"Do you understand the allium trade, Colton?"
"What? No, I—"
"Nobody does. Because there's only one supplier of allium in all the galaxy: Torsten Syampi. Something so vital to the survival of the Empire, and its price floats entirely at the mercy of one man."
"So he's a tycoon... why does that—"
"Five thousand years ago, the Imperial house was ruled by a power-hungry family. They used the power of the crown to seize and monopolize entire industries, to plunder resources and enrich themselves. Their greed and mismanagement brought about an economic collapse..." He shook his head in dismay. "There's no word for that kind of bloodshed."
"I have a few," said Ugero.
"When the Empire was reconstituted, a critical rule was put in place: the royal family must divest all their outside businesses, or forfeit their titles. But for Torsten, there is no good answer: give up his titles, and he doesn't have the political power to maintain control of the allium trade. But give up his business and he goes from being the richest man in the galaxy to just another prince."
"But what does that have to do with Kgego? With the governor? With the Empress?"
Piro pushed open another door, into a larger room full of screens and consoles and weapons. In the center table was a piece of raw metal — bright orange, shimmering, flawless. Piro tossed it to Colton and he was shocked to discover it weighed nothing at all.
"That chunk of allium could buy a star cruiser. No lie. Kgegans have been mining it for centuries; we know it inside-out. So we knew when the governor started skimming off the top. Under-reporting profits and cutting wages to match."
Ugero took the allium from Colton, set it aside. "I lost my house," he said. "They said I missed my quota, but I know my quota. I never miss."
Colton shook his head. "So the governor was corrupt, and you tried to depose him by force?"
Piro laughed. "We didn't. The magistrate brought charges, but he refused to surrender. It was a stand-off, but a harmless one. I even had a regular appointment, playing cards with his security detail."
"Wait, how? You were there?"
"Whatever you've heard, Colton, I'm no terrorist. I'm a captain in the Imperial Guard here on Kgego. It was my job to arrest the governor... without making things worse."
"But they got worse," said Colton.
"Yes," nodded Piro. "When the investigators dug deeper into his dealings."
"Torsten..."
"Exactly. They must have tripped an alarm at the capital, because the day after they started look..." He took a shaky breath. "The day after..."
Ugero finished for him: "Someone bombed the Legislature. The Palace of Justice. Police headquarters. The Imperial Army Command. They bombed everywhere."
Piro's voice cracked. "Everyone I ever cared about. All my colleagues, my brothers and sisters, all gone in a bloodstained afternoon. If I hadn't been out here, checking up on missing inventory, I would be... I'd have..."
He was coming apart, but he pulled himself back together. Barely. "In the confusion, the governor disappeared, along with any evidence tying him to Torsten."
Colton shook his head. It didn't make sense. "But the why would Torsten come here? Why would he even mention this place to the Empress, if this is the scene of the crime for him?"
"Because buried things can be dug up," said Piro. "So he needs something more lasting. We've been trying to send word to the Empress, and he knows it."
Colton put together the pieces in his mind: "The bombing. He needs a legitimate reason to open fire on you. He's trying to bomb you into submission."
"Or extinction."
"And he's going to use the Empress' assassination as a pretext for all-out war," Colton said, blood rushing so hard his ears felt like they might pop.
"Wipe out all his problems at once, with an excuse is completely removed from his actual crimes."
"And ascend to the throne himself. Jesus. What a fucker."
Ugero raised a hand. "I said that first."
Piro switched on several of the screens and started scanning the readouts — all gibberish to Colton, but moving fast enough that he could appreciate how quickly Piro was processing information.
"If we had the Empress here, we'd stand a chance of resolving this. But now that you've sent her back into her brother's clutches..."
Colton sneered. "Well maybe if you went around saying things like 'long live the Empress' it would be clear whose side you're on!"
Ugero laughed, patted Colton on the back. "Simple little Earth-man."
Piro slammed a fist down on the console. "I don't know how we'll get aboard an Imperial cruiser," he said. "The bombing left our systems a mess, so I don't know which resources are real, and which are ghosts. We should have at least a hundred exo-suits in here, but—"
"But they're missing," said Colton, remembering the attack on the yacht. The triangular helmets. "They stole them and used them when they attacked the Yacht. To make it look like you were responsible."
"They'll have footage, too, I bet."
"Did you see a pair of very large metal gloves?" asked Ugero. "They light on fire and smash things?"
Colton stared. "I was... I was kinda busy, so, uh—"
"Try harder next time."
The console flashed, and Piro scrolled back, turning content in around itself, and focusing on a string of text that made his jaw drop. "She's alive," he said. "She's still alive."
Colton's smile lasted as long as it took for Piro to turn his head around, face grim. "They say she's heading to Sirra-zo... to make a speech."
Colton's jaw tensed. "Her ultimatum. She wants you to surrender. But there's no way that's not a set-up."
"No," agreed Piro. "But at least now we know where she'll be."
Colton frowned. "Uh, I only got a quick look at your planet, but I'm pretty sure Sirra-zo is a really fucking long way away from here."
"It is," said Piro, and held a gun out to Colton, eyes narrow like he wasn't entirely sure he could trust him, but wasn't entirely sure he had a choice. "So we'd better get moving."
34
It was an odd feeling, not knowing who you could trust. The Empress sat in her rooms, surrounded by attendants and ladies-in-waiting who chittered endlessly about nothing, but had very little to say about the one subject most on her mind: what really happened to the Royal Yacht, and its survivors.
So when an outsider came through the crowd with a medical pack in her hand, and gave a stiff and terrified bow, the Empress saw an opportunity: someone who wasn't part of the machine.
"Your Majesty," said the woman. "I'm Dr Iko, a... uh..." She tried to find the words. "Your private physician, Dr T'gryytha, was, um, he was lost aboard the—"
"I've been seen, doctor," said the Empress.
"Yes, your Majesty. But there was... uh..." Iko looked around the room, uncomfortably, at the many ears and eyes trying to get a scoop of gossip. "Maybe we should..."
The Empress waved her hand, and the entire room emptied far faster than seemed possible. Dr Iko grinned: "Wish I could do that in the clinic."
"What's on your mind, doctor?" asked the Empress, observing her visitor carefully, trying to crack her code, divine her loyalties.
"Oh, it's your intake exam, after your rescue," said Iko. "It looks like they forgot to jot down your answer to a, uh, question or two."
The Empress' face remained impassive. "Such as?"
Iko really didn't want to ask this question. "Whether you, uh, engaged in any... you know... um... sexual intercourse, either consensual or not."
The Empress remembered that first night, in the room with the tiny window, with the sheets twisting around them, pulling them together and keeping them apart as his hands ran down her body and found her—
"Your Majesty?" Iko asked, breaking the spell.
The Empress cleared her throat. "Yes."
"Yes," nodded Iko, then realized what the answer was and said: "Yes?"
"Consensual, that is," she added.
Iko's mouth was hanging open, and it had a bit of a grin to it. "OK, well, in that case, you should know there are a few Kgegan conditions that can also affect humans and—"
"Not a Kgegan," said the Empress, calmly.
"Oh good, because I was going to ask how you got all three of the... you know... in there at the same time. Unless—"
"Human, doctor. He was a human."
Iko scanned her notes, her records, everything she could find. And when she found what she was looking for, she looked even more scandalized than if it had been a Kgegan.
"The Earth man?" she hissed.
"Thank you for your discretion, doctor," the Empress said sternly.
"I mean, right, sorry, your Majesty. We should go over the issue of unwanted pregnancies and the possibility of sexually-transmitted diseases, and—" She shook her head: nope, had to ask: "Is it true they spit on you, you know, when they climax?"
The Empress laughed. "Not that I noticed." And then, with a touch of mischief: "And I had many opportunities to notice."
Iko dropped her notes on the floor, but didn't even try to pick them up. "I feel like you're going to need to walk me through this. In detail. For diagnostic purposes."
The Empress opened her mouth to speak when the doors opened, and everything melted away as she rushed across the room to meet— "Deo'ta! You're alive!"
Deo'ta bowed graciously for his Empress. He was wearing the same clothes as the last time she'd seen him, though the side of his head was heavily bruised. "Your Majesty, I apologize, I only just got word you were rescued."
"Sit, sit," she said, and ushered him over to the dining area. "I'm so glad you're here, Deo'ta. I desperately need your advice."
"Of course, your Majesty," he said, and then cast a sideways glance toward Iko, who was trying to disappear into the background, very unsuccessfully.
The Empress gestured for her to return: "Actually, Dr Iko might be able to help shed some light for us." She pointed at the notepad. "Can you see when Captain Shaw was cleared for duty?"
Iko did her best not to cackle with glee as she went tapping and swiping around, until she came up with: "Captain Shaw was assessed and cleared five days ago, your Majesty. Right after his run-in with the ruffians."
"I was there, he seemed fine," said Deo'ta. "Can I ask—"
"No, I mean after our return from Kgego," said the Empress, sitting forward. "On the shuttle. I was checked, he was checked—"
"There's no record of Captain Shaw—" Iko said, then realized she'd just interrupted the Empress, and shrank a little. "Pardon, your Majesty. There's no record of Captain Shaw being checked or cleared for duty. On that or any other day."
Deo'ta moved to the Empress' side as she started to double over, her mind racing with very dark thoughts indeed.
But Iko wasn't done yet: "And... well, everyone transferring from a shuttle to an Imperial cruiser is automatically scanned for temperature variances, to protect against fevers and related infections, and—"
"The point, doctor," Deo'ta said, kneeling down before the Empress, but unable to help.
"There's no record of Captain Shaw getting off that shuttle. So he's either still there, or..."
"Or he never got on the shuttle in the first place," the Empress said, then looked to Deo'ta. "So it is what I feared."
"What? What is? I don't understand."
"Torsten," she said. "Torsten is behind... all this. The assassination attempts, the attack on the yacht..." She shivered at the memory: "There was a bomb in the royal escape pod," she said. "It very nearly killed me, but he... Torsten knew it was there. He knew about the bomb."
Deo'ta shook his head, not disbelieving, but not able to conceive if believing, either. "Surely someone else must have—"
"The Yacht was destroyed, Deo'ta. The only two people who saw the bomb were myself and Colton—" She caught herself, squared her shoulders, carried on: "If Captain Shaw wasn't on that shuttle, the only way Torsten knew about the bomb is if he had a hand in putting it there."
"Ga xiote," gasped Iko. "That's..."
"Treason," said Deo'ta, face settling on an emotion somewhere between rage and bloody murder. "That's treason, your Majesty."
"I didn't want to believe it," she said, taking halting breaths. "But there's just no other explanation."
Deo'ta checked over his shoulder, all around the room. For the first time, he was afraid of being overheard. "The evidence is circumstantial, so there will need to be an investigation to uncover the truth." She began to protest, but he held out a calming hand. "But in the meantime, there are security issues to consider. Without Captain Shaw in the picture, we must assume your brother has absolute control over your security detail. You cannot trust them."
The Empress felt a panic welling up inside her. "We'll cancel the speech. Head back to Iffrysilia and—"
"The speech?" Deo'ta gasped. "That's still on?"
"We... I thought it was a necessary step. To assert my authority."
Deo'ta flipped open his notepad, started summoning data, reading furiously. "I have friends in the capital I trust implicitly, who can send security personnel here to guard you. But it will take time for them to arrive, your Majesty, and I fear what might happen if you deviate from your plan unexpectedly."
She nodded, wringing her hands, trying to think of a way around the issue, but finding no recourse at all. "I might be safer on the planet than I am here."
"An infinitely subtle distinction, I'm afraid," said Deo'ta. "But you may be right." He tapped a few more screens, took a bracing breath. "Very well. When the time comes, head to the surface. With any luck, my friends' agents will be here in time to help you escape."
"And if they're not?" she asked, fear in her eyes.
Deo'ta looked to Iko. "Then Dr Iko's role will be all the more important."
Iko winced.
35
"You've got to be kidding me," said Colton, at the edge of a cliff, watching a Kgegan soldier strap himself into what looked like a giant mechanical dragonfly — with wings made of tissue paper. "There's got to be another way."
Piro seemed to share Colton's apprehensions, especially when the dragonfly's harness detached suddenly, falling off the soldier and landing with a crunch on the ground.
"We don't have many choices, unfortunately," he said. "Our best ships were targeted in the bombings, probably to keep us from mounting an effective defence. But our transports..." He gestured to the bigger, flying-tank-like ships, hidden under a rocky overhang. "Those are easy targets for orbital strikes. Too obvious, too slow, too many casualties in a single shot."
The soldier had finally got the dragonfly attached again. He was getting ready to jump. He looked incredibly unsure about the whole thing.
"But can these get the job done?" asked Colton.
"You mean are they safe?"
"Also that, yes, absolutely."
"Maybe," said Piro.
"To which?"
"Good question."
"Fuck," sighed Colton.
The soldier jumped, and fell straight down. It was hard to tell if he was panicking or not, but everyone assembled on the cliff certainly was. Down, down, down he fell, past where they could see...
"So how fast can you run?" Colton asked Piro.
And then the dragonfly took flight. It wasn't graceful at first, but it was flying; up into the air, looping around messily, then swaying this way and that as the pilot did his best to wrangle the wind currents in an environment that was not especially wide-open.
Piro smiled to Colton. "The packs come with a built-in parachute for emergencies, but I don't recommend using them. They tend to dislocate your shoul
ders when deployed."
"Good to know. Thanks."
"There are also some basic-issue weapons onboard. Your blasters, your short-burst plasma. Nothing defensive, though, so you need to keep your tail clean."
"Understood," said Colton, watching the dragonfly loop-de-loop around a rock-arch. It was starting to look easier. More or less. From a certain point of view.
"Speaking of weapons," said Ugero, stomping forward. "Thought you might want this back." He held out the Sig Sauer.
Colton grinned at the big dumb fox. "You don't want to keep it?"
"Nah," said Ugero. "My fingers don't fit. Also, it looks like a toy. It's more your style."
Colton laughed, took the gun, checked it over. A thing of beauty. "When we get there," he said to them both, "I'll find Ilina—"
Ugero hit him across the face, hard. Colton stumbled back, shocked.
"What the hell was that for?"
"It's illegal to speak her name," he said.
"But that whole time we were pretending to—"
"Yes, I know, I owe you a lot of punches," Ugero said with a grin. "They're coming, don't worry."
Colton cricked his neck, tried to re-focus. "So as I was saying..." he sneered. "When we get there, I'll find the Empress and get her to safety."
"Where is safety?" asked Piro.
"I was going to leave that up to you."
Piro nodded to Ugero. "The Palace of Justice," he said. "It's near the city center, and has an underground bunker that can withstand a strike from orbit."
"But what about hostiles?" asked Colton. "Is it empty?"
Ugero cracked his knuckles. "It will be."
Piro agreed: "You find the Empress, we'll clear the bunker and the rest of the team will open up a route for you to follow."
"Roger that," said Colton, turning his attention back to the dragonfly. "Are you sure these things can get us there in time?"
Piro checked his notepad. "The Empress is due to speak in a little over six hours," he said. "If we leave soon, and the winds cooperate, we stand a very good chance of getting there before she takes the stage."
The Galactic Empress' Bodyguard Page 14
