by C. F. Harris
Again, though, it seemed like it might be dangerous to go to deeply into any of that. I didn’t want to tell her anything at this point that might lead her to believe that she had some sort of hold on me. To believe that she somehow had the upper hand when dealing with me. And so I kept the answer simple enough.
“My people believe in strength. They believe in might makes right,” I said.
“Yeah, I definitely got that from the war you started with us…”
I decided to ignore that. I moved right ahead.
“And so it’s simple enough. You destroyed my wife in combat. That means you are the stronger of the two. That means that I must have you. A woman who defeats another in combat is entitled to their mate as a spoil of war.”
The reality was far more complicated, but again, I wasn’t going into that. Given the somewhat odd perceptions humans had of our species that seemed like the sort of thing she would buy.
“Your people are all sorts of fucked up,” she said. “I accidentally kill your wife and that makes me destined to be with you or something? Crazy. And so not happening, so don’t get any ideas. I don’t care how hot we got over dinner.”
I frowned. That didn’t sound particularly promising. I also didn’t have time to deal with any delays. Not with a summons from the emperor waiting. Part of her top still hung off one arm where she’d stopped during our conversation. It also revealed a distracting amount of her anatomy, which I wasn’t complaining about.
Still, the clock was ticking, to borrow a phrase from the humans.
“Are you going to finish putting on your uniform? As much as I’m enjoying this view, the emperor will have no problem beheading both of us if we don’t meet him in a timely manner.”
I moved over to the door and paused for a moment. Turned to look at her standing there in her human uniform. Even in that she looked somehow exotic and beautiful, even if she was the enemy. And it occurred to me that she still was very much the enemy. She was still very much willing to fight our people. It was an admirable quality, but sometimes admirable qualities could be dangerous. Particularly in the presence of the emperor himself.
“When we get to our audience with the emperor, there is a certain behavior that will be expected of you,” I said.
She rolled her eyes.
“So I’m supposed to bow and scrape for a man who sent his war fleets against my people? No thank you.”
I sighed. “If you don’t then we’re both dead.”
She raised an eyebrow and walked over to me. Moved a hand up and ran it down my chest. I realized with a start that she was tracing a line along one of my tattoos. Far less elaborate that it had once been, but at the same time still far more elaborate than most on this world had ever achieved. I felt a tingle wherever her finger trailed. It was a very pleasurable sensation.
Damn this woman was confusing. Coming on strong one moment, and looking at me as though she was afraid the next. Though she definitely did not seem particularly afraid in this moment.
“So if I’m on my best behavior then neither one of us gets killed?” she asked.
“Exactly.”
“And if I’m in a mood for revenge on the man who got the best of me? Getting you killed would win our contest once and for all, even if I did get killed in the process.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. My fist was clenching and unclenching before I had time to think about it.
“If that is your desire, then my life is in your hands,” I said.
I opened my eyes. Her own eyes searched mine. They moved back and forth as though she was looking for something. I wasn’t sure what, but I didn’t mind any excuse to stare into her eyes. They were a welcome distraction from all of the potential death that awaited us when we reached the emperor’s throne room.
“You saved my life when you didn’t have to,” she said. “I’ll honor that, and I’ll do whatever you tell me to do in front of this emperor. This time. I can’t promise how I’ll act at the second meeting, though.”
I let out a sigh of relief and my body relaxed. I hadn’t even realized I was feeling that tense. Still, I was worried that she might do something to get us in trouble even if she wasn’t intentionally trying to get us killed. Her lack of knowledge of our society really could fill entire reference manuals. If she was going to become a regular part of my life then I was going to have to bring her up to speed on our culture.
I found myself hoping very much that she would become a part of my life.
“Well let’s get going,” Talia said. “I wouldn’t want to be late and have him kill us. Or would he just torture us? I imagine the emperor has some people who are pretty skilled at that sort of thing, right?”
“Oh you have no idea,” I said, gesturing for her to follow me as I headed out to the air station attached to my palace. We could pick up a transportation from there.
“Really? That bad, huh?”
“The emperor has torture methods that would make you wish you had never been conceived. It would make you wish that your great-great-grandmother had never climbed into bed with your great-great-grandfather,” I said.
“I doubt that,” she said. “I understand great-great-grandmother liked to go out and get her drink on…”
Conversation continued in much the same way as we flew towards the Imperial Palace. A massive building that dominated the capital city’s skyline. It was impossible to miss, and large enough that it could be seen from orbit.
It was nice to have a distraction as I went to my potential death. Almost as nice as finally having at least some of the emperor’s attention after so very long, though it remained to be seen whether that attention would ultimately be good or bad.
13: The Emperor
Talia:
We we flew through the Livisk capital city at a speed that made me desperately hope their computer technology and collision detection was a hell of a lot better than intelligence briefings would lead me to believe. It felt like at any moment we would slam into one of the other craft careening through the air above the city. There were none of the normal lines and patterns that I was used to flying through cities on earth.
And through it all there was no doubt in my mind where our destination was. A massive palace sat at the center of the city. It was large enough and tall enough that it could be seen from just about anywhere. It dwarfed even the largest buildings, and the one we’d come from was pretty damn big.
“I assume that’s the Imperial Palace?” I asked.
Jorav smiled. “None other than. Impressed, human?”
I looked up at him and stuck my tongue out. It probably wasn’t the most mature thing to do considering I was going to be the first human to have an audience with their emperor that I was aware of, but the urge struck me and I went with it.
“If this is going to be a thing then you’d better start calling me by my name, Livisk.”
Jorav looked down at me, his arms behind his back as he stood in a fair approximation of parade rest. Parade rest for sparkling blue aliens with impossibly muscled bodies.
“I believe you were the one consistently referring to me as tall, blue, and sparkly?”
My cheeks colored and I looked back out over the Livisk capital city once more. “Point taken.” I whispered.
One of his hands came to rest on my shoulder. “You will do fine. I’m sure the emperor is not in a killing mood. He wouldn’t have summoned us otherwise.”
“What would he have done if he was in a killing mood?”
Jorav shrugged. “That depends on his mood. If he was in a good mood he might simply send assassins to carry out his will.”
“And if he was in a bad mood?”
“He might order my palace bombed into dust with us in it,” Jorav said.
“Are you serious? What about collateral damage? Wouldn’t that kill other people too?”
Another shrug. He seemed very fatalistic about the capricious whims of the warmongering madman who headed the Livisk Ascendency. “The emperor’s will is the
emperor’s will. To die while that is being carried out is the ultimate glory.”
I returned my attention to the palace. The thing was huge and it was a distraction from how fucking crazy this entire species was. They just took it as a matter of course that they could die at any moment because their emperor wished it and no one thought that was odd.
Then again I suppose everyone in the Fleet understood that they could be given orders that would result in their immediate death. That was different, though. That was the Fleet. Not civilians.
“So is your emperor compensating for anything with that palace?”
“I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about,” Jorav said.
I rolled my eyes. Of course he wouldn’t know what I was talking about. That was a phrase that was steeped in human culture. Something told me the alien general hadn’t watched enough comedies to know that I’d just insulted the virility of his emperor.
“The palace is big enough to be seen from orbit,” Jorav said. His chest puffed up. He was actually proud of that.
“Nice,” I said. “With a target like that it would be easy enough to guide in a weapon. You wouldn’t even need it to be all that smart. Just a big hunk of rock or something from your outer system lined up with that big target that you can see from space and boom, no more emperor.”
Jorav stared down at me unblinking, and it occurred to me a moment too late that it might not necessarily be a good idea to discuss ways of killing the emperor who was viewed as the next best thing to a god on this world. Particularly in front of a general who was sworn to serve him, even if it did seem that he’d fallen out of royal favor recently.
“I’ve actually said the same thing,” he said. “Unfortunately the emperor can be rather stubborn about getting his way.”
“Must be a family thing,” I muttered, which earned a chuckle from Jorav.
“Fortunately he is defended fairly well,” he said. “There’s no chance that a human could make it deep enough into our system to carry out the attack you describe.”
“The Admiralty said the same thing about you guys before you showed up knocking on my front door and blew up my ship,” I said.
Jorav tapped a finger against his temple, lost in thought for a moment.
“That is a good point,” he said. “Though somehow I doubt I will be able to convince the emperor to abandon the finery of his palace.”
I shrugged. “Fine with me. That will make him that much easier a target when I eventually escape this place and come back with a ship of my own to ram a few nukes down your throat.”
I looked up to Jorav again, expecting another laugh. Perhaps a small smile or something. We seemed to have a good rapport going, but he frowned. Damn. Just when I thought things were going so well.
“What?”
“You would do well to remember that I allow you some leeway, but saying something like that where any of the emperor’s agents could hear you will result in a slow and painful death.”
“Right,” I said. “Probably a good thing to remember.”
We settled into silence after that. The reminder that this trip could very well result in our death was somewhat sobering. I wished I was back home where the politicians were so busy being at each other’s throats that they couldn’t stop to have a nefarious plot or have someone killed. It was one of the nice things about not living under an autocratic dictatorship as a form of government.
I also found myself wishing I had one of those little mini nukes that could be hidden in a tooth or something. Bite down on it and say goodbye to whatever urban center you happened to be hanging out in. The intel guys for the fleet had come up with some really nasty surprises over the years, and I figured there would be no better death for a human soldier than to bite down and take out the emperor of the Livisk with me.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. I hadn’t had the foresight to have someone install a low yield plutonium fission device in my molar before shipping out to be captured.
Still, I made sure to take in everything that I was seeing even if there wasn’t a way to blow it up. After all, I was getting a front row view of the Livisk home world. As far as I knew there wasn’t a single human who had gotten this view before. Most of the people who were captured were supposedly sent to work in mines or whatever it was that the Livisk thought warranted slave labor.
Getting a tour of their capital city including all the best places to send down an orbital bombardment? That was the sort of thing that an intelligence official would salivate over. I figured I might as well make use of the opportunity on the off chance that I did manage to escape someday.
I didn’t think that escape was very likely. Especially now that I was being taken for a meeting with the man in charge, but still. Old habits died hard. And so I looked at everything. It took everything in. Plotted exactly how I would reduce this city to ash if I was given the opportunity. There was nothing more cathartic to me than planning a good old fashioned “take off and nuke it from orbit.”
I glanced over to Jorav and he smiled.
“You have to hit those large power stations, the big pyramid shaped objects around the edge of the city, if you want to have any hope of bombarding the place,” he said. “Otherwise the shields we have to stop people from doing exactly what you’re plotting will stay up and the city center is fine, though the outlying areas are pretty screwed since it’s nothing but mountains around here to concentrate the blast.”
I blinked. And then I grinned and wrapped my arm around his. I even paused to enjoy how nice and hard his muscles felt underneath all that blue sparkly skin. A girl could get used to that. He was still the enemy and all, but I figured take small pleasures where you could find them.
“You know, aside from the whole captivity thing I think I could really get to like you,” I said. And I was surprised to realize that I meant it. It was as though he could read my mind.
I’d heard the Livisk had abilities that bordered on being able to read minds, it had made the Admiralty more than a little paranoid about them stealing our battle plans mentally or something for the first five years or so of the war, but then we started winning and it became obvious that they weren’t using any sort of special mind control powers to gather intelligence or affect battles. They were doing too piss poor a job of prosecuting the war for anything like that to be possible.
We made the rest of the ride to the Imperial Palace in silence. It seemed that Jorav was just as nervous as I was. And I was getting more and more nervous the closer we got to that massive structure. It was the kind of building that screamed power. The kind of place that made you feel like the end of the world was near.
We were escorted straight through to the emperor’s throne room, which ended up being a massive gallery with balconies running the length of the room on all sides with people staring down at us. Odd that they would be so trusting. Sure there were shields that could keep somebody from being hit by an energy weapon in the here and now, but this structure screamed age. Presumably it dated back to before the days when shields had been invented but after the days when projectile weapons were around, considering the bow and arrow was a fairly consistent invention we’d discovered amongst emerging civilizations in the galaxy.
The emperor was not quite as impressive as I would have imagined,. He had ridiculously elaborate tattoos, but his body wasn’t nearly as muscled as Jorav’s. Actually, if I was being totally honest, and I had no intention of being totally honest in front of a man who could have me tortured and killed, then the Emperor was a little portly compared to the other Livisk warriors I’d seen in my time.
Then again I suppose that made sense. He lived in a palace that was just about as ostentatious as I would expect from a man who ruled over a civilization that was known for being a little too militaristic for the comfort of the civilizations in their galactic neighborhood. Of course humanity was cleaning out that neighborhood, but it was slow going.
We stopped in front of the emperor’s chair. Throne. Wh
atever. It was a technological monstrosity that glittered and shown with a thousand little lights. In short, it was tacky as all fuck. Not the sort of thing I would expect from the ruler of a galaxy spanning empire.
Jorav got down on one knee in front of the emperor and I did the same. I even managed to keep myself from rolling my eyes, though the desire was there. Jorav held his arms out to the side, but I held myself to simply getting down on my knees in front of this asshole.
Showing respect to a man who had single-handedly caused the deaths of millions of humans with his stupid war because there was a chance I could find myself added to those millions was one thing, but actually feeling that respect was another. Jorav could blow this emperor all he wanted, but I had no plans to do more than the bare minimum required to stay alive.
Short, pudgy, and sparkly stared. He didn’t look all that dangerous. He had a ridiculous scepter in one hand, and as he regarded us a Livisk woman who was rather not clothed stepped around and handed him a tablet. He looked down at it for a moment and then handed it back.
Well then. It appeared that the throne wasn’t the only thing that was supremely tacky in the throne room. I already didn’t like this guy on principle considering the whole war thing his dear old dad had started, assuming intel about the current status of the Livisk royal family was up to date, but I was starting to like him less and less on a more personal level too.
I had a hard time taking any ruler seriously who thought they could get away with sitting on a throne like that and actually having naked women serving him.
Jorav,” the emperor said, spreading his arms wide. “Please, stand. A man as daring as you need not get down on his knees before me.”
Jorav looked up but stayed on his knees. I was on the verge of getting up myself, but I figured it was probably safe when in the Livisk capital city to do as the Livisk did. Maybe there was some tradition where the emperor asked you to get up and if you did he would blast you with a vaporization rifle or something like that for daring to do what he said as an absolute ruler. It would’ve been one of the less fucked up aspects of Livisk culture I was aware of.
