in ways Kelsey managed to avoid with your help. She’s a wounded bird and it breaks my heart.”
His father sat in one of the chairs and slumped back. “After meeting her, I’m convinced she isn’t a threat to the Empire or to me personally. You, on the other hand, had best keep your distance. I think she hates you more than Ethan ever did.”
Jared took the liberty of pouring a drink for himself and joined his father. “I’d gathered that. Without unbiased data, she might have every right to those feelings. Other me might be a traitor and backstabber. I can see how my life might have gone in that direction if I’d developed different attitudes.”
“I can’t see that, but I’m glad things worked out the way they have. Your mother wanted to see Kelsey, but I convinced her that it might be counterproductive.”
Jared snorted. “Considering how Kelsey feels about me, I can only imagine how she sees the woman you had an affair with. No, I think we should avoid unnecessary provocations. We have enough landmines already.”
He resisted the urge to ask his father what help they intended to give. That the man would help was a given, but the specifics would come out in time and without his prompting.
“I’m told that Senator Breckenridge is on his way,” the emperor said. “He’s going to assess Kelsey and then take my recommendation to the Senate Imperial Affairs Committee. They’ll fill in the rest of the Senate and hope that no one leaks the details.”
“They won’t,” Jared said. “It’s tied into Omega and the existence of alternate realities. They’ve kept that information under wraps. It’s an Imperial secret and they know we’ll use one of the AIs to find the leaker. None of them is going to risk their careers over this.”
“I love how certain you are,” his father said dryly. “I’m usually the optimist. I hope you’re right.”
“If I’m not and the secret gets out, what does that really change? It won’t hurt our defensive posture. Hell, most people won’t believe it anyway. It sounds like science fiction.”
His father considered that and nodded. “I suppose so. In any case, it’s not as if we have a lot of choices about how we respond to her arrival.”
Jared felt his lips twitch. Here came the compassionate response.
“The needs of the Empire—our Empire—come first, of course,” the emperor said, “but we’ll try to help her and this other Empire. We can best do so by getting our own house in order and stopping the AIs we have to deal with, and then turning our attention to her situation.
“I’m expanding your mission. We need to get to Terra and retrieve the override. Depending on the circumstances, we can then decide the best way of getting to Twilight River. Perhaps sneaking will work. Or it mi
ght require brute force. One way or another, we need the tools to defeat the AIs.”
He nodded. “Did she tell you what they know about the key and the override?”
“We spoke briefly about them. She’s aware the Imperial Scepter is the key to get into the Imperial Vaults on Terra. She also knows that it requires DNA from the Imperial Family. DNA she was shocked to discover she didn’t have when Ethan tried to access their Scepter.
“Just like in our universe, neither of them are direct descendants of the Imperial House. Unlike in ours, there are no surviving cadet branches of the family. The only man that fits the bill there is at war with them, so they need other options.”
“Based on her reaction to me, she didn’t come looking for my help,” Jared said. “She was hoping other members of the Imperial Family were still alive here. She’s grasping for straws.”
“No,” his father disagreed. “She’d clutching at anything that will keep her head above water. Drowning people do that. Hope is fading there.
“Once we end the reign of the AIs, we won’t need the override. We can certainly hope it works for them. I’ll cheerfully give it to her then.”
“What if it doesn’t?” he asked. “What if the override is somehow different? They might fight their way to Twilight River and then it fails to work.”
His father nodded glumly. “I’m hoping that during the process of acquiring the override here, she’ll get all the data they need to do so in their own universe. The key isn’t required to open the vaults. We have the complete plans. It would be difficult, but not impossible.”
“You’re not suggesting that I—”
His father shook his head. “Absolutely not. Based on her reactions, you would not be a welcome sight to anyone there. Under no circumstances do I believe you should go there. In fact, as much as I hate to say this, you need to take precautions.
“Desperate people do desperate things. I can foresee circumstances where she might be very tempted to kidnap you and force you to help her. Do not allow that temptation to bloom. She’s an honest woman. I’d prefer we help her stay that way.”