Five Empires: An Epic Space Opera

by Steven J Shelley

  He stopped by the window and gripped the ledge tightly. Fusar joined him there and laid a hand on his shoulder. She no longer cared what Mandie thought.

  “All we can do is wait,” she said, investing all her energy into sounding calm. “There’s nothing to stop them killing us outright. We should see this as an opportunity. If we can.”

  Mandie snorted. Fusar resisted the impulse to hit her. Driving a wedge between the three of them could not have been high on the Jaj agenda, but that’s exactly what they’d achieved.

  “Why are we here?” Mandie asked. “We should’ve commandeered that transport and made for a safe system.”

  “Aren’t many of those left,” Jake said darkly. “That’s why we came here, remember?”

  “We can’t afford to bicker, I know that much,” Fusar said, heading into one of the adjoining chambers. She lay down on the four-poster bed, listening to the peaceful sounds of the garden. Restless, she went and opened the window for a better look. An alligator ambled through the wet leaves far below, casually snapping at a butterfly.

  The beast made her think of those other reptiles, the sentient lizards who everybody seemed to kick around. Her thoughts had drifted to them more frequently of late. They weren’t pleasant reflections either. In fact, she was growing accustomed to trembling with rage whenever she considered the sad injustice of the lizards’ story.

  Sometimes she felt as though the anger might bubble over into something lasting … like a cause. Certainly, at this moment, standing in the Palace of the Fallen while Jaj medics performed remote tests on her, she felt she needed a viable outlet for her rage.

  But what did that controlled, harnessed anger look like? What options were available to her here? Was she a prisoner or a test subject, to be disposed of when her usefulness had expired?

  There were too many unanswered questions. Her immediate future was too hazy to begin making definitive plans. She sampled the fruit platter in the main room. Jake had already retired, probably exhausted from their bruising flight from Bullhead.

  Mandie looked at Fusar as she peeled a lumpy orange fruit. Was there suspicion in the mercenary’s gaze or was Fusar’s tired instinct giving her a false positive?

  The teenager suddenly felt tired and alone. She retreated into her room and huddled under her impossibly soft quilt. The horrors of her past rose to torment her, as they so often did in these quieter moments. She drifted into a restless sleep, plagued by images of deformed monks and rats nibbling at her feet.

  Night had fallen while she tossed and turned. Somewhere in the midst of that delirious, fevered sleep she’d felt a curious tingle in between her legs and wondered if she was ill or just plain tired.

  “Fusar?”

  It was Jake, his familiar silhouette filling the doorway. He sat on the edge of the bed when he saw she was awake.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like shit,” she admitted, running a hand through her braids. “You?”

  “Been better,” he said, eyes heavy with sadness. She couldn’t tell whether it was Verity’s death or her own predicament that affected him so. A selfish part of her hoped it was the latter.

  “What time is it?” she asked sleepily.

  “Just after midnight, local time,” he said, distracted.

  “Talk to me, Jake,” she said. “I value communication, unlike my kin.”

  At least that got a smile.

  “I’ve been reading up on Jaj law,” he said.

  “Don’t you ever sleep?” she admonished. The man was truly a machine.

  “I think we need to be proactive,” he said.

  “Stop talking in riddles,” Fusar said. “What’s your plan?”

  There was a knock on the door in the main room. The pair listened as Mandie answered.

  “Allow me to see the patient,” came a gruff voice. It sounded like the medic from earlier in the day.

  “… at midnight?” Fusar whispered.

  “They know you’re awake,” Jake said. “They know everything.”

  The medic marched straight in. Jake stepped aside but watched him like a hawk. The Jaj stood over Fusar and scanned her with a small device. Was it just her imagination or did his eyes widen a little?

  “Thank you,” he said, heading to the door.

  “Wait a fucking moment,” Jake said. “What just happened?”

  The medic looked at Fusar as if Jake didn’t exist. “The result is positive,” he said. “You are required to remain for further testing.”

  Fear gripped Fusar’s heart. She knew immediately what the medic was referring to but couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Before Fusar could stop him, Jake had the medic pinned against the wall - no mean feat against a male Jaj.

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you,” he snarled.

  Mandie had her pistol drawn, ready to fire.

  The medic muttered something in a native dialect and the room was flooded with armored guards. Fusar felt numb as they were escorted from their chambers. Her hands kept drifting to her womb, where the Jaj had invaded her body. It was sickeningly obvious what they’d done.

  Would she be expected to carry whatever was in her, or simply prove that she could conceive? Either proposition made her feel ill. She was seventeen. How dare they invade her body without her consent? It was worse than a betrayal, it was an act of war.

  Fusar’s bitter train of thought was broken by a commotion further down the corridor. Jaj stewards in sky blue tunics accosted the soldiers and spoke harshly in their local dialect. The soldiers were immediately cowed and backed away. A steward approached Jake.

  “Are you skilled in cybomancy, sir?” he asked in fractured Foundation.

  Jake nodded in bewilderment.

  “Ask about the Embank,” came the mysterious request.

  Before Jake could respond, the sky blue stewards had withdrawn. The soldiers changed course, taking the prisoners directly to a drop shaft. They rode down several levels, right to the bottom of the Palace. The tunnels here were dark and cold. Fusar and her companions were hauled into a dank cage and locked inside.

  “Guns please,” one of the guards said.

  Jake and Mandie handed their pistols through the bars. There seemed little point resisting. The crisp thud of soldier’s boots faded away.

  Jake’s face appeared, lit by the ghostly light of his wrist pad. Fusar was startled by a rustling from the corner of the cell.

  “Who are you?” came a faint voice.

  Jake stood over a cowering, bloodied figure plastered with rags. At first Fusar thought the prisoner was covered in blood, but it was fur. He was a simian.

  “No,” Jake said. “You go first.”

  “My … my name is Fillon07,” came the weak reply. “Emissary to the Jaj. At least I used to be. Until … war was declared.”

  “This man has been tortured,” Fusar said. He was covered in wounds and smelled like death.

  “Aye, and they want me to finish the job,” Jake said, deep in thought.

  “They need your cybomancy skills,” Mandie said. “Jake, this is a dangerous game.”

  Fusar had to agree. Who were those stewards? They weren’t from the Ruling Clan, that much was clear. What mire of cutthroat politics were they wading into?

  “What do you think?” Jake asked, looking at Fusar.

  As far as she could tell, they were being swept forward by forces beyond their control. If Jake could use his skills to acquire information the Jaj didn’t have, that would at least give them a bargaining chip.

  “Do it,” she said coldly.

  Jake nodded wearily. Fusar knew she was asking a lot of the duellist, who hated delving into his latent cybomancy. But there was no other option. Something had broken in Fusar and she would do whatever it took to right the wrongs of her life.

  “And Jake,” she found herself saying, “Don’t hold back.”

  Jake searched her eyes for a split second, perhaps surprised at what he found there. Then he launc
hed into his unsavory business.

  Mandie drew Fusar as far away as possible from the exchange. Jake kept his voice low and urgent, peppering the Cavan prisoner with short, sharp neural jabs. It wasn’t hard to imagine the kind of emotion he was depositing, like infected larvae, in the man’s brain.

  Within minutes the poor fool was sweating profusely and Fusar could’ve sworn she got a whiff of urine. She edged closer, keenly interested in what the Cavan might reveal.

  “Your mind is heavy,” Jake was saying, his face inches away from the simian’s. “So heavy I think it’ll burst, meat and bone. I fear it will happen on my count. It’s inevitable. Unless you tell me what the Embank is. The Embank is like a cyst on your mind. Explode the cyst. Relieve yourself. Heal yourself.”

  Fusar nodded grimly. What Jake was doing was brutal. From what she’d seen of the St Fidelis monks, such attacks could leave permanent mental scarring. With a stab of anxiety she realized he would do anything for her, no matter the cost. It was an immense power to wield, and she felt every ounce of its weight.

  The simian relented. It had been a matter of time.

  61

  “The Embank is beyond your imagining,” he gasped. “Beyond quantum physics. It’s like a computer, but only in the same way a shrimp is like a giant squid. Such a rigid description is an insult. The Cavan Technocracy issues a mandatory Neural Census every two years. Every citizen is required to contribute his or her thoughts on everything from domestic trade to military mobilization.”

  “I’ve heard of the Census,” Jake said. “You’re saying the Embank stores the immense data field?”

  The simian shook his head. “Not just storage. Every decision we make is informed by the Embank. It is the ultimate hive implementation. Our resource efficiency, battle tactics, foreign policy, everything is weighed and optimized by the Embank. The people of the Technocracy have input into everything from the color of the regional transfer office on Diljick to the most efficient blockade formation for M-class planets. The Embank is why the Cava05 reign supreme.”

  Jake reached for the simian, clearly sickened by his arrogance. His thumbs were poised menacingly over the man’s eyes.

  “Where’s the Embank?” he sneered.

  “I don’t know,” came the panicked reply. “All I know is it’s fed by obscene levels of onbantium.”

  “Not good enough,” Jake said, pressing his thumbs mercilessly. The simian whimpered, his body convulsing. And then it was over. Jake left the body on its pile of soiled rags and wiped his hands on his trench coat.

  “Cunt would’ve stabbed us in the back if he’d half a chance,” he muttered. “Simians are relentless.”

  Fusar nodded, glad to have a semblance of a lead. Mandie still looked a little shocked at Jake’s brutality. Fusar had always suspected it was there, just under the surface. Truth be told, her own soul was headed to a similar place.

  Her hands drifted to her womb yet again. Jake noticed, his gaze softening.

  “We have information someone else wants,” he said. “It’s a start.”

  “Then we wait,” Mandie said, sliding into a sitting position.

  Fusar didn’t feel like sitting down. It seemed too passive. She’d let her guard down once already and had been violated in the worst imaginable way. She waited at the cage bars, her heart lurching at every sound.

  It wasn’t until the light in the tunnel brightened a little, suggesting dawn had finally arrived, that footsteps echoed in the distance. The sky blue stewards from earlier came into view. Even better, one was configuring his wristpad to unlock the cage door. Fusar stepped free immediately, fixing the pair with her coldest gaze.

  “Who are you?”

  “We’re from the Barras Guild,” the taller one said. “We oppose almost every current foreign and domestic policy.”

  “The guards,” Jake said, using every inch of his height to stand over them. “Have they been paid off?”

  “No,” came the disdainful reply. “Our military force is proud. They wish to go to war.”

  “The Barras Guild will give them war,” Fusar said, finally piecing together some of the politics at play here. “If only they could rise to power.”

  “You’d better come with us,” the steward said. “My superior will explain.”

  Fusar, Jake and Mandie were led east through the murky tunnel. At length they climbed a spiral stone staircase and passed through several doorways. Sky blue guards manned these check points, watching the newcomers like hawks. They eventually reached a small chamber where a male Jaj was being dressed by a pair of stewards. His livery depicted the orange silhouette of a deer on a sky blue background.

  “Yerto Barras,” said the warty Jaj, extending a hand to Fusar. “We don’t have much time. The Emperor likes an early Senate.”

  “What have they done to me?” Fusar demanded immediately. The question seemed to throw the senator off balance for a moment, but like a true politician, he recovered quickly.

  “You have been impregnated,” he said. “Our scientists wanted to know if it was possible. So did I. The decision was unanimous.”

  Jake and Mandie stepped forward, their bodies tensed for action. The stewards in the room drew plasma pistols from hidden holsters under their tunics.

  “That wouldn’t end well for you,” Barras warned.

  “You talk to me and I’ll talk to you,” Fusar said. “That’s how this is going to work.”

  The haughty Senator sized Fusar up for several moments. The Jaj had no history of gender-based oppression - in fact, they prided themselves on allowing women equal opportunity in everything, including war. The only reason women no longer appeared in the corridors of power was the XX-toxin that had reduced their numbers over three decades. Fusar could only imagine at the pain and grief families had endured in that period.

  Of course, none of this was on the public record. Fusar was certain Jake had exhausted every data cache on the Jaj he could find at the Caravan of Light. The personal cost of the Jaj decline would be fiercely defended as a private tragedy.

  As Fusar returned Senator Barras’s gaze, she wondered if he had children, or indeed a wife. They said that many Jaj were reluctant to have children these days, knowing that girls were destined to live short, painful lives. She wondered how she appeared to the older man - a healthy, vibrant female. Did she engender hope or anger?

  “I apologize, farlen,” Barras said, using the old word for ‘madam’. “Allow me to explain my clan’s plight. You deserve as much.”

  Fully dressed, the Senator accepted a cup of steaming liquid from one of his off-siders.

  “As you know, the Frajaa Clan has ruled the Jaj Empire for quite some time. That is not to say no one has challenged the Ruling Clan - many have tried and failed. Meanwhile, the Empire slips steadily into decay. Your experience on Bullhead was evidence of that.”

  “How does one challenge the Ruling Clan?” Fusar asked.

  The Senator gave a rueful smile. “The old ways are like stone - immovable, resolute. As ever, we are defined by our actions. A prospective Emperor from one of the Great Clans may call for a Trial of Champions. Both parties will nominate their combatant to fight to fight in the Pit. Needless to say, Frajaa’s champion hasn’t been beaten for thirty-five years.”

  “Gyra the Swordsman,” Jake said.

  “You know your history, Nostroma,” Barras said respectfully, though his gaze didn’t leave Fusar. “There is no corruption, no trickery at play here. The Jaj do not operate in those shady spheres. The Emperor has the best man and that is that.”

  “And yet you wish to challenge,” Fusar pointed out.

  The Senator’s smile recognized her keen intelligence. “You don’t miss much, farlen,” he said. “Indeed, I wish to challenge. Do not ask me who my champion is, but I am confident of success.”

  Fusar exchanged a look with Jake - there was opportunity here and both could smell it.

  “You need the military on board too,” Fusar said. “A mi
ssion you can sell them. Get folks talking about ending this war. Restoring the Jaj to their former glory.”

  Barras smiled again, this time like a father admiring a daughter.

  “You impress me,” he admitted. “Through private funds I invested in remote surveillance of Cavan society. My spies gathered intel on a bi-annual program called the Neural Census.”

  Fusar resisted the impulse to look at Jake, but the Senator saw something in her eyes that gave the game away.

  “The emissary,” he breathed. “Your Nostroma friend was able to extract something we could not.”

  Fusar nodded, saying nothing. Her implication was clear - negotiation was required here. The Senator smiled knowingly, but there was tightly-coiled frustration underneath it.

  “I suspected as much,” he said. “I have no intention of extracting the information by force. We will work together, but we don’t have much time.”

  The Senator seemed to think for a moment before arriving at a decision.

  “With your consent, I will take you to my villa on the Renquar Plains,” he said. “There we can negotiate away from prying eyes.”

  “Will the Emperor permit that?” Jake asked.

  “I have a medical retreat out that way,” Barras said. “I will strongly advocate that you be ‘treated’ there, Fusar. The Emperor will agree. After all, he is not aware of my political intentions.”

  Fusar thought this over. At length, she nodded. She felt vulnerable here in the palace. Of course, the Senator couldn’t be trusted, but if there was a stronger force than political ambition, she wasn’t aware of it. Perhaps she could use Barras to further her own ends. Which, she had to admit, were changing rapidly by the day.

  The Senator left to participate in the day’s debates. His stewards were to collect Fusar, Jake and Mandie at dusk.

  The trio spent the day exploring the Zigurat gardens. In stark contrast to their beautiful surroundings, no one could muster much enthusiasm or spirit. Mandie was extremely quiet, looking increasingly out of her depth. Fusar could sympathize - this whole affair was rollicking way out of control.

  The mercenary was a solid, dependable type - Fusar had no reason to doubt that - but she seemed uncomfortable around authority, preferring to ply her trade in the shadows. Jake was cut from the same cloth, except his devotion to Fusar allowed him to endure the political game they were now being forced to play. In the coolness of the trees his eyes rarely left her. He knew she was hurting.