Keltan's Gambit: Chronicles of the Orion Spur Book 2

by Michael Formichelli

  Twenty-minutes later he pulled the slender, arrowhead-shaped vehicle into a gully between two hills and killed the engine. The two-seat craft was small and a few fallen branches with some handfuls of the black leaves were all it took to conceal it. After a moment’s hesitation he decided to leave the rifle with the car. There was no sense in drawing attention to himself in Sanakrat’s occupied streets, though he did feel somewhat exposed as Nero started walking under the darkening skies. It was night before he went more than a few clicks from the car.

  Up ahead the soft glow of town lights spilled among the trees. He approached, spotting the dark silhouettes of one-story buildings about ten-meters from the forest’s edge. He paused a few trees shy of it and listened. The cackle of some Elmoran animal drowned out the background chorus of whatever creatures comprised the lowest levels of this planet’s food chain. His fatigues shifted, re-coloring into a pair of brown pants and a green shirt with a black jacket with a press of a button on his belt. Camouflaged, Nero headed into town kicking dust up in sparkling clouds as he walked.

  A thumping beat started in the distance. It grew louder as he closed in on the splash of light illuminating a familiar-looking, three-story building up ahead of him. The closer he got the more Nero was sure he knew this place. There were shops along the ground floor, all were dark on this side, but the one on the end had a smashed out window and a weathered sign in Cleebian characters.

  Oh, he thought, recognizing the noodle shop where he and Khepria encountered Qismat. Air cars of several styles were packed into the marked spots on the black asphalt in front of the building. Many were familiar Confederate designs, but in contrast to what was here before, there was a noticeable lack of weapon mounts. The only craft in the lot that did have turret-mounted gun barrels were three, light-gray models with blue racing stripes. Each had a circle of braided gold around some kind of winged creature on its hood. He didn’t know the name of the animal, but he did know what it signified. It was the Broghite military symbol.

  Nero rounded the corner of the building, and paused by the wounded maw of the noodle shop before casting his eyes further down the edifice towards a neon sign. “The Wall” glowed in angry-looking Solan letters. Below the sign an Achinoi with a tall Mohawk of quills sat on a tall stool, staring into the e-pad held in his clawed hands. To his side, three meters away, a group of non-humans stood chuckling and conversing with each other while they puffed away at short pipes hanging from their lips. Each was a giant towering over the Achinoi. Nero estimated they could probably touch the second floor of the building with their three-digit hands just by reaching up. They had bulging forearms out of proportion with the rest of their limbs, and triple-jointed legs attached to elongated torsos. They wore blue armor as the shorter, big-eyed species did, but had their helmets off. Their faces were smooth, white, and capped by dark, rough scalps trailing rubbery cables to their shoulders. Two eyes flanked a thick, nasal bulge with six nostrils on the sides like the holes in a flute. Their mouths were small with thin lips, and each seeped puffs of smoke between draws on their pipes.

  Nero took a deep breath of the frosty air and leaned against the building, watching from the shadows while the three exchanged jibes and made a popping, hoarse sound he assumed was laughter. One of them touched the shoulder of another and pointed at him. All three turned their heads, as did the Achinoi.

  Damn it, he thought.

  “You, human!” The voice of the soldier was deep, echoing thickly accented Solan across the lot of parked cars. “Come here!”

  Damn it, he thought again. This wasn’t supposed to be a combat mission. Without Prospero he wasn’t sure he could take the three giants in a fight without a firearm. His high-frequency knife was tucked into his right boot, but they were armored. Just my luck, he thought with some bitterness as he walked towards the entrance of the club. He could feel the beat of the music in his chest. Eerie, electronic melodies muffled by the dark doors assailed his ears. The soldiers were taller up close, averaging a meter above his own height. He hadn’t felt so small since his meeting with Irin the Savorchan in the Kosfantari Biodome. Over each of their shoulders pointed the coiled nozzle of a rifle, and he noted a dark-gray pistol holstered on their hips.

  “You are out past curfew, human. Show your pass.” One of the three took a step forward, shoving his breastplate in Nero’s face. It was strangely formed, having two pairs of lumps across the top third of it, and a flexible sleeve at the waist connecting to the plates covering his wide pelvis. Strange, gold characters were embedded over each lump, and the style varied among the three individuals.

  “I must have forgotten it,” he answered, looking up at each one of them in turn. Two had blue, four-pointed irises, but the eyes of the one challenging him were hazel and had a gleam to them Nero knew meant he was in for it.

  “Forgot your pass?” The two blue-eyed soldiers moved to flank him.

  “I can go back and get it.” Nero gestured behind him.

  “Too late for that, human. We’ll have to make an example of you, now. We can’t have the others thinking our rules don’t mean anything.”

  He glanced at the Achinoi as the three closed on him. The four eyes across his brow gleamed in the dim light and the quills on his shoulders rattled as he shook his head.

  “Okay, I see how it is,” Nero said. “How about I buy you all a drink inside and no one gets hurt?”

  They laughed with that popping, croaking sound. He took a step back, sizing up the way they moved, and what the apparent bulk of their armor might mean about their musculature. It didn’t look good.

  “Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do for you three?”

  The one on Nero’s right leaned in and thrust a fist at his head. Reflexes took over and he ducked under the blow, stepping into it so the Brogh’s fist past by his ear. He popped up, putting fist to abdomen with all of his artificial muscle’s might. The blow caused the air to rush from the soldier’s mouth. Nero half-turned with his arm up to deflect a blow from the second or third Brogh, but the first, who had stumbled back a step after his punch, thrust a kick into his ribs. He staggered back a few steps from the force of the blow, then took another step back with his eyes on his three opponents.

  “Quicker than I thought,” he muttered, rubbing his side and wishing Prospero were online to dilate his time-perception.

  The next attack came from the one on his left. The Brogh swept in with a hooking high punch while the one next to him attacked with a stiff jab at his gut. Nero swayed back, causing the first punch to miss his nose by centimeters, and swept his arm down to block the second. He felt it connect with his forearm and used the contact to trigger his own counter punch, stepping in and thrusting his fist down towards the flexible armor in the center Broghite’s upper knee. He felt the hard joint bend and shift beneath his knuckles and heard the loud cry from its owner before the third soldier kicked him. He took it on the chest and rolled back with it. Turning most of the force into backward momentum, he tumbled out of their considerable reach. He let the roll carry him to his feet and stepped back, feeling the edge of one of the parked air-cars on the back of his knee.

  This is a lot harder without Prospero. He wished he’d paid more heed to his SCC nagging him about endurance training.

  “I don’t suppose you want to talk this out?” he said between pants as they closed in again.

  One of them circled around to the side while the other two lunged forward. Nero jumped up onto the hood of the vehicle behind him, keeping his fists up in guard when he landed. The first Broghite came at him high and he ducked with the bounce of the car while the second came in low with a punch. The first attack missed. The second he blocked with a painful jolt to his forearm—and something hit the back of his head hard enough to black his vision out. His body flopped to the asphalt with a grunt.

  Nero got to his knees and looked up, rubbing the back of his head as his vision returned. The third Broghite was holding a rifle with the stock end poin
ted outward. There was a broad grin on his thin-lipped mouth.

  “No fair, that’s cheating,” Nero said.

  “Katchla-fa!” The rifle came down again and sparks flew through his vision.

  Chapter Three

  Ikuzlu City, Kosfanter

  41:2:9 CST (J2400:3132)

  Cygni emerged from the Nyangari lander and turned towards the waiting limo where Guror Shkur Ithros, her man and a member of the ambassador’s guard, stood dressed in his red and black uniform. His pointed, leathery ears were standing straight up in the air while he pressed the three lips of his muzzle firmly together.

  “No. This one,” Ambassador Shef said, tapping her on the arm.

  She sighed, tasting the briny air of the Ikuzlu night on her tongue. After the revelations her investigation on the Queen Gaia exposed, the last thing Cygni wanted to do was get into an air-limo with the Nyangari ambassador and recount the juicy details of her life with Shkur, but that was the promise she’d made to get on the ship. She had done worse in her career for a story, but never before when she was romantically attached to someone. She wondered how Shkur was going to handle his boss knowing about what they did in her bedroom. She was grateful that Pawqlan opted to take the regular shuttle back so she wasn’t here to observe what happened.

  “Please, Miss Aragón, ride with me.”

  She glanced at Shkur. His neck pouch swayed as he shifted his weight. He gave her a tense look before climbing into his assigned limo.

  Damn, she thought. They knew the price for her ticket when the arrangements were made, but now that the moment had come it was harder than she expected. Was knowing where the Abyssian went worth some discomfort? Was knowing what happened to Baron Keltan worth a bit of lascivious conversation? Was the new job at Cosmos Corporation worth it? She didn’t want to say yes, but any one of those things was worth a bit of trouble even if Shkur was going to be uncomfortable for the rest of his assignment at the consulate. The least she could do would be to try and get the ambassador to promise not to make his life harder—

  “Miss Aragón?” Ambassador Shef said.

  She noticed some of the warriors standing around the tarmac made a point of looking away from her.

  “Sorry, let’s go.” She followed him into the limo and slid in next to him as the warriors of his personal guard followed. The other half of their party was riding with Shkur. She hoped they wouldn’t tease him, but she knew Nyangari too well.

  The limo’s engine spun up with a whine, and the craft moved into the sky.

  “Are you comfortable?” The ambassador asked.

  His dry musk was in her nostrils. The rough fabric of his black and red uniform scratched at the bare skin between the hem of her dress and her knee, but she nodded and said “yes” anyway. She was numb inside, the recording of what happened in Baroness Altair’s suite was still playing through her head like a memory stuck on repeat.

  There’s a VoQuana outside of quarantine, and he’s done something to Baron Keltan.

  “Good. I know it has been a long trip, and I have been very busy, but now, at last, we have some time together.” A low vibration passed through the ambassador’s dangling neck-pouch.

  She reached down to the low pedestal in the center of the compartment. A menu appeared hovering above the pedestal’s glossy-black surface. She ordered herself a kaldur—Nyangari whiskey safe for Solans to drink—and downed it the moment the glass rose from the device on a tiny lift. It was a breach of protocol but she didn’t care. In her head she could hear their voices—

  “You were supposed to go with the Abyssian.”

  “He neglected to tell me he was departing before he left with the Relaen woman.”

  “Zalor’s not going to like that,” Baroness Altair responded.

  “I’ll take one as well.” The ambassador’s voice startled her.

  She fetched him a glass from the pedestal and handed it over. He seized the moment to grasp her hand with his own. His fingers felt like cracked leather. The image of the VoQuana grabbing Baron Keltan with his thin, gray arm flashed through her mind. There was so much fear in the baron’s eyes, like the touch alone could destroy him.

  She shuddered.

  “Are you cold?” The red petals of the ambassador’s rose-like nose fluttered.

  “I’m all right, thank you.” She hoped he believed her. A Nyangari nose could smell even small changes in body chemistry. It was pointless to lie to them if they had the right training, and she was sure the ambassador did.

  “You’re anxious, though. Anxious about what?” His long tongue licked at the protrusion of his lower jaws—a Nyangari version of a brief smile. “You know I am just chewing the bone to ask about certain things—but let us start light.”

  She glanced out the window. They were beyond the starport and over the thick clutter of unique towers that comprised the Corporate District. It wasn’t such a long trip to her apartment from here, and she was relieved that the number of questions he could ask would be limited.

  “Do you two—what is that Solan word—kiss?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “How?” The ambassador ran a finger along his jaw line. Nyangari mouths had three parts: two hinged jaws and a shorter, hard palate. Together they formed a snout from which their mouth-pouches hung. They couldn’t kiss in the human sense of the word, though Nyangari had thin lips.

  “Well, sometimes I smooch him where his jaws converge.” She tapped the ambassador at the triangular point where his three lips met. He shuddered with a gleam in his eye. “And I guess you could say he tastes my tongue.”

  “Ah.” The ambassador’s sigh could not be taken as anything but obscene.

  She shook. The VoQuana’s face flashed in her mind—rings of blue sparks in endlessly dark spheres, chalk-colored flesh, a teardrop shaped head capped with long, black hair—

  “Miss Aragón?”

  She blinked. “Sorry, what was that?”

  “And do you, ah, ride him?”

  Females literally rode on the backs of their males in Nyangari culture, but the verb had the same double-meaning it did in the Solan language. She felt heat rising on her cheeks. Movement caught her eye. The guards in the compartment were shifting in their seats. At least they know this is inappropriate.

  “He insists.” It wasn’t true. Shkur was very gentle with her behind closed doors. He always asked, and did take no for an answer when she provided it. She couldn’t say that to the ambassador, though. It would ruin him. She just hoped that her anxiety over the VoQuana was masking the scent of her lie.

  “As a male should,” the ambassador said. “And tell me, how is he when he rides—”

  “Strong, as you would expect,” she said before the ambassador could complete the sentence. Her stomach flipped. “I’m sorry, ambassador, do you mind if we continue this another time? I am not feeling well.”

  The ambassador closed his eyes. His nose-petals palpitated, and he shifted in his seat. It was almost too much for her. She looked out the window again. The pattern of lights shining from the towers indicated they were in the Residential Quarter now. She was almost home.

  “And when he is—”

  “Ambassador,” one of the guards said in a low voice.

  “Yes?” The ambassador opened his eyes. His ears went flat against his skull in a clear sign of irritation.

  “Miss Aragón is feeling ill. We can all smell it.”

  “And she made a promise to share certain details with me in return for her passage on the Queen Gaia. Are you challenging my authority to collect on that promise?” The ambassador, no doubt already excited by his fantasies, leaned forward with his arms spread. It was an invitation to fight. Despite his advanced age and the youth of his guard he looked serious about it.

  She put her hand on the ambassador’s arm. Though fights were common among Nyangari males, she had no desire to witness one here in the cramped limo.

  “It is a unique experience I cherish, Ambassador.” Sh
e looked into his small, green eyes putting as much meaning into the words as she could. She hoped he would be satisfied with that.

  “As I’m sure you do, but I want details. For example, how do you handle—”

  “His anatomy? Your secretary at the consulate asked me the same thing.”

  “Well, human females are not evolved to handle such kinds of moving parts. It must leave you, ah, exhausted. Does it hurt?” The ambassador leaned in close to her as though a few extra centimeters would make a difference in his ability to hear her answer.

  She felt her stomach twitch again. That was it, she had enough.

  She used her cerebral computer to split her mind, giving nods and short answers when the ambassador needed them while putting the main part of her consciousness to work on reviewing the recordings from her spy-grains. A window popped up in her vision, showing the compiled image of the baroness and the VoQuana in the living room of Altair’s suite. She was dressed in the elegant evening wear from the engagement dinner. He stood within arm’s reach, wearing the same gray, form-fitting suit he had when Cygni first spotted him.

  “Do you know where he’s going at least?” Baroness Altair asked.

  “You don’t? I would have thought your master would have told you. He’s going to Elmorus.”

  The baroness shrieked. The VoQuana’s reaction to her outburst was a hearty laugh.

  Elmorus—Cygni’s implant accessed the Cyberweb and downloaded the data automatically. It was an insignificant world on the border between Broghite and Confederate space. Although it was settled nearly a century ago, the poor soil quality and distance from any major trade routes kept the population’s growth slow and its people poor. Confederate colonies were limited to a narrow region of temperate forest near its equator.