Chaos Quarter: Imperial Ambitions

by David Welch

  Bentham fumed, but stopped his retreat. He appeared determined to go to his death with some semblance of dignity. Aetius rested the tip of his sword on the man’s neck.

  “I tolerate no defamation,” said Aetius.

  “Lower your sword,” came a new voice.

  Aetius frowned. Glancing over to the door, he saw Thane Tertius Hohenzollern blocking out the light from the hallway. Immediately the circle parted, exposing the duelists to their superior. Tertius paced up to the scene, frowning at what he saw. He shot a disappointed look at Bentham.

  “I trust you were not foolish enough to instigate this?”

  Bentham bowed his head formally and said, “It was I who was challenged, my lord. Accused of speaking treasonous words about Baron Fitz-Titus.”

  Tertius turned his gaze to Aetius.

  “I suspected as much,” he grumbled. For a long moment, he said nothing and then turned to the crowd. “Back to your posts! This matter is settled!”

  Low murmurs ran through the crowd as it dispersed, quickly filing out the doorway. Bentham limped after them, leaving Aetius and Tertius alone.

  “Accompany me to the bridge, Baron,” said Tertius.

  Aetius sheathed his sword, not bothering to clear it of blood. He moved into the hallway, next to Tertius. They began walking toward the nearest lift.

  “It is an unwritten rule that noblemen do not make challenges of honor until after they have returned from deployment,” Tertius mentioned.

  “Is it now? Sorry, I am new to all this,” replied Aetius with a smirk.

  Tertius shot him an angry glare, but said nothing. They reached the lift, stepping in. Several others were waiting, but they held back when they saw Tertius and Aetius arrive. So they were alone as they rose through the decks.

  “Count Bentham commanded one thousand men; did you know that?” said Tertius.

  This caught Aetius’s attention. Counts usually did not have that many warriors, much less have that many to bring to fleet.

  “He commanded a Forlorn Hope Brigade,” explained Tertius. “Not many nobles have that kind of courage. Yet now he will be in hospital for some weeks. Who will command these men in his stead?”

  Aetius shrugged, saying, “I am sure there are lords in the fleet who would gladly step in.”

  “There are not so many nobles here Baron,” said Tertius. “There are enough for the mission and maybe a few extra. But we are not in the empire. We do not have a reservoir of nobles at our beck and call, chomping at the bit for a chance to prove themselves. And if we lose too many due to ‘unforeseen events,’ we will find ourselves with too many warriors, and no True Men to lead them in battle.”

  “You exaggerate, Thane Hohenzollern,” said Aetius as the lift came to a stop. “We fight barbarians. Not Terrans or Nipponese Samurai, just barbarians.”

  “Animals are most dangerous when cornered,” Tertius countered.

  “Yes, but they are still animals. Not a match for the True Order.”

  “To one with little military experience it might seem that way,” said Tertius. “How many of our kind had such thoughts when they went off to fight the Terrans fifty years ago? And how many of them never returned?”

  Aetius stopped where he stood, just off the lift, staring daggers at the man.

  “I do not appreciate what you imply, Thane,” said Aetius.

  “Oh you don’t?” said Tertius. “Will you challenge me now? I assure you, I am far better with a blade than young Count Bentham.”

  Aetius’s brow furrowed, his eyes narrowing.

  “Missions such as this end,” said Aetius slowly. “And when they do, their commanders go back to their station in life. What is your station Lord Hohenzollern?”

  “You know well where I sit in God’s Hierarchy,” said Tertius.

  “Below myself, if I recall. Perhaps a man in your position, vested with temporary authority over one of his betters, would do well to remember what could happen when such authority ends,” warned Aetius.

  “And perhaps a young man in your position should realize that returning to his station is contingent upon success and survival, and that such things become much harder when commanders are crippled by needless duels,” Tertius replied, showing no fear.

  Aetius felt the urge to ball his fist, but restrained it, maintaining his cool.

  “And what good is a man who speaks treasonous words of his fellows? Is that man the sort you wish to command your warriors? Perhaps I have done this fleet a favor in rendering Count Bentham wounded,” Aetius reasoned.

  “Were I to know that Count Bentham spoke such words, I might agree. But I hear that the only evidence of such talk comes from you Baron, making an accusation without naming a source.”

  “The word of an emperor’s son is not enough for you?” Aetius challenged.

  “Not when the word of that son leads to my commanders being rendered useless. Not when we are far from home, in a violent region, and facing an unknown situation at our destination. Words and accusations are irrelevant now, Baron. They must be saved for later, when we are back among our own and able to indulge in such distractions,” explained Tertius as he approached the door to the bridge of Cannae.

  “My honor is not a distraction,” Aetius seethed.

  “If it impairs the fighting abilities of this force, it is,” Tertius informed sternly. “And since unwritten rules appear unknown to you, I shall make it clear. There are to be no more duels, no more actions taken to protect your honor or to punish those you think speak ill of you. As your actions have injured one of my commanders, you have impaired the tactical ability of this fleet. And as I have been granted tactical authority over you by the emperor himself, I am ordering you to obey. Is that understood?”

  “It is not wise to make enemies, Thane,” said Aetius. “Especially with one of royal blood.”

  “Very true words, but it is also unwise, for one seeking to make his name, to risk missing out on his chance because he felt the need to stroke his ego.”

  Aetius pressed forward, ready to scream at the man for his impudence. But at that moment to door to the bridge opened. Aetius froze, under the eyes of so many, a good number of them nobles. He bit back his anger, and, without another word, turned and stomped away from the bridge. Tertius sighed heavily as he watched the young baron walk away. Then, with a shake of his head, he took to his command chair and got on with the business of running the fleet.

  I cannot say that I never believed in moral absolutes, because that would be inaccurate. I can say that I believed in the wrong moral absolutes, but that doesn’t make sense. After all, if a moral is absolute it is always so and always moral. I believed in things I thought were moral and absolute, with only the slightest nagging hesitations. It turned out that those hesitations were the absolutes. After I escaped the empire, these thoughts haunted me, convinced me that men are worthless and corrupt because we can so easily be taught or made to think things that are evil and false. And seeing the darkness of the Chaos Quarter around me, I realized that even had I known how wrong my actions were, I still could’ve become corrupt enough to commit them all the same. Plenty of people have let themselves be lead down that path. But then my thoughts on the matter changed. I realize now that the very fact I felt any nagging hesitations meant that the absolutes, the actual moral absolutes of God and Man, were present without me ever having been taught them. That, on some level, they were written into me, so much so that even a lifetime of reveling in evil could not drive them away fully.

  —Logs of the debriefing of Lucius Baliol, taken February to June 2507 Standard Date; Classified; Not for public release

  Prahth’viin System, Chaos Quarter, Standard Date 8/10/2507

  Rex wasn’t sleeping particularly well. He knew this, because his eyes were open, and the broken blackness of his cabin’s ceiling filled his vision. If he wasn’t sleeping then he was having the dullest dream imaginable.

  He supposed he should expect sleeplessness given all that had
happened…what had happened to him. He’d been around long enough to know that most people who’d been sexually assaulted generally didn’t feel as he was feeling now. They were usually shattered, violated, and disgusted…they needed therapy, long talks, and a loving support system. Right? Wasn’t that where he should be?

  Yet he felt none of it. He just felt…used? Frustrated? Confused maybe? He knew he shouldn’t feel that way; he should feel worse. But there was a nagging thought in his mind. Part of him wondered if what had happened really counted as rape. Had he not thought the woman attractive when he’d seen her, passing her in the hall before the meeting? Had he not had some naughty male thoughts about what he’d like to do to her?

  She had played on that, targeted it. She had taken the attraction and cranked it up. He knew that part of it was definitely rape, but he wondered if he would have done differently if she hadn’t used her freaky pheromone powers. Would he have turned down a beautiful woman like that?

  He supposed the how of the encounter was more important than the act of sex itself. Had there been consent, even if it had been a stupid and risky affair, it would have been something different. Sordid perhaps, but not evil. He knew the fact that she hadn’t given him that choice made it evil and awful and criminal, but somehow he couldn’t shake the feeling that his initial interest undercut it all.

  He wondered momentarily if he was subjecting himself to a double standard, since he was male and all. Men were supposed to like sex with anyone, and at any moment. Logically he knew this was crap—crimes were crimes and rape was rape. But perhaps some subconscious part of him had bought into the old stereotypes, bought into to her very words: Women cannot rape men…Perhaps that was keeping him up and staring into the blackness of his cabin.

  The only thing of interest in the blackness was a distant, repetitive sound. The robust walls of the ship muffled it, but he could still just make it out. It was semiregular, but every so often, it would pause and then pick up again.

  “Guess I’m not the only one up,” he mumbled. “Lights.”

  The room illuminated. He pulled on a T-shirt and sweats, and stalked out of his cabin. The corridors were dimly lit to mimic night. He peeked into the common room, finding it empty, and then headed down the port corridor toward the cargo bay. The sound grew louder, resolving into rifle shots. He came out on the portside upper landing, looking out over the vastness of the bay. Below was Second, firing again and again at a target set up near the aft doors. He watched for a moment. She cycled through a forty-round mag in a matter of minutes, each shot a kill shot. But her natural aim wasn’t what caught his attention; it was the drive behind her actions. Immediately after she had finished the magazine, she grabbed another and began slotting in bullets as rapidly as she could. She didn’t have the practiced hands of a combat vet, but she filled the mag with decent speed all the same—frantically almost—as if something bad was coming for her.

  He descended, making sure to come down hard with each step so she would hear him. She did, and paused her actions. Apparently his gun-safety lessons had made a mark on her. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, she picked the gun back up, turned to the distant target, and fired off forty shots. The hollow bang of the bullets escaping the electromagnetic acceleration barrel filled his ears, loud but not damagingly so. He remembered seeing a weapons demonstration during a visit to Ft. McHenry, back when he’d been living on Earth. Those old chemical guns had been loud, deafeningly so—loud enough that Second wouldn’t have had much hearing left after firing forty shots out of one of them.

  She ejected the magazine and instantly began reloading it. Rex moved up beside her, watching her fingers fly as they slotted in lead slugs.

  “Something wrong, Second?” he asked.

  “Yes. I am insufficiently trained in gun usage,” she declared.

  “Oh,” said Rex. “Well, I know we haven’t had much time to—”

  “I did not kill them,” she fumed, apparently not having heard him speak. “They were intending to kill me, and I could have killed them, but I didn’t. I must train more.”

  He paused, remembering Jake’s retelling of their running fight in Kodee Suur, about how he’d found Second and her pursuers in a standoff, each pointing guns at the other.

  “Second, I don’t think that was because of a lack of training with firearms, per se…” he began.

  “Were I better trained, I would have shot them,” she said.

  “It wasn’t your ability to use a gun that tripped you up, Second.”

  “I did not trip; I was on my feet the entire time,” she said.

  Rex sighed and kept going. “I think it was your mind struggling about whether you should kill those two men who caused you to freeze.”

  She stopped loading the magazine, and looked at him with a confused expression.

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “Well, remember earlier, when you were telling me how you don’t want to kill people?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I think you hesitated because you weren’t sure you wanted to kill,” he reasoned.

  “They were intending to kill me,” she stressed. “You have said multiple times that it is appropriate to kill in defense in such situations.”

  “Yes, it is. But just because it’s appropriate doesn’t mean you want to do it. Most people don’t want to kill, and the ones that do want it get locked up,” he explained.

  “But they were trying to kill me,” she repeated. “The ambassador tried to hurt me, and I killed him.”

  “You did, yes,” he said, remembering.

  “I did not hesitate,” she said. She cast her eyes toward the small table where the gun sat, a quiver coming to her lip. “I should not have hesitated today.”

  “You didn’t have a history with the men you faced today,” said Rex. “They’d never hurt you in the past like the ambassador did. The level of hate—”

  “But they we trying to kill me,” she said, a tear escaping down her cheek. Rex took the magazine out of her hand, emptying the slugs back into the box they’d come from. Second moved back a few steps, crossing her arms protectively.

  “It does not make sense. Their purpose was termination of my existence. This is worse than anything the ambassador did to me. I killed him when he threatened us; I should have been able to kill the man who threatened me today. It makes no sense that—”

  “No, Second, it doesn’t make sense. I know you think it should, but stuff like this doesn’t always work like that,” he explained. “Not to mention that if you had tried to kill them, you probably would’ve died as well. They had two guns to your one.”

  Second’s head perked up, a surprised expression on her face. It became clear to Rex that she had not given much thought to this point yet.

  “I-I don’t…no, I…” she stammered, pacing around in place.

  “Hard as it may be for you to understand, not shooting at those men probably saved your life,” said Rex.

  “Not shooting…saved me? But they were a threat! How…”

  “One of the many quirks of combat,” said Rex. “Knowing when to shoot is usually more important than knowing how.”

  She shook her head as if trying to clear something away, and then rubbed at her jaw as she thought. It was an expression he’d seen before a million times, and he knew where it was going.

  “I…I need to get to my cabin,” she said, her eyes staring into the distance as she shuffled off, deep in contemplation. From past experience he knew she’d be away for at least two hours trying to puzzle out what he told her in that strange brain of hers. She’d once spent the better part of a day trying to understand why music played at three in the morning was not as appreciated as the same music played at three in the afternoon. It had been the same song, after all.

  He shook his head at the memory, put the rifle away, and then departed for the bridge. When he arrived he found Lucius, as expected; the man was on watch. But Lucius showed no surprise a
t his arrival, or much emotion at all. Like Second he was deeply engaged staring into the distance, no doubt wrestling with some issue or another in his head.

  “Looks like my entire crew is on the couch tonight,” he said, dropping into the command seat.

  Lucius gave Rex a look of utter incomprehension.

  “What are you talking about? On what couch?” he asked.

  “You know, a psychologist’s couch, where people do a lot of deep thinking about difficult things…”

  “What is a ‘psychologist’?” Lucius asked.

  “Really?” said Rex.

  Lucius gave a shrug, clearly not knowing.

  “Uh, they’re medical professionals who talk people though their emotional problems. Or they try to anyway. Usually the patients are lying down on a comfy couch during sessions,” Rex explained.

  “Huh,” said Lucius. “There is nothing like that in the empire.”

  “Well, in the Commonwealth it’s a thing,” said Rex. “So I guess the whole purpose of this roundabout conversation is to figure out what’s bothering you?”

  Lucius shifted back in his seat, his face going impassive with practiced ease.

  “I am fine,” he said.

  “Oh,” said Rex and then casually leaned back in his seat and interlaced his fingers behind his head. “That’s good, ’cause I got some serious issues going on in my head. And I gotta talk to somebody. So I’m wondering, should we space Vermella or do something more personal? On one hand seeing her freeze into a Popsicle has a certain permanence to it, but I don’t know; chucking her out of an air lock seems so…cold.”

  “Funny,” remarked Lucius dryly.

  “Oh come on, you honestly want me to think you got no dark thoughts churning about after what she did?”

  “Plenty,” said Lucius. “Though I am not sure they are appropriate.”

  “Appropriate? She’s a rapist and a slaver. ‘Appropriate’ is out the door my friend,” said Rex.

  “That is not what I mean,” said Lucius. “I am not sure it is appropriate for a person like me to be making such pronouncements.”