Chaos Quarter: Imperial Ambitions

by David Welch

  “I’m going to go find Helen,” she said. “Let me know how he does.”

  “I’ll send word the minute there’s any change,” said Keith.

  Kate left the sick bay, disappearing into the halls. Rex stepped forward, alongside Keith.

  “Didn’t mean to start a fight,” he said.

  “She’s young and headstrong,” said Keith.

  “Not always bad qualities,” Rex answered.

  “No,” said Keith. “But trying sometimes.”

  Rex’s wrist console chirped. He glanced down, seeing a text floating above his wrist.

  “Jake has him, the Europan spy,” said Rex. “They’re bringing him to the jail.”

  ***

  Vermella didn’t know what was going on in the next room, but whatever it was, it was loud—loud enough that she could hear it through the metal walls of the ship. There were several loud commands, shouts but not shouts, not in anger at least. Then a mechanical noise, like something moving on tracks.

  She thought back to when they’d dragged her in here. The room next to hers had some sort of surgical machine, the kind only kings and dictators could afford. But the Terrans were all rich as kings, and just as pampered, so she had no doubt they each had one.

  So somebody in the next room was being operated on. Somebody would be close to her, only one wall away. Of late the Terrans had been sending in their whore to swap out her shit bucket and bring her food. Vermella had no power over her, so far as her abilities were concerned. But there were times when a hard fist did just as well as a pheromone. Better yet was the shard of plastic she had snapped from the bucket and hidden in the corner. She could feel its dull end behind her now. The other end was being slowly ground against the metal edge of a screw in the wall, gradually sharpening it, bit by bit. Her body hid the action from the camera in the room. She slipped a finger down, feeling the edge, finding it satisfactory. The sharpness made her smile, but it died quickly. Their camera did see everything, and there was no use dropping hints for the bastards to piece together.

  ***

  Jake walked behind Calidus, within arm’s reach of the man, as he was led through the street. Cindy and her party were arrayed on each side, guns drawn. Two were pressed into Calidus’s back: one on the left from Cynthia; one on the right from a young, blond man with a permanent scowl on his face. Calidus marched with his arms up.

  Jake didn’t particularly like it, the situation before him. Word of what had happened was already flashing through town. People were starting to emerge, one at a time, coming out of their homes and businesses to stare at the traitor, at the man who had tormented their kind. At the moment it was quiet, shocked and confused looks being the main reaction. But Jake knew it was just a matter of time. He could never understand the enormity of what these people had suffered at the hands of people like Calidus, but he could understand the intensity of their hate. He’d felt something similar when the elders of Cyberdan had exiled him—booted him from his home and everything he knew—all because he’d suggested that science could never completely rule out the possibility of the sacred or supernatural. Obviously the hate he felt wasn’t at the same level as what these people felt, but it had made him angry enough to swear death at the elders. So he could just imagine the pressure building up inside them now.

  He’d seen some of that rage come out at Lucius. But Lucius being a traitor to the empire was an open secret, so they had known going in what he was and wasn’t. The man in front of him had no such qualification. He was a noble, and loyal to Europa. He was an unrepentant monster.

  “Bastard!” a female voice screeched.

  A rock streaked through the sky, striking Calidus in the chest. He stumbled backward. Jake moved forward and caught him before either Cindy or the blond man could react. He got Calidus back on his feet.

  Around them the town opened up, a chorus of rage being shouted down from all sides.

  “Kill the fucker!”

  “I want to watch him burn!”

  “Hand him over; I’ll choke the life out of him myself!”

  This isn’t going to end well, thought Jake as they trudged grimly forward. This was rational and irrational hate in one big volatile ball. The party escorting Calidus glanced about nervously, seeing their brethren move closer and closer with each moment, screaming their hate.

  “Slit his fucking throat!”

  “Murder that rapist piece of shit! Cut his damn balls off!”

  “Break his fucking legs! Make the bastard crawl!”

  Cindy tightened her grip on her pistol. The crowd did not try to stop them, for the moment at least. They pushed ever forward, those they had already passed moving to tail them. Jake himself began to feel just a little bit of fear. Strong and robust as he was, there were a lot of people forming around him. And their faces had the angriest expressions he’d ever seen on a human being.

  Another rock streaked in, missing Calidus but smacking into Jake’s broad chest. It did no damage, but reinforced the fear he was feeling.

  “Back! Get back!” Cindy shouted.

  The words stopped the advance but only for a moment or so. They continued to press forward, Cynthia’s band shrinking back into a dense pack.

  “Turn him over! Turn the monster over right now!”

  “He needs to face justice!”

  Those words seemed to seal it. Villagers closed in on the front of their party, blocking their path. They made no effort to move out of the way. Most had their hands on their guns. One casually tapped the flat of a hunting knife against his sternum, an eager grin on his face.

  Cindy stopped and turned back to Jake.

  “See that building three blocks down? The one with the shed over the entrance?” Cindy said, being careful not to be too loud.

  Jake nodded.

  “Take him there. It’s the town jail,” informed Cindy.

  He immediately understood. He seized Calidus effortlessly, hurled him over his shoulder, and then sprinted forward. The move caught the mob by surprise. Angry as they were, the sight of a massive, seven-foot-tall metal man sprinting straight for them got their attention. Instincts kicked in and they dove aside, desperate to get out of the way. Jake ran right through, breaking into the clear and dashing down the road. A roar of anger went up behind him.

  “Stop! Put your guns down!” Cindy yelled amid the clamor. “We need him alive!”

  The pleas for calm did nothing. The pounding of feet filled the air as the mob took off after Jake. The race was no contest; he could do twice the speed of a sprinting flesh-and-blood human. But it would only take a stray bullet to kill the Europan on his arm. So he prayed and sprinted, dashing past tall, wooden buildings as he made for the jail. He could see the entrance way, jutting out into the street. A confused-looking man stood there, no doubt a policeman of some sort. He seemed to have no idea what was happening, which struck Jake as all sorts of ironic as he skidded up to the door.

  “Europan spy, needs to be locked away before he’s torn apart. Cindy’s orders!” Jake declared to the young man.

  “Who, wait…wha…what are you? What’s going on?” the man cried.

  “No time!” Jake shouted and pushed past the man. He darted through a small office to a corridor behind. A single jail cell lay on the left, its door wide open. Jake hurled Calidus into it. He struck the floor and rolled, yelping in pain as he hit. Jake swung the door shut and then turned to the young cop as he ran up.

  “Lock it!” Jake yelled. Behind the man he could see the mob reaching the front door of the police station.

  The cop did so, sliding an old-fashioned, metal key into the lock. Jake stepped back, releasing a relieved breath.

  “There he is! Get him—” a voice shouted.

  “No!” bellowed Cynthia. “No! You all get back! All of you!”

  The councilwoman forced her way into the police station, throwing elbows to clear a path. The rest of the original party followed behind her, spreading out across the corridor to bloc
k the mob’s path. Angry villagers filed into the police station, jamming into the office.

  “Hand him over!”

  “Stop defending that waste of life! Get out of our way!”

  “He deserves to die!”

  “He will die!” roared Cynthia. “But not until we find out why he’s here, what he knows, and what he’s told the empire! Not before then! So you all back off right now!”

  This stopped the advance of the villagers, but they did not leave. They stood, grumbling angrily, staring death toward the corridor and the jail cell. Jake turned from the cell and the hunched form of Calidus, and stomped up behind Cindy and her compatriots. This caught the mob’s attention. With Calidus out of sight, some of the blind rage had bled off, allowing other things to slip into their minds. And they seemed to have some fear at the sight of him, enough that they actually inched backward when they saw his metallic form looming over Cynthia’s people. That fear did not escape Cynthia’s notice.

  “You see that man? The cyborg? You think you can get past a man like that? He’s not going anywhere! He’s staying in this station and making sure that the Europan spy doesn’t die until we’re done talking to him. You all understand? You want to disobey the council? You want to be premature and kill the spy now? Then you gotta deal with the cyborg! Get it? You think you can take him, you go right ahead!” Cindy bellowed.

  This was all news to Jake, but he said nothing, not wanting to undermine what authority the woman still had. The villagers cast him nervous looks, wariness coming across their features.

  “I didn’t think so!” Cindy snapped. “Now, all of you, leave! Go back to your homes; go back to work! Go and pray we don’t come arrest you all for attacking us!”

  “Big talk…”

  “She wouldn’t dare…”

  More grumblings arose, but the mob made no move to continue forward. One by one people started drifting outside, staring daggers toward Jake and the prison cell as they went. It was several long minutes before the station emptied out, leaving Cindy and her party, the young cop, and Jake.

  “Oh thank God…” Cindy declared after they were gone, releasing her own breath of relief.

  “How long will this last?” asked one of her men. “Word of this will spread through the rest of town and we’ll have a riot on our hands.”

  “I know, I know,” said Cynthia and then turned to Jake. “So…umm…I know I never really asked you, but…”

  “You want me to stay and guard this guy?” Jake figured.

  “Yeah. I know I have no right to, but right now their fear of you is about the only thing keeping them back,” Cindy explained. “So if you could…we can pay you of course.”

  Jake rubbed his chin, thinking for a moment.

  “All right, but I have a condition,” he said.

  “A condition?” Cynthia asked warily.

  “So long as I’m here, so long as we are here, you make no move on Lucius.”

  Cynthia’s mouth dropped open. She looked ready to argue but held back, clamping her jaw shut.

  “That’s my term,” Jake declared. “Don’t care what you do with the asshole in the cell, but Lucius is a friend. You want me here, you agree to leave him alone. Got it?”

  “Fine,” Cindy said through grinding teeth. “But make sure you send word to your ‘friend’ to stay on that ship. I can’t guarantee what might happen to him if he goes walking around in the open.”

  “I can’t speak for Lucius, but I don’t imagine he’ll have a problem with that. We have an agreement then?” Jake asked.

  “We have an agreement.”

  Some of the various people I’ve spoken to during this “debriefing” have asked me “How can I feel safe living in the Commonwealth?” It’s a fair question. Terrans and Europans have no love lost for each other. But place yourself in my position, for just a moment. The people I once called serfs hate me for the things I did to them, before I came to my senses. And the people I once called brothers hate me for betraying their Divine Order for the love of a serf. I know the empire wants me dead. I can’t imagine any serf I wronged would want otherwise. Honestly, you Terrans, for all your distrust, are probably the only “friends” I have left…

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

  The Reservation, Anglesey, Dominion of the Angleseyu, Anglesey System, Chaos Quarter, Standard Date 9/3/2507

  They all sat in the common room, Rex, Lucius, Second, Cynthia, Keith, and two newcomers. They were both Valley Town councilmen, who went by the names of Rick and Ken. The informality of their names still struck Rex as odd, as did the fact that every freedman and woman he’d met so far had taken common Terran names as their own. Perhaps it was some sort of tribute. Kate had mentioned that most serfs dreamed of escaping to the Commonwealth, maybe the naming thing was a side effect of that, or maybe not. It wasn’t like he could trust that girl as far as he could throw her, not after yesterday’s fiasco. All her talk of serfs looking up to Terrans could just be hot air.

  Luckily, she was not here. She’d gone back to the village with her stepmother, muttering curses about Lucius every five seconds. Rex was trying hard not to be too hard on her for that, given his gunner’s past, but it was pretty hard for him not to dislike her at this point. After all, he could’ve just as easily been killed yesterday had the people of Valley Town been truly committed to killing Lucius. People with that much hate festering inside wouldn’t let a little thing like an innocent stand in their way.

  All in all he considered it a small miracle that everybody was still here today, alive and mostly well.

  “So what happens now?” Rex asked, to get things going.

  Cindy and her fellow councilmen looked to one another and then back to him, guarded and silent.

  “Well, somebody’s gotta say something. You didn’t come on board my ship to sit around and stare at us,” Rex pressed.

  “It is hard to know how to proceed,” said Cindy. “On the one hand, you brought a Europan noble here uninvited—”

  “Ex-noble,” Lucius asserted.

  “…but on the other, you revealed a spy within our midst.”

  “He revealed a spy within your midst,” said Rex, motioning to Lucius. “Not to put too fine a point on it.”

  “Yes,” Cindy grumbled. “And your cyborg crew member allowed us to take him alive.”

  “A service he can continue to provide so long as we’re here,” Rex said. “If you think that’s in your interest.”

  Cindy nodded gravely, saying,” Of course we do. We need the man to talk, and I fully intend to honor the deal I made with Jake.”

  “So we can stay, talk to your people, learn what we can?” asked Rex.

  “You may talk to whoever wishes to talk to you,” said Cindy. “While I don’t think many will put up with being in Baliol’s presence, I imagine a great many would be eager to help the empire’s greatest enemy.”

  “Morality is the empire’s greatest enemy,” snarked Rex. “But I appreciate that you think so highly of my people.”

  “Who else has ever fought for us?” said Rick. “The Nipponese fight the empire all the time, but they treat any serfs they capture little better than the empire does. None of the Chaos Quarter states would dare piss off a neighbor so powerful. Even here on Anglesey, the locals constantly state that we are not refugees from the empire. They lie and tell their neighbors we are artisans and skilled craftsmen, brought in for special tasks.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” Lucius interjected, “How exactly did you all come to be here? The Angleseyu made clear to us their dislike of foreigners before we had even broken the atmosphere.”

  For a moment Rick looked like he was about to explode, just hearing Lucius speak. But he fought for, and regained, his composure.

  “This valley is far enough north that farming is limited to areas around the rivers, but not so far north as to be uninhabitable. Before it beca
me the Reservation, it was a haven for criminals—a lawless but mostly unpopulated area. The Angleseyu could convince none of their own people to settle here, so, to displace the convicts, they allowed our forefathers to stay,” said Rick.

  “The original freedman mutinied and took over a transport, while on transit between two Europan worlds,” explained Cindy. “It was just after the end of their war with your people, so the imperial military was decimated, and they were unable to intercept the transport before it escaped into the Quarter. They wandered for six months before being granted refuge here.”

  “So fifty years…you say the Angleseyu lie about who and what you are, but Keith here is not fifty years old. Nor was Kate or Helen,” said Rex. “And Kate mentioned to us that people know this place is here.

  “Word gets out, whether you intend it or not,” said Ken. “But the Angleseyu like to maintain the lie and give themselves cover.”

  “Small groups have filtered in since the town began. Some had been sold into slavery by the empire to Chaos Quarter lords, and eventually escaped to end up here. Others have stolen ships like the first did,” Cindy informed.

  “Like I did,” added Keith.

  “Interesting,” said Rex. “Well, I should warn you; we were sent to find out why the empire was watching this world. And I think the reason is pretty obvious now.”

  “Unfortunately,” remarked Ken. “And now we have to make the Europan talk.”

  “Won’t be easy,” said Lucius. “Nobles who go into the spy service are extensively trained in their craft.”

  “We know that,” Rick remarked acidly.

  Lucius shrugged and sat back in his seat.

  Ken began, “There are methods—”

  “We’re not torturing him,” said Cindy.

  “You’re all too willing to kill the man,” Ken pointed out.

  “Yes. Kill. When we are through with him he will face justice, and he will die. But if you’re suggesting we flay him, or burn him, or start chipping of pieces of him, or do one of the million nasty things his kind did to us—”