Shades of Empire (ThreeCon)

by Carmen Webster Buxton

  “Calm down. The skipper hasn’t started up the list again. It’s just I had a bet with Buchanan that she couldn’t hold out more than five days without a visit from you, if you know what I mean.”

  Thaddeus gave him a disgusted look. “A bet, huh?”

  Khan nodded as he waited for Thaddeus to start down the corridor toward the lift. “Two hundred credits.”

  Thaddeus’s disgust changed to surprise. He glanced over his shoulder at Khan as they walked, and gave him a measuring look. “You must have been pretty damn certain you’d win to lay out that much money.”

  “To tell you the truth, I would have said four days, but Buchanan was willing to go for five, so I went with that.”

  “Cutting it awfully close?”

  Khan shrugged. “I know her pretty well. I’ve been with the Bee for seven years—almost since the skipper started operating.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “The thing is, she has trouble going five days when it’s just the next guy up on the list. I figure when she actually cares about the guy, no way she’d make it that long.”

  Thaddeus stepped onto the lift. A merchant ship was worse than a small town. Everyone knew everyone else’s business to an intimate degree. “All this time I never knew you were such a romantic.”

  Khan grinned back as he got on beside Thaddeus and tapped the control. “I’m not. I’m just open to making a credit here and there. Can’t blame a guy for that.”

  “I suppose not,” Thaddeus said, stepping off the lift.

  “Here we are,” Khan said as they neared Maddy’s door. “Try not to make her mad again, will you, Thad? I don’t want to lose this one.”

  Thaddeus shook his head philosophically. “You know what they say, Khan—never bet what you can’t afford to lose.”

  Khan hit the buzzer, and Maddy’s voice called for the door to open.

  “Here he is, ma’am,” Khan said, his tone hopeful as he pushed Thaddeus in front of him and then stepped inside. “Shall I wait?”

  “No,” Maddy said. She was wearing her caftan; from the rumpled bedclothes, Thaddeus deduced that she had already been to bed and then gotten up again. “I’ll call if I need someone.”

  Khan’s smile was beatific. “Sure thing, skipper.” He left without further ado, and Thaddeus was alone with Maddy.

  She locked the door, and then looked him up and down but said nothing. Unsure of her mood, Thaddeus decided it would be wisest to leave the first move up to her, so he simply waited.

  “Well,” Maddy said, finally. “You look well enough.”

  “I suppose you could say captivity agrees with me?” Thaddeus said, letting sarcasm creep into his voice.

  He eyes narrowed. “Watch it, Thad. We’ll be at du Plessis Station at oh six thirty hours tomorrow. I plan on keeping you under lock and key for the whole time we’re there. Unless you want to spend tonight in the brig, too, you’d better try a little harder not to piss me off.”

  Oh six thirty hours? That didn’t give him much time to plan. “I see. And at what point in this relationship do you start trying not to piss me off?”

  She moved to the end of the bunk and sat down, tucking her knees up under her chin as she did so. “That depends on you. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these last three days.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yes. I can’t stop myself from thinking, actually.” She looked him up and down. “I know very well that sooner or later, ThreeCon will most likely make a move to get you back. You won’t tell me what your check-in schedule was, so I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I know that sooner or later, it’ll happen. I can think of only two things that would stop them.”

  “What are they?” Thaddeus asked, curious to see what she had come up with in her analysis.

  “The first one would be if they were too worried about anyone finding out what you were doing here to investigate.”

  She was right that some ops were so covert that the operatives were on their own. Thaddeus was glad this wasn’t one of them. “And do you think that’s likely?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. When I figured out you were a plant, you admitted you were with ThreeCon. That tells me they aren’t worried enough about keeping the secret to take any drastic steps—no suicide implants, no mental programming to make you think you really were a simple-minded astrogator. No, you were just pretending, and you caved fast when I caught you. That means you saw an advantage to my knowing about ThreeCon, which means that ThreeCon can’t rate secrecy as their top priority.”

  Thaddeus was impressed that she had assessed his mission’s level of security so accurately. “So what’s the second thing?”

  “If they thought you were dead.”

  He lifted his brows. What was she suggesting? He knew she would never kill him. “But I’m not dead. And ThreeCon takes care of its own. Even if you sent a death notice to the mythical person listed as my next of kin, ThreeCon wouldn’t let it rest. They’d still check you out and make an effort to find out what had happened to me.”

  She tilted her head. “I could make something up. An accident on the bridge, followed by burial in space. The crew would back me up.”

  She must have thought about it a lot to have come up with this plan. “I see. And where would I be during all of this?”

  “Right here with me. You could go back to being our astrogator full time. You could stay hidden away whenever we were in port, for a year or two anyway—until ThreeCon gave up. We could make a up a new name for you, a whole new identity, and ThreeCon would never have to know.”

  It might be a plan, but it was a precarious one. Thaddeus felt a warm sense of exhilaration that she cared enough about him to take such a risk. “No. I appreciate the offer, Maddy, but I can’t do it.”

  She studied his face overtly. “Is there someone else?”

  “No, it’s not that. I do like to keep in touch with my folks and my sister’s family, but that isn’t the reason I have to turn down your very flattering offer.”

  “Then why?” she demanded, putting her feet on the floor and sitting up straighter.

  “Two reasons. The first one is I’ve made a commitment to ThreeCon. I still have three years to go in my second hitch.”

  “What’s the second reason?”

  He paused, debating how to phrase his answer in a way that wouldn’t insult her. “I haven’t got the makings for a good smuggler, Maddy. I could go along with the gun-running, in light of what I know about the du Plessis dynasty, but there’s no way I could be a party to some of the other stuff you do. I may not like every law in ThreeCon’s book, but I obey them.”

  “I see. So I’m scum?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But I’m not up to your high moral standards?”

  “No!” This wasn’t going well. In some ways, he missed his old persona, where all he had to do to communicate was look soulful. “It’s not a question of morality. I just don’t have the same ability to look at things the way you do.”

  She twitched her caftan down around her ankles. “You’re digging yourself in deeper and deeper.”

  He couldn’t hold back a smile. “Maybe I am. But I do appreciate the offer.”

  “You’re welcome. You want to get laid tonight?”

  His smile widened perceptibly. Maddy was still Maddy. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said, moving toward the bed.

  She lifted her face as he approached, and he bent down and kissed her. Maddy let it go on for quite a while, and when she pulled away, she took hold of his shirt and dragged him down on the bed with her.

  “It’s been a long three days, Thad. You never did thank me for not giving you to the rebels.”

  Thaddeus rolled her over on her back and began to unfasten her caftan. “I know I didn’t. I’ve been thinking about that for three days.”

  “So have I.” She pushed him back so that she could pull open his shirt. Thaddeus slipped off his shoes, and Maddy had his trousers
off in seconds.

  “Umph,” he said, wrenching himself away from an ardent kiss. “Slow down, woman! What’s the hurry?”

  Maddy slid one leg over his body and then sat up, straddling him. “I’m in a hurry, dammit! We’ve only got tonight, and then you go back in the brig. You don’t think once is going to do it, do you?”

  He pulled her down on top of him and kissed her fiercely, then held her tightly while he rolled so that he was on top of her.

  “Whatever it takes, Maddy,” he said in her ear. “Whatever it takes!”

  • • •

  This time, Maddy let Thaddeus eat breakfast before she summoned his jailers. She had two trays sent in from the mess, and they ate together on the small table in her cabin. Thaddeus took his time, and finally she directed him to hurry up or he would go to the brig without the chance to clean his plate.

  Thaddeus sighed at the thought. “I’m going crazy in there. There’s absolutely nothing to do.”

  “I’ll send down a book reader,” she promised. “My book reader, not yours. Get moving, Thad.”

  He shoveled down a couple of forkfuls of food and then asked a question, partly because he wanted to know the answer and partly to stall. “Any word from your contacts on Gaulle?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t keep in touch with them on a regular basis.”

  “Nothing on the news bulletins from Montmartre?”

  “No assault, anyway,” Maddy said. “There was rioting in the central square yesterday. No one’s happy about the new level of taxation. Baron Urquart had to speak to the crowd to calm things down.”

  Thaddeus digested the news. Change always had a cost, and no one wanted to see the cost outweigh the benefits. “Riots are tricky things. Generally speaking, they’ve been known to cause more misery than they alleviate.”

  “That may be, but Emperor Lothar had best get used to them if he’s going to keep behaving like this.”

  Thaddeus nodded and kept the conversation ball rolling. The more time he was unrestrained, the better chance he had. “He’s a du Plessis. I’m making another generalization here, which is bad practice twice in the same conversation, but that’s what they do.”

  “I don’t know much about Gaullian history,” Maddy said. “I only know the here and now.”

  “With the du Plessis family,” Thaddeus said dryly, “their history is pretty much the same as their here and now. They’ve always been tyrants, and now that they’ve been in charge for a few centuries—in-breeding like crazy with the local gentry, too—they’re hardly the most socially responsible of rulers.”

  “Enough about the du Plessis,” Maddy said. “Khan and Pringle are waiting in the hall. Get moving, Thad.”

  Thaddeus got to his feet. “Khan can afford to wait,” he said, hoping she would find the comment cryptic enough to ask a question.

  Maddy ignored it entirely. “Kiss me goodbye,” she commanded, standing up next to him. “And remember it has to last two days.”

  He put his arms around her and gave her a very substantial kiss. Right in the middle of it, Thaddeus felt the gravity lift, and he knew that the Bee had docked at Space Station du Plessis, where the gravity was even lower than on the ship. If his plan worked, it would be more than two days.

  “Two years,” Maddy said with a sigh. “I wasted two years thinking you were some kind of mental deficient who was cognitively below the age of consent. I could use those two years back.”

  Thaddeus felt a warm rush of affection for her. He was going to miss her. “You’re asking for a leap in technology, sweetheart. And you’re not going to get it.”

  She flushed with pleasure at this endearment, and then went to the door and opened it, revealing the two armed crewmen who were waiting.

  “So long, skipper,” Thaddeus said politely.

  “Watch it, Thad,” she warned him. “You do want that book reader, don’t you?”

  He smiled and kissed her gently on the cheek as he walked past. He hoped he would see her again.

  Khan was in a good mood. He even thanked Thaddeus for helping him win his bet.

  Pringle was annoyed at not being included. “If I’d known there was anyone on board stupid enough to make that bet, I’d have been in on it.”

  For once, Thaddeus wasn’t concerned with their speculations on Maddy’s sex life. He was more than a week past his check-in limit, and he was worried about what his team might do if he didn’t succeed in reaching them soon.

  Thaddeus knew the layout of the station from previous visits to it. Maddy would have docked the ship using the docking port on level one, as opposed to the port on level four. His guards weren’t really expecting him to try anything; he had been confined aboard the Bee for some time now without making any attempt to escape, and they were getting careless. Thaddeus wouldn’t get another such chance.

  As they neared the lift, Thaddeus gradually drifted to his left, to give himself room to maneuver. When Khan stepped forward to press the switch to open the lift doors, Thaddeus grabbed a stanchion on the bulkhead with his left hand to anchor himself against the effects of low gravity and spun his body backwards, lifting his right foot in a high, forceful kick to the chin that pushed Khan back against the bulkhead with a thump. Before Pringle even had a chance to react, Thaddeus kept his momentum going and brought his right hand up and back in an open-handed blow to the chest that knocked the air out of the other man’s lungs.

  With both of them temporarily stunned, Thaddeus snatched Khan’s stun gun off of his belt and swiftly ensured that their condition would be considerably more prolonged. Next, he made sure their breathing was unobstructed, and then he left them lying in the corridor as he stepped into the lift. As soon as he had set the controls for level one, he reached back to tuck the stun gun into the waistband of his trousers, wedging it firmly against the small of his back.

  The lift entrance on level one was located right near Main Engineering, and when the door opened, Thaddeus was on the lookout. He managed to avoid running into any of the crew until he was almost to the docking bay, and then his luck ran out.

  The Queen Bee had to keep the bay open until the customs inspectors had cleared the ship. Maddy had taken the precaution of posting a guard, as much to keep anyone from wandering into the ship as anything else. As usual in this system, the guard wasn’t a Gaullian; Kerry Lineaus was looking bored as he stood there beside the open bay, stun gun on his hip and his eye on the corridor outside the Bee. Their normal docking location was on one of the long tubes that formed the spokes of the wheel-shaped station, and this often provided a view on the passing parade of traders, soldiers, station bureaucrats, crewmen on leave, and even the occasional prostitute.

  As soon as Thaddeus moved into his field of vision, however, Lineaus turned his attention to the interior of his ship. He turned to see who it was and frowned as he recognized Thaddeus.

  “Say,” he said slowly, “you’re not supposed to be up here.”

  Up was a somewhat relative term at that point. However, even minimal gravity is easily distinguished from no gravity, and Thaddeus certainly understood his meaning.

  Thaddeus feigned surprise. “You mean you didn’t hear?”

  “Hear what?” Lineaus asked, his hand on the hilt of his stun gun.

  “This,” Thaddeus said, and he whipped the stun gun from behind him and fired almost instantaneously.

  Lineaus hit the deck with his weapon in his hand and a look of total astonishment on his face. Thaddeus looked him over in disgust and concluded he would be fine where he was.

  “You’re more of an idiot than I pretended to be,” he said to the unconscious crewman. “It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long.”

  And then he stepped over Lineaus’ body and out into the station.

  There would be, he knew, a well-guarded gate at the end of the concourse, and talking his way through it would be difficult, as Maddy had confiscated his identification and cash when she first tumbled to his identity. Nonetheles
s, he felt a certain sense of satisfaction as he strode along purposely. He thought about how angry Maddy would be when she heard he had escaped. Much as he regretted leaving her, he was glad he wouldn’t be around when she vented her feelings on her crew.

  He tossed the stun gun in the first trash receptacle he encountered and started walking toward the gate. He had a lot of explaining to do.

  Chapter Seven

  Alexander studied the intense expressions on the faces of the assembled leaders of the revolutionary strike force and revised his estimate of their success from one chance in a thousand to one in a million.

  “Can you get the fake identification in time, Duchess?” Ostrov asked. His voice echoed in the empty storeroom where they held their planning meetings. In the stark light, his face looked craggier than usual.

  The dark-haired young woman known only by her code name was younger than Alexander, and the former guardsman had been surprised to find her in such a crucial role in the rebel organization. “I think so,” she said from her seat on a packing crate. “I found a source who says she can provide it. She’s been reliable in the past.”

  “Good,” Ostrov said. He was the only one who had a real chair. “Sentinel, show Duchess your floor plan.”

  It took Alexander a second to remember that his code name was Sentinel. He pulled his hand-drawn map from his pocket and moved to show it to the young woman. Her dark eyes glowed with eagerness, but she shook her head as she sat down again. “I can’t comment on any of it. I’ve only been in the palace a couple of times, and in both cases I was only in the public reception rooms.”

  Alexander looked at her with new interest as he stepped back against the wall. If she had been a guest of the du Plessis, she most likely belonged to a noble family, which explained her code name. Alexander had never considered that a noble might hate the Empire as much as he did.

  “In any event,” Lottie Chen said, “it doesn’t matter because we know Sentinel’s information is good.”

  Alexander flushed at this reminder. The rebels had insisted he undergo interrogation under nempathenol, both to confirm that he wasn’t lying and to ensure that his memory was accurate. Duchess gave him a curious look but said nothing further.