Empress Game 2

by Rhonda Mason

Siño reached out his injured hand for her weapons, and through the cut she caught sight of a series of flesh-colored tubes, some severed, running beneath his skin. Her stomach gave a sick roll as she imagined biocybernetics threaded through her own body.

  She had the urge to stab her kris through his outstretched hand. She’d been taken by surprise like a novice, brought down by an imperial and his mechanical monkey in less than three minutes. Her chest burned with wounded pride. It didn’t matter that Wyrd training couldn’t save her from a pistol blast at close range; she should never have been caught in this position in the first place.

  Life on Falanar was making her soft.

  She handed over her kris with the feeling of being declawed, and turned her attention back to Bredard. His satisfied expression begged for her fist.

  “That’s better. Here’s the way of it: we’re going to have a little chat. You alert the guard outside to our presence, I’ll shoot you.” He said it so matter-of-factly that she didn’t doubt him. “Siño—the door.”

  Siño must have brought a pack of gear, hidden by the cloaking device, because he disappeared from view before returning with what looked like a mini towel rack. He affixed it to the door, one square mount on each side of the door’s center seam, a ten centimeter bar connecting them. Depending on the sealant, the lock bar could hold against a powered jack.

  Finished, Siño positioned himself beside her chair.

  “I’ve come with a message for you, Princess Isonde.”

  “Ever heard of a comm device?”

  He quirked his lips, then nodded to the biocybe.

  Even prepared for it, the backhand snapped her head to the side. It opened the cut on her cheek she’d given herself earlier.

  “I find comms lack the appropriate tone.”

  She tried to loosen her muscles and roll with the motion, but the second backhand still felt like a brick to the face. She forearm-blocked the third and Bredard raised the pistol a little.

  “Come now, take it like a man. Or should I say, like a ro’haar.

  “Oh yes. I know who you are, despite who you pretend to be—Isonde, Evelyn, Shadow Panthe—guises that hide the truth of your heritage.” He lowered the pistol to rest on his knee, now that he had her undivided attention. This was about more than imperial power and politics, more than councils and empresses. It went deeper, into much more dangerous territory.

  “What I do with that knowledge,” he said, “I’ll leave you to fear, especially if I don’t get what I want.”

  She wasn’t merely the woman impersonating Princess Isonde, the soon-to-be Empress-Apparent to the throne of the Sakien Empire. Kayla was one of the few surviving members of the royal family of the Wyrd World Ordoch. She was a sworn enemy of the empire, a fugitive in their lands, hiding in plain sight. If taken prisoner, she could be their greatest piece of leverage in the empire’s struggle to dominate her homeworld.

  Worse, if she were killed, she would never see her two il’haars, the brothers she’d been born to protect, again.

  “What do you want?” Her face throbbed from Siño’s blows, one side of her mouth already swelling, and the words came out stiffly.

  “What I want is you and your twin, Vayne, in the same room, access to certain laboratory equipment which you destroyed, and the genius of the smartest man—Wyrd—I’ve ever known.”

  He could only mean one person, the exiled Wyrd and neurobiological engineer Dolan. She smiled with the half of her mouth she could still move. “Whom I killed.”

  “Precisely. What I’ll settle for is the data from Dolan’s complinks that you and your pet octet stole from me, data from five years of experiments that could change the nature of our brains.”

  Those experiments had been carried out on members of her family, including her beloved twin, for five years. Most of her family had not survived.

  “I don’t have access to it.” And if she did, she’d destroy it before handing it over to anyone else.

  “Not at the moment, no. Senior Agent Rua does, however, and I believe the two of you have something of an understanding.”

  She and Malkor had something of a sexual relationship, to be precise. Or they had, before everything went sideways.

  “I would have taken it from him directly, but unlike you, the IDC pays more attention to the security of their buildings’ exteriors, including the windows.”

  That at least explained how Siño had gotten in.

  She gave him the only answer he’d ever get from her. “Frutt you.”

  He laughed, a soft chuckle, and stopped Siño with a gesture when the biocybe would have struck her again. “It’s amusing to me that you think you have a choice.” He rose. “You have one week.”

  The pistol lost its aim on her as he straightened his clothes, and she itched to attack. Spring from the chair, one foot on the table, launch at him—

  “Oh,” he said, the word freezing her in place, “if revealing your identity and cheating at the Empress Game isn’t enough of a threat, know this: I have something you want.”

  She wanted three things from life right now: to be with Malkor, which Bredard couldn’t affect, to free her homeworld from imperial occupation, which was beyond his means, and to be reunited with her brothers and remaining family. That last…

  “I see you understand. I have the one thing you do not: knowledge of your il’haars’ location.”

  “My family escaped to Wyrd Space.” Escaped, and left her behind.

  Bredard arched a brow. “Did they?”

  She stiffened as he approached. He forced the muzzle against her temple while Siño pulled something from a pocket.

  “I’d sit still for this part, if I were you.”

  Electricity crackled in the air one second before pain shot through her from neck to brain to toes, and then she fell into darkness.

  * * *

  Senior Agent Malkor Rua of the Imperial Diplomatic Corps perched on the edge of a chair in Kayla’s bedroom and studied her reflection in the mirror. He so seldom saw her, hidden as she always was behind the Isonde hologram, and it was a welcome sight.

  Or would be, if she didn’t have a split lip, a swollen, just-now-bruising jaw, and a slashed cheek. The biocybe hadn’t been gentle. A frutting biocybe—how had Bredard found one of those rarities?

  Kayla could take the beating, he knew, and even now she treated it like it was nothing while she began healing the damage with a medstick.

  Neither of them mentioned the real threat screaming through the room—their cover was blown. Bredard, and who knew how many others, knew who Kayla was, knew that Malkor and Isonde had worked with her to fix the Empress Game.

  That knowledge was a death sentence if it got out. Not to mention the end of years of planning Malkor, Ardin and Isonde had done. It was something they’d all known could happen when they began this, but now the danger was very, very real.

  Kayla’s fingers were sure and strong as she applied the medstick to the bruising, something she’d probably done thousands of times in her history as a ro’haar.

  “Let me do that,” he said. He had to do something. Fix something. Smash something. Anything to get away from this feeling of lack of control.

  Kayla’s gaze met his in the mirror, seeming to really see him for the first time. She held him suspended as he waited for her to relent. Supreme self-sufficiency had been her credo for the last five years and even now, despite the bond they shared, it took an effort for her to lean on him.

  She nodded.

  He hadn’t come near her when he arrived twenty minutes ago to get her account of what happened with Bredard and Siño. Unlike most people who had been assaulted in the night, in the one place they should have been the safest, it wasn’t her instinct to rush into a strong pair of arms for comfort. It wasn’t her instinct to rush to anyone. He’d known from the set of her shoulders when he entered that what she needed was space and the chance to remind herself that she was strong.

  “Sit.”

  Sh
e chose a stiff-backed chair beside the table that held the medical case with its assortment of medsticks. Her face looked worse up close, but its puffiness didn’t soften the determined set of her features. She hadn’t called him here in the dead of night to be a concerned lover, or even a friend. She’d summoned him as an IDC agent and a co-conspirator whose clandestine activities had been discovered.

  Frutt. They were really into it now. How had Bredard found out? Had someone betrayed them?

  And what of the evidence? The hologram biostrip that Rigger had designed, with Corinth and Kayla’s help, was so advanced that no one would believe its possibilities if they didn’t see it firsthand. Was it time to destroy the thing and all of Rigger’s schematics? Without the hologram itself as evidence, maybe they could argue that such a switch during the Empress Game would have been impossible, given the empire’s low-level tech.

  He took the medstick from Kayla and focused its beam on her jaw, working first on the hematoma. This, at least, was a problem he could fix.

  “Hekkar’s looking into it,” he said. “I think you’re right about the biocybe entering through the window.” Hekkar Tial, his second in command, was studying the lounge where the attack had taken place. Rigger, his octet’s tech specialist, was investigating how they had circumvented the outside security systems.

  “Rawn found hydrofluoric gel around the edge of the pane,” she said, “which explains how they got it loose without smashing it—they dissolved a thin line of the glass where it met the casing. Something tacky had held it in place by the corners once the biocybe entered, and I hadn’t noticed in the dim light.” He could almost hear the thought: I should have. “I bet it’s also how they got the weapon in. They left the same way.”

  She stiffened when he touched her chin to tilt her head to get a better angle on her swollen mouth. He ignored the reaction, just like he’d ignored the stiffness between them since she had decided to leave him behind on Falanar. The broken state of their relationship would have to wait for a day when they weren’t being blackmailed with their lives in the balance.

  She waited for him to finish the first round of healing on her mouth before speaking. “I’ve never seen a pistol like it before.”

  “I think we both know where he would have gotten tech for a new weapon design.”

  The kin’shaa, Dolan. The most sophisticated neurobiological engineer ever born in the Wyrd Worlds. He’d gone too far in his experiments, warping the minds and destroying the free will of innocent people, and had been stripped of the psionic powers inherent to all Wyrds as a punishment. He’d been banished from Wyrd Space and defected to the Sakien Empire, bringing with him a level of technology the imperials wouldn’t have reached in a generation. He’d been doling out that technology to clandestine groups in the IDC and the government and continuing his research with their support.

  At least he had been, until a few weeks ago when Kayla had staked him through the throat and Vayne pulverized his body.

  She batted Malkor’s hand away so she could talk. “Bredard said, ‘Did they?’ when I told him my family had escaped to Wyrd Space. ‘Did they.’” For the first time since Malkor had arrived, something akin to fear showed in her gaze. “What did he mean?”

  “He was bullshitting you.” Only, Malkor wasn’t sure. Couldn’t be sure. And that uncertainty would never be enough for Kayla.

  “I can’t ignore it.”

  He could see she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Her finger tapped a staccato rhythm against one of the kris strapped to her thigh. Thankfully Bredard had left those behind.

  “There’s nothing we can do about it tonight,” he said.

  “There’s nothing we can do about it at all. Damnit.” She pressed her lips together in frustration and the split he hadn’t finished healing yet dribbled blood. “It’s only been two weeks,” she said. “They haven’t reached the edge of Imperial Space yet; they could be anywhere. They would have had to drop out of their hyperstream periodically—anything could have happened.”

  “Or nothing could have happened.” But Imperial Space was a treacherous place.

  “Then why haven’t we heard from them?”

  It’s true; he’d expected to have heard from her two brothers at least, even if the other rescued members of her family or the Ilmenans hadn’t thought to assure her of their progress. They might have at least sent her a final farewell.

  “I’m sure we will.”

  Her fingers tapped faster. “That assurance is useless to me.”

  He set down the medstick with a snap. “We have more immediate concerns right now.” He had entirely too many concerns at the moment.

  She frowned fiercely at him but didn’t argue.

  “I know you’re worried about your brothers. I’m worried too. Their lives aren’t the ones in immediate danger, though.”

  “Bredard wouldn’t have killed me, not while he thinks he can get Dolan’s research data from me.”

  “And when he realizes he can’t?”

  “We’ll have to think of something before then.”

  “Bah.” He reached for the medstick again and directed it to her lip. They sat in silence while he worked, she not looking at him, he trying not to stare at her. This was at most the third time they’d been in the same room in the last few weeks, and then only because she’d been attacked. They were both too busy to steal quiet moments together, and in truth, the awkwardness between them was more than he wanted to deal with right now.

  She loved him, as much as he loved her. Apparently that hadn’t been enough to keep her here. Kayla had chosen to leave him behind with no more than a word about it on her way to the spacedocks. She’d chosen life with her brothers over a life with him. If the Wyrds hadn’t been forced into an emergency departure she’d be with them now.

  How did he reconcile his feelings for her with knowing he’d always be a distant second choice to her brothers, so far behind that she hadn’t even consulted him before making the decision to leave? Intellectually he understood her choice, if not her methods. None of that eased the rift between them.

  He finished healing her mouth and returned the medstick to its case.

  “I’m going to start skimming vessel logs for the last two weeks,” she said, “see if I can find any mention of the Ilmenans’ starship.” The words came out fuzzy, the numbing effect of the medstick having reached her lips. She was already heading in the direction of the complink.

  “Sleep’s a better option right now, Kayla.” Stars knew she had an impossibly full schedule tomorrow in her charade as Isonde.

  “I slept already, remember?”

  “Being stunned into unconsciousness for an hour before Rawn cut the lounge doors open and revived you doesn’t count as sleeping.”

  She winked. Winked. After what happened… So Kayla.

  He took a syringe from the medcase. “Sleep, or I’ll sedate you myself.”

  Her eyes narrowed, judging his seriousness, so he waved the syringe around a little. He must have looked convincing because she grumbled and changed course for the bed.

  She was asleep in less than five minutes.

  2

  Early next morning, Kayla and half a dozen politicians gathered in Archon Raorin’s sumptuous office—one of hundreds of offices tucked into the wings of the Sovereign Council seat. While informal, the breakfast meeting was in some ways more important than the emergency session of council starting in an hour. Everyone seated in the padded hover chairs looked ill at ease, despite the micro-fine controls that adjusted every aspect of the chairs for maximum comfort.

  Coffee was poured, fruit and pastries delicately selected, small talk made. Kayla tilted her seat upright so as not to get too comfortable. She’d gotten maybe three hours of sleep and fatigue ground her down, despite the high stakes of this morning’s meeting. Also, her jaw ached. A medstick had healed the soft tissue damage but the joint remained stiff.

  Those gathered spoke in low tones, a side conversation here or t
here, an air of expectant waiting hanging about the room. Archon Raorin’s gaze flitted first to the door, then the chronometer embedded in the wall. He caught her watching him and gave her barely noticeable smile that she took as encouragement. Encouragement for Isonde. Kayla was back to wearing the hologram and playing her part as a member of the Sovereign Council representing the Sovereign Planet Piran, betrothed to Prince Ardin, and soon to take her seat on the exalted Council of Seven.

  Isonde’s seat. Isonde’s soon-to-be husband.

  Not if Malkor finds a replacement for me first.

  He’d needed Kayla’s elite training as a ro’haar in order to win the Empress Game. With that done, Kayla recommended a more politically savvy person be found to impersonate Isonde. That outcome seemed less and less likely as the days passed and he didn’t mention any possible candidates.

  Archon Raorin cleared his throat and the room fell to silence. He looked much as he always did in understated grey robes, with his long black hair knotted into an intricate braid: thoughtful, attractive and approachable. It was that combination, intelligence and charisma, that made him one of the most influential members of the Sovereign Council despite his home-moon’s relatively small role on the imperial stage. “I was hoping for one more, but it appears he’s changed his mind.”

  Raorin was a close confidant of Isonde’s and Kayla had spoken with him several times in the last two weeks. Even after those talks, she was surprised by some of the people Raorin had called together this morning.

  She had counted on seeing the scarred visage of General Yislan—a retired general and military hero from the imperial army—and the diminutive Sovereign Councilmember Siminia. They’d been vocal in their support of Raorin’s proposal for imperial withdrawal from Ordoch. The attendance of elder stateswoman Councilor Gi, however, was unexpected. Her white braids twisted into ropes on either side of her head and her mahogany skin smelled of an antiseptic powder some people preferred to bathing. She hailed from the Sovereign Planet Wei-lu-Wei, known isolationists, their leaders only vaguely concerned with the goings-on beyond their planet. What help Gi might be was a mystery. She looked as formidable as her reputation implied, though, her strong features stamped with determination and her skin showing deep lines only years of frowning could cause.