There Before the Chaos

by K. B. Wagers

  I dropped into the chair, shaking. “Are you going to heal my people?” I managed the question through the sudden chattering of my teeth.

  Mia moved toward where Johar, now recovered, knelt by Alba and Gita. The Shen stopped and looked back at me. “I am not asking for a favor in kind; I will heal your friends regardless. However, can I get a promise from you, Hail?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t harm my people, and listen to what I have to say. You won’t be injured any further.”

  I stared at her. My ability to tell truth from lies where the Shen was concerned was damaged, untrustworthy. Her kind gray gaze seemed genuine, but for all I knew it wasn’t. Finally, I nodded, getting carefully to my feet.

  “Done for the duration of my time here. Your people only though. Him—” I pointed at Rai. “Jamison, the other mercenaries are fair game. I will kill them if I’m given half a chance. And if you harm any more of my people, I’ll do the same to you.”

  “Fair enough.” Mia nodded once.

  “I am fine, but Gita needs your help.” Alba shook her head at Mia when the Shen reached for her.

  Mia laid her hand against the wound in my Dve’s side. “You are in bad shape,” she murmured. Mia closed her eyes, flexing her hand the tiniest bit, and exhaled. Almost immediately my smati registered Gita’s vitals as stabilized, which should have been impossible.

  Gita jerked, inhaling and then retching in much the same way I had. Johar caught her arm before she could hit Mia, but the Shen was already out of arm’s reach.

  “Don’t bite,” Mia said to Johar with a grin that was far too charming, and touched her fingers to Johar’s forearm.

  Johar’s eyes fell closed, and a shudder ripped through her. She tensed, coiled like a snake about to strike as Mia moved toward Gita.

  “Ah, ah.” Rai wiggled his gun. “Stay there, Jo. I’ll shoot you again.”

  “Me cago en la hostia de tu puta madre.” Johar spat the curse in his direction and Rai winced.

  Mia looked at Alba again. “You are hurt; I can ease it.”

  “Alba, let her,” I said. The healthier we were, the better our chances of escaping.

  Mia touched Alba’s offered hand, then smiled at me as she got to her feet. “We’ll leave you alone for a few minutes while we get off-planet, and then we will move to my ship. I’ll expect your cooperation, Majesty, yes?”

  “Fine,” I gritted between clenched teeth.

  Aiz didn’t back down when I looked at him. Instead he crossed the space between us, smiling when we were eye-to-eye. “If you ever harm my sister, I will take several lifetimes and hold you in that space between life and death. Then I will snuff your life out and go about my day. Are we understood?”

  I wasn’t going to let him see just how terrified I was of his promise, so I simply stared at him. “You couldn’t face me in a straight fight, but I’m up for it if you can find your balls.”

  “Enough, both of you.” Mia sighed, stepping between us with a shake of her head. “Aiz, she has every right to be angry.” She shoved him back, wrapping her fingers around my upper arm.

  I stared down at her; she was close to her brother’s height but several centimeters shorter than both of us.

  “Majesty, please do not push my brother, he is rather reckless and impulsive. Bringing you back from the dead once per day is more than enough, I think?”

  I shook her hand off, still staring at Aiz. Surprisingly, he nodded—first to me and then to his sister—and left the room.

  The moment the door closed, I bolted across the room, falling to my knees at Gita’s side.

  “It’s all right. I’m all right, Hail,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me tight.

  I felt the grief start to rise again, tears filling my eyes, and tried desperately to shove it all back behind the locked door of my heart. “I thought I was going to lose you, too. I can’t, not with everyone else gone.”

  “They’re not gone. We don’t know for sure. We’ll get through this, I promise.”

  “What’s the plan?” Johar’s hands were warm on my back.

  “I promised to cooperate,” I said. “You three didn’t. See if you can find a way out of this mess.”

  “Hail.” Gita gave me a Look that split my heart in two while making me want to laugh at how close it was to the one Emmory used to give me. “We’re not leaving you here. We’ll stay together, whatever happens. Emmory would kill me if I left you.”

  “Emmory is dead, Ekam.”

  She flinched at my reply and I felt the shift of takeoff for a moment before the internal compensators kicked in, and it was as oppressively heavy as the grief weighing me down.

  Get up, Majesty, find a way out of this. Emmory’s ghost managed to be equally sympathetic and uncompromising. His words jerked me to my feet, the two women following me up.

  The door slid open and Rai came in, two men with guns behind him. Johar spat at his feet. He sighed. I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at him.

  “Brought you clothes,” he said, setting the pile in his hands to the side and reaching back to take the two pairs of boots from the man on his left. “These should fit you and Alba; let me know if they don’t.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t move to take them, and Rai finally set them next to the clothes with a second sigh.

  He straightened, dragging a hand through his dreads. “Hail, look, I don’t know what happened, but we were not here to hurt you or your people. Jamison wasn’t supposed to be involved in this but he came stampeding in like he always does. We’re not sure about survivors of the embassy explosion. I can’t find any traffic about it. I am truly sorry—”

  “You want absolution, go find a priest,” I said coldly. “You won’t get it from me.”

  Rai nodded, backed out of the room, and stood watching me as the door slid closed.

  I glanced at Johar. “Surveillance?”

  “This is a burner ship. Unmarked. Untraceable,” she replied with a shake of her head. “It’s too clean. He wouldn’t have a reason to spend the credits on an upgrade like that.”

  Alba and I sorted through the pile of clothing. I tossed a new shirt to Gita before stripping out of my shoes, shredded underskirt, and choli. “Rai’s seen it all anyway,” I muttered.

  “What?” Gita stammered, and Alba choked.

  “She has, too,” I said with a grin, waving a finger in Johar’s direction.

  Johar was laughing so hard she was bent over at the waist while my people stared at me, their eyes wide in astonishment. I shimmied into the cargo pants Rai had brought and then pulled the long-sleeved gray top over my head.

  “I did have a life before all this.” My humor fled as I patted her on the shoulder and dropped into the chair to put on my boots. I fumbled the clasps. “Fuck.”

  Keep moving, ma’am, don’t stop. Don’t fall apart. Kisah’s ghost issued the demand and I blinked back the tears, though a few escaped to fall to the floor.

  I waved Gita off before she could drop at my side. “I’m fine.” I fastened my boots. They fit perfectly. And stood. I straightened my spine, lifted my chin, and threw my grief around me like armor. The door opened immediately when I banged on it, two Shen on the other side. They were unarmed, hands bare, dressed in the same uniform Mia had worn.

  “Your Majesty.” The taller of the pair gestured down the corridor. “If you’ll come with us, we are docked with Thína Mia’s ship now and we will disembark shortly.”

  We moved into the cargo bay, Rai’s men stiffening when I came into the room, and I smiled that practiced Cressen Stone smile. It didn’t matter that they were all armed to the teeth; I met the eyes of each and every one of the mercenaries and they all looked away first.

  “That is impressive,” Aiz said, hopping down from the ledge above us and landing on the balls of his feet with only a whisper of sound. “My sister is already on her ship, Empress. Let’s get you moved before one of these poor bastards shits himself.”
<
br />   Rai stood by the docking tube, his arms crossed over his chest and his mouth pulled into a grim line. “Hail.”

  I ignored Aiz and the protests of the Shen guards, peeling off to get in Rai’s face. “Start running,” I said. “As soon as I’m free I’m coming for you. This is all the head start you get.”

  “It’s more than he deserves,” Johar said over my shoulder. “Come on, Hail.” She slipped her arm across my waist, gently tugging me back out of Rai’s personal space.

  “You all know me or at least know of me.” My voice carried through the air as Johar walked me backward. “Pick whichever name you want—Cressen Stone or Hail Bristol. We are the same person. You know the death and destruction I am capable of raining down on unlucky heads. You’ve heard the stories of the Bolthouse Gang. Believe me when I say it will be a thousand times worse for you. Start running. Killing this man won’t save you.” I jabbed a finger in Rai’s direction. “The only thing that will buy you some time is to run as far and as fast as you possibly can. This is the only mercy you get from me.

  “I’m coming for you. Run.” I turned on my heel and walked away.

  46

  Aiz seemed to be reading my moods better and didn’t say a word as we walked across the docking bay of the Shen ship, or maybe he just wasn’t in the mood for a fight himself.

  Part of me wished he’d give it to me. My promise to Mia hadn’t included defending myself or my people, and if I could goad Aiz into a fight, so much the better.

  If I was lucky, maybe he’d lose his temper and kill me.

  Hail. The voice of Zin’s ghost in my head was filled with sadness, and the accompanying kiss to my temple made me stumble. No giving up, you have an empire to think about and right now you have people to keep alive.

  “Majesty, are you all right?” Gita’s voice came over the com link but for a second I couldn’t figure out why her voice was in my head when she was right there, alive. I stared blankly at her shoulder for a long moment before I shook myself.

  “Fine. I’m fine.” I subvocalized, feeling both women tighten their grip on me for a moment before they released me.

  How was I supposed to say I’d just been distracted by ghosts?

  “Focus, Empress. We’ve a bit more to do before you can rest.” Aiz patted my face, eliciting a hissing curse from Gita, who slapped his hand away.

  That same unfamiliar power whine sounded as the Shen around us brought their weapons up. The movement was smooth and practiced and screamed of years of training. A chiming tone echoed through the air and the unfamiliar ship seemed to hum around us for a moment before settling.

  Putting my hand on Gita’s arm and stepping forward to block her from Aiz, I met his smirk with a calm look. “The negotiations were bullshit. You were stalling. You’re ready to go to war.”

  “We’ve been at war. This is different. I told you the Farians won’t realize they need help until it’s too late,” he replied. “The negotiations were bullshit, Your Majesty, but only because their arrogance blinded them. We have been preparing for this for a hundred years. All Mia’s people needed was a little more time to get the last piece of our newest ships working.”

  “I’ve never seen guns like that.”

  Aiz’s mouth twisted into a grin. “My design. Would you like to see it up close?”

  “Sure.”

  “The Koros 101 is a fifty-shot energy-pulse rifle. Completely lethal but harmless to equipment and ideal for spaceships. It has a cousin for ground combat that is even more powerful.” Aiz snapped his fingers, taking the offered gun and passing it to me. He slid a hand into my hair, gripping it tightly when my finger closed on the trigger. He leaned in, heedless of the gun I now pressed to his throat.

  “I know you want to, so do it. Pull the trigger. Kill me. Kill yourself. We’ll both come back from it, but the taste of death might be enough to slack that rage I see in your eyes—at least for a little while.”

  “Hail, no.” Alba breathed my name, a plea for sanity, and I teetered on the brink for an endless moment, staring into Aiz’s brown eyes.

  “For some reason I promised your sister I wouldn’t hurt you. I keep my word.” I took my finger off the trigger but didn’t hand the gun back. Instead I looked it over carefully, recording every millimeter of it with my smati so I could examine it later.

  “I could give you schematics for it, if you’d like. I’m quite proud of it, but I’d be interested to hear what a professional like yourself thinks.”

  “I thought I was just a jumped-up criminal?”

  “I was angry.” He took the weapon back, trailing his fingers along my jaw as he released his grip on me. “There were unexpected complications at the party; that attack caught me completely by surprise and I dislike being surprised. Mia is right, you were born with noble blood, no matter what else you’ve been through. I should and I do respect that as well as your experience.”

  My smati pinged with the incoming message and Aiz winked, handing the gun back to the Shen next to him and continuing down the corridor.

  I followed him, knowing that Gita and Johar were sharing a worried look behind my back. “Record everything you can, you two. I don’t know how long they’re going to let us have our smatis, but we’ll figure out some way to store all this.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gita replied.

  “Hail, watch out for him.” Johar’s voice in my head was filled with concern. “Don’t let him put you off balance.”

  I didn’t reply to her. I couldn’t. I knew what Aiz was doing. I also knew I was already off balance, and nothing in the galaxy could make me right again.

  “Anyway, the cousin for that model is amazing. The pellets are tiny.” Aiz spun, holding up his thumb and finger a centimeter apart. “But the velocity turns them into little bombs. We did the field tests on Hagidon; you should have seen the carnage. I suspect one could take a fighter out of the air with it if you knew where to shoot.”

  “Or a shuttle,” I said quietly. “Though the railgun that took out my shuttle was the newest Karsikov model.”

  “Yes, so I heard. You won’t believe me, but this Jamison doesn’t work for us.” Aiz pressed a hand to the panel on the door in front of him and it slid open. “Empress, welcome to the bridge of the Infinite Hope. Flagship of the new Shen war fleet.”

  “I’ll be gods-damned,” Johar whispered.

  I only just kept my own exclamation behind my teeth as I stared at the sight through the curved glass opening that stretched in a 180-degree arc across the bridge. The cluster of planets hung in the black, little jeweled orbs scattered across velvet.

  “Majesty, where are you?” Fasé’s dead voice floated through my head and I shook it, trying to focus on what Mia was saying.

  “What?”

  “I said I should have left the screen up. I think I messed up showing off my bridge with that view.” She pointed at the planets.

  “Where are we? We didn’t—I didn’t feel us float into warp.” There wasn’t anything like this close to Earth anyway, nothing within even a week’s journey at top speed.

  “You wouldn’t have.” Mia smiled and gave me a conspiratorial wink as she slipped her arm around mine, ignoring Gita’s poorly contained snarl as she walked us across the bridge. “One of the many things the Farians have hidden from you. We don’t use warp bubbles; they’re … inefficient, and honestly a rather dull way to travel. It would have taken us far too long to reach home from Earth had we gone that way.”

  She gestured with her free hand at the planet in the viewscreen. “Welcome to Sparkos, Your Majesty. It’s just an outpost, I’m afraid, not really home, but it’s solid ground and fresh air.”

  I looked at Mia out of the corner of my eye; she wore the smile of a woman who knew she held the advantage and was content to wait to see how things played out.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “We’d like you to join us, Your Majesty, to bring justice to unjust gods. Ask your gut if this is the right pa
th for you to take.”

  My gut was silent, reeling from the loss of more than I could bear. Somewhere in the grief, I heard Sybil’s voice and realized Mia’s words were but an echo of the future she’d spoken of so many months ago.

  I saw a Star in the cold, empty black of space. A blue-green jewel of a planet. Home to warriors capable of shattering worlds. There would be no hiding for virtuous monsters or unjust gods from the accelerated expansion. I saw a light that is not light spreading. We all fight—we will all die. We surrender—we will die. There is no true shelter for sides that will collapse without each other to lean on.

  And then, right on its heels, Dailun whispered, Less violence, not more, Sister.

  “I won’t help you,” I said, my voice rough.

  “You will, Majesty. I’ve seen it.” Mia’s reply cut through me. “Look closer and you will see we are prepared to fight for as long as it takes for you to agree.”

  I could pick out with my naked eye half a dozen planets around the massive red giant star. Between them, floating in the black and only slightly illuminated as they passed in front of the planets and star, were the ships.

  There were dozens of them, and more shadows in the distance: sleek, black things that reminded me of Indranan dolphins. Ships like the ones that had destroyed the Farian colonies in a matter of minutes. I swallowed. The Farians had horribly misjudged the Shen, both in numbers and in technology. Now I knew why Aiz had just been killing time, why the negotiations had been a ploy.

  The Shen were ready for war, and there was nothing in the galaxy that could stop them.

  The story continues in …

  DOWN AMONG THE DEAD

  Book TWO of the Farian War

  Keep reading for a sneak peek!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you, dear readers, for listening to these stories. My dentist said he loves reading books from his patients because even if he doesn’t enjoy the book he learns something about the author. We leave little pieces of ourselves among the pages and this book is no exception.