The Gilded Cage

by Blaze Ward

  But to do that, he would turn into the thing he despised most: a pirate.

  Javier had given that man, Sokolov, his word. All Javier had now, besides Suvi, was his honor, hard–fought coin of the realm. He wasn’t going to just throw that away, even in his own mind. Not for those people.

  Wilhelmina had at least backed off, sensing his troubles with her feminine ways. Not that he was much more complicated than a mud puddle, according to his second ex–wife. But he wasn’t himself.

  They had made it through two full days of each other’s company, living in each other’s pockets. As honeymoons went, not bad.

  Now the hard part. Meehu Platform.

  Something woke her.

  Wilhelmina rolled onto her side to look at him. The change from her normally red hair to a dark chestnut brown was jarring. It made her look like someone else, which was the goal, but it also made them strangers, sharing a bed and nothing more. That might not have been the worst choice.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  For what was left unsaid. It could cover any multitude of sins, real or imagined. Who knew what Sykora had told her? Or rather, how much?

  He nodded. It wasn’t her fault he was being like this. She was just the reminder. How far they had fallen from imagined glory. What he had become. What still awaited him when he got back to Storm Gauntlet.

  Some of the cold bled out of him. He felt his shoulders lower.

  Wilhelmina patted the empty spot beside her. She stretched in distractingly–interesting ways. He noticed. She noticed.

  “Come to bed,” she said in a tone that left little ambiguity.

  “I’m still not sure that’s a good idea,” he replied.

  “This isn’t about you, mister,” she said, iron steeling her voice. “I haven’t gotten laid in either six months, or five centuries, depending on how you want to count it. I have needs and you’re going to help. I have no interest in anything more serious than a good roll in the hay, right now.”

  Javier nodded. He even smiled a little as he stood up and started to strip off his t–shirt.

  This was a woman who got him.

  BOOK SIX: NAVARRE

  Part One

  Abraam Tamaz smiled at the view, laid out before him like a buffet.

  The room was plain. Gray walls, fluorescent lights, metal floor.

  Sterile. Antiseptic.

  The woman before him was not beautiful in the classical sense. She was 2.1 meters tall and built more like a man, with broad shoulders and muscles and thighs that masked the lovely, small breasts and trim waist in a cloak of false masculinity. A strong jaw and boring nose were redeemed by a spray of cute freckles. He could count nine holes in her left ear, where bangles had been removed. Her hair was the unmistakable hue of mud, clipped very short on the sides and normally standing upright in a vaguely–stylish mohawk.

  Today, it was slicked back with sweat and pain.

  Tamaz stepped back to get a better look at this woman, this prisoner, his prize.

  She had been carefully, lovingly strapped to a modified hospital bed, her feet on his left and her head below his right hand. An intravenous drip in her left arm kept her hydrated and mildly hallucinating. Not bad, just enough to keep her tractable.

  A strap was across her mouth. Not to keep her from screaming. She would never show pain. No, this was to keep her from unknowingly biting her tongue off in her agony. She might need it later.

  Enough straps had been employed to keep even Djamila Sykora from moving more than two millimeters, to say nothing of getting free. He would have it no other way. Were she to escape, they would probably be forced to kill her, if for no other reason than to keep her from killing all of them.

  Still, her angular, nude form was perfection itself. He paused to marvel at the taut, rippling stomach. The only men he knew with abs like that were professional models. Even the identity tattoo on the side of the ribcage closest to him was the beautiful statement of a powerful, independent woman.

  She seemed to be composed of nothing but formidable muscle. Abraam Tamaz prided himself on being strong and fit, but he knew that she could out–lift him in any method, any machine he chose, as well as outrun him in full pack, and probably out–shoot him with any weapon, although that would be a matter he would have liked to test, if he could have trusted her with a loaded pistol.

  Still, he lusted over this woman, all the more so because such perfection was denied to him. Oh, he could take her, but she would never know, right now. And while there were drugs he could introduce that would allow her conscious thought while he did so, she would still not give herself willingly.

  At least, not yet.

  Tamaz studied the wires coming from a device above her head. He traced them to little disks attached to her ears, her forehead, her neck, her nipples, her belly, her wrists, her ankles. They almost looked like tiny vines sprouting from her body. Except these were pouring electricity into her body, instead of nutrients.

  Not enough to drive her mad. Oh no. Not her.

  At least, not yet.

  Just enough to…call it negative reinforcement. She would not come willingly. She might yet be broken to the bit, given enough time.

  He was a patient man.

  Tamaz nodded to the man who had been lurking nearly invisibly behind the device at Sykora’s head. The man had a look of the mad scientist about him, shaved–bald head, spectacles for reading, squishy paunch, white lab coat.

  In his mind, Tamaz always referred to the man as Igor, regardless of his medical degrees and schooling. After all, once you have been stripped of such honors for ethical and criminal convictions, can you really still call yourself a doctor?

  Tamaz supposed that made him Dr. Frankenstein.

  He always preferred Blackbeard, himself, especially once his rook–black hair began to silver in a way that seemed to make him more attractive to the fairer sex.

  He looked down sourly.

  Not that she would ever smile at him.

  Igor turned a dial on the front of his machine. Tamaz was astounded, as always, when the nearly subconscious hum faded. The machine made him tense.

  Sykora relaxed as well, but that was an end to the electricity torturing her nerve clusters. Her muscles softened from the absolute tension they had held. Even her nipples faded from their peaks.

  Tamaz nodded again.

  Igor opened a small vial of liquid beneath Sykora’s nose. Even from here, it was foul enough to wake the dead.

  Sykora stirred.

  Her eyes had blinked occasionally, while under the rush of electrical pain, but that had been an autonomous function.

  Now, there was cognition in there, slowly dawning.

  Tamaz watched as those brilliant green eyes came to focus on the ceiling above her. After a moment, she found him standing there.

  The opposite of love is not hatred. It is apathy. There is no apathy there. Now we just need to transform the passion.

  Djamila Sykora came back to herself, back to him, from whatever place she retreated to in the face of his onslaught.

  “It is not too late, my love,” he crooned to her softly. “You have it in you to end the pain. All you must do is surrender to me.”

  She was not broken yet. But he knew that. The subtle way her lip and nose curled into a sneer around her gag made that evident.

  But he could still try. She might yet acquiesce, before things were required to reach the ultimate stage.

  Her Prince Charming, her Captain, would come soon to rescue her.

  He could not bear to leave her in the hands of someone like Tamaz, where her purity might be sullied.

  No, it would simply be necessary to kill Zakhar Sokolov. And to do it in front of her.

  Make her watch, make her plead, make her suffer. Combined with the torture and the drugs, that should be enough to break her.

  A broken Sykora would not be as good as a willing Sykora, but he could settle for half a loaf, especially one as magnificent a
s her.

  “Sokolov is coming for you, dear Djamila,” he continued, in the kind of voice you used on frightened animals.

  Her eyes flared as the words penetrated her inner being.

  Was that hope? Fear? Love?

  Whatever it was, bringing it to the surface was just one more step on the path to breaking her, to taking her, to owning her.

  Tamaz physically stopped himself from licking his lips at the thought of a pliant Sykora, offering up her core, her self, her womanness, to him.

  Soon. Very soon, his vengeance would be at hand.

  Tamaz nodded at Igor, silent and unobtrusive as ever. The man spun the dial back into the sixth setting.

  Tamaz felt a spear of lust pass through him as her toes curled under, her back tried to arch, her nipples reached for the heavens. But never a sound passed her lips.

  First I will have my revenge on Sokolov, my love. And then you.

  Part Two

  Meehu Platform. An ugly, geo–synced, misshapen metal donut orbiting an otherwise–worthless planet of the same name, in an unfashionable corner of space where the Concord tended to bleed into vagueness and three other political entities lacked the oomph to exert their will.

  Javier didn’t know the place all that well, but word got around. There were always stories about a place like this.

  Mostly, the tales were far more exciting and exotic than the reality would turn out to be. Pirate stations always sounded cool, but usually turned out to be rather seedy, like the bad part of a bad town where you were likely to be rolled for spare change.

  The Platform was a few degrees better than that. Maybe. It was certainly run by a fearsome oligarchy of merchants–cum–pirate/smugglers who understood the need for a place where there were some rules, and where people could relax, without worrying about the authorities showing up. They weren’t the kinds of rules you found in nicer establishments, but there were rules.

  Meehu Platform’s claim to fame was the level of absolute ruthlessness behind the enforcement of the code of conduct. If you broke the rules, you paid a fine, scale dependent on your error. And you might also be banned from the station for a number of years that usually turned out to be longer than most people wanted to wait. Rarely was anyone executed. You tended to run out of paying customers if you did that.

  And Meehu Platform was all about paying customers.

  If you had a need, and the cash, almost nothing was impossible to acquire. Chickens had taken him some time, once upon a yesterday, but that was because they weren’t illegal. It was simply that nobody carried them in stock.

  Someone had gone off to find them and retrieve them, so they could sell them in turn to a wandering scout on a Concord Fleet Survey contract.

  Javier smiled to himself. Everyone had assumed that he’d never been here, because they hadn’t bothered to ask him.

  Behind him, he could hear Wilhelmina finishing the last touches of her outfit, but he was concentrating on the station ahead of them.

  I mean, how many people are crazy enough, or dumb enough to return a place like Meehu Platform in a ship they stole from here in the first place?

  That would work to his advantage. People here were supposed to be smart. Nobody would be that dumb, so the authorities wouldn’t pay that close attention if he didn’t draw their attention.

  Javier had spent a great deal of time, over the last few days, working on electronics. Suvi was rebuilt. Or rather, her little flitter was faster, smarter, and had enough spare storage to keep her in movies and books for about a year at the speed she usually went through stuff. A couple of centuries for him.

  At the same time, Javier had exercised his paranoid demons by running through the little yacht’s engines and computers. The system on the ship was stupid. He had owned smarter dogs. But he had traced every line of logic in the computer and identified all the places where a cop might look for serial numbers or other identifying marks. And a few other spots where he would have looked. And then finally he had asked Suvi to attack it from the electronic end.

  All was fixed. She had even found a file that simply told a police computer where to look for a serial number that had been hand–etched with some sort of power–tool by the original owner. It didn’t, anymore, after Javier had gotten into the engine well himself and flash–welded over it. Sure, a forensic specialist could probably tease the numbers and letters up, but if they were already that suspicious, he was a dead man.

  “What do you think?” Wilhelmina asked invitingly.

  Javier turned and looked up at her. And then remembered to pick his jaw up off the deck. Twice.

  Tall. Long legs poured into pointy–toed, high–heeled boots that came up past her knees. In a color of sparkly, bright purple that was almost mesmerizing to look at. More mesmerizing than she was

  Cream–colored tights that showed off the powerful thigh muscles she had obviously been working on since her long nap.

  A belted tunic, dangling just past her bottom as she slowly spun in place, showing off. He would have sworn it was chamois, it had that feel. It was the color of doves in a fog.

  Around her waist, a fancy sash/girdle/belt/thingee in a black so dark that is seemed to absorb light. Because he had convinced her that pirates always wore fancy sashes. Every movie agreed on that.

  Glossy black leather bandoliers attached to a brass ring that rested exactly between her breasts, at the level of her nipples, and focused the eyes on the deep V of her top, straining to hold those breasts in. She had nice breasts, struggling to be free.

  It took several moments to remember she had a face. A layer of makeup base had washed out all her freckles, making her seem vaguely Egyptian, an effect she heightened with the brown eye–liner and color. Blood red lips that made her look like a night creature. Mixed with the now–dark hair, she was someone else. And most men would never make it that far north, anyway, to actually see her face. He certainly didn’t feel that great of a need.

  “Ahem,” she said, not exactly disgruntled, but obviously feeling a bit objectified as he stared at her tits.

  Tough, lady. You’re about to visit a station full of people who will want to kill us. Get used to being a moll.

  Javier smiled. His own outfit was nowhere near as impressive. He wanted them paying attention to Wilhelmina Teague, or Hadiiye, as she was now going to be known.

  He smiled even broader. Very few people in this sector would know enough Turkish to realize her name roughly meant Guide. Fitting for a one–time Shepherd of the Word.

  “Very nice,” he replied. “Nobody will even remember what I look like.”

  “He might like boys exclusively, you know,” she answered tartly.

  “Men are visual creatures, Hadiiye,” Javier leered expansively. “Even then, he’d lust.”

  She blushed, even through the makeup.

  Javier knew that the Shepherds took a variety of vows: poverty, obedience, chastity. That sort of thing. But she had also explained to him, lying in the darkness, covered with sweat, that those were generally more suggestions designed to keep a proper seeker on the path, rather than rules designed for monastic lifestyle. She could still enjoy a good steak, or a good tumble, but those were things for the body, not for the soul.

  He disagreed wholeheartedly. They were very good for the soul.

  “Stand up, you,” she said finally with an impatient snap of her fingers. “I wanna see.”

  Javier rose.

  He had refined her original vision for a blood–thirsty pirate bad–ass, but not in the direction she had intended. It was more like a troupe of Shakespeareans done in street–gang motif.

  Twenty–ring lace up boots in glossy neo–leather, with curb–stomping soles and hull–metal toes. Bright red laces all the way up and double–knotted.

  Knee–length britches out of dark maroon corduroy, with heavy leather combat padding along the outer edge in case someone out of a Chop–sockey movie kicked him.

  Sixteen centimeter tall leather belt
around his middle, with a canary–yellow sash tied around that. Much fancier than hers. Just because.

  Sleeveless doublet in that same maroon corduroy, but with two rows of buttons that ran from the inside of his hips to the middle of his collar–bones. Underneath, a startlingly white long sleeve shirt.

  The woman across from him had pointed out that he had the shoulders to pull a doublet off. Javier just had rarely felt the need. But this was Halloween. He could do this level of costume partying for a few days and not feel silly.

  Not very silly.

  Just for the hell of it, a cloth was tied around his head, with a Neu Berne Assault Marine logo in the middle. Sykora would appreciate that last bit. He needed a little bit of silly on his side, to balance things out before they got too dark.

  A dress sword and flash pistol balanced themselves on either side. Javier could barely use the pistol. And if it came to blades with anyone who knew what they were doing, Javier was a Christmas turkey waiting to be carved on.

  Hadiiye, Wilhelmina, whistled, gesturing for him to turn in place as she had done.

  “Honestly,” she said with a wink as he finished. “You should consider that as a permanent look.”

  Javier gave her his best stink–eye scowl, but kept himself from drifting back into that hard place where he had been.

  “It would be wasted on the rest of the crew,” he said. “And you won’t be around to reward me appropriately.”

  She blushed again. Harder this time. But didn’t comment.

  “So if I’m Hadiiye,” she asked after a beat, “who are you?”

  “I am Navarre,” he announced with an air of dangerous menace. “The first King of Navarre, back on Earth, was an Aritza.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I did learn a few things in history class, lady,” Javier replied.

  He took a deep breath and felt the seriousness begin to take hold of him, like darkness creeping in at sunset.