The Game Players of Meridien: Chronicles of the Second Empire (Chronicles of the Second Interstellar Empire of Mankind Book 1)

by Robert I. Katz

  I smiled. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

  She considered that for a moment then shrugged. “If you say so.”

  A single car was parked at the far end of the lot. The few rows in front of it were empty, leaving a large, open space, sufficient for a group of men to maneuver. I sampled the air, smiled and stepped forward.

  “Oliver,” a voice said, oily, and thick with satisfaction.

  They had trailed us through the lot, drifting like smoke between the shadows, DeLaney and his five men. I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, considering. He stepped out from between two vehicles. He was tall. I knew that, of course. It pays to know one’s enemy and I had studied Erik DeLaney and his career. His shoulders were broad and he outweighed me by at least twenty kilograms. His men spread out across the cleared area.

  I sighed. “What do you want, Erik?”

  “Satisfaction. I have a score to settle with you.” His smile was wide and gloating.

  “And just how do you plan on accomplishing that?”

  His eyes flicked to Jennifer. “Physical punishment will suffice.”

  “Hmm…and do you plan on inflicting this punishment yourself, or will your lackeys need to hold me down?”

  His smile grew wider. “I’m not expecting to need any help. I’ll even make it fair.” He spread his hands out to the sides. “See, no weapons.”

  His men did have weapons but they hadn’t drawn them. I suppose they assumed that six to two would be sufficient to prevent us from running off.

  “And the security cameras?” The parking garage, though not Guild property, was always under surveillance.

  “They’ve been disabled.”

  “My, you have been busy.”

  An almost inaudible click sounded as a gun cocked. They all heard it and all of them froze. I shook my head. “What a bunch of clowns,” I said.

  My men stepped out of the shadows, all twenty of them, guns held firmly in their hands.

  “Boss?” one of DeLaney’s men said.

  “Clowns,” I said again.

  DeLaney stood unmoving. His nostrils flared. His face grew red. I looked at him for a long moment, considering. “By the way,” I said. “The security cameras? They’ve been re-enabled.”

  DeLaney truly was an idiot. With his challenge already withdrawn, he had lost the game. The rules at this point were clear. He could issue a new challenge, if he chose, but juvenile tantrums and unsanctioned violence were not to be tolerated. If I chose to put a bullet in his head, I could do so without hesitation and the system would protect me. A few might consider such a response excessive but it was, without a doubt, within the rules.

  What was the phrase? Evolution in action, a very old concept…yes, removing Erik DeLaney from the gene pool would be doing future generations a favor.

  It was a lovely idea in its way and I did briefly consider it, but…no.

  “I’m going to give you what you wanted,” I said.

  DeLaney blinked.

  I stepped forward. “None of my men will interfere. You wanted a shot at me? Go ahead. Now’s your chance.”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes and gave a small sigh. I turned to DeLaney’s men. “Step back, all of you.”

  With at least three guns trained on each of them, they didn’t argue. They stepped back. We had plenty of room.

  DeLaney smiled and I punched him in the face. His head reared back and his lip split but he didn’t go down. I hadn’t expected him to. I had calibrated the punch carefully. My hands were unprotected. A lot of bony structures in the head; a punch hard enough to knock him out would likely have damaged my hand.

  He shook his head, glared at me and charged. DeLaney was a strong, which didn’t mean he wasn’t also fast, but he wasn’t as fast as me, not nearly. I slid to the side, elbowed him in the ribs and kicked him behind the knee as I turned.

  This time, he went down but he flipped over and bounced back to his feet. He looked at me, his breath coming faster.

  “Did you think this would be easy, Erik? Really?”

  Apparently, he did. I had studied DeLaney. He employed an instructor, just as I did, but he had never fought competitively beyond a couple of school exhibitions. He seemed to be pretty good, and I was fine with that. At the moment, I liked it. I had a lot of pent up aggression to work off.

  “Give up?” I said.

  He didn’t answer. He came in, bobbing and weaving, throwing punches. I deflected them off my forearms and retreated, getting in a counter blow or two, letting him expend some energy. He jumped, twisted in mid-air and aimed a kick at my head. I ducked underneath his leg. He completed the turn, coming up with his opposite leg in a circle kick that missed my abdomen by a hair.

  He bounced a little on his feet and feinted a backhand to my head. I ignored it, then flicked a fist of my own toward his head, which he deflected. He threw four more punches, all bouncing off my forearms, then a kick aimed at my knee, but my knee wasn’t there.

  I chuckled. I couldn’t help it.

  DeLaney snarled, feinted left, then came in swinging. I got one hand on his forearm and another on his shoulder but he turned into me, connected with a fist to my side and went with the momentum, forcing me down. He came back up toward my head with his other elbow. I let go, turned and trapped his opposite wrist. He flipped over, a smart move because his wrist would have broken if he hadn’t, and landed on his feet.

  He really wasn’t bad, much better than I had expected.

  We circled, each looking for an opening, for a moment of hesitation to exploit. He came in, jumped, circled, landed lightly on his feet and jumped again, each time aiming roundhouse kicks at my abdomen. None landed.

  DeLaney was in good shape but he had used up a lot of energy and his breath was whistling through his teeth. I came in, faster than he had anticipated and spun into a series of circle kicks. He managed to evade the first one, then my foot connected with the side of his head. He tried to shake it off but it had been a solid hit. He staggered, disoriented. This was the point where a referee would have stepped in and stopped the fight but there were no referees here. This wasn’t a game.

  He grimaced and blinked his eyes and I jumped, torqueing my body and then he was down with both my legs around his torso. I slithered up, trapped his extended elbow and leveraged it against my knee. DeLaney screamed as the elbow snapped. I rolled over, got to my feet and looked down at him, cradling his broken arm, rocking back and forth. The fight was over.

  “Here’s how it’s going to be,” I said. “I already own a third of DeLaney, Incorporated. You’re going to sell me the rest of your shares, at a fifty percent discount from the market. I’ll keep quiet about this, but if you ever give me any trouble again, I’ll release the tapes. Clear?”

  The Guild Council would not be as generous with him as I had been. He knew that. He nodded, all the fight gone out of him.

  “Come to my office in the morning. We’ll sign the paperwork.”

  I turned to Jennifer, who had quietly watched the fight. “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  She grinned. “A little more excitement than I’d counted on,” she said.

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Chapter 12

  The money I paid for information turned out to be well spent. We knew all about DeLaney’s little plan and I had blanketed the area around the Guild Hall. We knew when DeLaney arrived with his men. My people saw them disarm the cameras and take up their position in the garage. I almost felt sorry for DeLaney but nobody talked him into being a jackass and he deserved everything he got.

  The drive back to my building was almost silent. Jennifer lay her head back and closed her eyes, a little smile on her lips. It was drizzling, not enough to make driving difficult, but the rain made it seem like a warm little cocoon inside the car. I liked the way the streetlights glittered through the mist. I glanced at Jennifer now and then but she seemed to be dozing and I was content to drive. We pulled into the underground lot and I parked
in my assigned space. When the car finally stopped, Jennifer drew a deep breath, opened her eyes and sleepily stretched. “Did I fall asleep?” she asked.

  “It seemed so, yes.”

  “I don’t usually do that.” She looked around. “Where are we?”

  “My building.” I cleared my throat. “Would you like to come up?”

  She looked at me and a slow smile crossed her lips. “Sure,” she said.

  I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Good.”

  She gave me an amused, speculative look. “It’s been an exciting evening.” Her lips twitched upward. “So far at least.”

  “And it’s not even over,” I said.

  She laughed, a low, husky laugh and I felt my heart beat a little faster. “No,” she said. “It isn’t.”

  My relationship with Jennifer moved quickly after that. Within a few weeks, we were spending most of our nights together. Her apartment was a lot smaller than mine and located in the center of the city, where lights sometimes flickered through the windows at night and the muted hum of traffic was ever-present. I liked my place better. I had the entire seventeenth floor of the Hutchinson Tower, a century old building, thirty stories high, that loomed over the harbor and offered a panoramic view of the ships coming and going down below and the sea off in the distance.

  I had plenty of space and Jennifer took a small room of her own for a private office. That was fine with me. I liked having her around.

  The attacks from our secret organization seemed to fade away as the interest of various governments became engaged. I knew, without being informed of any details, that things were happening. It was, I have no doubt, a battle fought in the shadows, but despite the Guild Master’s promise, I received no information, not at first, but perhaps there was nothing to know. And truthfully, compared to the size of even our one small nation, let alone the world, there had not been so very many of these raids; six in Meridien of which they were certain, perhaps thirty-five others across the continent.

  And so the consortium to which I sold my shares in Sindara made their plans but what those plans might be was not immediately apparent. Sindara was the largest island in the Aerean Archipelago, which was a part of Finlandia, a medium sized nation hugging the coast of the Northern continent. Finlandia was mostly desert, its population sparse, its economy dependent upon deposits of opals and diamonds laid down millions of years ago in extinct volcanic vents. Its government was a parliament elected from and by its nation’s landowners, with a hereditary Imperator as Chief Executive. Aside from this, Finlandia’s laws regarding property were simple and much the same as Meridien’s, but without the legally sanctioned option to declare challenge and try to take it all away.

  A few weeks after I sold my shares, a small fortified base appeared on Sindara’s Eastern coast. Military boats with able looking crews and deck mounted machine guns began to patrol the surrounding waters. Signs appeared on the beach, warning off any sightseers. The plans that I had filed, for apartments, luxury resorts and a casino, were re-filed with the government of Finlandia, under the name Regal Property Management. Regal was a well known, highly respected firm. When questioned, Regal’s executive board freely admitted that they were acting as agents for other entities who wished to remain anonymous. Construction was to begin in another month, at the end of the rainy season. Clarion Enterprises and Graham Reid received a contract to supply materials.

  I stewed for a week or so over my losses in Sindara, consoled only somewhat by my victory over Erik DeLaney, then tried to put it out of my mind. It was over. I had lost a battle and won another but the war was still ongoing and for the moment at least, it would go on without me. I tried to tell myself that this was just as well. It wasn’t my game, not any more, not yet. Sit back. Let events play out and tend to business. Having Jennifer around helped.

  It wasn’t difficult to blend the assets of DeLaney, Incorporated into Oliver Enterprises. I left the main corporate structure intact, fired the CEO, a marginally competent cousin of DeLaney’s, promoted his aide into the position and assigned Benedict to go over the books, which thankfully were clean. I downsized the construction division, since it duplicated much of what I already owned and I wanted to pay off the debt that DeLaney had accumulated. DeLaney himself took his remaining funds and retired to the life of a dissolute playboy. He still had enough money to assume the role and frankly, he was probably happier. Certainly, he was a lousy executive.

  A couple of weeks later, Jennifer and I walked into a club near the river called Meridien Blue. The place was very old with a format that hadn’t changed in nearly a century. A clean, well-appointed room with comfortable chairs, solid wooden tables and a long bar running the entire length of the wall opposite a low, wooden stage. The wait-staff was young and good looking. The food was excellent. They played jazz, with a little blues and some classic rock thrown into the mix.

  Jazz, when it first came into being, all those thousands of years ago, was the music of the young and the hip, edgy and faintly disreputable. By the time rock and roll arrived, fifty years later, jazz had turned into the music of the past and the old. It never entirely faded away, though. It went underground, re-grew its roots as something cool and avant-garde and roared back onto the scene, and then it faded away again, over and over and over.

  Seven thousand years offered a lot of music to choose from.

  The lights were bright enough to read the menus but otherwise kept low. We were greeted at the front door and shown to our table while the first band set up on stage, a standard quintet; keyboard, drums, electric bass, saxophone and trumpet. “Your server will be right with you, sir,” the host said.

  Jennifer looked around the room, curious. “I’ve heard of this place,” she said.

  “Its popularity comes and goes,” I said. “Right now, it’s popular. I hope you like it.”

  She smiled and waved at somebody behind us. I turned around. Jolene Sebastian sat at a table with two other women I didn’t recognize. They already had drinks and small appetizer plates spread out in front of them. Jolene held her drink up in a toast and smiled at me. I cautiously nodded back.

  We gave our order and the food arrived a few minutes later. The band started with “Night Train,” a very, very old standard, a twelve-bar blues with a catchy rhythm. A good choice, I thought; it got the audience into the music fast. The band was solid. They were in synch with each other, letting first one, then another take the lead, each of them knowing when to carry the music and when to step back. I was impressed. They followed up with “All or Nothing at All,” which was never one of my favorites and I didn’t think it worked without a vocalist. These guys were going way, way back but they followed up with “Starlight,” a standard from three thousand years later and finished off their set with two tunes I didn’t recognize but which had me tapping my feet.

  Jennifer concentrated on the music, watching the band with a wide smile. She barely picked at her food.

  The place had filled up while the first band played. From the corner of my eye, I noted three big guys standing at the bar. They were well dressed and wore pins on their collars. I recognized the pins: three quarter circles overlaid with small, golden swords. I grimaced; Bhukarins, members of a faction dedicated to the overthrow of the Guild system. So far, they had done nothing overtly illegal but their membership was growing and the Council was still debating what to do about them.

  The club provided its own security and the challenges against me were officially over. I hadn’t taken an escort and suddenly, I regretted that. But the three men seemed to have no interest in me, or indeed in anything other than the music and I tried to put them out of my mind. I still felt the spot between my shoulder blades itching, though.

  Jennifer noticed. “Something bothering you?”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  She frowned, not looking at me. I followed her gaze. “Oh, shit,” I muttered.

  Jennifer raised her eyebrows. “She’s stari
ng at us,” Jennifer said. “Who is she?”

  “Someone I know.” Someone I wanted nothing to do with. Laura. Laura Jones. She stared at me, her face wrinkling into a crooked smile. She gave Jennifer a frown. She was sitting next to someone else I wanted nothing to do with, Graham Reid, who gave a little laugh and also smiled in my direction. He picked up Laura’s hand and nibbled on the tip of her index finger, staring at me while he did so. Laura blushed, then glanced back at me with what might have been satisfaction in her gaze.

  “She doesn’t like you,” Jennifer said. “Neither does he.”

  “They’ll get over it,” I said. Frankly, Graham Reid’s actions bewildered me. Did he think that I might be jealous? I shuddered.

  Jennifer grinned. “Bad memories?”

  “You might say that.”

  Jennifer gave Laura a frank appraisal and then shrugged. “She’s very pretty.”

  “She’s ugly on the inside.” I wasn’t jealous. I was annoyed. I looked at Jennifer. Her eyes were dancing. “Enjoying yourself?” I asked.

  “Very much,” she said. “The food is good. The music is great. The entertainment’s not bad, either.”

  I grunted. “Oh, you’re a real riot.”

  She smiled and rose to her feet. “I think I’ll go and wash my hands before the next set starts. Be right back.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jolene get up. She gave me a wolfish smile, walked over and sat down at our table, both of her friends in tow. “Douglas,” she said. “How are you?”

  I blinked at her. “I’m fine,” I said.

  She frowned. “Don’t be like that. Leon is sorry. We both want you to forgive him.”

  I looked down at my drink and grimaced, feeling a little ganged up on. One of the other women was a pretty, plump redhead with generous breasts that spilled out of her dress. The other was a thin, well-built blonde. Both were listening to the conversation with predatory smiles on their faces. “This is Theresa Reynolds and Lois Chapman,” Jolene said. Both women smiled wider.

  “Ladies,” I said.