Imperial Masquerade (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 11)

by J. Naomi Ay

  "You can't order me," Rent raised his voice, as well.

  "The hell I can't!"

  "No, you can't! We're co-equal. That's the way this whole fucking thing was set up."

  "If I have to send the Imperial Guard down to collect you, I'll do it, bro," Steve threatened. "You'll be here even if you come in bound and dragged."

  "I'll have SdK Security shoot the guard before they set foot on this campus."

  "That's ridiculous."

  "Well, so are you. Kari-fa, I'm sick and tired."

  "So am I." Steve clutched his head and looked away. "I haven't been home to Turko in six months. Joanne is threatening to divorce me already. Listen, Rent. I don't want to fight with you. I just need your help, man. I'm losing my grip. Frankly, this whole damn Empire is about to collapse, and it's only been two years since..."

  "I know," Rent muttered and clutched his own head, his frustrations vented, and his headache worsened by the shouting match. "I've got the same problems over here. Well, there aren't any rats in the basement that I'm aware of, although every department is filled with backstabbing snakes. Look, I'll try to get to the meeting tonight, but I can't promise I can help."

  "That's okay, dude." Steve tried to force a smile to his lips, something he hadn't done in a really long time. "Just be here. We always work better as a team."

  Rent made a snorting sound, laced with disbelief, which was fine as Steve didn't believe his own words either.

  "How did he do it all?"

  Steve shrugged.

  "He wasn't normal like us. By the way, in two days, it will be the Holiday in Karupatani. I'm going back there to pray. You should too."

  Chapter 10

  “Where are you now?” Luci typed into the chatbox she had opened with Anne.

  “We’re camping on a moon orbiting Lumineria III. It's incredibly beautiful here. I'm gazing down at the planet which is a mass of swirling colors in emerald and turquoise, and every other shade of blue and green."

  "It does sound lovely," Luci agreed, imagining a planet in all those pretty hues.

  "Oh, the campground is great," Anne insisted. "There's WIFI. I'd die without it. LOL. There's lots of trees here and a small river next to our site. Harvey’s out looking for something to barbecue while I’m supposed to be gathering wood to start a fire. Hang on."

  Luci waited an extra few seconds while Anne sent over a pic of the Luminerian planet filling the sky below her. Indeed, it was as beautiful as she had described.

  "Natural gas pockets make the colors so bright," Anne explained when Luci asked why. "Years ago, when I was in Spaceforce, I had to breach a similar gaseous atmosphere. I was piloting a shuttle full of crew including a bunch of newly promoted cadets. OMG, it had to be one of the scariest landings I ever made."

  "You were in Spaceforce?" Luci had assumed that Anne was a Rehnorian, since all of their conversations took place in Mishnese. "For the Alliance?"

  "Well, yeah. It's complicated," Anne typed back. "Oh crap!"

  "What?"

  "Nothing. Sorry. Harvey's back and he's brought dinner. Ick! It's some kind of strange winged creature that doesn't resemble a bird. There is no way in hell I'm going to cook that thing. He's on his own with that, let me tell you. LOL!"

  Having no clue how to respond to this odd conversation, Luci typed a series of happy face emoticons.

  "Gotta run, GF," Anne continued. "I guess it's another warmed up can of Progresso soup for me. That guy! He's trying to convince me it's delicious. LOL! TTYL XXOO!"

  "TTYL," Luci responded and watched Anne's foot disappear.

  Something was bothering her about Anne. She couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was, yet something was niggling at the back of her brain.

  "Spaceforce, hmph," Luci snorted aloud. Could it be possible that Anne...no. That was patently ridiculous.

  On the other hand, there was Harvey and his odd taste for creatures. No, no, no! Luci chastised herself. It simply couldn't be. Luci was lonely. That's all it was. She was practically the last of the 'Old Guard' left. What she was seeing as familiar was simply her mind wishing it was so, but it wasn't. It couldn't be.

  "Get a grip on yourself, old girl," she ordered herself as Delores's foot appeared on her screen, along with a frowning emoticon.

  "Woofie is having a bad day," Delores reported. "He must have eaten too many of those jellied lump worm hearts last night. I've been doing diapers non-stop since early this morning."

  Luci sent Delores's a few virtual hugs and was about to log off, but Delores continued.

  "Was it just two years ago?" She asked melodramatically. "I was living in the Grand Palace and had sixty servants at my beck and call.”

  “Was it?” Luci responded politely. She tended to disregard every other word Delores uttered. Because of her husband’s maladies, Luci assumed Delores had quite an extensive fantasy life. If she wanted to pretend she had lived in a palace, who was Luci to object?

  Now, Nora logged in and greeted the others in the group. Immediately, she uploaded a new pic of her foot with bright purple polish on her carefully filed nails.

  "I got a pedicure yesterday," she declared proudly.

  "Oh, you look lovely," the others replied. There was some additional chatting about Delores's husband, Nora's job, and Luci's rose garden when it suddenly occurred to Luci that they hadn't heard from Kiki in several days. Granted everyone had lives, and they weren't always online, but Kiki had been a regular since the group first formed.

  "Has anyone chatted with Kiki?" Luci asked, noting that the seven-toed green foot was also missing from her friend list. Kiki was one of those races which had three feet and a total of twenty-one toes, not that anyone was counting, and certainly not discriminating.

  "Not I," Nora responded.

  "I've been busy," Delores replied. "What about Anne?"

  "She's camping on a moon. She didn't mention Kiki one way, or another. Hmmm...Do you think, something has happened to her?"

  Everyone made concerned virtual noises until Nora offered to contact the missing girl via private message. With that, they all signed off, and Luci found herself browsing the news feed which was an exercise in only frustration. Things were bad throughout the Empire. SdK Corporation was announcing layoffs and closings. Crime was up, and employment was down.

  "I can't take any more of this bad news," she muttered, switching the vid to Dr. Felix, who was discussing infidelities amongst species with conjoined bodies.

  This interested Luci somewhat, purely from a scientific standpoint. There was nothing perverse in wanting to know how those folks got things done. It did, however, remind her that her great-grandson Ber-Kie would imminently arrive, and he had expressed an interest in meeting the Imperial Princess Sara.

  "Now that would be an interesting match," Luci considered, narrowing her eyes as the folks on the screen started to brawl. They began to scream and howl as they lobbed their chairs at one another.

  Just as Dr. Felix cut to a commercial break, the bell sounded in the front hall of Korelesk Manor. It was a great gonging sort of noise, one that Luci had always despised yet Berkie had deemed an appropriately impressive sound for the large front door.

  "Coming!" Marie called, followed by her footsteps lightly skipping across the hall which was further followed by her scream as the great door swung open. This was then followed by a clunking noise with a bit of bone crunching clatter, as her head impacted the marble floor.

  "Aunt Marie" A young man's voice called. "Are you all right?"

  "She fainted, dimwit," another young man replied. "Gawd, you're so lame."

  Loran Korelesk came home from school break to discover his entire household had gone to pot, but not the weed type which he personally preferred. His dad was in New Mishnah, shacking up with a young girl in a rented flat while his mother was on some sort of starvation diet. His grandmother was addicted to Footbook and spent all day, every day, in chat.

  Worst of all, Loran realized, upon his first
morning home, there was a dude using his private shower. Loran had risen from his bed at the relatively early hour of 2PM for a teenager, who had just turned sixteen. He stumbled across the room, which was fully lit and filled with colors, into the adjacent bathroom to take a whiz.

  Surprisingly, the shower was on, and the bathroom was filled with steam.

  "Whoa!" Loran cried. "Who's in here, man? Ain't nobody uses this special room but me. This is my personal Loran Korelesk bathroom space."

  "Oh, hello," a dude said, sticking his head out of the shower stall. "I'm Ber. You must be Loran." Now, he stuck out his hand.

  "Chill," Loran replied while giving it a shake. "Nice to meet you, bro. You almost done? I gotta wash my head, otherwise the Gran will take a scissor to my hair and all my radical, curly locks will be shorn."

  "Sure," the dude laughed. "I know just how you feel. Give me one more sec while I rinse out my own."

  A moment later, the water shut off, and the dude stepped out into the steam, which Loran didn’t see as his back was turned.

  “It’s all yours, bro. Well, actually, it’s all yours all the time. Thanks for letting me borrow it today.”

  “No prob,” Loran replied while finishing up his business at the loo. He made to turn around and greet his guest.

  "Hey, give me a towel!" Another voice snapped, shocking Loran out of his gourd, and stopping him where he stood in his tracks.

  "In a minute," the one called Ber replied.

  "Whoa. Two dudes," Loran mumbled, as he realized this bathroom was even more crowded than before. He covered his eyes with one of his hands and fumbled his way over to the shower. "Whatever floats your boat, friend, but can you take it somewhere else?”

  "Oh, it's not like that," one responded. "We're your cousins."

  "Cousins?" Loran glanced through the cloudy mists of steam. All he saw was the back of one very large guy. Seriously, this dude was eating way too much, while the other must have been hiding near the sink. “Okay. Whatever.”

  While Loran washed and rinsed his long and lanky white blonde hair, which albeit had a fair amount of grease, he wracked his brain trying to recall if he had any cousins besides that chick, Angelica. He held out his right hand as if to count them before realizing there was only one, some odd kind of alien creature Angelica had bred.

  "Whoa!" Loran gasped again, his heart tripping along with his brain. There were imposters in his bath and maybe, they meant to kill him. After all, he was the sole heir of the giant duchy of Korelesk, as well as the much smaller one of Kildoo.

  On the other hand, Loran rinsed his face and considered this might all be a dream. Last night, after arriving home, he had been rather busy. Now, he held out his left hand and tried to count how many hits and how many tokes had gone through his pipe before he had passed out on the floor and floated away. That, he couldn’t remember. In fact, there was basically nothing Loran could recall except a wild, psychedelic ride in another dimension. Come to think of it, he had taken a trip above a planet that was a mix of green and blue with stars overhead and a forest below. Along with him, on this turbulent flight, had been some kind of giant bird which was all black except for bits of white upon his wings.

  “Loran,” the bird dude said, and if Loran remembered correctly, he had been speaking the Noble Mishnese with a strange accent. “If you take another toke, I’m going to kill you with my claws. I’ll rip you limb from limb and then, I’ll eat your heart.”

  Loran laughed. The bird dude was a riot, and this trip was totally far out, except that now he was in his bathroom with a bunch of homos. He also realized his head was aching and even though his eyes were wide open, he couldn’t see. Of course that might have been due to the clouds of steam swirling about.

  “Hey, Loran,” one of the freaks called out, interrupting Loran’s reverie and reminding him that the water was getting cold. “We’ll see you later, cuz. We’ve got a lot to catch up on while we’re here. When you’re ready, Kie and I are staying in the guest room right next door.”

  “Chill,” Loran replied and raised his hand in a tiny wave as the bathroom door swished open, and the dude walked out.

  The mist cleared with a gust of fresh bedroom air, allowing Loran to see that the dude was even huger than before. Perched on top of his giant shoulders were two fat necks and two large heads busily chatting with one another. One head had bright orange hair, a familial trait of the Korelesk line, while the other was a pale, white blonde just like his.

  Chapter 11

  Since Rent was always busy lately, Trudy decided to go out to dinner with Kell. Instead of Chunk of Cheese or Burger O'Rama, Rent's two favorite restaurants, Kell suggested, The Imperial Court.

  "What?" Trudy had gasped. "Oh, wait, you don't mean the real Imperial Court."

  "No, of course not," Kell laughed, his face turning bright red. “I meant the fancy restaurant where all the rich people eat.”

  They were on the River Nika Express, the early evening bus, which was taking them home from the SdK corporate campus.

  Normally, Trudy would have taken the Old Mishnah Express or possibly even snuck into Rent's limo, as normally, this was her night to stay over at his flat. Unfortunately, Trudy hadn't heard from him all day. Actually, Rent hadn't called or even texted for several days. He was busy, she knew. SdK was about to announce a huge number of layoffs among other things, and Rent was overwhelmed with work.

  "What did you think? I'm one of the Imperial Princes?" Kell spoke again from the seat next to

  Trudy, reminding her where she was, and who she was with. He sucked in his gut and stuck his nose in the air, striking a lackadaisical pose that she assumed was supposed to resemble Steve or Rent, but didn't even come close. Rather, he looked like a short, fat guy sucking in his gut and failing to look sexy.

  Trudy smiled politely, or at least she tried to force her stiff, unhappy mouth into an upward tilt.

  "You must mean The Imperial Court Steak House in Old Mishnah?"

  "Right!" Kell pointed his finger at Trudy, extraordinarily pleased that she had figured it out. He feigned Steve's Noble Mishnese accent, something Rent had yet to acquire, and bowed as much as his bulk would allow in the tight seat. "Will you join me, my lady? I've got reservations for the two of us tomorrow night. I shall treat you to an exquisitely prepared tenderloin, and a fruity, yet dry, red wine."

  Trudy bit her lip. Faking a smile was too much work. She glanced out the window, as if the upcoming bus stop and gray rain filled sky were incredibly fascinating, while considering if she should or should not go.

  On one hand, as nice as Kell was, as enjoyable as their cafeteria lunches and coffee dates had been, an expensive dinner at the best steak house in Mishnah was quite something else. He might have expectations from this dinner. He might not be satisfied with a chaste peck on the cheek, and a Thank you very much at her front door.

  On his salary, this was undoubtedly a huge undertaking. The day after, or next week, where could their relationship go? Trudy was totally stuck on Rent and no tender, perfectly marbled steak was ever going to dislodge that. As generous and devoted as Kell appeared to be, the idea of intimacy with him caused a minor upset in Trudy's stomach.

  On the other hand, where was Rent? He was either closeted in his new giant office at the top of SdK Tower, or conferring with his brother, and princes and potentates from throughout the Empire. In either case, he had zero time to spare for Trudy except on that occasional late night when for whatever reason, he wanted her in his bed.

  "Okay," Trudy agreed, hoping that, by some odd twist of fate, Rent might be also dining on filet there that night.

  It would serve him right to see her out with someone else, even if that someone else was only stocky Kell. She'd wear her best little black cocktail dress, spiked heels with an ankle strap and those pearls her mother gave her when she graduated college.

  The details were determined. Trudy would bring the dress, shoes and pearls to work. Kell would arrange for a taxi servic
e since he didn't drive, and the bus wouldn’t be appropriate.

  "Are you sure you can afford this?" Trudy asked. "What if you're on the layoff list? Shouldn't you be saving your money just in case?"

  "I'm not worried," Kell replied, waving her concerns away. "I'll charge it all on my credit card and take care of it later. It's more important that I spend what I have on you." He reached for her hand and gallantly kissed it. "It's more important we get to know each other intimately."

  Indeed, it was important for Kell to spend every dime on Trudy. The credit card of which he had spoken was given to him exactly for that purpose. Kell wasn't certain who had provided it. All he knew was a man named Rosso had rung him one day and offered an unlimited spending account at his sole discretion.

  "In exchange for what?" Kell had inquired, finding the offering quite enticing.

  "Not much," this fellow, Rosso replied. "Get me some information from Trudy. I'll also need a few minor items from you, the largest one being your soul. Don't worry. Once it's gone, you won't miss it."

  Ha ha. He didn't really take Kell's soul. Kell was pretty certain it was still intact. Although, come to think of it, how would one actually know? It wasn't like Kell had turned into a zombie and was running about eating flesh. Yet, he had been experiencing an overwhelmingly craving for Pork Rinds lately. Did that count as flesh, even though it was deep fried and salted?

  No, this was all just some silliness. This Rosso character was a real card. He was probably just some overeager and clever reporter who wanted the goods on the Imperial Prince Revak.

  See, everyone at SdK knew that Trudy was Rent's fuck-buddy. Well, wasn't that the best way to describe it? There was no deeper relationship there, at least as far as Kell could tell. In fact, from Kell's vantage point, it looked as if Trudy was barely even that.

  Obviously, Trudy had now developed some interest in him. Kell could tell that by the way her eyes lit up when she smiled at his jokes. They had shared a few laughs, coffee, dessert, and an occasional kiss, not yet with tongue. Kell was hoping this expensive dinner, himself dressed up in his best suit, which he would proactively put through the Insta-Clean & Press tonight, might turn Trudy’s heart and maybe, just maybe, he would get lucky.