Empress Game 2

by Rhonda Mason

  Or, someone with the powers of a Wyrd.

  Dolan had discovered how to rip the psionic powers from a Wyrd’s mind and graft them onto someone else’s brain. The only element missing had been permanence, and Dolan had meant to unlock that secret using her and Vayne.

  “Dolan had been transferring psi powers to himself, a Wyrd to Wyrd translation. Could a Wyrd to imperial brain translation be successful?” Malkor asked.

  “I have no idea,” Kayla said. That level of science was way beyond her.

  Malkor looked at his tech specialist. “Rigger?”

  “I dunno, boss. I’ve found thousands of biomedical files and I’ve had limited time to go over them. Life as an IDC agent doesn’t leave a lot of time for side projects.”

  Kayla frowned. It didn’t leave a lot of time for anything else at all. Like relationships. Or finding someone to take over the role as Isonde so that Kayla could go after her brothers.

  “Even if Dolan had discovered how,” Malkor said, “there are no Wyrds left in the empire from which to harvest psionic powers.”

  Kayla gave him a mock-thoughtful look. “Bredard would need access to, say, a Wyrd planet that the empire controlled. Gee, where would they find that…”

  “Point taken.”

  Rigger cleared away the dishes and passed out cups of rich qula-kava for dessert. They moved to the living room, each locked in their own thoughts for the moment. Kayla took a seat on the couch, the only two-seater in the room, and hoped Malkor would join her. Their relationship might be all kinds of frutted up, but if she could sit near him while planning together like they used to, she could pretend everything was all right.

  Malkor chose the chair farthest from her. Rigger looked from Kayla to Malkor, then settled on the couch beside Kayla without comment.

  Malkor was the first to break the silence. “Even without information on the Influencer, Dolan’s files are priceless for the Wyrd-based tech schematics they contain. I’ve read through a few sections—it’s clear he was feeding certain people weapon designs, spaceship modifications and a host of other advancements well beyond our current level of understanding. And what he’d released so far was only the tip of the iceberg.”

  “Who was he feeding them to, though?” Rigger asked. “Legitimate IDC channels? Corrupt elements within IDC? The imperial army?”

  “At this point it’s impossible to tell, and that isn’t even our immediate concern,” Malkor said.

  Kayla had so many immediate concerns she couldn’t keep track of them all.

  Malkor’s gaze switched to her. “We have to somehow keep Dolan’s data from Bredard, while convincing him not to reveal Kayla’s identity and the fact that we cheated to win the Empress Game. If that gets out, our public execution will be the least of the damage.”

  “So let’s talk plans,” Kayla said. Her post-workout euphoria was fading, and seeing Malkor sitting across from her like a team member instead of a friend or lover depressed her. The urge to sink into the cushions of the couch was very tempting.

  Sadly, her time was short. She was due for a late-night tea with Raorin to discuss the day’s council session and plan their next move.

  “Bredard is brother to the ruling warlord of Geth,” Malkor said, “the third largest province on planet Sysar. Geth’s military surpasses any other on Sysar, and they’ve been making aggressive moves to annex the neighboring province. None of which explains how he knows about Dolan’s research or who he’s working with.”

  Rigger nodded. “So he could conceivably be involved with anyone. It’s going to take time to find a connection.”

  “Time we don’t have,” Kayla said. She finished her qula-kava and set the mug on the end table beside her. The knowledge that she was near-useless in this investigation galled her. Life as Isonde had her running around more hours of the day than she’d thought possible. Add to that her ignorance of the delicate interplay between imperial agencies and she was fully dependent on Malkor and the octet to find Bredard’s weakness.

  “Let’s assume,” she said, “that Bredard was working directly with Dolan, and is not a vulture intent on picking his technical corpse clean. It stands to reason that he would be connected to Dolan’s other allies.” And they all knew who she meant. Several people had been identified in Dolan’s files, and each of them worked for the same agency.

  “The IDC,” Malkor said, his voice hard. She knew he still didn’t want to believe that members from his own organization had sanctioned and supported the capture and years-long torture of the Ordochians.

  Among other things.

  The fact that a certain group of agents, commanders and even chiefs had formed a clandestine alliance and used the IDC’s power to forward their own ends was a secret to all but a handful.

  “It’s a place to start,” she said, checking her chronometer and pushing herself to her feet. “I’ll see if I can find out any more about him from the other councilors.”

  Malkor rose as well. “I’ve got mediation with Triumph and Victory in the morning.” At Kayla’s raised brow, he said, “They’re from Altair Prime. Don’t ask. After that I’ll see if Commander Parrel has time to meet.”

  “I’m due at HQ all day for performance evals,” Rigger said. “I’ll see what I can wheedle from the data if I get a spare second.”

  They had all too few spare seconds these days.

  * * *

  Kayla climbed the stairs toward the second floor of Isonde’s townhouse, more than ready for bed after her chat with Raorin. It was midnight and the last hour had resembled a military strategy session. So much to know and do and balance in imperial politics.

  She reached the top step, hand already on her zipup to free her from her overtunic, when she caught the shift of shadow from the darkened end of the hallway. She instantly halted her movement and breath. Had Siño returned? Was the biocybe lying in wait?

  One second later reality caught up with her paranoid brain: it was one of Prince Ardin’s bodyguards, keeping watch outside of Isonde’s sick room while Ardin was inside.

  Relax, Kayla. Rawn doubled the security detail. No more biocybes. Problem was, she wouldn’t recognize any of the new faces yet and Siño’s arm was still strong about her throat. Damn this Isonde charade for disarming her of her kris.

  She released the zipup’s clasp and made her way down the hall. Prince Ardin, heir to the emperor, had arrived while she’d been meeting with Raorin. It wasn’t like him to visit so late, or to stay so long. No doubt Isonde’s staff already thought it odd that her fiancé came to visit “Lady Evelyn,” who had supposedly been struck heavily with the Virian flu. Kayla tried to sit with him while he visited, to make it seem as if Ardin were keeping her company while she visited her unconscious “friend.” It was too painful to stay for long, though. If Isonde’s staff thought anything untoward was occurring, they were too loyal and too well-trained to remark on it.

  Kayla nodded to the guard, relaxing when she realized it was the same guard who accompanied Ardin on most visits, not some stranger who could possibly be an agent from Bredard, bringing her another “message.”

  She entered the room and the doors slid shut behind her, locking her into the quiet, low-lit tomb. Isonde herself lay like a corpse in a medical pod in the center of the room, the blinking lights along its side the only indication that she still lived. The allergic reaction Isonde had suffered to Janeen’s toxin still held her in its stony grip. Normally she wore Kayla’s face, using Kayla’s cover as Lady Evelyn of the Sovereign Planet Piran. Tonight Ardin had pulled the hologram biostrip off to see her true face, the face Kayla wore daily.

  Ardin stood like a sentinel beside the pod, his back to the door, his jacket in hand as if he’d risen to go but couldn’t make himself leave.

  Who wasn’t suffering through this masquerade they all perpetuated?

  “Sometimes I think I hate you.”

  Ardin’s words, so matter of fact, slapped her in the face. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even speak
in response.

  “She’s dying, you know.” His voice lacked any inflection, and barely carried to Kayla. “Toble told me tonight he doesn’t think she’ll last out the week.”

  Kayla had known it was bad, that the third of four possible antidotes hadn’t worked like they’d hoped. Surely… surely the fourth would. Surely Isonde could hang on that long.

  Surely she will free me.

  “Toble wants to bring her to the institute,” he continued in that flat voice, still not looking away from Isonde. “With the equipment there he thinks maybe, it’s possible, he might be able to stabilize her for a little while longer.” He choked out a grim laugh. “Stabilize her. Not heal her, not cure her, stabilize her. To leave her like this.” He gestured with his free hand to encompass the woman Kayla had come to admire. A woman of drive and of ideals, who belonged to a future greater than the sum of Kayla’s existence to date.

  Kayla found her voice at last. “If he does that, everyone will know—”

  He rounded on her then, his eyes as agitated in the dim light as his voice had been passionless. “Do you think I give one frutting damn, with Isonde dying?”

  The words whipped her with their vehemence.

  “It would mean our death,” she whispered.

  “I don’t care!” His answering roar shook her. “I don’t care,” he said, more quietly this time. “She—” His voice broke. “She…”

  Rage surged through Kayla. Rage and frustration and the sharp edge of doubt. “I never asked for this. For any of this. This was your plan.”

  He thrust his jacket down onto the chair he normally occupied, the fingers of his suddenly free hand flexing with strain. “This plan—it had seemed so possible when she was here. Now everything is frutted up.”

  Kayla took a step forward. “Then end it. Quit your moaning and end it. Save her, save the woman worth more than anything to you.” It was almost a relief to say the words, to let someone take the awful decision of continuing the charade out of her hands. “Let Toble take her to the institute.”

  “I can’t. Gods—” He balled a fist and for one second she thought he might try to strike her. Then his tension broke, his shoulders slumped, his fist lost its shape. “I can’t.”

  How could the heir to the entire empire be so powerless?

  He shook his head as if she didn’t understand, as if she could never understand. He turned back to gaze down at Isonde. “Isonde would forbid it, could she speak. Ruling by my side as my wife, on the Council of Seven, and the good we could do with that power means everything to her. More than you, more than me.” He hung his head. “She would never, ever, forgive me for saving her if it meant the loss of all she’d worked for.”

  He fell silent.

  Kayla, drained and aching, turned to go, catching his last words as the doors reopened:

  “Sometimes I think I hate her.”

  3

  At daybreak, Senior Commander Jersain Vega of the IDC sat at her desk in the home office of her townhouse in Falanar. Her official duties didn’t start for hours. Naturally, she was already at work. Well, “at practice” would be more accurate.

  She set her hover chair to stationary, placed both feet flat on the ground, rested her hands lightly on the chair’s arms and sat comfortably, the chair supporting her back. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. A soft, cloying voice rose from memory—Dolan’s voice, the voice of the Wyrd traitor who had served the empire. He exhorted her to breathe rhythmically and concentrate on her mantra.

  I am in control.

  I am in control.

  I am in control.

  The right state of mind, he always said, was essential for beginners learning to use psionic powers. Her lip curled at the memory of the condescending tone he used to emphasize “beginners.” Smug bastard. He had certainly gotten what he deserved in the end.

  A pity. Dolan was the best instructor on how to use psi powers—stolen psi powers—and she missed him for that alone.

  At least she still had her thrall, Agira.

  I am in control, she said again, and turned her mind inward. She admired her mental shields for a moment. In her mind’s eye they took the form of immense quadtanium walls, braced and gated and interwoven and locked a thousand times over. Dolan had laughed when he’d first probed them, testing her shield strength. The laughter hadn’t lasted long when he found himself unable to break through. Of all their dealings together, that was perhaps her favorite moment.

  “It would take an abnormally strong psionic to beat your shields,” he finally admitted. “Unless you run into a Wyrd paragon, your secrets are yours to keep.”

  Imagine that. The leader of the subversive sect within the IDC, who had drawn in illicit elements from the imperial army and various politicians, being able to keep a secret.

  Vega chuckled and slipped past her mental shields. She sank deeper and deeper, searching out the new source of power within. It appeared exactly as she remembered. The floor of her mind was the blue of an ocean abyss, and a fault ran through it, a giant crack glowing a fervent crimson that pulsed with violence. She sensed, rather than saw, the enormity of red-orange beneath that blue surface, a massive chamber of pure psionic energy ready to burst through the fault and incinerate her from the inside out.

  A near invisible dome capped the fault off, kept it locked down. Vega took a steadying breath before reaching toward the shield dome. As she’d been taught, she punctured it, allowing a slim flow of power through.

  The psi power hit her system like a drug, exhilarating, hypnotic, empowering. She widened the hole in the shield a fraction and opened herself for more. Her skin hummed with energy, the psi force tingling through her whole body, lighting her cells up.

  A tremor went through her dome shield. She steadied it, applying another layer.

  I am in control.

  Time to practice.

  She opened her eyes, took in the familiar setting of her home office, the stylus and datapad in front of her on the desk. Slowly, carefully, with rigid restraint, Vega reached her mind out toward the stylus. The stylus rolled a centimeter when she brushed it with telekinetic force.

  Gently, gently…

  She wrapped a tendril of power around the stylus, shaking with the effort of translating the torrent of energy inside her to the merest thread of power outside. Her biggest challenge was controlling her strength, something few Wyrds struggled with because their powers grew steadily from birth, along with their ability to control them.

  Not Vega’s. She had stolen hers fully-formed.

  She pushed all irrelevancies from her head and focused on the stylus.

  Now to lift it. Gently, gently…

  The stylus shot upward and bounced off the ceiling. It fell back to her desk with a clatter.

  Damnit.

  Not surprising, though. Most practice sessions began that way for her.

  This time when she lifted the stylus she dialed back her power, though it tired her to do so, to hold so much inside and only let a little out. She was rewarded with a perfect ascent to eye level and only a slight wobble in its balance.

  Getting better all the time.

  Vega spent the next fifteen minutes spinning the stylus in various directions around various axes, before deciding to levitate the datapad simultaneously. Sweat dotted her brow. She let out a laugh of triumph when she had both the stylus and the datapad hovering at the same height and spinning in perfect synchrony.

  Now for the real test.

  Vega’s shoulders trembled as she gripped the flow of power, painstakingly manipulating it to bring the point of the stylus to the surface of the datapad.

  Gently, gently…

  The point touched down. The stylus quivered slightly as Vega drew it across the screen, writing her name.

  ::Jersain? What are you doing awake?::

  The mind voice ripped through her brain like a razorblade, shearing her tenuous hold on the telekinetic flow. The stylus punctured the datapad and f
lew through to the opposite wall, knifing into the organoplastic like a dart. The datapad crumpled in her grip. Without control of the force applied, Vega crushed the datapad.

  “Frutt! Agira!” Vega flung the ruined datapad across the room to embed in the wall beside the stylus.

  “Damnit.” She ground her teeth and quickly repaired the translucent dome that shielded her from the strongest of her psi powers. With the flow contained, the reality of how drained she was hit her. She slumped back in her chair and muttered a weaker, “Damnit.”

  ::Do you need me?:: Agira’s mind voice was concerned.

  Vega wrestled her anger back under control. Venting at the Ordochian thrall was like kicking a puppy—Agira couldn’t help herself, not after all Dolan had done to her.

  ::I’m fine:: Vega told her. ::Go back to sleep, I’ll be there in a minute.:: Vega sighed, letting out the last of her agitation. All in all, it had been a successful practice session, until that moment.

  Her gaze fell on the stylus and mangled datapad lodged in the wall.

  That was going to be a little tricky to explain to maintenance.

  * * *

  Morning found Malkor striding through the halls of IDC’s headquarters, on his way to Commander Parrel’s office. Parrel was his commanding officer. More than that, he was a respected, trusted mentor. A mentor Malkor had lied to on more than one occasion since his deception at the Empress Game. The knowledge that he hadn’t lived up to his mentor’s standards weighed heavily on his conscience as he commed the door.

  “Enter,” Parrel said, his habitual gruff tone coming through.

  Malkor stood before his desk while Parrel finished reading something on a datapad. The strained silence intensified when Parrel set the datapad down and looked at him a moment without comment. Malkor felt every milligram of his disapproval in that gaze.