Empress Game: The Empress Game Trilogy Book 1 (20 page)

He was the leader of Velezed, the planet on which the Tetratock Nanovirus originated. It was his people who had first suffered the plague, his world was the first to be devoured by the nanites. The microscopic robots’ hunger for all organic material had left Velezed near-lifeless. Only a handful of people survived on each of its continents, and the TNV wasn’t finished there.

Trebulan himself was one of the few survivors of the TNV. Somehow his body had fought and defeated the nanites that infected his blood, but not before they nearly killed him. Willing to do anything to save his people, Trebulan had submitted himself as a test subject to Velezed’s scientists in their futile efforts to find a cure. Kayla couldn’t imagine what he had been put through. Here he was, though, a walking reminder of what was at stake for each world in the empire if the spread of the TNV couldn’t be contained.

His once healthy frame was devastated, wracked and twisted until he walked like a short-circuited bot that couldn’t control its direction. While he gathered looks of pity aplenty, few people stopped to have a word with him.

And no wonder. Most people didn’t know what to say to someone so heroic and destroyed at the same time.

“Your highness? Prince Trebulan, do you perhaps have a moment?” Kayla moved into what she thought might have been his path. It was near impossible to tell where his spasmodic steps were meant to take him. His head swiveled as if the joint were rusty, and his good eye focused on her.

“I intended to withdraw for the evening, but I have a few minutes.” His voice was perhaps the only undamaged part of him, and it poured out so smoothly as to be almost freakish. He stopped an awkward distance away. Kayla closed the gap, uncertain if to smile at him was even appropriate.

“I wanted to meet you, to introduce myself. I have much sympathy for your plight,” she said.

His lips quirked sardonically. “You and everyone else. Sympathy I have in abundance.”

“Of course you do. The TNV is a horror. The devastation your world has suffered is incalculable. I’m sure everyone sympathizes.”

Trebulan and his counselors had been circulating among the parties so far, each dressed in crimson ceremonial robes of mourning and causing a sensation. The topic of the TNV trailed in their wake.

“Perhaps if everyone was less sympathetic and more prone to action, my people might not continue to suffer.”

She nodded. “There’s much the empire could do for Velezed if the Councils would address more proposals related to relief efforts.”

He scoffed at the mention of relief efforts. “That won’t happen unless the Sovereign Council looks beyond their self-interests.”

“What you need are more allies,” she said.

He raised a brow. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Lady Evelyn Broch, of Piran. Eradicating the TNV is a concern for all of the empire, and we’re especially dedicated to the cause.”

His cool manner chilled further. “What my people need most right now, Lady Evelyn, is food. Medicine. Generators. We need help incinerating our dead. Eradication of the nanovirus is a long-term goal; my people need immediate help.”

“I understand that, and Piran has been committing aid since the beginning of the TNV disaster. We’re pushing a bill for a bigger relief package through the Sovereign Council, but the need for a cure can’t be underscored enough. We’re trying to build support for a plan that will lead to the eradication of the nanovirus.”

“I have heard of Piran’s, and especially Princess Isonde’s, ‘plan’ for chasing a cure. She doesn’t know a thing about getting results.”

His response surprised her. “Do you disagree that the Wyrds are our best hope of finding a cure before the TNV consumes the rest of the empire?”

“Not at all. But withdraw from Wyrd Space? What,
apologize
, to them?”

“With their freedom as a bargaining tool, we hope to gain their cooperation.”

“You want to get their cooperation?” he asked with some venom. “Unleash it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Unleash the TNV on all those heartless freaks. Let it decimate their people, devour their world. Let their dead pile in the streets because no one is left to deal with the bodies. I guarantee that’ll get results. They’ll bend their oh-so-superior minds and psi powers to a cure faster than a static discharge.”

Her hand clenched empty air where her kris should have been. “After all you and your people have suffered, how could you wish that on someone else?” On my people, you frutting sociopath.
I will kill you before that happens
.

“It is
because
of what we have suffered that I vote to release the TNV on Ordoch. Those—” He cut himself off. “The Wyrds had the option to help and they chose not to. They burned whatever sympathy I might have had for them with their inaction.” The tremor that shivered his head intensified and he paused to breathe.

Good
, she thought.
I hope it hurts
. It took everything she had not to defend her people’s choice, to play her role as Lady Evelyn.

Isonde would be equally horrified. They had assumed Trebulan and the Velezed council members would be among the strongest of their allies, not their opponents.

In a quieter voice he said, “We appreciate the aid Piran has given us thus far and hope to remain on friendly terms. I cannot, however, support a plan that relies on naïve belief in the altruism of the Wyrds. Withdrawing from Ordoch would certainly be a mistake. Now, if you will excuse me.” He spurred his crippled form into his disjointed walk, leaving her staring after him.

Holy shit. Could the Councils actually vote to unleash the TNV on Ordoch? Was that possible?

Trebulan had a surviving heir who was entered into the Empress Game. If she won and controlled a vote on the Council of Seven…

Kayla’s hands tightened to fists. She would grind that little bitch into dust.

Dinner party be damned. Time to study more fight tactics.

A
n insistent beeping woke Malkor from much-needed sleep. Damnit, hadn’t he just lain down? He groped for the mobile comm on the bedside table and flipped on the screen.

Senior Agent Rua
,

Glad to see you made it to the Game safely. An unplanned visit to the Mine Field is treacherous enough, never mind if the visit is less than coincidental. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I know about your jaunt to Altair Tri. Dangerous business, that. You might have made your plans with the best of intentions but it’s clear someone doesn’t share your views. Perhaps you should choose your allies more carefully.

I suggest we meet.

You have your ends and I have mine, but both can be achieved, depending on who claims the throne. I might have some insight into your particular situation, and you might have a way to repay my generosity.

I’m easy enough to spot around court, but the best way to reach me is to approach my people. What a spectacular and sensational delight their arrival at the Game has been, don’t you agree?

Annoyance melded into suspicion. He’d received a steady flow of anonymous, cloak and dagger messages on his public terminal since assuming his duties at the Empress Game, but this was the first to reach his private ID, shooting straight through to reach him on his IDC-encrypted mobile comm. He scanned it again, slower, and the hairs prickled on his neck at the wording.

He sat up in bed, blinking bleary eyes. Sleep had apparently become a luxury he couldn’t afford.

He’d been awake last night with an emergency with one of the contestants he had under surveillance. The night before that the inaugural ball kept him up. Before that it had been meetings with Commander Parrel and fellow octet leaders until well past bedtime.

… and every night it had been Shadow Panthe. Kayla. Ricocheting through his thoughts like a well-aimed projectile.

He pulled his sleep-fogged mind together. What hour was it? A glance at the chronometer confirmed his suspicions: three in the morning. Nonetheless, he paged Hekkar with a non-urgent request. If Hekkar was sleeping, it wouldn’t wake him.

“Yeah, Malk?”

So much for sleeping.

“What are you doing up?”

“Just finished meeting with an informant. Real dead-of-night, back-alleyway type. You?”

“Something similar. Got a minute?”

“Sure, I’m headed back to our wing, be at your room in ten.”

Malkor considered lying back down for five, but rose instead.

The inference that Ardin’s starcruiser’s close call in the Mine Field had been more than bad luck matched his own thoughts too closely. And how in the void had the sender gotten that information?

Time for another look at the incident report.

Malkor poured a glass of water and settled in front of his complink terminal. He opened the report Ardin had sent him with the starcruiser’s full damage assessment. He read through the catalog of sections and systems affected by the attack, then went through the defense detail of the report, pausing at the estimation of the “pirate” ships’ probable weaponry. Fancy. And pricey. Too pricey for pirates scavenging the edge of the Mine Field for stream-tripped vessels.

“Let me in,” came Hekkar’s voice through the comm.

Hekkar entered, looking every bit as shady as the character he’d been meeting. His vibrant red-orange hair was tucked beneath a black bandana, the collar of his duster was pulled up to his cheekbones and the gray-black motley of his outfit said “street-tough” without words. Hekkar could do a fair bit of hulking when the situation called for it, and right now he looked rough enough to make a person wait for the next magchute.

“Good meet?”

Hekkar sloughed off the duster and tossed it on the coffee table. “We’ll see. He claimed to have a source inside the service staff that swears one of the contestants is using some kind of organic-bionics. A substance injected subcutaneously that toughens the flesh into a pliable armor of sorts, and allows for adhesion of carbon-based bionics to the bone.”

“I’ve never even heard of such a thing.”

“Me neither. He of course wouldn’t say who the source was, who the suspect was, or why they suspected anything in the first place, but he did refer to the contestant as ‘the deaconess.’ Figured I’d start by running down a list of which contestants can claim that title and go from there.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Probably a waste of time, but, hey.” Hekkar made himself comfortable on the couch, feet propped on the table. “What has you up in the middle of the night?”

“Have you read the reports on the damage to Ardin’s ship?”

“Haven’t had a chance yet. Something good?”

“Good? No. Interesting? Yes.” Malkor enlarged the schematic he’d been studying.

“By ‘interesting,’” Hekkar said, “you mean worrisome, don’t you?”

“Is there any other kind of interesting for the IDC?”

Hekkar sighed. “Just once I wish there was.”

“No, you don’t. I saw you making the rounds at one of the banquets tonight. You love this shit. The intrigue, the drama, the intricate dance of diplomacy. Admit it—you live for this.”

“I’ll admit it when you do.”

Malkor grinned. “Guilty.” This was why he joined the IDC, to affect politics without sitting through hours upon endless hours of Council sessions. To get to know the people behind the politics and achieve the best outcome for the empire without being limited by “the rules.” Backroom deals? Undocumented concessions? Last-minute saves of potentially catastrophic situations between nations? Anything and everything for the good of the empire.

“So what are we looking at here?” Hekkar gestured to Malkor’s screen.

“Damage to the engines. The ships took pot shots at the drives, but didn’t attack with anything too heavy. One of the hyperspace drives had the thrust output channel collapsed and the venting tubes on both sub-stream drives were riddled. None of these shots, though, hit the fuel cells or reaction chambers. Not even close.”

“They wanted to disable us, not blow us up.”

“True, and sensible for space pirates. But look.” Malkor touched the screen to explode a section of the still-functioning hyperspace drive’s reaction chamber. “What’s this here?” Minuscule fractures lined the casing, barely visible on the schematic. They ran the length, irregularly spaced and branching out from a single point.

Hekkar came to study the screen. He leaned past Malkor to manipulate the image, first zooming the display in, then widening to view the overall damage to the rear section of the ship.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Malkor asked.

“Mhmm. Those stress fractures don’t look like they could have been caused by any of the other damage.” He bent in for a closer look. “Janeen reported that the captain had wanted to drop out of stream right before the attack, didn’t she? She’d said the drives were ‘twitchy.’”

“Power couldn’t be equalized with those structural weaknesses, no wonder it was twitchy. Sure, power generation vibrates the shit out of casings and will eventually blow them apart if left alone, but”—Malkor tapped the central point in the fracture spokes—“no way this is standard degradation.”

“So what are we saying?”

“Someone on board Ardin’s starcruiser didn’t want us making it to the Game.”

Hekkar whistled. “Damn. Weaken the hyperspace drive so we’re guaranteed to drop stream in the Mine Field, then have associates clean us up once there.”

“They’d only need to delay us until the Game was over. It runs with or without Ardin’s presence, once it’s been called. But if Isonde wasn’t there to compete…”

“Never thought I’d be thankful for the rooks. We’d never have escaped without their interference.” Hekkar shook his head. “Couldn’t have been another contestant, no one knew we were even out there.”

“No one but Ardin and Isonde’s inner circle, and they’ll vouch for every one of them.”

“Yeah, but I won’t.” Hekkar took his place back on the couch. “What even made you look at the reactor casings?”

Malkor read him the message he’d received. The wording struck him again.

Wait—

Malkor reread the last line.
“… the best way to reach me is to approach my people. What a spectacular and sensational delight their arrival at the Game has been, don’t you agree?”