Last of the Chosen (Spirit of Empire, Book One)

by Lawrence P White

>No. It’s not our way.<

  >Does it have a name? I’d like to thank it.<

  >It will take a name after it gets to know Reba. You can thank it then.<

  >Are you ready to make the transfer, or would you like to wait a while?<

  >It’s . . . difficult . . . with two Riders occupying the same body. The sooner the better, Mike.<

  >You won’t miss your offspring?<

  >It’s not like a human child. It’s an exact replica of me with all my memories. It thinks exactly like I do. How would you like to be in close intimate contact with an exact duplicate of yourself and unable to get away? We’re sick of each other. I’m even starting to wonder why you keep me around. I’m not sure I like what I see of myself.<

  >Well, I do. Don’t do anything rash. We’ll make the transfer as soon as we can. Can I tell Ellie?<

  >We’re Knights of the Realm, Mike. We don’t keep any secrets from her. Remember?<

  >Oh, right. I do.<

  Ellie brought him up to date in a private meeting held in her suite, a suite that had previously been occupied by Admiral Shuge. Lieutenant Val had escaped the trap set for them by Fleet Command, gathering up six fighters and two frigates in the process. They were the only ships that responded to his command. Together they had lit out at full speed from Gamma VI.

  Her story of their return to Gamma VI and Reba’s battle against the two squadrons of Rebel ships stunned him.

  “Did you understand the danger you put them and yourself in when you chose to return to Gamma VI?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

  “It was a bad decision, Mike, and I take full blame. Captain Jons tried to talk me out of it, but I felt certain we would have enough time to get my message out. I was wrong.”

  “Was the message so important?”

  “Yes. The Empire must know it has a Queen. I intend to visit more sectors as soon as I can.”

  Mike closed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw the determination in her eyes. “You’re Queen, Ellie, but we have to come up with a plan. Your life is not your own.”

  “I know, my love. I have a lot to learn about being Queen. I made a mistake, and I will make more mistakes. I’m counting on your guidance, and I will listen. I’ve learned a lesson I will not forget.”

  “So what’s going on now? Are we on the way to Centauri III?”

  “No. I failed to listen to Captain Jons once; I will not do so again. At his strong urging I have agreed to a change of plan. He’s fairly certain that Centauri Sector is under the control of the Rebels. If it is, showing up there with his bedraggled fleet would accomplish nothing except to get us all killed. We need a plan, and we need resources not presently available to us to enact the plan, whatever it may be. He changed course two weeks ago to a new destination, Parsons’ World, a world that he believes might be able to help us with private resources.”

  He listened while she told him the rest. She had not been idle while he was in the tank. She had personally visited each ship where her presence proved to the survivors that the Empire was not dead as they had been led to believe. No senior officers that had joined with the Rebels had survived retribution by the Great Cats, and the internal fighting had culled most of the remaining crewmembers who actively supported the rebellion. The survivors, some of whom had quickly supported the Rebels in the belief that the line of Chosen was dead, were offered the opportunity to renew their oaths to the Empire. Few refused. Those that did were branded rebels and locked up. Aboard each ship, she had informed the squadron that fate had chosen them to spearhead her efforts to restore the throne. She was counting on each and every one of them to remain true to their oaths, and she promised them that their names would never be forgotten.

  Reba had been surprisingly absent since Mike had woken up. When he asked about her, Ellie just smiled.

  “Probably driving the ship,” she answered, her eyes twinkling. “Val has taken her under his wing. She checks on me when she can, but they’re pretty short-handed up there. I think she finally got the training you hoped George would provide.”

  “She’s flying a cruiser?” Mike asked in surprise. “They must be short-handed.”

  “I’m sure they’re keeping an eye on her, and I fully support their decision. If we run into any more Chessori, she’ll be the only one functioning.”

  Mike pursed his lips. “Maybe I should get up there, as well.”

  “Maybe you should, but not yet. Give yourself a few days. We’re not in any danger at the moment. Parsons’ World is about as far from here as you can go and still remain in the Empire. It’s a long voyage.”

  Several new members had been added to the Queen’s retinue. Otis had assigned two more of the Great Cats to assist him in guarding her, and he had assigned a Great Cat to Mike, as well. Mike considered the order ridiculous, but Ellie concurred with Otis.

  “Mike, the position you occupy, that of First Knight, is second only to that of the Queen. If someone else held the position of First Knight, would you object to such protection?”

  “Not fair, Ellie. You know I wouldn’t.”

  “Then I rest my case.”

  So Mike now had two shadows, Jake on the inside and Jezdsbstztrkg, shortened to Jessie, on the outside. All the new additions were Guardians, not elite Protectors, but Otis was wholly satisfied with the arrangement.

  Mike looked to Otis who was still walking on three hands, one back leg heavily bandaged. “I didn’t know your brothers served in the military.”

  “They don’t, Sire.”

  “Then why are there so many cats here?”

  Jessie spoke. “We were accompanying a diplomat. We have been confined to the ship for over a year now. Apparently the ship’s mission changed a year ago, and he was not able to reach his appointment.”

  “Who was the appointment with?”

  “We were not told, Sire. The diplomat was killed in the fighting, so we’ll probably never know.”

  The Queen was considering adding Lieutenant Val to her retinue, but Mike, testing his new powers, beat her to it, or so he thought. The young man’s quick, accurate thinking had saved them all. He had salvaged a small fleet in the process, a fleet desperately needed as the seed from which a restored throne might germinate.

  After reading Val’s service record, Mike was even more impressed. Val had grown up in poverty, charted a path to the stars, and stuck with it. Sheer determination had won him entrance to a Star Fleet Academy where he had excelled in the toughest courses, and challenging assignments had been the norm since then. Val had stood above the best in every case.

  “The record is not complete, Michael,” Ellie said when he’d finished going through the file.

  “It’s a service record. How can it not be complete?”

  “At his request, I had nearly everything prior to his entrance to the Academy deleted.”

  “You did? So he’s known to the Chosen?”

  “Only to me and Otis. His story is one you must hear, but so too must Reba. You two have become part of his story, our story.”

  Mike stared at her. She stood and paced, then stopped behind him and leaned down with her hands on his shoulders to kiss the top of his head. Softly she said, “I told you months ago that your part in all this had been foretold. The time has come for you to know the rest of that story, and it is Val’s place to tell you.”

  “Oh, great. We’re back to that. Why is he the one to tell it?”

  “It is his right, Michael. When he is done, you will understand.”

  Reba and Val, summoned by the Queen, arrived in her quarters directly after Reba completed her first unassisted landing in the simulator. She was ecstatic, practically bouncing off the walls with excitement.

  “Hi, Mike! It’s glorious. The net, I mean.” She gave him an awkward hug, avoiding his injured side. “Welcome back to the living. Meet Val, he’s super, too. He’s been doing his best to teach a thick-headed woman from Earth how to fly a star cruiser, and I’m not making it easy on him. Hello, Ellie,”
she added, giving the Queen a long hug.

  Val, too, had seemed to be floating across the deck until the door snicked shut behind him and he realized who was in the room. Confronted by the Queen, her First Knight, Otis, and the other Great Cat, Jessie, he suddenly became the reserved junior officer. He stood nervously while Mike looked him up and down before rising to shake his hand.

  “You’ve been avoiding me, Lieutenant.”

  “It’s been a busy time, Sire. And your injuries, well . . . I’m sorry, Sire.”

  “So that’s it! Are you blaming yourself for what happened?”

  “It was my watch, Sire. I made you a promise, a promise that you could trust me. I take full responsibility.”

  “True enough. Lifeboats, eh, Lieutenant?”

  Val rolled his eyes. “Sorry, Sire. It’s the best I could do on short notice.”

  “Lieutenant, if you want to take responsibility for anything, perhaps you’ll consider taking responsibility for saving the Queen and Alexis, saving me, Otis, and Lieutenant Morrison, saving your ship and the squadron, and maybe even saving your legitimate government, though we’re not done with that part yet.”

  Lieutenant Val stood mute, far less certain of himself in these surroundings than he’d been in the midst of a mutiny.

  The Queen stepped in. “Michael, you’re being unfair. He’s very young.”

  “We’re all young here,” Mike replied sternly. Turning back to Val, he posed an offer. “Lieutenant, I like the decisions you make. I especially like the fact that you’re decisive under pressure, that you don’t lose your cool, and that you’re right. I need help. I want to offer you a job. Will you sit down while I tell you a story?”

  Val put out a shaky hand to lower himself onto the proffered seat, sitting at attention on the very edge of the seat.

  “A year ago on a planet called Earth, a spaceship crashed . . .”

  Val remained expressionless until he realized that Mike was the Earthman from the story, an Earthman completely new to space travel, the Empire, space-based military, galactic politics, royalty, in fact their whole society. He looked with awe toward Mike and Reba, wondering aloud how they had survived as long as they had. Anticipating Mike’s need, he stood up to pace while Mike finished the story.

  “Sire, what exactly do you want from me?”

  “I want you by my side to teach me, to be my right arm, to help us plan . . .”

  Val stiffened, and his complexion paled. He reached out a shaking hand to a chair and sat, his gaze locked on Mike. He blinked a few times, then looked to Ellie.

  “Are you okay, Lieutenant?” Mike demanded.

  Ellie stood up and moved between him and Val. She knelt down before Val. “So now you know. Now we know.”

  He stared at her, a look of awe on his face. “All these years . . . I’ve wondered all these years, and now I know.”

  “He doesn’t. Does Reba?”

  “No, Mother, but it’s time she did. She, too, has been called.”

  Mike jumped at the title he used. “She’s your mother?” he asked in amazement.

  “She is, Sire.”

  Intrigues thickened the air in the room. Mike suddenly felt like he was swimming through the net without an AI.

  Val stood and went to Reba’s side, resting a hand on her shoulder. His gaze locked on Mike. “Your request honors me, Sire. I will be your right arm. It is my calling.”

  “Your calling?”

  Val’s eyes closed, and he took a deep breath, his hand tightening on Reba’s shoulder. “It’s time for you to know the whole story, Sire. It’s time for Reba to know, as well. It is not purely chance that brought us together in this room, but to understand my meaning, I have to take you back to when I first met Daughter.

  “Make yourselves comfortable: the story is long, and I intend to tell it as fully as I can.” He paused to gather his thoughts, staring at the ceiling. “I’m going to take you back in time, 13 years back. At the time, I had never imagined meeting a Knight of the Realm, let alone a Queen and her First Knight. Such people were far, far above my place. I was sixteen years old, a beggar with no official name, a boy with lofty aspirations . . .”

  Part Two – Val’s Story

  Chapter Thirty-six: Beggar

  A red dot flashed in the upper left-hand corner of his pad, then went quiescent. Darn! The timing was bad. He had just returned from the port and was deep into a physics problem. But he never ignored an incoming call: his business demanded instant response day or night. He pressed the red dot, and a coded text message appeared. Bodan needed him right away.

  Val ran a hand through the tangles of his shaggy hair and sighed. Though he never inquired about the nature of deliveries he made, he knew that Bodan specialized in some of the most egregious activities. He disliked Bodan, but Bodan paid well.

  Val acknowledged the message and pushed his chair back from the table. He stood up, tucking the crutch into his left armpit while his right hand folded the pad and tucked it into a pocket. In moments he was through the door and headed up-tube. The hour was yet early and it was dark within the tube, the only light coming from shacks whose occupants had completed their nightly rounds. Val checked briefly on Mr. Wyzcha as he passed, but he wasn’t home.

  Old, unused tracks led him up a gentle incline to the outside. There, as always, Val looked first to the sky for ships arriving or leaving. This morning was quiet, though that could change quickly. The planet, Hespra III, was district headquarters for this part of the Sector, and Yngsport, its capital city, was a busy place. Everything from traders to cruise ships and military ships of every description called regularly and at all times of day or night.

  Behind him Dolphi, the large moon, brightened the night enough to cast shadows while Roga, the small red moon speeding across the sky in a much lower orbit, added a dusky hue to the surroundings. Most visitors complained when Roga added its bloody taint to the night, but it was all Val had ever known, and to him it offered comfort.

  The tunnel opened onto a wide expanse of barren rubble, leftover remains of buildings demolished when the tracks went out of use. To his left, a glow lit the night sky half a mile away at the port. Bright lights flooded the port during the hours of darkness, but out here among the warehouses, only places doing business were lit. The temperature had dropped a few degrees during the hour he’d been home, but his shorts and light shirt would see him through until the sun came up. Then the temperature would climb quickly, becoming very hot by mid-afternoon, though he would likely sleep through the hottest part of the day.

  Val scuttled toward the port, and also toward the concealment offered by shadows among the buildings. He didn’t need to hide, but it had become second nature to him to be seen only when he chose to be seen, particularly when a delivery was involved.

  He moved sprightly despite his missing leg. He had no recollection of life with two legs, and he did not feel hindered in any way. His only concern was that the missing leg might complicate his entrance to the Academy. Fleet Command recruited from virtually every world of the Empire, and species with no legs had just as good a chance of getting in as those with many legs. Val’s number of legs was not the issue – the issue was that he was supposed to have one more leg. The rules seemed ambiguous to him, and he had no way of knowing the truth until he presented himself for examination.

  Mr. Wyzcha believed he stood a fair chance, provided he did not shirk his studies. In fact, it was Mr. Wyzcha who had planted the idea that Val try for the Fleet. Mr. Wyzcha’s tales of traveling the galaxy aboard great ships of the Fleet, tales of duty and honor and adventure as an Imperial Marine in service to the Empire, had called to Val, called strongly, and he had come to share in Mr. Wyzcha’s ideals, though his plan to become a starship pilot was his own. The stars called to him. He would not travel those stars as a passenger as Mr. Wyzcha had. He would be the pilot.

  One thing was certain in Val’s mind: he would reach for the stars, nothing less, and to him there could never b
e anything more. One way or another he would be a star pilot.

  Mr. Wyzcha refused to explain how circumstances had taken him from a senior sergeant in the Imperial Marines to a nobody. Why he now lived in a shack in the old tunnel was a mystery to Val, but he sensed a rightness in Mr. Wyzcha that he found nowhere else, and that sense of rightness called to him. Everything Val did, from his studies to his begging to his running, he did to the best of his ability, as exemplified by Mr. Wyzcha.

  Traffic was light as Val scuttled along in a fast, ground-eating ballet of crutch and right leg, crutch and right leg. To anyone watching, his gait looked like that of a drunken sailor as his body lurched from side to side, but it was his preferred pace when time was short.

  A heavy hauler passed silently overhead and landed before a warehouse a block in front of him. Lights came on automatically to illuminate the area in front of the building, and Val turned left into a darkened space between warehouses before continuing toward the port. On the next street over, a taxi passed a few meters above his head at a routinely high speed and was quickly lost to sight by the tops of intervening buildings, but Val paid it little attention, just noting that it was headed toward the port.

  The neighborhood changed dramatically a few blocks from the port. He entered the land of spacers and his pulse quickened, knowing that someday he would be one of them. Restaurants serving every imaginable kind of food, saloons catering to every taste, and houses of ill repute catering to those same varied tastes lined the street. Most had garish signs before them, beckoning to crewmen who might have anywhere from a few hours to a few days of shore leave before heading back into space on a months-long voyage.

  Hidden among them a few smaller establishments chose to keep a low profile. Those few, including Bodan’s restaurant-bordello, did not feel the need to advertise.

  The occasional taxi whooshed quietly overhead, though few stopped here. Wealthy passengers rarely transgressed this domain. This was spacer’s territory, and spacers usually walked the few blocks from the port. The hour was early, or very, very late depending on your perspective, but aliens of every description walked or sauntered or slithered through the throngs, some dressed in uniforms while others, clearly from some of the less reputable traders, looked more like pirates. Many prominently displayed weapons, usually blasters or stunners. This was not an area that depended on civilized behavior to resolve disputes. Perhaps because of that, the area was essentially free of violent crime. Hawkers wandered purposely advertising their wares, usually vociferously, though depending on what they had for sale, they might just attempt eye contact, then speak privately. Smells from the restaurants, combined with a healthy mix of body odors, pervaded the senses, and Val reveled in the wash of smells. This was his home, the only home he’d ever known. The smells brought rumblings from his stomach, but he would eat later, possibly even in one of these taverns if Bodan’s delivery proved sufficiently lucrative.