“The Dolls, of course. We’re going to need a crew, and this class of ship is designed for a minimum crew of ten. Once we’re sure they’ll work, we can load them with crew modules, and they’ll be able to do the work that we can’t, at least until we find something better.” Evelyn replied, then shooed the djinn off. “Now go away. I’ve got programming to do.”
“Alright, but you’d better let me test the game sometime!” Fya replied, reluctantly heading toward the door.
Once she was gone, Evelyn checked to be sure things were going well, only to find that the surgery room’s windows had gone to privacy mode and were pitch black. She looked at them for a moment, then shrugged and powered up her data pad, adjusting the projector screen with her implants. She’d been working on her game for the better part of two years at this point, and she suspected it’d be a few more before it was ready for proper testing. She’d always like roleplaying games, and why not make one herself?
“Thank you.”
The hesitant words broke Evelyn’s concentration, and she looked up at the woman that was standing just a few steps away, swaying back and forth slowly. Evelyn had known she was there, at least subconsciously, but she hadn’t flagged the woman as a threat, so she hadn’t really paid attention until the redhead spoke. The woman’s sister was now in the treatment room, so Evelyn really should have realized that she’d be up from the recovery bed shortly. More interesting was the odd, slightly lilting accent the woman had.
Saving her work, Evelyn killed the holographic projector with a thought and looked up at the woman, who was a bit pale, but looked leaps and bounds better than she had when the control chip was in place, even if she did look like she was about to fall over.
“You’re welcome. Please, sit down. It wouldn’t do for you to fall over and injure yourself. Yes, we have a doctor, but I don’t think he’d appreciate the additional work,” Evelyn said, inclining her head slightly as she gestured to a nearby chair.
The human paused for a moment, examining Evelyn, then slowly moved to the chair and sank into it with a soft sigh of relief.
“You’re… different than I expected. You were scary at first, and earlier too, but now…” she said, prompting a chuckle from Evelyn.
“I’d had a very bad day when you met me, and earlier… well, I needed to make things clear to everyone. Especially her,” Evelyn said, a smile playing across her lips as she glanced over at the succubus, who was still sitting in a chair next to the angel. After a few seconds she added. “Not that I’m not scary and dangerous. I’m likely one of the most ruthless people you’ve ever met, but I’m not going to get angry at you for no reason. As long as you don’t deliberately cause disasters, I’ll be pleasant enough. I put up with Fya, I doubt you’ll be the slightest problem.”
The woman blinked at Evelyn, then spoke again, her lips curling into a slight smile. “Thank you. I’m Star, Star Wyndred. I’m guessing my sister is in there? And who are you?”
“Yes, she’s in surgery right now. It’ll be some time before they’re done, though,” Evelyn said, glancing at the surgery room again as she added. “If his timeframe is accurate, each of you will take approximately forty-eight minutes from beginning to end. As for me… I’m Evelyn Esendria Tarth. You may have heard of me.”
Star looked at Evelyn for a moment, her eyebrows furrowing, then she spoke hesitantly. “Um… no? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of you before…”
Evelyn’s eyebrows rose and she looked at the human closely for a moment, seeing the obvious confusion on her face, then settled back, a little bemused.
“Huh. That’s unusual, I could have sworn everyone in the cluster had heard…” Evelyn began, but her voice trailed off as she fastened onto the thought, and her eyes narrowed. “Where are you from?”
“Callai, in the Sandier system.” Star replied promptly, and Evelyn’s eyes widened slightly as she quickly consulted the ship’s charts.
“Star, that’s five hundred and sixteen astral units away,” Evelyn said calmly, tapping the arm of her chair. “Unless you’re ridiculously valuable, it makes no sense to bring you this far. The wyrmgates charge extremely high fees to bring slaves through and going through normal space would take months. That’s not cost effective.”
“Oh. Oh! So that’s why we were in stasis pods!” Star replied, paling abruptly. “We’re… wait, what date is it? I can’t access my implants, so I can’t check myself.”
Evelyn didn’t reply with words, instead bringing up the hologram again, this time with the date, and Star… well, she swore rather vilely. At least this explained her accent.
“It’s been… three and a half years? Gods, our parents will think we’re dead! And if we’re this far away, we can’t even send a message easily!” Star said, looking like she was on the verge of passing out.
“Mm, it isn’t as hard as you might think,” Evelyn corrected, changing the hologram to bring up the web-like network of wyrmgates. “The nearest wyrmgate is fifteen AU away. That’s two days at typical speeds, a little more by passenger ship. Then there are two gates before you’re near Sandier, only five AU away. The most expensive part would be the wyrmgate fees. Last I heard, it cost two hundred and fifty mythrite per person per jump, or a fee based on the size of the ship. Most people take the long way, but it isn’t that bad. I was already planning to offer each of you a thousand mythrite to get back on your feet once you leave the ship.”
“That’s… oh, that’s so much better. Thank you so much!” Star exclaimed, her horror turning to delight. Then she embraced Evelyn out of the blue, hugging her tightly and planting a kiss on her cheek. It was all Evelyn could do not to overreact, which might have hurt the woman badly. “I thought… well, I thought the worst had happened when they loaded us aboard this ship!”
“…I definitely can tell that you’re not a local. I doubt most people would dare come this close, let alone do that,” Evelyn replied after a moment, firmly quashing her confusion at someone thanking her in that way. She gently pushed Star away and continued. “However, don’t get ahead of yourself. I still need to get the hacker to break into your implants so you can have full control of yourself, and that’ll be a few more days.”
“Believe me, after the last month or two, that’s fine with me.” Star assured her, smiling widely. “So… who are you, anyway?”
Evelyn looked back at Star for a moment, then replied. “If I’m going to explain this, I think it’d best wait until your sister is done, at a minimum. I don’t want to explain it twice.”
“True, I didn’t think of that,” Star agreed, sitting back as she frowned. “In that case, do you mind telling me about the cluster? I’m guessing we’re in some sort of unregulated system, since we were in a slave market.”
“Mm, most of the planet isn’t as bad, but Rakal is notorious as a pirate haven. It’s part of the reason I came here to begin with,” Evelyn replied, and smiled as the woman stared at her in shock. She shrugged, explaining. “I like to fight sometimes.”
Chapter 10
It turned out that Star’s sister was named Moon, and when Evelyn asked about their names, they explained that their mother was an astronomer. Evelyn thought that just figured and was more surprised that their father hadn’t objected. Apparently, he’d thought the names were cute, though. There was no accounting for taste, she supposed. They were a little shocked to hear about Evelyn’s past, though.
“Why’d you do it?” Moon asked, frowning as she looked at Evelyn. “I mean… it sounds a lot like you did terrible things. At least to me.”
“I did. For some of it, I blame my short temper. I’m calmer than I was, but I did almost wipe out the mercenaries who were transporting you,” Evelyn said, shrugging as she sat back, thinking for a few seconds, then continued. “As for how it happened… really, it all started with that damned prophecy.”
She knew that she’d injected enough loathing into her voice due to how the two blinked in surprise.
“Prophecy?”
Star asked, frowning. “How would that influence you?”
“It didn’t influence me at all,” Evelyn corrected, a touch irritably. “I was the daughter of a farmer and his homemaker wife, thank you. We had a solid five hundred acres, which he used to employ others around town. Oh, I doubt I’d have stayed, it chafed even as a child, but I certainly wouldn’t have overthrown the country. But Baron Toddlily, a silly name if you ask me, heard about the prophecy that some seer had given the king. A young woman with black hair and red eyes would grow into a dark queen and end the reign of his family over the kingdom of Peldra for all time, until a farmer’s child rose up to prove her undoing and free the realm once more. No, that’s not the prophecy verbatim, but it has the important details.”
“I… okay, that makes a bit more sense. So what happened?” Star said, exchanging dubious looks with Moon.
“Let me see… he saw me when I utterly crushed all the other high school girls in a track meet, as well as all the boys. They could’ve made me run the course twice and I’d still have won. Couple that with my magical talent and other abilities, and he was alarmed. So he decided to have me quietly disposed of, to keep the prophecy from coming to pass. Imbecile,” Evelyn said, her disgust mounting as she scowled. “I… declined to perish like he wanted, and since I’d killed a couple of his armsmen, I took a couple of changes of clothing, some food, and ran into the forest. He sent people after me, of course. They chased me right into the hands of some rebels. When I joined them, it alarmed him enough to report it to his superiors, though his report lacked certain critical details, as I found once I took over. They decided to hunt me down, I refused to die, and at a certain point you decide that maybe, just maybe, you can do a better job than the fools leading the other side. So I finally took control of the rebels, made the alliances I needed, and conquered Peldra.”
Evelyn paused for a few seconds, then sighed, shaking her head as she sat back. “I was wrong. About doing a better job, to be exact. The various rebels and their allies used me for their own purposes, though they were limited in how much they could do. I was too powerful for them to easily challenge, and the majority of the military was loyal to me. It took two years for me to fully realize what had happened, and when I did… well. It wasn’t hard to arrange my own downfall.”
“I… think I understand. I don’t know that I’d have done the same thing, but… Corrida has been populated for a lot longer, if I remember right.” Moon said slowly, then frowned. “What about your parents? How did they react to… everything?”
“I don’t know.” Evelyn said, a flicker of old pain rushing through her, though she tamped it down quickly.
“What? But… they didn’t attack your parents, did they?” Moon asked, her eyes widening in horror.
“No, they didn’t. I didn’t have a chance to see them before going missing, mind you. They were out of town, which was why the baron chose that time to get rid of me, I’m guessing,” Evelyn said, letting out a sigh. “According to the records, and I have no reason to disbelieve them after the digging I did, a month after I vanished, my parents were fed up with vandalism. Since their protests to the authorities about what was happening had gone nowhere, they sold the land, packed up, and left the planet on a passenger liner. The Coral Dream, in specific, a cruise ship heading toward the core worlds, and from there… nothing. I couldn’t find another trace of them, not even with magic.”
“They died?” the two asked in unison, looking at her in horror.
“They vanished,” Evelyn corrected. “The Coral Dream reached its destination. The corporation who owns it even responded to my inquiries about my parents, and they certainly booked rooms. Halfway between this cluster and the next, they just… vanished. The company was rather disconcerted, because none of their crew noticed it happen, no alerts triggered, nothing. They performed a deep investigation and found that there had been a handful of similar incidents over the years, but couldn’t find any common elements. Magic can’t find a trace of them here or in the astral, and it doesn’t even register whether they’re alive or dead. It’s a mystery, and one I’ve contemplated trying to unravel, but I don’t know where to begin.”
“That’s… that’s terrible,” Star said, her voice soft now. “At least we have someone to go home to, unless there’s been a disaster or something. Even then, we have cousins, uncles, aunts… even our grandparents. You have someone like that, don’t you?”
Evelyn laughed, shaking her head as she spoke gently. “I’m afraid not, at least not that I know of. The closest I have is Fya, and she isn’t family. I came across her by accident and chose to free her. She chose in turn to serve me, even when I sent her away. Others… well, my reputation is terrible, as you’ve heard. I tend to scare most of them off, for good reason.”
Moon opened her mouth, then closed it, frowning. Instead, it was Star who spoke. “It isn’t right.”
“Life isn’t fair. It simply is,” Evelyn replied simply, letting out a sigh. “Now… do you want to do anything?”
“Well… a shower would be nice, along with different clothing.” Star said, frowning. “And maybe a meal? We mostly got nutrient paste until we came aboard, and even then it was pretty… minimal.”
“Yeah. Bad enough that I couldn’t even make decisions, but the food… ugh.” Moon said, shuddering visibly.
Evelyn laughed, smiling as she replied. “Well, there is a reasonably stocked galley aboard. Not good, it’s designed for dozens of mercenaries, but they get frustrated when they don’t have a variety available. I’m sure you can put something decent together. I can’t do much about the clothing, since I’m not volunteering my wardrobe, but once all of you are done, we can put together a list and I’ll go shopping. I’m not going to take you into the city, that seems like a fast way to put you right back into the same position.”
“A galley?” Moon asked, her eyes lighting up. “Could I use it? I was majoring in Culinary Arts, you know, and that food… ugh, I don’t want to even think about it. I need something good to wash the memory out of my mouth!”
“I didn’t know… but yes, you’re more than welcome to use the galley,” Evelyn replied, standing up and taking a moment to stretch, then gestured to the door. “Let me show you where it is, as well as a shower.”
“That sounds wonderful!” Star said, smiling broadly as she stood, and almost fell again.
“Careful,” Evelyn cautioned, catching the woman, then waited until she’d regained her balance to let go. “There we are. Remember, you didn’t have control for a while, so you aren’t used to walking around.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Star promised, smiling warmly in return as she took Moon’s hand, and the two of them followed as Evelyn led them out of the room.
Evelyn suspected it’d be a long day.
Ilyra Samtreth, third of her line, wasn’t sure what to make of Evelyn. When she’d first heard who the woman was, she’d almost panicked. Oh, it was one thing to have heard the elf claim that she had no intention of keeping them as slaves the previous day, but who she was… it would’ve sent a shiver down Ilyra’s spine if she could do that much. Or she’d have fled through the door as fast as she could.
Neither reaction was an option, though. Instead, she did as the horrid chip in her head wished, and it didn’t care who Evelyn was. It kept her looking forward, her hands folded in her lap as she waited her turn in the surgery room. She couldn’t turn her head, control her breathing, blink her eyes, or even brush back a lock of hair. No, the most that happened was that it had her shift and move every so often to keep from obstructing blood flow or something of that sort. She was even locked out of her implants, unable to access the entertainment programs she’d stored, her books, or anything else that might help her retain a semblance of sanity.
That was the main reason Ilyra heard everything, of course. When you were staring at an unoccupied medbay bed, there was only so many times you could count the lights blinking before you started to crack, which
she suspected was intentional. No, she’d latched onto the conversation as the only stimulus she’d had in weeks, desperate enough that even if it’d been descriptions of horrible things that’d been planned for her, she’d have listened with interest.
Which was why her opinion of Evelyn had slowly changed. First the woman had been quiet for what seemed like an eternity, except for the occasional swearing about something Ilyra couldn’t figure out. Maybe she’d have been able to understand if she could watch, but she couldn’t. But then the first person to go through the surgery came out, and she and Evelyn had just started… talking.
For a woman widely held to be absolutely horrible, or maybe even a cannibal according to some rumors, Evelyn was surprisingly patient with Star, talking about the region without taking any real liberties that Ilyra could pick out. She didn’t know as much about this side of the cluster, admittedly, but it was fascinating to hear how much Evelyn knew about the nearest systems. When she gave her version of what her past had been like, Ilyra had her doubts about how true they were, but it injected a few notes of uncertainty for Ilyra. All of her information had come second-hand, and when she thought about it, they’d never heard directly from Empress Peldra what had happened.
It was something Ilyra chewed over mentally as the hours passed, with Evelyn passing several more times, often to show the next person in line in or out of the medbay. The only time Evelyn so much as raised her voice was when the dark elf and one of the elves got into an argument, and the woman broke it up almost instantly, not putting up with either of their excuses.
Ilyra still didn’t know what to think of the elf, but she didn’t need to. Mostly, she was relieved when her turn came at last. She was tired of being forced to listen to everyone else without being able to speak a word.
Chosen of Chaos (Eve of Destruction Book 1) Page 7
