Lord Regret's Price: A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 3

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  “Discovery programming,” Charlotte said. “One step beyond diagnostic programming. Quite honestly, Your Majesties, I’m most concerned with what kind of virus Queen Majel might have planted in your system.”

  Prince Gong stiffened as though she’d mortally offended him. “Impossible.”

  “Let me tell you a little story,” Charlotte replied coolly. “Once upon a time, a distant planet fell under Britannia’s scrutiny because of an incredibly powerful energy source discovered to be in their crystals. Although this species was capable of interplanetary travel, they were deemed primitive and identified for assimilation into the Britannian Empire.”

  “I know this story,” Prince Gong said tightly. “We’re far from helpless, unlike the Razari.”

  Charlotte ignored his response. “Open warfare is rarely Queen Majel’s preference, especially with the ongoing war with Francia dragging on. She certainly didn’t want to alert this primitive race to Britannia’s interest, for fear that Francia might step in as well just to convolute the matter and cause her difficulty. Instead of aggression or threats, she sent merchants bearing all sorts of wondrous gifts of new and incredible technology to tempt this primitive race into indulging in Britannian wares. Replicators were a huge hit with the Razari, providing a new and cheaper food source for millions across the planet.”

  She paused to take a deep, calming breath. This part of the story still churned her stomach. “The replicators were loaded with a virulent virus meant to spread and duplicate itself across their entire network as quickly as possible. Once all systems were contaminated, the button was pushed. And the Razari fell without a single warship firing a shot.”

  “What was in that virus?” Prince Gong asked.

  “A mutator,” she replied softly. “The virus had spread from computer to computer, and then leaped to the people. When the mutators were turned on…the Razari changed. They began twisting into monsters, mutating so quickly that most of the damage done to the planet and cities themselves was by their own hand in an effort to stop the brutal transformations. Young and old, it didn’t matter. Anyone who’d indulged in the replicated food carried the virus. Naturally some were affected more than others. Not everyone changed immediately, but the damage was done.”

  “One of the reasons His Majesty barred all Britannian merchants from Hoeng Gong.” Prince Gong’s voice rang with determination and authority, but the paleness of his face confirmed his worry. “That limits the chance of any similar contamination, as well as keeps their filthy opium out of our ports.”

  Opium was a whole other war yet to be waged, Charlotte feared. Britannian merchants had discovered a cheaper way to import coveted Zijin spices, teas and silks—trading the cheap drug produced by their colonies in Kali Kata instead of coin. Even if Zijin managed to keep themselves from assimilation, they’d already learned the addictive qualities of opium. Demand was high and would only go higher.

  “If you’re not looking for the mutator, how do you know you haven’t already been contaminated? It wouldn’t have to be a replicator. It could be something as minor as a new ship gifted by Her Majesty, and as soon as it docks, it plants a bug into your mainframe. From there, it spreads throughout your planetary system, one computer at a time. It’s subtle. It won’t directly attack anything, so your normal viral alarms and protections won’t keep it out.”

  “We kept you out,” he retorted triumphantly.

  Charlotte cocked her head. “Did you? Are you entirely sure? Or have you merely discovered one, while I’ve planted countless others? This was a test, Your Majesty, in which you failed miserably. It took over twenty-four hours for you to discover my programming, while I work ever so slowly and carefully to infiltrate your entire system.”

  She paused, letting the doubt build until he ground his teeth again. “I mean Zijin no harm, Your Majesties. I certainly don’t want to contaminate your system or shut it down. I’m merely trying to discover if your systems have already been compromised. I know exactly what to look for and my devices have certain safeguards already programmed within them. In fact, I can send them into search-and-destroy mode where they’ll hunt down any foreign virus and exterminate it before it can spread.”

  “You make your programs sound like they’re alive.” Cixi’s voice wasn’t as warm as before, and she shared a long look of worry with the prince. They were regretting their decision to allow Charlotte inside, let alone all the other secrets she’d already learned. They didn’t yet realize that no one else could possibly protect them from Majel if she’d decided to assimilate Zijin.

  “They’re not alive, no. But they’re incredibly small, can transfer easily between organic and inorganic hosts and, most importantly, they’re programmable. That means I can tell them exactly what to do and they’re constantly uploading details to me from inside the host. I’m their brain, and I assure you that I’m very much alive and well and certainly Majel’s worst nightmare.”

  “You,” Cixi whispered, sudden realization dawning on her face, spreading with a look of horror that struck a heavy blow to Charlotte’s heart. “It was your technology that destroyed the Razari.”

  “Yes.” Charlotte didn’t drop her gaze or shrink from their reproach. “It wasn’t used as I intended, but their destruction can most definitely be laid at the feet of my technology. That’s why I know so much about it. That’s why I can help protect you from a similar invasion.”

  “How can we trust that you’re not working with Queen Majel as one of her early spies?” Prince Gong retorted. “This could all be part of a convoluted plan to bring us to our knees so she can invade!”

  “Me? Work with Queen Majel?” Charlotte laughed and shook her head. “What’s the price on my head now? Who else in the entire universe could afford to pay quite that much for one lone woman trying desperately to disappear? She’s spent almost as much on her attempt to find and eliminate me as she’s invested in the war against Napoleon.”

  Cixi and the prince stared at each other. Silence built in the room. Prince Gong gave her an imperceptible shake of his head, but Cixi continued to stare back at him until he finally bowed low. “As you wish, Your Majesty, so it shall be done.”

  She turned that piercing gaze on Charlotte. “What do you need?”

  “Full access to your mainframe.”

  “I thought you’d already gained access with your virus.” Prince Gong’s face remained inscrutable, but his wry tone conveyed his displeasure. He feared he’d been bluffed.

  “I’m sure that I have,” Charlotte said softly, smiling to take the sting out of her words. “But discovery programming is passive. It’s like tossing a leaf into a raging river and letting the water carry the leaf away as it wills. There’s no direction or control in the process. I need a high-speed system capable of significant computations for some research Her Majesty requested, and I might as well make sure you’re safeguarded at the same time.”

  “So you found out something that might help me. Good.” Cixi didn’t say anything specific about the dragon or the Emperor’s illness, so perhaps she wasn’t as close to the prince as she wanted Charlotte—or him, for that matter—to believe. “Please see that Lady Wyre has full access to everything she needs.”

  Prince Gong inclined his head and swept his arm toward the door. “Lady Wyre, if you’ll follow me.”

  Charlotte curtsied as low for Cixi as she would for Her Majesty and then exited with the prince. He strode down the hallway without a single glance in her direction, forcing her to step lively in order to keep up. She quirked her lips. He was definitely irritated that she’d gained access to his precious computers.

  She quickly lost her sense of direction with all the quick turns. They even used a lift twice, though why they went up only to go down even longer she wasn’t sure. If she had to guess, she’d suggest they were now beneath the main level of Xuanyuan. They exited into a gray building devoid of the lush, inviting elegance of the upper palaces. No gold plate or fabulous carvings graced thes
e cold, metallic walls and their footsteps echoed loudly. This must be one of the maintenance tunnels Gil had mentioned.

  Finally they paused outside a heavily armored door. Prince Gong stepped close to a panel and laid his right palm on the waiting access pad while a red light scanned his eye. Even that level of security wasn’t enough, for he then had to enter a long password into the keyboard, as well as use an access card, before the blinking, red light flashed green.

  Yet he didn’t open the door right away. He faced Charlotte squarely, his eyes narrowed with intent. “If you bring any harm to Zijin, I’ll see you delivered to Queen Majel personally. I won’t allow you to die, Lady Wyre. I want you alive and begging for mercy when she takes you.”

  Well, at least she knew he wasn’t the one who’d sent the assassins after her in the marketplace. She let a wry smile quirk her lips. “I assure you, Your Highness, that not even Majel could make me beg. And for your future reference, if you ever have the need, don’t depend on her sense of mercy to spare you or your people. Because she has none.”

  “Neither do you.” Stiffly, he turned away and entered the room, leaving her to follow as she willed. Thankfully he’d already turned his back on her in impatience so he didn’t see whatever look flickered across her face. His words shook her to her core. Am I turning into Majel? Do I not have mercy and compassion for other people?

  Of course not. She’d rather surrender to the Queen’s Ravens and spend the rest of her life chained in a dark basement cell of the Tower of Londonium than ever see another race fall like the Razari.

  The quiet hum of computers brought her attention back to the task at hand. Several men were seated at workstations around the room, busily typing away. Viewscreens dominated the main wall of the room, showing images of Xuanyuan, from the docking station to the main palace and dozens of hallways and parks. Beyond the workstations, a glass-walled room housed too many servers for her to count at a glance. A white-coated man walked up and down the narrow alleys with a datapad, scanning each server’s readouts one by one.

  It seemed odd that not a single woman was included in the workforce, but the prince’s hard face and glittering, cold eyes didn’t invite a discussion about the inequality of sexes. If men had ruled this civilization for two thousand years, then it wasn’t ridiculous to assume that women weren’t involved in the important day-to-day technical or military services.

  Much to their loss.

  She’d hoped he might turn her over to one of the people busily working, but she supposed he doubted her intentions too much to trust her with an underling. After pointing to an empty workspace, he hovered at her shoulder as though ready to drag her away before she could hit the self-destruct button.

  Taking her time, she made a grand production of pulling out her datapad, setting her reticule aside and bringing up her own diagnostic programs. She made no effort to hide the screen from Prince Gong. She even set it to her left, easily readable if he cared to scan her work. Though how much he’d care to know about DNA she couldn’t guess.

  She touched the viewscreen, pleased that it responded immediately. She’d been afraid it might be voice activated, and since she didn’t know their language, that might prove burdensome. Of course foreign characters marked the various applications on the screen, but she didn’t need to be able to read their language. Not when she had her own datapad and a handy port cable. The only thing that might slow her down is if they’d chosen some kind of custom connection.

  Or if she must climb beneath the desk and risk her gown in order to find the port.

  Prince Gong cleared his throat and reluctantly pointed to the rear of the viewscreen. On the edge of the frame, she spied the round port she’d been looking for. “A Britannian port,” she said wryly. “Which means this lovely viewscreen was likely formed in Londonium itself. How convenient. You’re very certain you don’t carry at least a few tracking devices and data miners?”

  “Absolutely,” he replied, but he shifted his weight from foot to foot. “All aspects of security are my responsibility. I take my job very seriously.”

  “In this day and age, I can’t imagine why any ruler would build his or her military, when so much can be done with a few clicks.” Mimicking her words, she made a few clicks on her connected datapad and the foreign symbols on the viewscreen changed to readable words and identifiable applications in good and proper Britannian. She made a pleased hum and began scanning through all the systems and applications.

  “If you tell me what you’re looking for…”

  She shook her head and brought up a list of running processes across the entire network. “Never mind, here we are. As I thought.”

  Prince Gong leaned closer and scanned through the list. “These are all of our operating processes on the system. I don’t believe anything’s here that shouldn’t be.”

  “Indeed? Well, Britannian devices can be very sneaky, Your Majesty, but I admit that I’m even sneakier.” She pointed to one small application running in the background innocuously named Backup. “This is mine.”

  “I don’t—”

  She tapped the process and opened the underlying file. The very first line said, Charlotte Wilder search and discovery version 5.21.

  Glancing up at his face, she couldn’t help but smile at his slack-jawed look. “I told you, I’m very sneaky. This has been running as a simple backup process on your system, gathering details about everything it comes into contact with. It’s small and tidy, cleaning up after itself so nothing gets flagged on your end, and it’s so efficient that you don’t even notice anything running. Meanwhile it’s gathering all sorts of interesting diagnostics, everything from what kind of operating system you’re using, to how large your core is and where it originated, to how many…”

  Her voice fell off. She scanned the file again and then quickly typed a string of commands.

  “What?” Prince Gong’s voice rose with alarm.

  “How many miners are hiding in those shiny servers you imported last year.”

  “Impossible! We thoroughly scanned everything from the packaging to the core memory itself. We didn’t even buy the equipment from Britannia for that very reason!”

  “If you don’t make it yourself, everything comes from Britannia originally. They’ve even begun setting up factories on prison planets and barren moons to create stripped-down models that look nothing like the ultrashiny models sold in Londonium. Don’t be fooled by a stamp that says made on Terra Australis or Kali Kata colonies. It’s still Britannian made and all technology is touched by MIGS.”

  “Who or what is MIGS?”

  “Military Intelligence and Galaxy Sciences. They stole my research and perverted it to destroy the Razari and they have at least one government agent at every single computer and engineering company on every planet under Britannian rule.”

  “Are we compromised?”

  She had to congratulate him on how calmly he was taking the news, although he stood so stiffly his shoulders vibrated slightly beneath the red silk of his robes. “Not yet.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment and then bowed low, lower than he’d done to the Dowager Empress. “Thank you, Lady Wyre. Please instruct us on how to rid ourselves of these bugs and how to protect ourselves in the future.”

  “I’ve programmed my diagnostic tool to go on Search and Destroy. It’s deleting the data miners as we speak. Of course I don’t know how much information they’ve already uploaded to MIGS about your resources and security measures, so whatever you’ve done in the past ought to be tripled, minimally. I’ll be happy to discuss those measures with you in full. For now, my programming will continue to scan and seek out any other elements that might have been secretly operating beneath the hood of your servers. So far, there’s nothing here that makes me believe assimilation is imminent.”

  He blew out a long breath of relief. “Thank you. And what of the virus that could cross from machine to people?”

  One of the programmers at another table t
witched and let out a soft sound that reminded them both of listeners. Choosing her words carefully, Charlotte replied, “I don’t believe your system is infected, but this scan will ensure it.”

  “Then you can show us how to stop it.” Where he’d been doubtful and even antagonistic before, he now turned that fierce determination into using her as much as possible to protect his people.

  She had to admit that she admired Prince Gong’s fortitude. “Naturally.”

  He took a step back and took up position at her shoulder once more, but now he was more guard than accuser. “Proceed with whatever research you needed for Her Majesty, Lady Wyre. If you need anything, anything at all, please make me aware. Our systems are at your disposal.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Refreshed from a brief nap, Gil decided to go in search of Sig. Charlotte was hoping to get access to the mainframes and as soon as the final piece of the puzzle slipped into place, she’d heal the Emperor or the dragon both and be ready to leave. But none of them could leave Xuanyuan until Sig completed his task.

  Gil had to admit that wasn’t the only reason he wanted to talk to the other man. As a soldier and then a marshal, he’d learned to listen to his gut and, right now, his gut insisted trouble was close. Deadly trouble. He’d felt the same burning itch beneath his skin when the Runners nearly took Charlotte’s life on Americus. For all he knew, a Britannian warship was hours away from trying to take her away from them again.

  The ship must be secure and ready to whisk her away as quickly as possible if the need arose. Assuming, of course, they could even leave Xuanyuan to reach the ship.

  Then there was his worry about Charlotte’s intimate safety. The bruises. The destroyed room. He didn’t know Sig very well yet, not really, but after the man’s reaction in the sex shop and the first time they’d used toys in the bedchamber, the man had been shaken to say the least. More than likely, Sig needed an ear, even if he didn’t realize it yet, and Gil certainly needed to ascertain whether or not serious violence was going to be a threat.