Empress Game 2

by Rhonda Mason

  She checked the charge on her transparency generator: still getting the orange “go” light. The mini-field was big enough to surround her and her alone, and while it offered decent cover in low-light areas and shadows, the cheap photon deflector couldn’t successfully perpetuate an illusion in direct afternoon sunlight.

  A glance up showed sentries pacing the tritinium decking that lined the guard wall on this side of the street. Half of them faced outward, looking over the ruins of the city’s suburbs. The others watched the storefronts, tripclubs and cyberbrothels inside the imperial compound with half-hearted attention. Cinni studied the movements of everything in the street, from the sanitation bot sucking scum from the sewers to the imperial soldiers strutting with full-on imperial arrogance.

  She shrank back as the soldiers passed, resisting the urge to knife one in the jugular. A minute ticked by while she waited in shadow. Two. The stim she’d taken before heading out on this mission made patience—and even standing still—near impossible.

  When the soldiers passed far enough ahead, she bolted into action. Her steps took her zigzagging to the middle of the street where she halted, waiting on a stab of sunlight that stole the next movement from her.

  The pennant above swung back, giving her enough shadow to skip across. She tumbled on, halt-and-run-and-halt, trusting her transparency generator to hide her as she dashed from dark to darker to darkest, finally reaching the street’s other side.

  From there she sidled along the alleys, slipping through the shadows that adhered to the buildings’ surfaces, making her way farther into the heart of the occupied city.

  Hephesta would never expect her.

  And that’s exactly why Cinni, of all the Wyrd rebels on Ordoch, had been sent.

  She ducked around the back of a VR lounge, one of dozens like it in the imperial compound. Five stories rose above it, apartments stacked atop each other. The building’s sheer walls mocked her with organoplastic smoothness. Scale this? Only if the gecko pads she’d brought really had been overclocked to carry her full weight that long. She’d have to be quick about it. She pulled the pads from her pack and attached them to the toes of her boots, her knees, and lastly her hands. A running leap took her two steps up the wall and then she clamped on, holding herself with straining arms, starting her climb.

  Cinni would never have chosen an infiltration like this in the daylight. The choice wasn’t hers to make, however. Hephesta only slept during the height of day, always had. No one knew that better than Cinni.

  The roof’s stylish overhang shadowed this face of the building, allowing enough cover for Cinni to climb to the third story and enter through a hallway window. She landed lightly and stowed her gecko pads. Hopefully they had enough juice left for the climb down. Then again, if things didn’t go as planned, she wouldn’t need them again.

  Straight ahead and around one right turn she found her destination: 338, Hephesta’s new apartment. Mishe, you better have gotten me the right door code. She punched in the alphanumeric sequence she’d spent the morning memorizing, then breathed a sigh of thanks when the locks released and the door swung inward.

  A jaded thanks, as Mishe had been forced to prostitute himself to an imperial officer for the chance to steal the information.

  The imperial bastards would pay for that necessity. They would all pay—every last one of the frutters. Cinni wouldn’t rest until Ordoch was free of the invaders, and if it took the death of every single imperial on the planet and in orbit, so be it.

  She tiptoed into Hephesta’s room, powering down the translucence generator along the way. The time for stealth was over. She found Hephesta asleep in her bed, tucked like an innocent child in need of comfort, a frown on her face even in sleep. It wasn’t how Cinni remembered her. Once, Hephesta had had a ready laugh. Her smile had the power to charm anyone with its warmth, and she’d been carefree, almost to the point of irresponsibility.

  Apparently turning traitor had taken its toll.

  Cinni stood beside the bed. It seemed to her there should be some sort of last words. A farewell for the woman who had meant everything to her. Or maybe a reading of her crimes. Now that Cinni was here, the emotions she’d buried for so long rose with unbearable force. Betrayal burned so hot within that it choked her, brought the sting of would-be tears to her eyes.

  Why! Why? How could you do this? Cinni resisted the urge to shake the older woman awake and demand answers. We needed you, she silently screamed. I needed you.

  There could be no answer that excused a Wyrd for collaborating with the imperials.

  Cinni wrestled with the hate and rage and pain and loss, her harsh breaths echoing in the quiet room with the effort. She could do this. She needed to do this.

  She drew her ion pistol with a hand that trembled—whether from emotion or the stims, she refused to acknowledge it. She flicked the charge to life, calm returning with the hum of the weapon’s ready power against her palm. She could do this.

  Her aim was far from steady as she pointed the pistol at Hephesta’s chest—not that it mattered at point-blank range. Cinni blinked away the last of the would-be tears.

  In the second before she squeezed the trigger, Hephesta’s eyes flashed open.

  “Hello, Mother,” Cinni said, and fired.

  Blast.

  7

  THE SICERRO, HYPERSTREAM INSIDE IMPERIAL SPACE,

  PRECISE LOCATION UNKNOWN

  Vayne Reinumon lay flat on the floor of his cabin aboard the Ilmenans’ spaceship, Sicerro, his chest heaving, air sawing through his lungs. Sweat covered his bare back and shoulders and rolled past his temple as he rested. Had he done enough? His arms and abs and thighs and calves told him he had. But the carpet beneath his palms, the thin covering over the ship’s decking, was identical in color to the carpet in one of Dolan’s “playrooms,” and remembrance drew him in. Forced him back into that room. Threatened to trap him there.

  No.

  Vayne pushed himself up violently, weight balanced on toes and palms, and began another set of push-ups.

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  The effort of it, the determination needed to push himself off the floor time and again, carried his mind away. There was only him, only his body, the smooth cycle of his motions, the rhythm of his exhalation.

  Five. Six. More. Again. Again.

  He lost count. There was nothing else. There was no one else. It was him and the strength of his body. Him and his fight.

  Again. Again.

  When one more push-up seemed like an agony his arms couldn’t endure, he did three more, as his older sister Natali had taught him, then rolled onto his back. He stared at the low quadtanium ceiling of his cabin, heart slowing, each beat centering him in his body. The memories of his years with Dolan, too raw and gruesome to even acknowledge, were locked away again—for now.

  He was himself, wholly himself. No one mind-controlled him anymore. He was free.

  Then why doesn’t it feel like it?

  Suddenly the room was too small. Vayne ignored the question and fled.

  First, a shower. Then, a meal. Hopefully he could accomplish both without running into anyone else at this hour of night. Or day. Or whatever time the ship kept while riding a hyperstream.

  He grabbed a shower in one of the communal bathrooms without trouble. His luck ran out as he approached the lounge, sadly. Tia’tan, leader of the Ilmenans who had come to Falanar to rescue him and his family, headed for the same destination from the opposite direction. She caught sight of him before he could turn around, and he was forced to meet her at the door.

  “Hi,” she said, with a friendly smile. Or was it a calculating smile? A smile of calculated friendliness? His instincts for honest interaction were warped from his last five years as a mental experiment.

  Friendly, he finally decided, and offered her a polite smile in return, even as he wished her to the void so he could eat in isolation.

  “Haven’t seen you in a bit,” she said, sweepin
g the lavender bangs off her forehead with one hand and tucking them behind her ear.

  What to say? Sorry, I avoid you because you treat me as an equal, as human, and after five years of degradation I don’t know how to deal with it? Sorry, your gaze holds questions I never want to hear, let alone answer? Sorry, in another life I could see myself actually liking you and that scares the shit out of me?

  “Sorry.”

  She shrugged. “We’ll all get sick of one another on a ship this size soon enough. Lunch?” She stepped into the lounge and he followed. Too many heads turned in their direction as they entered. So much for avoiding people.

  Joffar, the eldest Ilmenan of the four, stood near an expansive viewport, in conversation with Vayne’s uncle, Ghirhad. They were of an age, and seemed to get along well enough. Corinth sat at a table with Noar. Guilt pricked Vayne at the sight. Noar had started training Corinth to control and expand his psionic skills, something Vayne should have been doing. Kayla had asked that of him. At the moment, though, Vayne couldn’t handle his younger brother’s silent resentment. Kayla had become Corinth’s whole world, and Vayne had made the call to leave her behind, something Corinth hadn’t forgiven him for.

  Something he couldn’t forgive himself for.

  He nodded in greeting to them and followed Tia’tan to the bank of food and beverage synthesizers. He was conscious of Natali rising from her seat and pointedly not looking at him, just as he had avoided turning his gaze in her direction. She was out the door before he could enter a meal selection on the synthesizer.

  Tia’tan glanced over at his plate as she queued for a drink. “That looks… appetizing.”

  The synthesizer delivered him a saucer full of what looked like egg patties and tentacles in a lukewarm brown gravy. “Still getting used to your codes.” If the worst thing that happened to him in a day now was choking down sludge-covered tentacles, he’d eat it, like it, and be thankful. He did much better with the beverage and synthed a full-bodied ale that ought to at least wash down some of his dinner.

  Plate and cup in hand, he hoped he could get away with that brief hello and run right back to his room, but Tia’tan grabbed a seat at an empty table and watched him, clearly inviting him to join her.

  Damn.

  He took the seat opposite her, facing the viewport. The soothing pink-green ribbons of the hyperstream washed by, carrying him away from his nightmares, from his captivity, from his past. Faster, he urged it. Faster. He couldn’t sleep easy until they reached Wyrd Space, and even then it might take setting his feet down on Ilmena to truly feel free. Ordoch might have been his home once. Now, with the imperial occupation, he’d never go back. Not if it meant more strife and heartache. Ilmena, on the other hand, was untouched by the imperials. At peace. Safe.

  “Any signs of pursuit?” he asked.

  She nodded. “News of our supposed terrorist activity with the TNV travels a lot faster than our ship. When we dropped stream last night the imperial military stationed in this sector swooped in. Luliana barely skipped us out in time.”

  They’d been dogged since they left Falanar. Whoever had framed the Ilmenans for delivering the TNV to the imperial wedding must have been convincing. Dropping from the hyperstream to correct their course was a gamble every time.

  “We could stay in the stream longer,” he suggested, choking down a bit of tentacle-topped egg patty.

  Tia’tan shook her head. “Hyperstreams meander too much in this region. Too long without course corrections and we could find ourselves in the heart of the empire, or worse. Don’t worry, we’ll keep ahead of the imperials.”

  They’d better. He hadn’t left Kayla behind, at the mercy of those bastards, only to be captured and dragged back to a cell. Never again.

  “How long until we reach Wyrd Space?”

  Tia’tan glanced away. Doing the math on the distance? Fabricating an answer? Or maybe she found his stare too disturbing to maintain. Void if he knew.

  “I’m uncertain about the particulars,” she finally said. “Hopefully we won’t be here much longer.”

  A soon would have satisfied him far greater. Hopefully didn’t usually factor into space travel.

  “Is there something—”

  “I’ll get you to Ilmena, Vayne. Trust me.”

  Ambiguity. It was in the way she said “trust me,” like it was a request as much as an assertion that he could. The only person he trusted was his ro’haar, and she was umpteen light-years away now.

  Still, Tia’tan had come all the way to Falanar on the rumor that he and his family were being held prisoner. Kayla wouldn’t have even known to look for him in Dolan’s lab if not for the Ilmenans. He owed them his freedom. His life. Tia’tan and her promise of a new home on Ilmena were the first things worth believing in in five years.

  So he nodded like the answer satisfied him, and her friendly smile returned.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes. His lunch really did rank alongside one of Dolan’s mildest tortures, but he ate it anyway. Any choice he made of his own free will—to eat or not to eat, what to eat, when to eat—was a luxury.

  His gaze drifted to where Corinth sat with Noar. The boy levitated a glass filled to the very top with a translucent pink fluid. Every so often a trickle of liquid would spill over the rim to drip into the bowl below, and Corinth’s face would scrunch into a tighter scowl of concentration. It was an early psionic exercise Vayne knew well—learning how to not just lift an object, but to keep it steady, level, completely controlled. From the amount of liquid in the bowl already, Corinth needed much practice.

  Noar met his eyes, and his voice sounded in Vayne’s head. ::He’ll forgive you soon enough.::

  Vayne arched a brow at the rudeness of Noar telepathically interrupting his verbal conversation with Tia’tan. On Ordoch that kind of behavior would have been considered quite intrusive, not to mention vaguely insulting to Corinth, who should have had Noar’s full attention. Even if you were able to speak directly into the minds of every person in the room, that didn’t mean you had a right to.

  ::Kayla is everything to him:: Noar said. ::You can understand why he’s upset. He’ll accept why you insisted we leave, in time.::

  Given the chance, Vayne knew he would make the same decision again: leave his ro’haar behind rather than suffer being taken prisoner. That didn’t mean he didn’t hate himself for it, or that he didn’t think Corinth should, too.

  ::Thank you for working with him:: Vayne said, sounding gruff even to himself.

  Noar took his ill humor in stride, as he always did. Noar nodded to accept the thanks and turned his attention back to Corinth.

  Luliana’s voice came over the ship’s comm. “We’re nearing the drop point.”

  Already? They’d just done a course correction last night.

  “Why are we dropping stream?” he demanded of Tia’tan, who was already rising, heading with her plate toward the sanitizer.

  Joffar said something to Ghirhad and his uncle laughed, a jovial sound that grated as badly as ever on Vayne’s raw nerves. It drew his attention to where they stood by the viewport in time to see the green-pink wash of the hyperstream dissolve.

  Some warning, Luliana. How about, “Hey, we’re dropping this second.” He grabbed his own plate, intent on following Tia’tan to the bridge to learn what the trouble was, when something out the viewport caught his eye. Several somethings.

  They’d dropped back into normal space and he should have seen nothing besides distant stars. Instead, gigantic masses surrounded them, some the dull grey of stone, others with a metallic sheen. Thousands of them. And one in particular, the size of a battleship’s front section, hurtled straight for them, or vice versa. Its solid form devoured the other object in the viewport until—

  WHAM.

  The ship impacted the debris with a deafening boom, the force fracturing the viewport and sending them all flying.

  “Corinth!” He lurched to his feet, looking for the boy. “Get out of here,
now!” That window might not hold and Kayla would kill him if anything happened to their brother.

  Everyone scrambled for the door, squeezing out two at a time while the ship’s klaxon blared and Luliana shouted something about raising the shields. Yeah. Nice timing on that.

  Tia’tan pressure-sealed the lounge. Noar and Joffar headed straight for the bridge.

  “You three,” Tia’tan said, pointing at the Ordochians. “Cabins. Strap in.”

  Vayne grabbed her arm when she turned to follow Noar. “Where the void are we?”

  “An asteroid field?” Ghirhad asked.

  “Full of man-made debris?” Vayne countered. “Unlikely. And what kind of pilot takes a ship out of hyperstream inside an asteroid field?”

  “It’s not asteroids,” Tia’tan said, freeing her arm easily and hurrying toward the bridge.

  Corinth’s voice sounded in his head. ::I bet it’s the Mine Field.:: The boy’s blue eyes were huge. ::We’re in trouble.:: Before Vayne could stop him, Corinth shot down the corridor after Tia’tan.

  “What the frutt?” Vayne could only follow.

  It was a tight fit with everyone on the bridge. Luliana, seated in the pilot’s chair, righted the ship and used thrusters to power them around a massive structure that looked like the top ten decks of a luxury starcruiser. Hundreds of other objects of all shapes and sizes filled the viewscreens. Noar and Joffar were already at sensor consoles starting diagnostics.

  “Why did you drop us right in the field?” Tia’tan asked, taking position beside Luliana.

  “I didn’t, something ripped us out.” Luliana rolled left to avoid an even larger chunk of rock, flying through a scattering of smaller stones in the process, setting off the ship’s proximity warnings. The bridge’s two hundred seventy-degree field of view was filled top to bottom, side to side with debris. It looked like the wreck of an entire planet, strung through with enough demolished ships to conquer the empire.