by D. R. Rosier
The queen having so many children was an exception, the royal family didn’t have to follow that rule. Not because they were above the law, the exception was built into the law as an exception for dynastic security. I also did several searches for the rumors of the royal family’s deaths, but they were all credible, from the ones that said it was bullshit, through the middle, and to the point they were all dead. The rumors were obviously planted, they had to be a trap.
Just because it was a trap, didn’t mean it wasn’t true though. The best lures usually were. We were depending on our stealth suits to get us through, Denik may have laid a trap, but he had no idea I’d been very busy upgrading the technology available to Vik and the rest of us.
I just hoped it was true, that he would underestimate us, instead of the other way around.
Vik also checked in on the ship at least once an hour, Vik was obviously more nervous than he was letting on. His voice and carriage exuded the same usual confidence, but his actions betrayed his worry.
The sun going down made a beautiful pink and purple sunset which I really enjoyed, and then we waited some more. Finally, Likara made it home, and we observed through the back door and windows to make sure she was alone.
Likara may have been older, but she still looked young, thirtyish, and quite attractive. She had a willowy body and graceful walk, light blonde hair which barely touched her shoulders, and at about five foot four was the shortest Isythian I’d seen so far. She was also in what passed for normal clothes planet side, it was startling on two levels because I was used to seeing everyone in a ship suit. The white material of her dress gleamed in the light, and was quite flattering to her figure.
Vik knocked on the back door.
Likara looked over, and didn’t see anyone. Her eyes narrowed as she stalked toward the back door with pursed lips, and pulled open the sliding glass door. She stepped out and looked around, and muttered something about no good kids, while we surreptitiously snuck by her and into the house.
She froze as she came back in, and we dropped the stealth.
Vik retracted the head piece quickly, before she could start a rant, or call the authorities.
“Likara, you look well.”
Really? Did they start off all conversations like that? I supposed it was better than hey you, or what’s up.
Likara scowled, “Are you insane, what the hell are you doing here?”
I laughed, I was sure that wasn’t the traditional counter-greeting.
Her eyes widened as Telidur uncloaked and pulled off his mask, and then widened even further when I did it. Guess it wasn’t every day a prince broke in with a human ex-slave in tow.
Vik said, “You know Telidur. This is Lori, she saved all our lives when we were stupid enough to get caught by a Stolavii pirate while on vacation. I trust her with my life, and she’s done much for us since then.”
She snorted, “It’s interesting to meet you Lori,” she turned back to Vik, “Now tell me what the hell you’re doing here, while I get you all something to drink.”
She turned around and glided toward the kitchen in a very graceful walk.
We followed.
Chapter Ten
Vik said, “Thanks,” which Telidur and I echoed as she handed us drinks.
He continued, “We’re working on ending my brother’s madness, but it will be another eight months or so. We only came here because of the rumors on the public data net. I need to know the truth about my family.”
I shuddered and looked away, I could see the truth in Likara’s eyes, or maybe it was my sixth sense and powerful intuition at work again. I wondered how long I knew, and if that’s why I was so worried about losing him.
Likara frowned, and her voice was subdued, “I’m sorry your highness, but with the exception of Denik all your brothers are gone. Your father too. He hasn’t harmed your sisters or mother, and as far as I know, they’re being kept under guard in the summer cottage.”
Vik sat down heavily, and looked devastated. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and tell him it would be okay, but knew it wouldn’t help, and might not even be true.
“Summer cottage?”
Likara said, “It’s located in the southern hemisphere, the royal family takes two months off every year in the coldest months, and spends time out of the city. Right now, it’s a gilded prison, and this time of year it’s winter down there and covered in snow.”
Vik shook his head, “I’m surprised after what he did, that he allowed them to live. Sylara is heir?”
Sylara was his older sister, and fourteenth in line, his younger sister Solyra was just twenty years old, and twentieth in line. Or… third now I supposed. I felt a surge of joy that Vik wasn’t the heir, wouldn’t have to give up the ship or me, and then suppressed it ruthlessly, I was better than that. Or at least, I wanted to be. So selfish to feel that for myself, when Vik was grieving for most of his family.
Likara nodded, “After Denik yes, but once he pays for his crimes Sylara will be heir and queen. I’m sorry. I’m not sure why he spared your mother and sisters when he killed the rest. He’s insane, and I don’t want to understand him.”
“Pull them out, or leave them?” I asked softly.
Vik laughed, “What’s safer? An unpredictable murderer, or battle?”
I said, “We can make one more destroyer, can’t we?”
Vik shook his head, “It’s a nice thought, but Sylara would refuse to hide in the void between stars, and wait for me to fix things.”
Likara said, “At least on the ship, they could fight back. Right now, they’re just powerless prisoners who might be executed if Denik gets angry enough.”
Telidur said, “Three ships. If your mother could rule I’d say four. We’ll put Sylara in command of one, and your mother and Solyra in another. If I remember right, Dessia has command experience, and the military is where she met your father.”
I tried not to squirm at the thought, it was valid enough. At least if we lost one of the ships, we wouldn’t lose all three heirs at once.
Vik nodded.
I suggested, “Do we have time to make two more cruisers, or will we put them in destroyers. If not, will Sylara try to claim the Scythe? She is above you right?”
Vik made a face, “Yes and no. She’s ahead of me in ruling the empire, but I’m probably the highest-ranking member of the old military right now, and this will be the flagship in battle. She wouldn’t take my ship. My inclination would be to make two more cruisers, and split the fleet into three sub-fleets built around those ships of a hundred and sixty-six.”
He added, “She may want to change our direction however, once we free her she’ll be ultimately in charge of the direction we go in for our counter-revolution.”
He shook his head and looked at Likara, “How are the people doing. I know most of the bad isn’t making it onto the public data net.”
Likara said, “No one is starving yet. The taxes have slowed the economy down though, and he’s building more ships. He’s also hunting down Stolavii ships. He still has just over a thousand destroyers, so he lost about sixty percent in the takeover. But with fifty in each system, that gives him over seven hundred to go hunting.
“Merchant ships are being built as well, by private companies, so that’s one good thing. The bad thing is he’s overspending, the taxes aren’t quite covering the amount of element he’s been using.”
Vik smirked and looked at me.
“Lori fixed our power problem, and our Stolavii problem. The new merchant ships are a good thing, because we’ll still need them after we turn back the changes Denik made. The new fleet will only be delivering about ten percent of what it used to, in order to maintain the ships.”
Likara gave me a measuring look, as if reassessing my importance. It wasn’t so much what he said I did, but his possessive and proud tone of voice while saying it that had grabbed Likara’s attention.
“How’d you manage that?”
I ignored the sub
text part of what she wanted to know, and answered literally.
“Power distribution among multiple reactors increases efficiency by introducing a linear element to a geometric cost progression.”
That was not only true for the ships, but the probes as well. The only thing that made the probes possible and cheap, were that they were all powered from the probe ship, in a twenty reactor mini-power plant that could power thousands of probes through dimensional ports. If the power was self-contained to each probe, they’d be impossible to maintain in such large numbers, but now to service six thousand probes, we’d just need to swap out the twenty cores in the reactors for new ones. If another part of the probe goes bad, we just fabricate a replacement and send it through a wormhole. It would happen eventually, but the parts should last for fifty years or longer before needing replacement.
She frowned at me.
I shrugged, “Twenty tiny reactors consume much less element than a large one, for the same amount of combined power. I’d have preferred solving the actual issue, whatever it is, but for now we can at least work around it.”
I bit my lip, to stop the urge to blurt out I was awesome at sucking dick, which was what she really wanted to know, why I was personally important to Vik. Not that I thought that was the real reason, or the only reason, but sometimes my wiseass came out to play. Plus, I was kind of horny right then. Thrills and danger did that to me.
Vik changed the subject, “So, change things or not, we need to rescue them before they become victims of Denik along with the others.”
“Do we have their sizes? Jillintara can build out three suits, and send them to us.”
It sounded weird, but she should be able to control them via quantum communication, and simply remotely order them to cloak and fly down to us.
Vik nodded, “Once we have the suits we fly down there. Then what?”
“We sneak in, we can trail one of the guards going in, or slip past one heading out. Wait for all three to come together, maybe for a meal, then take out any watchdogs in the room, at that point our time is limited, and we’re exposed.”
Telidur said, “Hopefully they don’t argue when we uncloak, put on the suits, and follow us up to the roof, where the six of us cloak and take off toward the ship. We board and head for the systems edge where we can take off.”
Vik said, “Good plan.”
“How likely is it they won’t argue?”
Vik shook his head, “Not likely at all, they’ll recognize me and know a rescue when they see it. Getting over the shock might slow them down a minute though.”
I nodded, “Telidur and I will leave that to you, while we guard the entrances and stop anyone that comes looking. I’m worried about the cloak though, going toward orbit and cutting the air. If they really look, and know we’re cloaked, that could be an issue. The fifty destroyers out there also, they’ll start to run a search pattern to find the ship that they know has to be there.”
Likara said, “Stop spoon feeding and get to the point girl.”
I blushed, I already did have a plan, I’d been thinking about it for days. At least, thinking about a distraction, I couldn’t firm up the plans without the details we had now.
“I suggest the moment we take out the guards, the cat’s out of the bag anyway. Denik will know we’re here within moments, and that we have a cloaked ship in orbit. Jillintara will break cloak long enough to open the bay and launch a shuttle from somewhere on the other side of the planet, and then be back under stealth. The shuttle will head for the summer cottage with all due haste.”
“Jillintara at that point, will engage impulse to quickly round the planet, and move to a stationary orbital position over the house unseen, while the destroyers look for her probable position on the wrong side of the planet. In the meantime, we run upstairs while the shuttle blazes down through the atmosphere, and lands on the roof.
“We get on, cloak, and walk right back off. The shuttle closes the door, and takes off and makes for orbit on the other side of the planet like the forces of hell are on its tail. Your brother and the ships in orbit will assume the Scythe is still there somewhere to pick up the shuttle. When in truth we’ll be in our suits, flying straight up to the ship on the other side of the planet.
“They’ll probably take out the shuttle shortly after, and fill space with plasma trying to find the Scythe, while she’s leaving orbit on the opposite side of the planet free and clear.”
Likara frowned, “You’ve got a devious mind, anyone hungry?”
I grinned, and hoped that was a compliment.
Vik laughed, “That might work. Telidur?”
It should work, the shuttle would act as both a distraction and misdirect at the same time.
Telidur said, “I like it better than the hope they can’t see us plan.”
Vik nodded, “Call the ship, get Jillintara working on the suits, and tell her the plan.”
I smirked, “Do you honestly think she’s not worried and keeping an eye on us?”
Jillintara huffed in the background over our quantum connection.
Telidur snickered.
Jillintara said, “It’s a good plan, and the suits will be ready in a few hours. I’ll let you know when they’re in Likara’s backyard.”
It was a good plan, hopefully not too much of it would go wrong. I knew better than to think it would work as perfectly as advertised, and so did Vik. I preferred more exit solutions, but there was only so many ways to make it to orbit. The suits, or the shuttle.
“Oh, one last thing. We can’t assume they aren’t monitored, for all we know Denik used the overrides on their assistants, and they’re actually online and just refusing connections to you in order to lure us in. Don’t tell them anything about our plans, not until I verify their assistants once we get on board, and search them for extra implants. That goes for you too Jillintara, don’t allow them on our new data net until we verify they’re clean.”
Vik nodded, “I can go along with that.”
Jillintara said, “Not a problem, I can keep their implants out of the ship’s systems, logs, and data net until we clear them. I’ll also control their suits, so the implants won’t know where they are.”
Shit, good point. They’d see through our ruse extremely fast if they know we stepped back off the shuttle and were flying to orbit. I hate that I missed that, and then wondered what else I missed.
Vik said, “Starving, if you don’t mind?”
Likara snorted, and walked over to the fridge…
Chapter Eleven
Likara was a good hostess, and obviously cared for Vik like a mother would for a son. I wasn’t sure if she liked me or not, she seemed to be reserving judgment, but I couldn’t help but like the older Isythian woman.
Is it weird, that I was far more worried about meeting Vik’s mother and two sisters, and if they’d approve of me and our relationship, than I was about the rescue and escape plan itself? Ships, plasma, missiles, a whole world hunting us, no big deal. The prospect of meeting my lover’s family? Terrifying.
I was a strange mix of ice cold bitch under pressure, and almost paralyzed by the idea they wouldn’t approve of me. Well, no one ever said I was normal. I was used to dealing with dangerous, it was emotional entanglements that were new for me.
It was still late at night when she wished us luck and we said our goodbyes. We probably wouldn’t see her again until this was all said and done. Hopefully she’d be safe, and her involvement would never be known. It seemed a safe bet, if they were monitoring her house we’d have been attacked hours ago.
We activated stealth on the shipsuits and slipped out the back, and took off into the sky. We stayed low, and went relatively slow. Where we could, we flew extremely close to air car lanes since the atmosphere was already turbulent and disturbed there, and could fly toward the southern hemisphere a lot faster.
Flying in what was essentially nothing but a full bodysuit, high tech or not, was a blast. I knew the technology, and kne
w it was perfectly safe, but that animalistic part of my hind brain didn’t buy it. Which meant it was a rush, and exciting. I supposed that made me a bit of an adrenaline junkie.
The three suits for Vik’s mother and two sisters were following us.
Eventually, the adrenaline rush wore off, and I started to get bored, it was a good three-hour flight. It was very early morning when we arrived and landed. There were automated defenses, as well as patrols around the property. Breakfast was a few hours off, which was probably a good time to make this happen. But we weren’t sure when shift change was, so we were loitering near the front door, and off to the side. It was a tense thirty-five minutes later, when the door opened.
I didn’t hesitate and slipped inside sideways right in front of the guard who was moving inside. Vik and Telidur also managed it, from behind but before the guard shut the door. The guard was moving slowly, and obviously tired and ready for the end of his shift.
Vik gave me a tour of the house, so I’d know the layout. The dining room had two exits, one toward the kitchen and the back of the house, the other exit led to one of the sitting rooms and the front of the house.
There were far too many rooms in the hallways between the dining room and the stairs, but it was essential to get all three at once, since first contact would betray our presence and start the timer on our escape, and Vic couldn’t be in all three of their bedrooms at once. If it wasn’t for the fact the shields on the suits were enhanced and powered from a base device which in turn was powered by the main reactors on the ship, I’d have called an abort so we could re-plan. As it was, I supposed we could afford to get shot a few times.
“Vik, I figured out why he didn’t kill them, and I’m an idiot for not seeing it sooner.”
Since it’s so damned obvious.
Vik said, “Why?”
“They’re live bait, if they were dead we wouldn’t risk exposing ourselves, we’d have just left. He must not fear a female’s ambition as much as he fears the ambition of other males. He must have assumed you’d learn the truth before committing. Or maybe he assumed you’d be more likely to risk yourself to save a female member of the family.”
