Treachery: Celestial Empires Book 2

by Raymond Cooper

  Which confirmed for me that they weren't actually there. That Boygan had screwed me. But why had he gone through all the trouble to bring me all this way out to some remote and desolate planet?

  “What do you want from me, Boygan?”

  “I want you to finish the job you were originally contracted to do, Gemma,” he said, his tone implying that it was the most obvious thing in the world. “The job I paid you to do.”

  The blood froze in my veins and a spike of fear stabbed in the heart as he spoke. Maybe it was stupid, given the circumstances, but I really didn't want my mother to know that I'd taken a murder-for-hire job. For reasons I couldn't begin to understand, let alone explain – not even to myself – that seemed important to me in that moment.

  “Boygan, enough,” I said. “You made your point. I get it.”

  “Oh, but I don't think you do, dear Gemma,” he said, his voice dripping with condescension.

  “I do. Stop,” I said. “I'll do whatever you need. You said something about finishing the job? Okay, fine. I can do that. Let's meet in person and – ”

  He paused for a moment and stared straight at me through the video screen, his eyes – all of them – seeming to bore into mine. He stared at me long and hard, as if he were somehow reading my soul. And it was then that I saw a look of understanding cross his face – and right behind that was an expression of utter amusement.

  “Oh, I see,” he said. “You don't want your dear mother to know what sort of job you were doing for me – is that it? You're afraid for her to find out what sort of a monster you've become. Okay, I'll play along. And just to show you how magnanimous I can be, I'll keep your dirty little secret, Gemma. For now, anyway. But you would do well to remember this act of kindness.”

  He nodded to somebody off screen and a Zhakan man dressed in a dark uniform – much like the guy we'd seen when our ship was being repaired on Javis – stepped into the picture and held a circular disc-object over the heads of my mother and aunt. I had no idea what it was or what he was doing, but I felt a sharp jolt of fear.

  “Boygan – ”

  He held up his hand to silence me as the man stepped back and the disc started to hover over them, spinning, and emitting a soft blue light. The blue light cascaded down over both of the women and then enveloped them completely. Boygan turned back to me, a greasy smile sliding across his face.

  “There,” he said. “They are in a sound dampening field. They won't be able to hear a thing we say, so you need not fear mommy finding out you're a killer.”

  “Thank you,” I said, actually feeling grateful for that small act of mercy. “But I'm not. I'm not a k – killer.”

  “Oh, I have some men back on Cromia who would beg to differ,” he says. “They're all quite dead. By your hand, I might add. Now, maybe I'm misunderstanding the human language, but I would think that does in fact make you, a killer.”

  I sighed and shook my head. This was pointless banter and wasn't getting me anywhere closer to the reason I was standing there.

  “What do you want me to do, Boygan?”

  He paused and seemed to be considering his words for a moment before he finally spoke. “You're an inquisitive girl,” he said. “Which makes me think that you might be wondering why I forced you to jump through all of the hoops I required to get you out to 51 Nyota. Especially when I could have either just killed you outright or delivered my demands to you back on Earth? Why go through all of this trouble, right?”

  “The thought crossed my mind, yes,” I said.

  “It's because I needed to teach you a lesson, Gemma,” he said. “You needed a lesson in humility. And you needed a reminder that you are not in control here. I am.”

  “You really went through all of this effort just to show me you had the bigger dick?” I asked, shaking my head.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Did you enjoy not being able to pilot your own ship? Did you enjoy having me dictate everything to you? Did you enjoy knowing that my eyes and ears are everywhere and that you could not speak or act without my knowing? Did you enjoy any of that?”

  As a wave of dark anger washed through me, I shook my head. “No.”

  “Good,” he said. “That was the point. You're not in control here, Gemma. I am. And this entire tedious little episode was an exercise to remind you of that. To – put you in your place, as it were. And I have your mother and aunt in my – care – to remind you of the stakes. To remind you that I am not a man to be trifled with and that there are consequences to your actions. Severe consequences.”

  “Fine. Great. I'm your bitch. Message received,” I said, suddenly feeling exhausted.

  “And it was also to impress upon you the fact that you can't say or do anything without my knowing about it first,” he said. “I am in your head, Gemma. I know how you think. I may even know what you're going to think before the thought crosses your mind. My eyes and ears are everywhere.”

  “Yeah, like the clown you stuck on my ship?” I scoffed. “Not very subtle. I'm surprised, you're normally not so careless.”

  There was a momentary hesitation on his face – a flash of uncertainty. It was as if he had no idea what I was talking about. It was quick and brief – there and gone in the blink of an eye – but that one little slip was very telling.

  “Yes well,” he said smoothly. “Sometimes you need a not-so-subtle reminder that I'm everywhere, Gemma.”

  I knew he was lying. Which meant that I'd been wrong about Theron – which was going to be one bitter goddamn pill to swallow.

  “What do you want, Boygan?” I asked.

  “I want what I've always wanted,” he said. “I want you to finish the job I paid you for – I want you to kill Hugo Kysos. It should be a bit easier now, given that you and he are such close friends.”

  Somewhere deep down, I think I knew it was all leading up to this. Or something very much like it. Why else go to all the trouble to keep me alive and bring me out to this remote place, if not to force my hand and make me finish the job I started?

  I wanted to believe that once I left Cromia, I could put all this behind me and get on with my life. But somewhere deep inside, that little voice kept whispering, telling me that it wasn't going to be that easy. That I had a debt to pay and that bill was going to come due at some point.

  I chose to ignore it, telling myself that the voice was wrong. But it wasn't. That bill, did in fact, come due. And it was my mother and aunt who were potentially going to pay the price for it. For what I'd done – or didn't do.

  But I wasn't a cold-blooded killer. No matter how many ways Boygan tried to twist the truth or color my actions, I just wasn't. I'd killed his men, yes. But that was in self-defense. That was to protect an innocent life.

  A life he was now tasking me with taking since I'd done the right thing in refusing to do it before. And the price that was going to be paid if I refused to do it again this time was steep. Maybe too steep for me to pay. Because it wasn't my life hanging in the balance – it was my mother's and my aunt's.

  “Just to show you that I'm a fair man and there is no ill-will over our last little – misunderstanding,” Boygan said, “I am still willing to pay you what I promised to pay you. In fact, because I'm in such a generous mood, consider your fee doubled upon completion. When you're done with this task, you and mommy will be able to live comfortably. Maybe even get out of that hovel you've been existing in.”

  “That hovel is my home,” I said, for some reason, suddenly feeling defensive.

  “Quite,” he said. “But perhaps you can use the money you'll earn to move someplace that allows your mother to live out her life in comfort.”

  “Whatever.”

  A small platform raised up from the floor near where I was standing. Atop the platform was a small glass case. And inside the glass case was some mechanical device I couldn't identify.

  “I understand your reluctance to get your hands dirty, Gemma,” he said. “And I empathize with you. Taking a life is no easy thin
g. Which is why I'm going to make this much easier on you this time around.”

  “Yeah, as if you could possibly do that.”

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he said. “Let's keep a positive attitude about things.”

  I opened the case, took the device out and examined it closely. It was small. It was in a black case, not much bigger than an old-style cell phone, and had a series of lights on the side. I turned it over, not sure what I was looking at.

  “Kysos will be giving a major address on Cromia tomorrow night,” he said. “It will be seen in planetary systems near and far. What better way to make our statement, right?”

  “And what am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Simple,” he said. “You need to place that near the stage where he's speaking. As close to him as you can possibly get it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Since I obviously cannot rely on you to do the job yourself,” Boygan said. “That is a transmitter that will allow us to lock on to the location with pinpoint precision and send a missile from orbit that will destroy the venue entirely – Kysos along with it.”

  I stared at him, wide-eyed, my mouth hanging open in shock. If Kysos was giving a major address, there were probably going to be hundreds of people in the venue. Maybe thousands. The death toll from a missile strike would be staggering.

  “You're willing to murder all of those innocent – ”

  “This is the price that must be paid because you failed to do your job the first time, Gemma,” Boygan said, his voice cold.

  “You can't – ”

  “I assure you that I can,” he said. “And need I remind you that your family is counting on you to do your job this time?”

  I looked at my mother and aunt sitting behind him. My mother looked straight at me, her eyes locking on to mine, and I felt my heart shatter. What he was asking me to do was monstrous. More monstrous than what he'd originally asked me to do. He was asking me to balance the life of my mom and my aunt against potentially thousands of lives.

  My mother had no idea what was happening and the terror in her eyes was stark. It was a look I knew – regardless of how this all turned out – that would haunt me until the day I died.

  “Your mother can count on you to do your job, can't she, Gemma?” Boygan said. “You aren't going to let her down this time, are you?”

  I stared at my mother, my eyes welling with tears. My head was spinning and my heart was pounding in my chest so hard, I was afraid it would burst. I looked away from my mom, not able to hold her gaze any longer, shame and despair crashing down over me.

  “Fine,” I said quietly. “I'll do it.”

  “Excellent,” Boygan said, clapping his hands together. “I knew you were a smart girl. You just needed the proper motivation.”

  “Let them go,” I said, cringing at the defeat and resignation I heard in my own voice.

  “Oh, fool me once, Gemma,” he said. “I gave you half of your fee up front last time and look what happened. No, I think I'll hang on to your mother until you've completed your task.”

  I couldn't have felt more helpless than I did in that moment. I was not in control of anything and Boygan had me exactly where he wanted me. I had no choice – let him murder my family, or let him murder hundreds, if not thousands, of people. I tried to console myself with the fact that I didn't know any of them – save Kysos. And while he was a friend, he was not family.

  “Fine,” I said. “Can I go now?”

  As if in answer to my question, I heard the door behind me slide open. I turned to go when Boygan's voice stopped me in my tracks. I looked at the video screen and felt a chill pass through me when I saw the cold, predatory grin on his face.

  “Oh, one more thing, Gemma,” he said. “I told you that I'm not a man to be trifled with and that there are always consequences to your actions. And I feel that I need to let you know that I'm a man of my word – to really prove it to you.”

  A yawning chasm opened in my stomach and my heart felt like it suddenly stopped beating. I had no idea what he was about to do, but I knew it wasn't going to be good.

  “Boygan, you don't – ”

  Boygan nodded to somebody off screen again and the man in the black uniform stepped forward and slid a long, curved blade into my aunt's chest. Her mouth opened and her eyes grew wider than I thought humanly possible. I watched as a thick rivulet of blood spilled out of her mouth, running down her chin, and finally, dropping on to her shirt.

  I watched this all happening without any sound. The dampening field was preventing me from hearing her screams – which was a blessing, but also made it infinitely more disturbing. It took a long moment, but my aunt's head slumped forward and she was still. Dead. The blood running down her body and pooling at her feet.

  Boygan turned to me, flashing me a malicious grin as the tears streamed down my face.

  “Remember, Gemma,” he said. “Though I would have preferred it not come to this, remember that I'm not a man to be trifled with. Do your job and avoid another messy, unpleasant scene like this.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “I'm very sorry,” Xavix said once I was back aboard theUmbra.

  The heat of the planet outside had dried my tears, but had done nothing to melt the block of ice that had formed around my heart. The anger flowing through me was blacker and colder than deep space.

  I looked over at Xavix questioningly. “How – ”

  “One of the modifications the Zhakan mechanic made to the ship was to install a signal interceptor,” he explained. “It allows us to intercept transmissions and view the contents. We – ”

  “We saw what that bastard did to your aunt,” Theron said. “And I'm sorry.”

  I looked at Theron and sighed. “No, I'm the one who owes you an apology,” I said. “I was wrong about you. You're not working for Boygan. I'm sorry I accused you.”

  Theron looked at me, the expression on his face one of relief. “What finally convinced you?”

  “Boygan,” I said. “When I mentioned you, for a split second, I saw that he had no idea who I was talking about.”

  “I had wondered if you picked up on that,” Xavix said. “I would like to take this opportunity to use an old human expression and say, I told you so.”

  I gave him the finger, but somehow managed to laugh. I knew that now was not the time for emotions. Now was the time to shut down my feelings and focus on the task at hand. But I also needed to be sure that we were truly alone.

  “Do you have total control of theUmbra's mainframe again?” I asked.

  “I do.”

  “And there's no chance of anybody – overhearing us?”

  “None,” he said. “If anybody tries to gain access or control of the mainframe again, I'll be alerted to it,” he said. “Like I told you before, the temporary countermeasures I have in place should be sufficient for now, but eventually, we will want to upgrade our security systems to prevent another hack.”

  “Fine. We'll worry about that later,” I said. “Right now, we need to get to Cromia. I need to speak with Kysos.”

  “Are you going to do it?” Theron asked. “Are you going to – kill him?”

  “Not if I can avoid it, no.”

  “Do you have a plan?” Xavix asked.

  “The rough outline of one, maybe,” I said. “I need – more time to think.”

  “If the speech is tomorrow night,” Theron said, “time is something we don't have a whole lot of.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  “I want to help,” Theron said. “I want to do whatever I can.”

  I gave him a small smile and reached out, giving his arm a gentle squeeze. “I appreciate that,” I said. “But the last thing I want is for you to get yourself hurt getting mixed up in my problems.”

  He shrugged. “I know the risks going in,” he said. “I'm fine with it. I want to help.”

  I stared at the small black case in my hand. The fate of thousands of lives depended upon what I
decided to do with it. More to the point, the fate of my mother did. And if I wanted to get really deep with this, the fate of my soul hung in the balance as well. How was one supposed to weigh the lives of thousands versus the life of one?

  “You okay?” Theron asked.

  “No, not really,” I replied. “On the one hand, I do what Boygan says, thousands of people are going to be incinerated – not the least of which, is a friend. I don't do it, and Boygan guts my mother. So, no, I'm really not that okay at the moment.”

  “It's understandable,” Theron said softly. “It's a lot to put on one person's shoulders.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” I muttered.

  Xavix cycled through the pre-flight routine and had us airborne moments later. TheUmbra rose up and up, powering her way through the atmosphere and bursting into the vastness of space. Rather than go through the asteroid belt again, Xavix had plotted the quickest course out of the Nyota system and pointed us toward Cromia.

  Theron sat in the seat next to Xavix, his eyes wide with wonder as he stared at the universe beyond the view screen. I sometimes forgot that he was a kid. A kid who, despite being a member of the Air Alliance – sort of – had never been in space before. The passing galaxies, nebulas, and planets were all wonders he'd never seen before.

  I remember being his age – not that I was all that much older than him – and being in space for the first time. I remember feeling the sense of wonder I saw etched upon his face. I remember staring at everything he was seeing for the first time and all of the feelings it inspired.

  Since those heady days, I guess that I'd become jaded and cynical. Space no longer held the mystery or magic for me that it once did. Personally, having done all I'd done and experienced all I'd experienced since leaving home, the only thing I wanted was to put my feet back on Earth's surface and live out my life in the place I felt most comfortable. All I wanted was my old life back.