by JC Cassels
The tiny pod bucked around them. Chase groaned as the disjointed sensation of zero-gee alternated with heavier gees.
“What’s – wrong – with – the – liner?” Chase asked.
“We’re about to cross the threshold into realspace,” she called. “Get the bag handy!”
And pray we make it!
***
The sound of metal scraping against the outer hull reverberated through the escape pod. Chase groaned in misery. Bo sagged against the g-locks, too drained to lift her head. She had probably groaned as well. The scraping and thumping on the outside of the pod grew louder, more insistent. Her head lolled to the other side as the pod tilted.
Gravity. What a concept.
The pod settled onto a hard deck with a solid thud that sent a shudder through the small construction.
“Marissa, we made it,” Chase said. His voice more of a gravelly growl than his usual pleasant tone.
“Yeah.” It was all she could do to whisper her agreement.
Bouncing through the swirls and eddies of the liner’s hyperspace wake would have challenged her piloting skills under the best of conditions. Literally flying blind, it was nothing short of a miracle that they had survived reentry back into realspace.
Sending up a silent prayer of thanks, she closed her eyes. Chase’s calloused hand closed over hers.
“Stay with me,” he said. “Marissa?”
It took everything she had, but she nodded. “I’m here.” Drawing on an inner strength that had yet to fail her, Bo willed life and response back into her limbs. “I’m here,” she repeated, stronger this time.
The scraping and thumping outside gave way to the hiss of pressurized air as the seals released with a small popping sound. Opening her eyes, Bo looked towards the brightly glowing oval that marked the hatch. Immediately the opening filled with silhouettes of humanoid forms that grew larger. Hands tugged at her g-locks, working with brisk efficiency as they popped and scraped. The pressure against her chest eased as the straps released her.
“Get them to sick bay,” a familiar voice said near her ear as strong hands lifted her out of her seat.
“Jaden?”
“Royce called for a med ship when he found out about the ditoxicin,” he said softly in Gallic. “We’ll have you back up to specs in no time, but you’re going to be out of it for a few days.”
“He doesn’t know who I am…”
“Don’t worry. We’ve been briefed. Your cover is safe.” His arms tightened around her. “But expect this to become another legend in Barron lore. By all rights you two should be dead.”
He transferred her to the medical stretcher that would carry her the rest of the way. Closing her eyes, Bo breathed deeply of the processed air. Familiar smells from home filled her senses, bringing a small smile to her lips. Nothing smelled as sweet as a Black Wing ship. Nothing but the sweet air of Mondhuoun itself, that is. Assured that no harm would come to them, she allowed the darkness to take her.
***
Brilliant sunlight spilled through the massive wall of large-paned windows that lined the gallery. Behind his sunshades, Blade’s eyes flicked over the parade of Marin ancestors whose portraits lined the opposite wall. He could name them all. It had been part of his education. He, like other schoolchildren of the Commonwealth, had only seen reproductions of the portraits until the first time he’d been summoned to the Sovran Palace on Trisdos nearly a decade ago.
It was a point of pride that he had never come voluntarily… only when summoned.
He’d barely placed binders on Tennova, taking him into custody, when the summons reached him on board the liner. Once again, Blade hadn’t even had the satisfaction of seeing his quarry into a detention cell before having to catch a diplomatic cruiser sent from the palace to whisk him to Trisdos.
He hadn’t even had time to make inquiries into whether his brother and Bo had survived. The only indication he’d had of their condition came in the same enigmatic manner as he’d been warned of the danger to them. A two-word message had flashed across the display in his sunshades. “They’re safe.”
It had been a tremendous leap of faith putting his brother into that escape pod with her. He didn’t want to think about what his life would become if anything happened to Chase.
Or Bo… the insistent whisper came from somewhere deep inside.
Blind, she’d seen through him. After a lifetime of playing roles, pretending to be anyone but the man he’d been born to be, he found her insight into his character both unsettling and humbling. Without judging him, she had listened as he divulged the worst of his nightmares and transgressions, only to offer the absolution of her touch. He finally felt his scarred spirit begin to heal that first night when they’d held each other in commiseration. A part of himself he’d long feared dead had flickered to life that night with the first glimmer of human emotion that he’d felt in a long time. That had everything to do with her.
He turned his eyes towards the doors at the end of the gallery leading to the Sovran’s offices. If the old man hadn’t summoned him, he’d have been on his way to Altair. Sure, he’d have used retrieving Chase as his excuse, but the truth was, he wanted Bo. He’d wanted her ever since he first set eyes on her in the embarkation lounge.
One of the massive doors creaked open, breaking into his musings.
“Sir, Lord Marin will see you now.”
Blade nodded to Crider, the shiny silver android aide who served the Overlord. He followed the android through the huge double doors into the outer chamber that preceded the Sovran’s inner sanctum. His jaw set, he steeled himself for the encounter.
Crider escorted him through the outer chamber, heedless of the uniformed and formally dressed courtiers who patiently awaited their turn at an audience with the Sovran. Blade nodded a greeting to one of the officers as he passed. Feeling decidedly scruffy in comparison, Blade smiled to himself and pulled off his sunshades tucking them into the inner pocket of his worn, brown leather jacket. He wouldn’t need them in the dimmer interior rooms.
Feeling eyes on him, he glanced over and caught the admiring stare of an attractive woman clinging to a courtier’s arm. A courtesan, by the looks of her, her gaze boldly raked him, lingering on the durable work trousers he favored. He caught her silent message loud and clear. When she looked up at him, he flashed her a practiced grin and winked at her, earning a disapproving look from her escort.
The exchange gave Blade a much-needed lift of spirits. He hated to tell the courtesan and her consort that he wouldn’t be sticking around. As soon as he finished his business with the Sovran, he was on his way to Altair.
With a cocky swagger in his step, he slipped easily into the character he’d created for himself. He didn’t break stride as the massive double doors into the Sovran’s inner sanctum swung open at Crider’s touch. With a boldness bordering on arrogance, he lifted his chin and entered, ignoring the jealous stares of those who waited. The doors swung shut behind him, sealing with a click and a whirr of the locking mechanism.
The cavernous room soared two floors above his head. A mural on the ceiling depicted the Commonwealth in all its glory. In the evenings it cast a dim glow over the upper part of the room. Historical treasures of the Commonwealth decorated the room. Art mingled with antiquities against a backdrop of brown, black and a muddy red color. Ancient tomes in every known language lined bookshelves, accessible by an ornate circular staircase. It was a room designed to intimidate and awe. Like everything else about the Sovran Palace, it announced the power and influence wielded by the man ensconced within it.
The hard soles of Blade’s scuffed riding boots clicked sharply against the polished black stone floor, but the sound was swallowed by the sheer size of the room itself. At the far end of the enormous room sat an oversized desk of gleaming dark wood. Andre Marin, as large and imposing as everything else in his office, rose from his chair and moved around his desk to greet him. The Overlord was marginally taller than Blade and br
oad-shouldered. His craggy face was hidden behind a beard the same mixture of gray and brown as the thinning hair on his head.
Marin looked Blade over, His intelligent blue eyes missed no detail. He offered Blade his hand. “Good to see you, boy,” he said, his stentorian baritone rumbled through the room.
To his credit, he seemed genuinely pleased to see Blade.
His lips quirked in a smile, Blade shook the Overlord’s hand. “my Lord,” he said.
Ignoring protocol, Blade stubbornly made no effort to bow, nod, or otherwise submit to the Overlord. Much to the Sovran’s chagrin.
“Congratulations on the Tennova job. Well done.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Marin placed his hand on Blade’s back and directed him towards a cluster of brown leather chairs and a sofa huddled around an imaging pad at the far end of the room. Obediently, Blade followed his unspoken instructions, waiting for the Overlord to take his seat before lowering himself into one of the chairs.
Appeased by that small act of submission, Marin favored him with an approving smile. It was a game they played. Blade still wasn’t sure how it had begun. Both men were aware of the subtle power struggle of their body language, but neither ever mentioned it.
“That was an interesting report you filed,” Marin said. “I was especially intrigued by what you failed to include.”
“Sir?”
Without further comment, Marin touched a control and the imaging pad flickered to life. Every public encounter between Bo and himself played out across the imaging pad. Blade’s polite smile faded and he grew very still, waiting to see where the Overlord was going with his inquisition. Marin paused the image, freezing it on the last kiss he’d given her as he’d put her into the escape pod with his brother. His expression carefully neutral, he looked expectantly at the Sovran.
“This woman figured quite prominently in your adventure, yet you failed to mention her.”
“She’s just a Joy Babe, sir,” he said. “Her presence had little bearing on my assignment, and even less on its outcome.”
Marin’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Don’t lie to me, boy. Don’t ever lie to me. You are the one person in this Commonwealth I trust. I’d like to keep it that way.” Marin’s fingers tapped across the controls and the image flickered and shifted. “Since you took such pains to omit her name from your report, I assume you know who she is?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Blade noted the image had changed to one of Bo in her Black Wing uniform. At this point, he would gain nothing from feigning ignorance. Reluctantly, Blade nodded.
“You do realize, my boy, that she’s a convicted traitor, don’t you?”
“I do,” he said.
“Why was she after the phase weapon?”
“There was no phase weapon,” Blade said. “Tennova was a fraud....”
“I read your report,” Marin said, cutting him off. “No phase weapon, yet they used the promise of one to lure her there. Tell me what wasn’t in your report.”
“It’s not what you think…” Blade said quickly.
Marin cut him off. “Boy, you don’t know what I think.” Though spoken softly, there was no mistaking the authority in his tone. The Overlord’s eyes locked with his in a silent battle of wills.
Ignoring the thinly veiled challenge in the Sovran’s tone, Blade forced himself to display no emotion. Without breaking eye contact, he went on as if the Overlord hadn’t spoken.
“Her father was put into medical stasis years ago. After she went into the Sub-socia, his stasis pod was stolen. Her people received a ransom demand, the old Barron in exchange for the schematics. They insisted she be the one making the exchange.”
Marin threw back his head and laughed in disbelief. “She already had the title and the influence. Do you actually expect me to believe she would risk it all to get him back?”
“She loves her father,” Blade said tersely. His jaw tightened as he fought to stem the bitterness threatening to spill out. He swallowed to hold back the words, but it did little good. His eyes narrowed. “I know it’s an alien concept to you, my Lord, but some parents actually bond emotionally with their children.”
Lord Marin smiled as if amused by Blade’s inner conflict. “Hatred and resentment are emotional bonds,” he said. “Very effective ones.”
“Effective perhaps, but hardly productive. There are worlds of difference between obligation and affection.”
A sardonic smile tugged at the corners of the Sovran’s lips. “Affection is a luxury a Sovran cannot afford. Ours is a life of obligation.”
Blade nodded in mock deference. “A fact my Lord has made clear many times,” he said.
“What is being done to recover Bhruic?”
At Blade’s questioning look, Marin smiled. “I am acquainted with her parents,” he said. “You said her people received a ransom demand. What are they doing to recover him?”
“Bo’s uncle, Royce is Second Sector IC. He left her in my care while he joined the search.”
Marin’s eyes narrowed, but he made no comment.
“Sir, given that Royce is next in line after Bo…”
“You think he had something to do with his brother’s disappearance?”
“It crossed my mind.” Blade nodded. “Why would he leave The Barron in the care of a stranger with someone trying to kill her? By his own admission, the kidnappers had to have help from someone inside Barron Clan.”
“It’s highly doubtful that Royce was behind it,” Marin said. “With Bhruic in stasis and Bo as The Barron, Royce had everything he could want.”
Leaning back in his seat Marin waved his hand in a careless gesture. “What else have you got?”
Harnessing his rising emotions, Blade subtly copied the Sovran’s posture. “Every government agent assigned to the case had violated the punitive codes in one fashion or another.”
“Including yourself?”
At the hint of surprised outrage in the Overlord’s tone, Blade allowed himself a small smile. It shouldn’t have pleased him so much to disconcert the old man, but it did.
“Officially, I’m a deserter, my Lord,” he said matter-of-factly.
Marin’s lips quirked. “I see. Go on.”
Blade cleared his throat and chose his next words very carefully.
“I firmly believe that if I hadn’t been there, Tennova would have succeeded in killing her. That man in the methane breather suit was Tennova. He shot her in the face with a ditoxicin squib. She’d have been dead within the hour without treatment.”
Blade silently congratulated himself on relating the facts without betraying any of the emotion that went with it.
“And you saved her life.”
Blade nodded. “I make no apologies.”
“Do you have any idea how dangerous she is to the Second Sector?”
“With all due respect, sir, I don’t give a shit.”
“The Second Sector Overlord wants her returned so her sentence can be carried out. She’s to be executed upon her return. If he’d known she was on Cormoran, he’d have turned the port inside out looking for her.”
“I don’t serve the Second Sector Sovran.”
“Boy, you barely serve the First Sector Sovran!”
“She’s not dangerous,” Blade said. “She’s not a killer.”
“And what makes you an expert?”
“I know what a killer looks like. I see one every time I face my own reflection. She hasn’t got it in her… not yet… but she will. If she’s going to survive, she’ll have to.”
“Naïve boy. She was in a Tandoori lockup and she slit the throats of her cellmates.”
“Begging pardon, but have you ever been in a Tandoori lockup, sir? I have. That was self-defense, not murder.”
Marin nodded and studied him with a speculative gleam in his blue eyes. A slow smile curved his lips. “I have an assignment for you, boy.”
“I don’t work for the IC anymore, my Lord.”
“You swore an oath, son. You work for the IC as long as I say you do. Unless, of course, you’d like to face those desertion charges you seem so proud of.”
It was an empty threat. It had to be. Blade studied his face for some sign that he was bluffing. Finding nothing but a pleasant smile that indicated the Sovran didn’t care one way or another, Blade’s throat tightened.
“You wouldn’t send me to prison,” Blade said with more certainty than he felt. “You don’t want me in prison.”
“I don’t want you acting in holofeatures either, but yet you do it.” Marin shook his head. “I don’t want you racing either. I didn’t want you joining the Consular Guard or the Inner Circle. Apparently, my wishes in matters pertaining to your life choices mean nothing to you. A wise man would hear me out before digging in his heels.”
Blade reluctantly nodded. “As you say, my Lord.”
He clenched his jaw so tightly, he felt a muscle twitch in it.
“I want you to get close to her.”
He blinked twice, not certain he heard correctly. “Sir?”
“I want you to cultivate the Barron as an asset. Gain her trust. Get her loyalty.”
“If you want her loyalty, sir, all you have to do is pardon her. She just wants to go home to her people. She wants her honor back.”
“Yes, but I don’t want that. I want to know how important it is to Lord Scull that she dies in disgrace. It’s obvious that you two are attracted to each other. Use that. Get close to her. Make her trust you.”
Blade stared at him for a long moment. He couldn’t afford to let Marin see how badly he wanted to agree.
“No.” He slowly rose from his chair. “I can’t afford to carry on an affair with a convicted traitor. I’m getting ready to start pre-production on a new holofeature. The media is going to be all over me. Any woman I appear in public with is going to be under media scrutiny. I live and work on Cormoran. She wouldn’t have come to Cormoran to catch that liner if her father’s life hadn’t been at stake. As long as she has a death sentence hanging over her head, the danger to her is too great. She wouldn’t risk it. Perhaps if you were to pardon her…”
