The Queen of Sidonia

by Richard Fox

  “My lady, I don’t think that’s wise,” he said.

  “Shut up and sit down, Paul. I don’t care who sees us.”

  Remi complied, sitting several inches away.

  “If I don’t get married to Francis, all this will get turned to rubble.” She waved at the city below. “One hell of a deal, isn’t it?”

  “Could be worse, could’ve been Quinn,” Remi said.

  “Marry the drunken sure-to-be-philanderer over the psychopath? What a lucky girl I am,” she said. She put a hand on Remi’s. “You’re going to leave me?”

  Remi pulled his hand away. “I’m almost too old to compete anymore, best to take a career shot before age and injury take the chance away.” He didn’t look at her when he answered.

  Cosima could sense the falsehood behind his words. “Tell me the truth, Paul.”

  “I can find a sponsor on a trade world. I might even make the quals for the games back on Earth if I’m on a transport soon after the wedding,” he said, looking away from her.

  “Don’t you care about me? You’ll leave me to be protected by amateurs?”

  Remi finally looked at her, his face clouded with emotion.

  “You’ll be well taken care of. Stolzoff and Volenz are just as good, if not better, than I am.”

  “You’re the only one I trust. You think the threats will stop once I’m married off and we have a treaty with Chaebol? I…need you, Paul. Here. Stay with me please.” She moved next to him and put her head against his shoulder, the chain mail creaking against the pressure.

  Remi leaned his head against hers for just a second. “I can’t. You’ll be queen. I don’t think you can do your duties with me here, and I can’t do mine fully around you.”

  “Are you leaving because of my feelings for you or your feelings for me?”

  “Yes.” He pulled away from her.

  “Paul, you’re the only one I know who cares about me. To everyone else, I’m just some object to be bartered away.”

  Remi knelt in front of her and put her hand on the Sidonian crest on his awards sash. “This is who I am. I swore to defend this with my life. I, my presence, compromises you, it weakens the kingdom. Staying is just as dangerous as dismantling the shield over this city. I swore to defend and protect Sidonia. If that means I have to leave, then I will leave.”

  He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “If I have to die, then my life for yours.”

  Cosima ran her fingertips down the side of his face. “Paul, I—”

  “We should go.” Remi stood up. “No doubt there are a million details that need your attention before the wedding.”

  Cosima crossed her arms and looked away.

  “Cosima, what’s at stake?” Remi asked.

  She looked up, past the dais atop the convergence to the faint outline of Styria Station transiting across the sky.

  “Everything, I guess,” she said.

  “Be brave, do it for me, for everyone.”

  Her hands fell to the bench. “How can I be so important and so useless at the same time? I’ll get up, but you have to pay me.”

  “Pay you?”

  Cosima turned a cheek to him and tapped it.

  “My lady…”

  “Either a peck on the cheek or I go kicking and screaming down the aisle. Choose quickly. Choose wisely.”

  Remi glanced around, and seeing no else, he leaned toward her.

  Cosima turned her face and got the kiss on her lips. Remi let the kiss last for a moment, then pulled back.

  “We shouldn’t,” he said.

  She held out a hand, and Remi helped her to her feet. She gave his hand a squeeze and they left the battlements.

  CHAPTER 13

  On the day of the wedding, the biggest nightmare for the King’s Guard wasn’t securing the grounds but dealing with every noble and merchantman who felt they were above something as pedestrian as a security inspection.

  If Guardsman Voss heard, “Don’t you know who I am?” again, he’d mark the offender for a less-than-gentle body pat down. He knew he’d end up transferred to a trade mission on the far end of space on a planet that exported bat guano for offending some noble, but the look on their face would probably keep him content for years.

  “Next,” Voss said to man patiently waiting behind the yellow line. The man, in his late thirties and powerfully built, smiled at Voss and offered up his identification without prompting or protest.

  The man’s passport bore a planetary seal Voss had never seen before. It scanned as legitimate, and Voss frowned as he read over the visas and planet-fall entries within.

  “Mr. Gregory Matusevich…from New Prussia? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone from there before,” Voss said.

  “Small world, known more for its academies than its exports,” Matusevich said, his Standard perfect and without accent.

  “Invitation please,” Voss said.

  Matusevich passed him the gold inlaid invitation, a 3-D image of Cosima and Francis embossed beneath the calligraphy. The other side bore Matusevich’s photo and a serial number for the invitation.

  “Place your palm on the sensor and look at the camera for identification and scan,” Voss said. A line of blue light ran up and down the guest, a smile on his face.

  Matusevich’s DNA matched the invitation…and a red flag popped up on Voss’s slate.

  “Sir, you have a scaffolding prosthetic over your face,” Voss said. His thumb crept toward an alert button on his slate.

  “Had an accident a few months back. Deckhand didn’t secure a load of graphene capacitors correctly. I should have jumped out of the way instead of looking up when I heard the warning,” Matusevich said.

  “Sounds painful,” Voss said.

  “The miracles of modern medicine. Just have to stay out of bar fights for the next few months.”

  “What brings you to Sidonia?” Voss asked. He’d been in the Guard for a few years, and something about this merchantman bothered him.

  “Transporting machine parts for the Chaebol jump gate. They hired every square meter of cargo space within five light years of New Chosun to get this project going. For the price they were offering, I would be a fool not to take the job.” Matusevich’s gray eyes didn’t waver from Voss as he spoke.

  “Your invitation…you won it from the charity auction?” Voss asked. The price Matusevich paid was part of the security readout. He’d paid more for the privilege to attend the wedding than Voss would ever earn in his lifetime.

  “Royal weddings are so rare across settled space. Who knows when I’d ever get the chance to see one again?” He smiled like a cat that had just found its way into a birdcage.

  “I say! What is taking so long up there,” came from the line behind Matusevich.

  Voss passed the invitation and the passport back to the merchant captain.

  “Sorry for the hold up. The security situation demands it,” Voss said.

  “No problem, can’t be too careful, what with recent events.”

  “Your complimentary gift bag will be waiting for you on your way out. Please remain in the marked areas of the palace and follow all instructions from security personnel,” Voss said, reciting the parting litany.

  Matusevich nodded and walked into the foyer.

  “All too easy,” he muttered.

  He plucked a flute of champagne from a passing servant and made his way to the portrait room, no directions needed.

  In the portrait gallery, a crowd of guests was bunched up next to a holo mural, the finished piece titled Charge on First Expedition. Matusevich chuckled as he walked across the mural, seeing so many soldiers at battle, Prince Quinn leading the charge. Wilson stood on a small platform and answered questions of how he’d managed to create such an amazing depiction.

  Matusevich shook his head at the lie immortalized by Wilson’s talent and dedication.

  “Do you enjoy revisionist history?” he asked a man with a gray beard so thick it was nearly indistinguishable
from the hair around his head.

  “I’m sorry, what?” the man said, his accent placing him from the world of Deseret.

  “This isn’t true at all. Prince Quinn was arrested by his own general, charged with treason. Now how could the head of state ever be charged with treason?” Matusevich asked.

  The man shrugged. “I just think it looks nice.”

  “No appreciation for art.” Matusevich moved down the gallery and stopped at the portrait of Prince Quinn, still adorned in mourning black. He sat on a bench across from the painting and finished his champagne, then set the glass on his knee and let it fall to the ground. It clinked and rolled beneath the bench.

  Matusevich bent over and reached down to pick up the crystal flute. His hand missed, then reached up to touch the bottom of the bench. He ran his fingers along the bench, and his fingertips grazed something attached to it.

  He slipped it between his fingers and picked up the glass. A scratch against his lapel and the body shield, disguised as a diplomatic seal from New Prussia, joined his outfit. He could never have smuggled the device through security. Having a man on the inside was very useful to his plans.

  Matusevich gave the shield a slight twist, and a whine filled his ears.

  “Mr. Glint.”

  “Here,” said Glint’s voice, badly modulated. He must have been cloaked. “I’m ready. Are you in place?”

  “I am, but let me enjoy myself a bit more. Wait for my signal after the ceremony, then we’ll burn this to the ground,” Matusevich said quietly.

  There were two clicks, and Glint cut the transmission.

  Matusevich shook his head at Quinn’s portrait. The eyes weren’t right. He found it so odd that the king would go to such great lengths to eulogize his son, the same son he’d “found wanting” in his fitness to be the next king.

  Matusevich scratched at his neck. The façade itched and he longed to remove it. How long would it take before someone realized that a dead prince was walking among them?

  Quinn, for it was he behind the mask and identity of Gregor Matusevich, could wait just a bit longer. His revenge had been years in the making, and he would be Sidonia’s next king once King Rasczak, his brothers, and Cosima were all dead.

  A chime sounded through the gallery.

  “Attention guests,” a pleasant voice said through the public address system, “please make your way to the throne room for the marriage of Princess Cosima and Prince Francis. Doors will close in ten minutes.”

  The noblemen and women of Sidonia, the well-heeled and well-connected migrated toward the throne room. Servants standing atop round stools along the way collected glasses and small hors d’oeuvres plates as people shuffled by.

  Quinn held up his empty glass, and it was plucked from his fingers.

  He smiled as he scanned the faces around him, recognizing many. The Aquitaine Corporation wanted the treaty stopped, and they promised him the planet once they’d conquered it. Quinn didn’t want to rule over a planet smashed by orbital bombardment, its skilled workers killed by war bots. Why inherit a mess when he could remove all opposition to his—and Aquitaine’s—plans for the planet in one fell swoop?

  The year after the mission to Jutland, where he’d killed most of the officers that had tried to arrest him and managed to escape during the chaos of battle, had been difficult. He joined up with another pirate band on the planet and worked as a menial on their ship until casualties and a few well-timed accidents brought him to the attention of the ship’s captain…who had connections to the Aquitaine Corporation.

  The throne room had row after row of seats laid out in front of a stage prepared for the wedding. Quinn went to his assigned seat, toward the back of the room. Even with the enormous price he’d paid to win the ticket, it was well below the priority of nobles closer to the king and Cosima’s House Zollern.

  The King’s Guard was there in full force, wearing ceremonial gray armor and half helms. Stolzoff, easy to spot as he was the shortest Guard in the palace, stood to the side of the stage, speaking constantly into his gauntlet.

  Where was Vincent? His little upstart of a brother should have died on that desert world. Quinn had wanted to bring the news back of his heroic death to the king, that Vincent had volunteered to lead an assault was serendipitous. He fought down the rage that boiled in his heart. Just a little bit longer. A little bit longer and he’d have everything he deserved as the rightful heir to Sidonia.

  “Please rise for the groom’s party,” the master of ceremonies said from a thin lectern on the opposite side of the stage from Stolzoff.

  A side door slid aside, and both Vincent and Francis entered the room. Francis was fatter than Quinn remembered, with a thin beard over a red face. No doubt hung over from an egregious bachelor party. In a tailed tuxedo and a sparsely adorned service sash, Francis was a passable groom.

  Vincent, wearing his dress uniform and walking a step behind Francis, opted to cover his mechanical hand in a black glove. Quinn decided he’d hang Vincent’s mechanical arm over the entrance to the throne room. Let that be a reminder for any who’d ever dare cross him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, King Rasczak,” the master of ceremonies announced.

  The main doors to the throne room opened, and a House Guard stood at the end of the red carpet, holding a pillow. A projector flared to life, and a hologram of King Rasczak coalesced in front of the pillow.

  Quinn felt his bile rise as he saw his father for the first time in years. His sallow skin hung limply from his face, and his claw like hands lay clasped against his chest. One eye was milky with cataracts. His hair spread from his head in wild strands, no doubt splayed across the pillow in his stasis tube.

  The king’s hologram didn’t walk; it bobbed up and down slightly in time with the Guard carrying the projection camera. The feed from the camera would be sent back to the medical ward and displayed on the inside of the king’s cocoon. Such a Herculean effort to keep the king alive for this moment—a half smile crept across Quinn’s face.

  The king’s proxy went to a seat on the stage. Quinn’s father nodded to his other sons, and some words were exchanged that Quinn couldn’t hear. He shifted from side to side, his finger twitching with the urge to signal Glint and begin the final phase of the operation. No, just a bit longer.

  The string orchestra began the traditional wedding march, and every pair of eyes in the room turned back to the main entrance.

  Cosima, her father on her arm, stood at the edge of the red carpet. Her dress glimmered from the embossed diamonds, and the silk shimmered as sunlight played across it. As much as he wanted her dead, Quinn had to admit she looked beautiful. If his father hadn’t been so myopic in his vision for Sidonia, it would have been Quinn on that stage.

  Cosima needed a little tug on the arm from her father before she took her first step down the aisle. Of all the weddings Quinn had ever attended, the bride always found her fiancé and would look to him as she approached the altar. Cosima kept her eyes locked straight ahead, as if she didn’t even want to look at Francis.

  With Cosima on stage, the guests were seated.

  Quinn’s fingers tapped at his thighs as a priest blathered on about the union of husband and wife and read an old prayer for blessing the marriage that had come with the original colonists.

  Finally, Cosima and Francis joined hands over the altar. Francis mumbled his way through his vows. Cosima said hers by rote and without conviction.

  What a farce, he thought.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the priest said.

  The guests clapped, politely and without much fanfare. Quinn smiled as Cosima recoiled at Francis’s first attempt to kiss her, then relented and let him plant one on her lips. The crowd rose to its feet, and the clapping continued for an uncomfortably long time. No one seemed to want to be the first one to stop applauding the future king and queen.

  Quinn decided he’d commit the faux pas and let his hands fall to his sides. Men harrumphed a
nd clapped harder around him. The man beside him nudged Quinn with his elbow. Quinn looked at the man, his gaze promising murder. The offender shrugged his shoulders and kept clapping.

  He was going to enjoy killing all these people.

  ****

  The wedding dinner was a nightmare for Cosima. She’d changed out of her wedding gown and into a more manageable red and gold dress that was too tight for her tastes, but Francis enjoyed ogling her in it. She shivered at the thought of calling him her husband, but that’s what he was now, and she his wife.

  She sat next to Francis at a long table in a ballroom repurposed for the wedding feast, an untouched plate of food in front of her. Guests could enter in their dinner choice from slates on their tables, and waiters brought out their selections within minutes. Cosima, lacking any appetite, hadn’t bothered to choose her meal. Lana must have picked something for her.

  A few select nobles had come by their table to wish them well and promise their unending support once they became king and queen the next morning. King Rasczak had retired after the ceremony. What little strength he had left would be needed when he swore the oath of abdication at dawn in front of Francis and the rest of the Sidonian government as required by the Founding Charter.

  And just like that, she would become Queen Cosima.

  Ambassadors Kim, Park, and Lee came to their table, each holding a small plate with a pyramid of walnut cakes.

  “Princess Cosima, we understand that you enjoy this treat. Please accept this small token from us,” the one on the left said. They each slapped their left hand under their right forearm and set the plates in front of her.

  “It is my mother’s recipe,” the rightmost added.

  “We will have the recipe transferred to your kitchen robots,” the one in the middle said.

  Cosima smiled politely and took a bite of one of the walnut cakes, which was surprisingly good. She had a bad feeling she’d be eating these at every interaction she’d ever have with the Chaebol Corporation for the rest of her life.

  “Thank you Mr.…Kim, Park, and Lee,” she said. “They are my new favorite snack.” She thanked god that Remi hadn’t brought her the fried sticks of tofu or the curry noodle sticks she’d seen in the same food stall.