by Alix Nichols
Thanks to that fool Ultek’s botched attempt to eliminate Heidd, his capable and steadfast commander had most likely joined the Association’s ranks. Lord Boggond had appointed Diran Ydaranu, the only high-ranking officer in Eia who hadn’t fought alongside Heidd in the war, as the new commander.
For the last ten years, Ydaranu had been head of Intelligence. Nowhere near as brilliant or well-liked as Heidd, he had always made it clear he put Lord Boggond’s interests before Eia’s. Unlike the eight majors currently on active duty, he owed Heidd nothing. He was a safe choice.
And yet, Ydaranu’s first decision as commander of the army was to keep all of the majors. “For now,” he’d said. “As a way to avoid insubordination, desertions, and chaos. So that His Grace didn’t end up with an army that acted like a chicken running around with its head cut off.”
Lord Boggond’s mouth pressed into a thin line. To hell with Eia’s ailing regular army! He could do better. He deserved better.
Did he trust Voqras? Absolutely not.
Did he think Horbell was pursuing a secret agenda that went beyond acquiring friends who’d always vote his way at the League of Realms? Oh, yes. Lord Boggond didn’t just think it. Thanks to Ultek’s mole, he now knew it.
But at present his and Horbell’s interests were aligned, and he was the weaker of the two of them. Lord Boggond needed Horbell’s help. He’d worry about the strings attached once he was endorsed. After he crushed Teteum. When he was strong.
Voqras was right about the hive cyborgs.
The voice Lord Boggond heard in his dreams said the same thing. Horbell’s winged demons were his best bet. And now, he had a chance to get them on his terms.
The maid spying for Ultek in the Gokk House had pinged the police chief yesterday morning to inform him that Haddu Gokk’s son Geru had showed up. Following a tearful reunion, the family had gone out “for a walk.” The Gokks had been wary ever since Ultek searched their house and offices. According to the maid, the only things they discussed indoors these days were weather and dinner menus.
When they returned, Ultek’s men were waiting inside. They wrenched Geru from his mother’s embrace and transferred him to the Iltaqa Prison where he was given truth serum and questioned.
So far, so good.
Problem was, he hadn’t confessed. Despite the serum and Ultek’s brutal interrogation techniques, Geru still claimed he remembered nothing of the period following Areg Sebi’s dispatch.
Lord Boggond had taken a good look at him through his cell door’s viewer last night. A tall, well-built fellow, as virile as they came. But a dragon? Really? He seemed too… too this-worldly. A spitting image of his father, when he was younger.
Had Ultek made the whole dragon thing up to save his skin? After all, he knew he was no longer indispensable—and more and more inconvenient. Had he grown desperate enough to concoct a story that would put him back into Lord Boggond’s good graces? Well, they were about to find out.
“Yemella will do her magic and whip up some great slogans, posters, and press articles,” Voqras was saying as Lord Boggond tuned back in.
“Will that be enough?” he asked.
“I am certain. Give her six weeks, Your Grace, and she’ll sway the public opinion. Eians will welcome the winged demons with open arms as our only hope.”
Lord Boggond made a noncommittal hmm.
“Here’s one of her ideas,” the cyborg carried on, “You could invite Ghaw to interview you.”
Lord Boggond arched an eyebrow. “You mean the Iltaqa Gazette’s Achlins Ghaw? One of my most virulent critics and a possible contender?”
“Yes, that Ghaw.” Voqras held his gaze. “Talk to him about the growing threat from Teteum, the state of the army, and how the hive cyborgs are the answer.”
“He’ll publish the interview with his own analysis.”
“No doubt. But he’ll publish it.” Voqras paused for effect. “People will forget his boring comments. What they’ll remember will be that Ghaw sat down with you to discuss Eia’s security, and that the two of you talked about hive cyborgs.”
Lord Boggond humphed again, processing the unorthodox idea. That was when one of his guards peeped in to announce Ultek.
Finally.
“Zorom, what tidings do you bring?” Lord Boggond asked the police chief, using a much friendlier tone than of late. “How is our special prisoner this morning?”
Voqras kept his usual impassive face.
“As clueless as yesterday.” Ultek marched up to them.
“Who are you talking about?” Voqras looked from Ultek to Lord Boggond. “Who’s the special prisoner?”
Lord Boggond turned to the cyborg. “Geru Gokk.”
Voqras’s body stiffened visibly.
Lord Boggond stepped closer, puffing his narrow chest. “I’ve been informed he’s a rich-blood. A rare kind. A kind that isn’t supposed to exist.”
Voqras said nothing.
Lord Boggond arched an eyebrow. “A dragon shifter, no less.”
The cyborg hung his head.
So, it was true.
Ultek rubbed his hands together like he’d just unwrapped a dozen underage virgins for his basement collection.
Lord Boggond shifted his gaze to Voqras. “Why didn’t you, my head of security, bring that valuable piece of intel to my attention?”
The cyborg lowered his eyes. “Governor Horbell wants him.”
“You’re working for me!” As always when enraged, Lord Boggond’s already shrill voice rose to a hysterical pitch.
Voqras cleared his throat, eyes still downcast. “I am, Your Grace. It was just one last service for Governor Horbell.”
“At my expense.”
The cyborg looked up. “Never! How would my capturing Geru Gokk hurt your interests, Your Grace?”
“Are you stupid, or do you think I’m stupid?” Lord Boggond rolled his eyes. “Anyway, now that I have him, what can you tell me about him?”
Ultek stepped forward. “Can he turn spontaneously, or does he need a trigger? Can iron chains hold him if he turns? What can he do as a dragon?”
“All I know, based on what Governor Horbell’s men reported from Norbal, is that he doesn’t seem in control of his gift. We don’t know what triggers it. We were going to study him on Tastassi.”
Lord Boggond stroked his chin. “Study, you say?”
“Governor Horbell has a dedicated facility and a team of specialized scientists. They’ve been experimenting and learning for a year now.”
Lord Boggond and Ultek exchanged a look.
“Your Grace, do you intend to keep the shifter for yourself?” Voqras asked.
“Horbell can have him.” Lord Boggond let Voqras exhale with relief before delivering his sucker punch. “In exchange for two hundred hive cyborgs.”
His face falling, Voqras took a moment to process the implications. “I need to ping Governor Horbell.”
“Do it now,” Lord Boggond said.
Voqras pulled his commlet out.
Horbell kept his cool when he heard that Lord Boggond had Geru Gokk.
Grabbing the commlet from the cyborg’s hand, Lord Boggond laid out his terms—three years of exclusive and free use of a two-hundred-strong hive cyborg squad in exchange for Horbell’s coveted dragon shifter.
“Impossible,” was Horbell’s response. “I don’t own them, remember? They pay me for upgrades and continued maintenance, but they’re mercenaries—and expensive ones, at that. Bankrolling them for you would put too much of a strain on my finances.”
Lord Boggond waved dismissively. “Oh, please. You’ll just charge your other clients a little more to offset the cost. Maybe put more of Tastassi’s protected species on the black market. You’ll be fine.”
Twenty minutes of haggling later, they reached an agreement. Lord Boggond would deliver Geru to Tastassi. He’d leave with the winged demons, whom Horbell would subsidize for a year and waive his commission. Beyond that, if Lord Boggond chose to keep
them, he’d need to pay their salaries. The commission waiver would last for another year.
Lord Boggond passed the commlet back to Voqras.
Those weren’t ideal terms, but Lord Boggond was satisfied. A year was enough to attack the neighboring Teteum and bring it to its knees. With the kingdom’s wealth confiscated as spoils of war, Lord Boggond would be able to pay the cyborgs’ salaries himself.
“Your Grace, we’re to leave with Geru Gokk tomorrow,” Voqras said, dropping the device into his pocket.
“Very well,” Lord Boggond said, “but there’s no way I’m flying in your tin can again.”
Yet he’d done just that.
Voqras had pointed out it would be safer to transport the dragon on his spaceship than on a chartered Star of Xereill cruiser. It would also be preferable for Lord Boggond to keep his trip to Tastassi as quiet as possible. Flying with Voqras would ensure there’d be no leaks and no questions from LOR officials down the road.
Lord Boggond’s second trip aboard Voqras’s spaceship turned out even more disagreeable than the first. The cyborg made a stop in deep interstellar space just so his passenger could admire some nebula or other. Lord Boggond stared dutifully at the wispy cloud with bright pink areas, darker hazy red spots, and stars sprinkled all over it.
Geru Gokk—bound, drugged, and chained to the wall—gazed at the nebula in awe as if mesmerized.
In all fairness, the thing was beautiful. But it wasn’t worth the trouble they got into afterword, which resulted in Lord Boggond vomiting onto himself. Repeatedly.
When they’d jumped into hyperspace, the ship’s drive had malfunctioned and thrown them slightly off course. As a deeply embarrassed Voqras later explained, they’d ended up in a wide solar orbit instead of the intended flyby of Tastassi.
To Lord Boggond’s dismay, they had to leap again to get their flyby. They succeeded the second time. Kind of. Voqras still had to perform an hour-long burn of the engines to correct their trajectory and avoid a slingshot back into interplanetary space.
Lord Boggond hated every stomach-turning, clothes-soiling, undignified minute of it.
He was exhausted and dreaming of a bath when they finally landed. Horbell greeted him in person like last time. Tastassi’s governor spent a long moment surveying Geru Gokk before the shifter was shoved into a motorized vehicle and driven away.
Then, instead of heading to some luxury hotel in the capital city where Lord Boggond could bathe and change, Horbell and Voqras accompanied him and his bodyguards to another spaceship which was going to take them to an off-planet cyborg station.
“You must be dying to meet and greet your troops,” Horbell said in response to Lord Boggond’s protest.
The man seemed to love austerity as much as Lord Boggond loved comfort.
As he climbed into a tin can hardly bigger than the one he’d just disembarked, Lord Boggond blew out his cheeks. Horbell could engage in as much self-denial as he pleased, but why did he have to subject his guests to it?
Luckily, this flight was much shorter and smoother than the previous one. The hyperspace jump didn’t make Lord Boggond sick. Then again, his stomach was too empty for that now.
When they dropped back into real space, he turned to Horbell. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere in the messy heart of the Silver Path.”
“I expected your secret station to be in Tastassi’s orbit.”
Horbell cocked his head. “If my secret station were in Tastassi’s orbit, it wouldn’t be secret, now would it?”
For the first time since Lord Boggond had met Horbell, Tastassi’s ruler laughed. It was a screechy, cackling, madman’s laugh that suggested he wasn’t quite normal. No wonder he never laughed in public.
A short time later, they floated into the station’s small docking bay.
And by small, Lord Boggond meant tiny. Compared to the huge docking bay of the Flying City—the League of Realms Space Station—this one looked like a joke.
As they stepped off and followed a cyborg into the belly of the metal-walled, forbidding edifice, Lord Boggond couldn’t help comparing the place to the only other space station he’d been to. LORSS was a hundred times bigger, lighter, greener, more luxurious, and fragrant than this… hangar. Which smelled of fuel and detergent.
He decided, next time he flew anywhere, it would be in a Star of Xereill cruiser to LORSS!
Blissfully unaware of Lord Boggond’s disdain for the place, Horbell bragged about his station’s four decks, including the living quarters, weaponry, galleys, and the upgrade lab.
He thought Lord Boggond would be interested in seeing the latter.
There were five recliner beds laid in a perfect circle, and an arsenal of shining surgery tools on a table in the center. A bunch of sleek robotic arms were attached on the sides of each chair. Horbell explained their functions and the functions of some of the banned implants they could graft, like blaster arms, stun fingers, and poisonous nails.
Lord Boggond couldn’t be bothered to listen closely. He was too tired. His clothes were dirty and still humid. He stunk, for Aheya’s sake!
“Why don’t you enhance yourself and become a cyborg?” Lord Boggond asked Horbell, just to say something.
“I have my reason.” Horbell smiled. “What about you, Lord Boggond? Are you tempted?”
He was sometimes to make himself sturdier, stronger, more virile in appearance. But he suspected he was a rich-blood and that one day his gift would wake up. That suspicion always kept him from acting on his fantasy. Implants could suppress a rich-blood’s gift.
“My calling is to rule,” he said, jutting his head up. “Not to run around with a blaster.”
Involuntarily, his gaze flicked to Voqras.
“Oh, I love running around with a blaster,” Voqras deadpanned.
If he’d taken offense, he didn’t show it.
Lord Boggond perked up when they got to the large space where the winged demons soon to be his were gathered, waiting to meet him.
Thanks to them, he’d be two hundred times closer to his dream.
7
“Picnic baskets, my dame?” The look in Fippa’s eyes conveyed the extent of her shock at her mistress’s request.
Putting herself in Fippa’s shoes, Marye could see why the cook sounded so incredulous.
The Gokks’ oldest had been gone for weeks on “business” the masters didn’t talk about. At dawn today, he’d showed up on their doorstep with no luggage and clad in pants that were much too short. An hour later, the secret police had taken him away.
They hadn’t even said what Geru was accused of.
Sir Gokk spent the entire morning pinging his connections and begging for information, a rumor, anything. Then at noon, Geru’s friend came by, and his parents decided to take her and the children for a picnic.
Made perfect sense, right?
“Yes, Fippa, three or four baskets with rolls, fruit, and drinks.” Disree pointed to the twins. “Karri and Lessi will give you a hand.”
“Shall I pack an outdoor blanket and your wrap, my dame?” Disree’s maid Padefa asked.
“Yes. Two blankets, please,” Disree said, and the young woman rushed out of the room.
Fifteen minutes later, the girls returned, each with a basket in her hands, and Fippa handed one to Marye. Sir Gokk picked up Benty. Padefa came down with a bulging tote bag and started putting on her boots.
“Thank you, I’ll carry it.” Disree took the bag from her. “You can take the afternoon off.”
Disappointment flashed in the maid’s eyes, before she replaced it with a pleasant smile. “Thank you, my dame.”
Once in the meadow, Sir Gokk spread out the blankets, putting at least ten feet between them, and divided the food and drink between the two. Disree asked Karri and Lessi to keep an eye on little Benty while the grown-ups discussed something.
“Are you going to discuss Geru?” Karri put her hands on her hips. “I want to sit with you. I want to know why th
e cops arrested him.”
Lessi mimicked her sister’s posture. “Me, too. He’s our brother.”
“We worry about him, Ma,” Karri said before turning to her father. “Pa, we’ve taken the truth serum! So-o-ooo…” She drew out the last word, awaiting their decision.
“My darlings.” Disree went over to the girls and drew both of them into her embrace. “Believe me, at this point, we don’t know more than you do. We’re going to engage in pure speculation now, and we prefer to keep you out of it.”
When she let go of them, the girls glanced at Sir Gokk who shook his head with an apologetic expression.
Rolling her eyes, Lessi took Benty’s hand, and all three children stomped to the second blanket.
As soon as Haddu, Disree, and Marye sat down, Disree glanced over her shoulder at the girls chasing Benty around their blanket.
Then she leaned toward Marye. “What do you know? Haddu has reached out to everyone we can think of, including Judge Mahabmet, but no one tells us anything. Please, we’re at our wit’s end.”
“When you turned up in the house this morning, your face…” Sir Gokk moved closer. “Had he gone to you first? Did he explain how he’d gotten to Hente? He wasn’t supposed to come back. He was supposed to prepare everything and wait for us to join him.”
“I don’t know how he traveled here,” Marye said.
“Do you know why Ultek arrested him?” Sir Gokk whispered. “Is it related to Boggond’s suspicions in my regard? Is it to have leverage over me?”
Marye shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think it’s related to what he is.”
“What do you mean?” Disree frowned.
“Geru is a rich-blood,” Marye said.
“There are no rich-bloods on Hente—” Sir Gokk began.
“Turns out that’s not true.” Marye shifted her gaze from him to his wife. “Geru is most definitely one. He’s… he is…”
She looked down, unsure how to tell this lovely, conventional, normal couple that their son was a dragon shifter. And that yes, it was possible. Because surprise! Dragons were real.
“What, Marye?” Sir Gokk’s voice rose. “He is what?”