Graveyard of Empires

by Lincoln Cole

  The ringing finally diminished. He brushed the half-eaten pastry off the armrest, no longer hungry, and pressed a button on his communicator. “Send someone in to clean up this mess,” he said. “And two glasses of water.”

  He didn’t wait for a response before clicking the communicator off again. He stretched and looked down at the Captain below. The man’s blood was pooling. Bits of his brain matter and gore from his skull were covering the remaining pair of Keepers, who were cowering. Darius walked down to them and eyed them slowly.

  “I thought we weren’t going to kill him,” Darius said.

  Alyssa shrugged. “Not originally.”

  “I thought he would serve as an example. Send him back to the First Citizen properly cowed. A warning. What changed your mind?”

  “He wasn’t worth the effort,” Alyssa replied. “He was a coward. It barely even took a suggestion to get him to do it.” She was sitting at the bottom of the stairs now, rubbing her temples. “He didn’t even fight back. I could have made him dance before shooting himself.”

  “Did you make him wet himself?” Darius asked, glancing down and stepping around the mingling puddles.

  Alyssa chuckled.

  “No. He did that by himself.”

  “You’re right, though. He was easy to read. I got all of his passcodes and command sequences. Did we secure his ships?”

  “The entire crew is being checked already. They surrendered almost immediately. Our logistics officer said he thinks fifty thousand soldiers might remain loyal after his ‘vetting’ process. It should take a few months, though, to accomplish.”

  “So many?” Darius asked. He’d expected about twenty thousand to make it through his rigorous tests. He needed to stamp out problems. He didn’t like the idea of executing so many, but he needed to make sure that he only kept soldiers he could trust.

  And that he made his point. The point was everything. These men might be loyal from pride or trust one day. In the meantime, fear would have to do.

  “That’s just an estimate. He’ll give you final figures in a few weeks.”

  “What about your sister? Is she making any progress? It would be nice to recruit some loyal troops and start causing real damage. I’m sure they would be more than willing to fight.”

  Alyssa stood up and sidled over to Darius, wrapping her arms around him. “So curious about my sister? Perhaps I can take your mind off of dear Maven.”

  “Perhaps,” Darius agreed.

  Already a cleaning crew was assembling waiting for them to back away from the mess.

  “Can you believe he tried to offer us Keepers as a gift?”

  “I thought everyone knew you hated them,” she said with a chuckle. “What an arrogant ass, to not even look into your history before coming here. What will you do with them?”

  Darius half turned and cocked an eyebrow. “You have to ask?”

  She shrugged. “It seems like such a waste to kill them.”

  “It’s draconic, I know. But they terrify me. It’s a chilling reminder of what the Ministry had in store for me.”

  “Murdering them seems a rather extreme punishment, though. They did nothing wrong.”

  “You have a better alternative?”

  “Let them live. They are simple. They will never bother you.”

  He turned sharply toward the rest of the servants. “Clean these bodies up. I don’t want a speck of blood left,” he ordered. They sprang into action, grabbing the bodies and swiping mop heads across the floor. He turned to Alyssa. “They will always bother me. Send me a report on your sister.”

  2

  Alyssa glided down the hallway, struggling to keep her face and raging emotions under control. Sometimes she hated Darius. Hated the way he would ignore her. The way he treated her. The way he looked at her sister.

  She walked with purpose, heading through the lobby and servant quarters to a war room they had prepared in the back. She passed several holographic projectors, each showing a different speech Darius made in the last six years throughout Sector Four. Those speeches were getting common viewership even outside Sector Six.

  She stepped into the war room and glanced around. One of her lieutenants was leaning over a table, his scraggly beard hanging from his chin and sweat pouring down his face as he typed furiously on a data pad. She doubted he’d worked so hard in his entire life.

  “Adrian,” she said, her voice sharper than she intended. The man turned to her, a haggard look in his eyes.

  “Yes, ma’am?” he asked, standing up and rubbing his forehead with a bandana.

  “How are the preparations coming?”

  “We have seized all four of Captain Queston’s ships and begun logging inventory. I must say the munitions depot is rather more stocked than anticipated. There are more than sixty-two class G light cruisers in the hangar of the Lady Falla alone. Which is regrettably more than we have of pilots, so we will have to begin training—”

  “Sixty-two?”

  Adrian looked mildly angry at the interruption but said nothing. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How big are they? Do they have warp capabilities?”

  Adrian gestured in frustration. “Big. Several hundred tons apiece. And, yes, they can warp. They are docked inside the warship.”

  “But they can also land on planets?”

  He made and humph sound. Alyssa considered wiping the condescending look—the why are you asking stupid questions?—off Adrian’s face, but decided against it. Right now she was angry, and if she let even an ounce of that frustration out to play, she might not be able to stop.

  “Bring one down here.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, here!” she said vehemently. “And if you question another order I will force you to tear off your own testicles. Bring two, in fact. I want one stored close by. Look for a large abandoned building to hide it, and make sure no one can find it. The other will be my personal transportation. Mark sixty on the report.”

  “Can you fly it?” Adrian asked, his eyes went wide as he realized what he’d said. “No, no, what I meant was do I need to find a pilot to train you as well.”

  “Yes, a pilot to train me would be excellent. Find one who is suitable. Both ships need personal crews to maintain them and keep them in peak condition, in case I have to—” she almost said flee “—leave the planet in a hurry.”

  “Is there anything else you require?” Adrian asked.

  Alyssa thought for a long moment and then let out a long sigh, cursing under her breath. “Yes,” she said. “Send me an update on my bitch of a twin sister.”

  Chapter 16

  Sector 6 – Jaril

  Maven Ophidian

  1

  Maven groaned as the beeping receiver woke her up. She rolled to her side and threw her pillow at the far wall of the officers’ quarters at the sound. It did no good. The beeping continued.

  A glance at her clock told her that eleven hours had passed since she went to sleep. Eleven hours and no one woke me up or killed me in my sleep? I suppose the crew will be loyal yet.

  But even if her mutinous crew aboard Evelyn’s Grace wasn’t suffocating her in her sleep, someone was trying to wake her up.

  She staggered off the plush bed and over to the view screen, rubbing bleariness out of her eyes. She brought the image into focus. It was her sister, Alyssa.

  Maven groaned. If there was anyone she didn’t want to talk to right now, it was her pompous and arrogant sibling.

  She stumbled to the restroom, letting her sister wait. Eventually, Alyssa would give up and record a message. Voice, of course. Not text.

  But that was neither here nor there. Right now Maven was more concerned with dressing and getting out to visit her crew—had she really slept eleven hours?—and see how much damage they had caused.

  None of them liked her. Until a few months ago they all served the First Citizen. When Captain Finch rebelled, he took them with him. Many were loyal to Finch rather than the Republic, and
most of their families lived out on Tellus anyway. For them, not a lot changed in their Chain of Command.

  But it was still a large change. They went from having cozy military jobs in a peaceful era to being enemy number one; couple that with being ordered around by a sixteen-year-old girl who wasn’t even in the military six years ago and they became quite disgruntled.

  But that’s why Darius sent me, she thought with only a touch of bitterness. No man out here would respect Alyssa. She’s too pretty. But they see my oxygen mask and listen to me struggle to breathe; they imagine the terrible scars that lie beneath my hood. They envisage the horrible misshapen creature that I am, the exact antithesis of my sister’s ravishing beauty, and they fear me.

  Right now she needed that fear. It was what kept her in charge if nothing else. And she needed to be in charge. Oh yes, she needed it badly.

  Horrible misshapen creature that she was, she had big dreams.

  2

  When she was finished preparing and putting her breathing mask on, she finally clicked on the communicator. “Alyssa? What do you need?”

  “Is that how you greet your sister?”

  “No, but I thought I’d be polite today.”

  “Darius wants to know how it’s going.”

  “And you as well?”

  “I don’t particularly care.”

  “You can tell him it’s going fine. We arrived at Jaril this morning. They won’t let us land yet.”

  “Then attack them,” Alyssa said. “Enough barrages and they will be loyal.”

  “Enough barrages and no one will be left to be loyal,” she said. “Kind of defeats the purpose.”

  “Just take the damn planet. We gave you a warship.”

  “You mean he gave me a warship,” Maven corrected.

  “Just take the planet, Maven,” Alyssa said. “We need more soldiers.”

  “How did the meeting with Captain Queston go?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh?”

  “Self-inflicted. I might have had something to do with it.”

  Maven laughed. “Well then, I suppose things are going well.”

  “What happens if next time they shoot instead of talk? What are we going to do then? We need more ships.”

  “I’ll get us more ships,” Maven replied. “But I’m going to do it my way.”

  Then she hung up, smiling to herself. She could imagine Alyssa on the other end, scowling.

  “My way,” she reiterated with a sigh. “The right way.”

  Chapter 17

  Sector 6 – Jaril

  Vivian Drowel, Oliver Atchison

  1

  “This is merchant vessel KMV1 Cudgel requesting permission to land,” Vivian intoned into her headset, fingers flicking over the ship’s controls. A few moments passed, followed by a click and then a young woman listed off docking coordinates.

  Vivian dropped her ship through the atmosphere and lowered down to the surface, landing in her designated hangar. Traq sat next to her on the copilot’s chair, eyes wide open as he took in the sights beyond the viewport.

  The city was comprised of muted grays and silver. Skyscrapers reached into the clouds and the roadways were congested with innumerable vehicles. A greasy haze hung in the air, the result of burning fossilized and natural fuels. Primitive technology, low in efficiency, but for many planets it was all they could afford.

  The city reached for the horizon, a good twenty-mile sprawl. It was impressive. Especially to someone like Traq, who’d probably never seen a single building more than twenty stories, let alone an entire city of them.

  The ship came to rest in the dock. Vivian sat still in the pilot’s chair for a few moments, wondering why she was here. It was an impulsive decision, and one likely to get her killed.

  She still felt good, however. Other than his current disbelief at seeing Jaril for the first time, Traq seemed to be relatively unscathed by their recent misadventure on Mali.

  They hadn’t talked much on the flight from Mali to Jaril, and she’d spent most of her time poring over her books. She was determined to learn every scrap of knowledge she could.

  Her communicator flickered to life, and Argus Wade’s face appeared on the console. Traq disappeared, still not used to the giant head appearing on screen.

  Wade watched him disappear from view and then chuckled.

  “Poor kid has so much to learn.”

  “He definitely does,” Vivian said in a resigned tone.

  “So you’re going to take care of him? After last time we spoke…”

  “I’ll train him, but I’ll never harm him the way they harmed us,” she said. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “Was that rhetorical?” Wade queried, grinning. Vivian chuckled.

  “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. You disappeared last night, and I couldn’t reach you. Anything going on I should know about?”

  “Personal business. Nothing major,” Wade said offhandedly.

  “About your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “You dropped her off personally?”

  “I wanted to get a feel for the new Captain. See how it would go.”

  “And?”

  “Everything seems fine,” he said. Vivian could tell he was lying. “But I saw your message as soon as I got back. We’ve been friends a long time, so don’t take this personally: have you lost your mind?”

  “Quite possibly.”

  “It’s too dangerous to approve you going to Jaril,” Wade said. “It’s dangerous because you’re from the Ministry, but it gets worse. A Capital Ship is heading to Jaril now, sent by Darius.”

  “Evelyn’s Grace?”

  “That’s the one. Captain Finch’s flagship. How did you know?”

  “It’s already in orbit.”

  “Damn it, Vivian. Don’t go there!”

  “It’s too late, Wade,” she said. “We’re already here. I used the trade warrant you sent me to land.”

  “Damn it, Vivian!”

  “It’s just one ship. They won’t even know I’m here.”

  “What if they bombard the planet from orbit?”

  “They haven’t yet.”

  “That’s because they know they can’t take the planet by force,” Wade said. “So they are trying diplomacy.”

  “I got in easily enough.”

  “Getting out is the trick.”

  “Why would you send the Hummingbird? I said I needed transport, not your baby.”

  “This kind of request will have to go past the Minister’s desk for approval. He isn’t keen on sending anyone into a war zone.”

  “Warzone? That’s a little melodramatic.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Wade said.

  “Tell him it’s related to the information I found on Mali. I uploaded it to you earlier.”

  “He’ll want to know more. What are you going to Jaril for?”

  “Information.”

  “Information can wait. He doesn’t appreciate stupid people, Vivian, and right now you seem like Queen of the idiots. What could possibly be so important on Jaril that it couldn’t wait until Darius left?”

  “Nothing,” Vivian replied.

  “Nothing?” Wade echoed. “The Minister would castrate me if I tried to run this past him.”

  “Then make something up. Tell him I’m looking for some rare new element that only exists in this Sector. Maybe I’m after a new energy source. Or don’t tell him at all.”

  “That’s your suggestion. Try to hide something like this from the Minister?”

  “Are you saying you can’t?”

  “I’m saying I shouldn’t,” Wade said, rubbing his face with his hands. He sighed. “Fine. I’ve got a merchant ship. A little old beater that shudders when it slips into warp. I’m betting I can talk Traq’s uncle into using personal leave time to come get you.”

  “I appreciate it, Wade.”

  “Do you really plan to sell your ship?”

&nb
sp; “It’s the only way to get enough credits.”

  “I can send you credits.”

  “From a Ministry account? That seems like an even worse plan if the Minister finds out. The Cudgel is my personal vessel, so no paper trail.”

  “Fine. The one I’m sending you will hold you over until I can send you something better. It’s old but with some work, it’ll last. I was going to scrap it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Wade’s expression turned serious. “Where are you planning on going after?”

  “To fringe worlds mostly. Dangerous places. You said I should teach Traq things I know, and that’s what I know. I’ll teach him how to survive and how to fight.”

  “Excellent,” Wade said. “The galaxy could use a few more good murders.”

  “Wade…”

  “I know. I know. I look forward to hearing all about it. I’ll call Jack. Good luck.”

  They ended the call. She picked up her Vibro blade and wondered if she should leave it behind.

  Having the weapon hanging over her shoulder made her feel safer, and she could keep the weapon under her cloak. It would be difficult to reach if things turned dangerous, but carrying it made her more comfortable. She also kept a holdout pistol tucked into her right boot. She was trained better with blades.

  She couldn’t think of any rational reason not to travel armed. She doubted many people on Jaril did, but that just meant she had to hide the weapons well. It was better to go to the planet with protection and not need it than the alternative.

  “Traq,” she said while the ramp lowered. “It’s important that people don’t know I’m from the Ministry. If anyone asks, I’m a merchant pilot and you’re my son. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Traq said. They walked down together and Traq coughed, covering his nose with his hands. He was practically gasping for air. “What’s that smell?”

  Vivian chuckled. “It’s just how this planet smells,” she remarked. “Every planet has its own unique mishmash of ecosystem and technology. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

  “I don’t want to get used to it,” Traq stated, still sputtering.

  “Would you prefer staying on the ship?”

  He looked up at her in shock. “No way. I want to see everything.”