Penny

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Emmaline curled her lips with Imperial disdain for the barbarism of Araby. Altdorf footpads might cut your throat but at least they wouldn’t try to claim you as property. Although she appreciated why Amal had claimed to be her owner it didn’t exactly overwhelm her with happiness either. To take her mind off the dark thoughts that were growing there she glanced around the interior of the spire. It was dark and cool and a vague hint on incense hung in the air. A winding staircase against one wall lead up and down while in the center of the room was a large table heaped with food. Curiously bronze statues of servants stood around the food as though in the process of preparing the feast.

“Amal, why would a ground floor window not be barred?” she asked uneasily. Amal opened his mouth to reply and looked back towards the window. There was nothing there except smooth stonework.

“Hrmmm,” he temporized looking back to Emmaline with a look of shock on his face. The statues gleamed under the light of a pair of lanterns that hung from hooks in the wall.

“I think we should get out of here,” she said, reaching up and lifting one of the lanterns. As the light shifted the bronze statues began to move, chopping vegetables and preparing food. One turned and looked incuriously at Amal and Emmaline.

“Definitely time to go,” she squeaked and hurried up the stairs, figuring that one direction was much the same as the other. The next floor was similarly windowless and held a dormitory that must have either been for servants or soldiers. Though no pursuit or alarm was evident they quickly hurried up to the next level. Emerging from stairway they found themselves in a somewhat shabby work shop. Alchemical equipment, familiar to Emmaline, though strange and exotic to Amal was set up on benches, liquid flames licked the glass and sent strange liquids and vapors through the condensing tubes and bubbled concentrating flasks. A crudely built book shelf contained a few dozen moth eaten volumes and a pile of scrolls and papyri. As they entered a pimply faced young Arabyian in a threadbare robe jumped to his feet his eyes wide with shock.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he demanded drawing himself up in what he probably imagined was an impressive fashion.

“Uhhh we came in through the window,” Emmaline explained, blue eyes darting around the chamber.

“Ah more flies drawn to the honey trap I see,” he cackled, revealing yellowed crooked teeth.

“You are now the slaves of Suhayl Tahir,” he declared pompously. Emmaline arched a blonde eyebrow, her face irritated at a second attempt to enslave her in ten minutes.

“And that is you?” she asked skeptically. The youthful man cleared his throat, apparently taken aback that they hadn’t fallen on their knees in supplication.

“Ah, no, I am Lufti, his most favored apprentice, submit now and it will go easier for you!” he cried, melodramatically raising his hand so that arcane energy danced across his palms.

“I see,” Emmaline said reasonably and then smashed her lantern into the side of Lufti’s head. There was a sound like iron hitting sand as well as a cracking of glass as the lantern struck the apprentice squarely, the arc of the lanterns short chain making up what Emmaline’s slight frame could not supply in strength. Lufti dropped to the floor like a poleaxed steer, the arcane energy sputtering and dissipating.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Criestia made an indelicate sound at the question. She fiddled with her hand held scanner for a moment, more to give herself a moment to compose a reply than for any new information it might provide.

“I’m going to put an ATU on it, so he won’t be able to run around, but he ought to be ok to sit up by this evening. Buy tomorrow, if everything goes well he should be able to walk without doing more damage but I’d give it a week to make a full recovery,” Criestia explained. Automatic Treatment Units were a small scale version of the medical computers that starships often carried, able to perform minor surgery and post surgical care by way of small metallic polymer filaments which penetrated to the affected area and then worked on the problem from the inside with a combination of mechanical repair, pharmaceutical treatment and a basic form of 3D printing which laid down a carbohydrate superstructure which the body would eventually subsume as tissue regrew.

“Do you have a medical computer on that ship of yours?” Criestia asked, as she drew a palm sized plastic box from her medical bag and touched a button to sync it to her handheld.

“We do,” Solae confirmed glancing between Rene and the doctor. Criestia pressed the box to Rene’s side, the flexible plastic moulding like putty beneath her hands. There was a soft fizzing sound as surgical superglue attached it to Rene skin.

“Good, if you hook him up to it everyday you might speed recovery time to three maybe four days. Providing…” she wagged a finger at Rene, “you don’t go around getting into any more gunfights.”

“That might not be up to me, if Bhast is out there recruiting hired guns it’s only going to take so long to figure out who his hiding us and where we are. She has probably already traced Thorne’s call to Ralch and from there she can work her way back to Ten…” Rene cut off with a grimace of pain as Criestia activated the ATU and the three surgical filaments lanced into his skin. The pain subsided almost immediately as they began to apply neuro-inhibitors to deactivate the pain responses.

“That isn’t my department, I'm just telling you to take it easy if you don’t want to rip yourself open before you finish healing,” Criestia said as she packed up her medical bag.

“I’ll be monitoring your readings but if you feel anything change you should call me immediately,” she cautioned before slinging her bag and leaving the two lovers alone. Solae leaned down and they shared a brief passionate kiss, though she was careful not to disturb the unit attached to his side. Rene showed no such restraint, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing their bodies together for a long moment, the heat and scent of her stirring his loins despite the after effects of wounds and medication. She broke the embrace with a wicked smile before he could risk undoing any of Criestia’s work, he would probably be lucky if the spike in his heart rate didn’t bring her back.

“I suppose some things might do as much damage as another gunfight,” he said with a wink, earning himself a wicked grin from his paramour.

“So tell me about you new rank,” she said, disengaging herself with evident reluctance.

“Well,” Rene began, leaning back on his cot.

“A light colonel ordinarily runs a batallion, but they also serve as advisors and military attaches, you probably had one at the embassy in New Concordia, though it may have been a major seeing we are pretty far from Capella,” Rene explained. That had probably been what the Empress had intended when she granted Solae’s request to improve his situation.

“I don’t think that recruiting troops is a good idea, you were onto something with the Syshin but the more people we expose ourselves to the more likely it is someone will try to take Duke Tan up on his offer.” Rene lay back trying to dredge up the bits and pieces he remembered from long ago briefings when he had been stationed on New Concordia.

“I am probably the highest ranking marine left in the Eastern Cross,” he admitted.

“There was a Colonel Drakova stationed on the flag ship of the local naval squadron at Traulis Major but that would have been the first target when the coup kicked off. They probably hit every deployment of marines but its possible there are other fugitives who escaped the purge.” There had been several thousand marines scattered across the Eastern Cross, working as military advisors to the Gids and at small bases like the Rat Trap. Had any of those men survived. There had to be a certain number who had been on leave, or like Rene had simply gotten lucky. If they could find those men Rene could in theory rally them, though he had no training to be an officer beyond what his father had taught him and what he had picked up as an enlisted man.

“I suppose that brings us to what we should do next,” Rene said, the words sounding strange to his own ears. They had been focused on reaching the PEA for so long that he hadn’t really thought about what might come after. The vague notion of finding a quiet world to hide on that he had been forming had been dashed in the PEA chamber. The Empress had given them tremendous gifts but they carried with them new responsibilities and imperatives.

“It’s a shame we didn’t have time to get any more information.”

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Junebug rolled with Neil on the bed, wrestling for the gun. Neil outweighed her but she had more experience in hand to hand fighting, and whatever the Terran’s had done to her surprisingly dynamic. Neil also hesitated to strike home and was rewarded with a sharp blow to the kidney. He let out a pained shout and drove his elbow into Junebug’s sternum a heart beat before she smashed her knee into his stomach. Both of them grappled for the pistol but Neils larger hands made that a losing battle. Junebug squeezed the trigger, blasting a bottle of spirits on the side board to fragments before Neil got a leg under her and flipped her towards the wall, she twisted and let the flip bring her feet in contact with the marble wall, let her calves compress and launched herself back over the top of Neil’s sweating body. The gun went off again and plaster reigned down from the ceiling where the heavy round punched into the moulding. Her body weigh wrenched the weapon free and sent it clattering over the onyx inlaid marble floor, though for a miracle it didn’t go off. Neil caught her arm and yanked her back, demonstrating considerable strength to arrest her momentum, nearly pulling her shoulder from its socket. She aimed an elbow at his face but he got his forearm up in time to block the strike with a grunt of pain. Sayeeda rolled on top of him, pinning him with her thighs and drawing back her fist to punch down at his throat. Neil’s fist was cocked back to make the reverse strike and his other hand gripped her throat.

They both paused, shying back from the edge of lethal violence instinctively. Thick coils of powder smoke wreathed the room, in a logic dictated by the complicated air flow. A light mist of vaporized plaster continued to fall from the hole in the ceiling, and fluid gurgled from a punctured bottle adding the tang of some kind of high proof brandy to the tableau. Sweat sheened Junebug’s naked body and a drop collected at the point of her nose and dropped onto Neil’s chest. Her heart thundered in her chest and adrenaline burned so hot inside her she could literally trace the path of her veins through her limbs.

“This isn’t over,” she warned in a cold distant voice.

“Right,” Neil said though she couldn’t have said exactly what he meant by the affirmation.

Suddenly and without conscious understanding of movement, their lips were locked together in a passionate kiss. Junebug was unable to separate the rush of combat from the new circumstance in her mind but she didn’t waste much time trying. Neil, apparently as surprised as she was, seemed unable to decide whether to try to take his t-shirt off or to grip her. Breaking the impasse she gripped the collar with both hands and tore it free with a long riiiiip of parting fabric.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Sayeeda might not have known who to handle the emotional roller coaster of the last few days but she knew how to handle a threat to her team, even a threat from within. Her anger and confusion froze instantly into the icy calm she felt in battle. In the blink of an eye she crossed the room, seized Neil by the shoulder, spun him around and slammed him against the door. The pilot outweighed her significantly but her muscles were whipcord strong and she had the advantage of position. Unfortunately the maneuver didn’t leave her any hands to secure her towel which fluttered to the ground to leave her completely exposed.

“Hey!” Neil snapped, his face pinched with a mixture of emotions Sayeeda couldn’t easily identify. She slammed him bodily against the door rattling and driving the breath from Neil’s body.

“HEY!” she snapped smashing Neil back against the door.

“Get your shit together Neil!” she snapped.

“Don’t tell me to…”

“Get. Your. Shit. Together!” she hissed, the vehemence of the words momentarily shocking the pilot to silence.

“You think they are just going to let you walk away after you deflowered their fucking princess?” she demanded. Saxon snorted.

“He is simply ashamed to have chosen a lessor mate. He…” Without letting Neil down she pulled the heavy pistol from Neil’s holster, half turned and shot Saxon threw the right kneecap. The Hex dropped to the floor hissing in pain and cursing, the report was deafening in the combined space and the concussion knocked a vase of flowers from one of the side boards with a spray of shattered porcelain. The Hex hissed in rage and lifted his arm to strike at her. Sayeeda put another round through the elbow he was using to prop himself up dropping the alien to the floor with a growl of pain.

“Get out,” she snapped. “If you get to the infirmary within ten minutes you will be fine.”

Saxon opened his mouth to snarl a response, but Sayeeda thumbed back the hammer of the weapon with an ominous click.

“Try it and I swear by the Goddess I will put out both your eyes and then improvise with the last two rounds,” she said in a voice of icy calm. Saxon hissed in a mixture of pain and what she read as excitement. She shoved Neil sideways into onto the bed and cleared the doorway.

“Open,” she commanded, stepping clear and keeping the gun aimed at Saxon as he scrambled through the door.

“Close,” she snapped, sealing the door and turning on Neil the gun still in her hand, the smoke of the pistol discharge wreathing her naked body.

“You were getting married an hour ago, hell you were probably screwing her an hour ago,i” she snarled, subconsciously gesturing with the barrel of Neil’s gun to emphasis the point.

“You don’t get to get pissy if I decide I need a little action and you sure as fuck don’t get to put Taya and I in danger because you have you're having a moment!”

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

"So you have slept with every other convenient woman and you are finally working your way around to me?" Junebug snapped, unwilling to be reasonable in the heat of the moment.

"That's not what..." Neil protested, anger on his own face as he faced her down. Both of them were too hot under the collar for this conversation to be a good idea, and certainly not in the home of Neil's would be inlaws. Sayeeda held up a hand in warning to cut Neil off.

"Look all I want, all I've ever wanted is..."

It was perhaps bad timing that Saxon chose that moment to emerge from the bathroom where he and Sayeeda had been sharing the tub. Steam wreathed his reptilian form like smoke and his throat sacks were fully engorged and colored a vibrant red. His reptillian eyes narrowed as he beheld that Neil was in the room.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

“Remarkable, maybe it's true what the peasants say about you nobles being supermen,” Criestia said as she looked over a set of readings. Rene had been changed into a pair of his loose fitting fatigue pants and a white silk shirt that had been left open to allow the physician to monitor his wounds. She slid a sensor pack over his wounded abdomen, the cold gel chiling Rene. She didn’t look away from a holographic read out that evidently showed the subdermal injury. Ten had taken Rosaria away to find her a weapon and left Rene and Solae to their planning. Criestia, greatly encouraged by Solae’s support of forcing Rene not to move around, had compromised by bringing the medical cot into the sitting room Solae was using as her headquarters. The contrast with the rooms tasteful decor was a little ridiculous but that was a small price to pay for not being separated from Solae.

“I produce a lot of healing factors,” Rene admitted, “useful for a Marine.” Like all of the aristocracy he had the habit of keeping the exact nature of his genetic alterations quiet, especially around outsiders. The aristocrats feared that the common people might claim they were a different species, and though that was a gross exaggeration, it was the sort of thing that might catch on amongst rabble rousers.

“Well you are still going to have to lay still while you heal,” Criestia added somewhat pettishly. Rene resisted the urge to roll his eyes, he wasn’t going to prevail with Solae backing the woman up. He did wish that Criestia would find somewhere else to be as he wanted to be alone with his fiancee, but he supposed her orders would prevent him from doing what he really wanted to do in any case.

“Don’t you have one of those regeneration chambers, like the one I used on New Concordia?” he asked, thinking of how good he had felt after the battle at the plantation. Criestia clicked her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

“That kind of things isn’t available on worlds that aren’t under direct Imperial rule. You probably wouldn’t have been able to find it on New Concordia either if you weren't at the embassy,” Criestia explained. Rene didn’t bother to correct the doctor, as it was likely that the owner of the Plantation had smuggled it in with the aid of someone with official power. Such medicine was expensive but, under the right circumstances, less so than questions at an official hospital.

“I can’t believe that you are a Duchess now,” Rene said, turning his attention away from the probing fussing physician. Such an elevation would have been among the dizziest day dreams of Solae’s parents, a result possible only from a marriage to Duke Tan or one of the other Sector Dukes. Rene couldn’t remember if Tan himself was married, not that it mattered, if found innocent of Treason the woman in question would certainly divorce Tan and return to her own family in order to escape the worst of the scandal. At worst she might be pensioned off as a dowager, allowed to live comfortably but removed from official power due to the taint of her husband's actions.

“And I’m probably the youngest and least decorated Colonel in the history of the Marines,” he added with a chuckle. A Lieutenant-Colonel would normally command a battalion of three to eight hundred men depending on its balance of specialists. The irony of a Duchess without a Duchy and a Colonel without a battalion was not lost on him. The Empress had little she could give them at the moment so she had given them what she could, authority and legitimacy. Rene suspected that the fact that his father was sheltering her during whatever attempted coup was taking place on Capella played a large role in her generosity, though it made his legal situation considerably more complex. It wasn’t lost on him that the rank was probably the lowest that could be bestowed that would lend any air of propriety to a match between he and Solae, or at least Marquessa Falia, as a Duchess she had just become one of the most eligible women in the galaxy. His memory of what had happened in the PEA center was somewhat fragmented by the wounds he had suffered and the drugs he had taken but he supposed there would be time to get a full accounting from Solae when they were able to be alone.

“I am honored to be of service of course, though I suppose you are within your rights to request a more senior officer,” he said with a wink.

“Do you think we can trust Rosaria?” Rene asked frankly. He did not for a moment doubt that she could provide useful information, or at least access to where that information could be found but her motives were unclear. It was possible she planned to return herself to Thorne’s good graces by betraying them though Rene was inclined to take her at her word, having seen the bruises she had suffered in the course of her ‘lessons’.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Sayeeda froze in shock for an instant as she emerged from the luxurious bathroom to find Neil sitting on her bed. She recovered almost instantly with the cavalry of charging forward when things got hairy. The afternoon had been spent looking over the work on the Highlander, which, given the budget of Indra’s family and the workforce they had at their disposal, was proceeding at a more rapid pace than she could have hoped for. After that she had spent the afternoon with Saxon, she had been drinking and he had been chewing the odd herb which seemed to fill the role for his people that alcohol did for humans. He had taught her several words in Hex, mostly curses, which she could pronounce only with a great deal of hissing and spitting. It had been a pleasant way to pass the afternoon, distracting herself from the prospect of the upcoming wedding and the fact that she would be leaving Neil and probably Taya once the job here was done.

After that things had gotten complicated, though not, unfortunately, as complicated as they were likely to become in the next few minutes.

“You were all set to marry Indra yesterday,” she said her voice steady despite the alcohol and the sense of spiralling disaster.

“You don’t like the in-laws and are looking for a consolation prize?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

The smart move would have been to order him to leave but despite her best efforts she was unable to do so. Steam rose from her skin as the vapors of the hot bath she had been taking cooled in the sub tropical air.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

If Ten expected Rene to leap to his feet and raise an outraged objection to the plan he was disappointed. For one thing Rene did not share the common prejudices against the race, his only experience with them being their kindness back on New Concordia and for another, he really didn’t think he could have leapt to his feet.

“I’m alright,” he assured Solae.

“He most certainly isn’t alright,” Criestia interjected fussily as she followed them into the room fussily adjusting something on her data pad.

“He was very lucky not to be killed!”

“Well here I sit still alive,” Rene rejoined, “And I don't have time to spend a month in a surgical ward.” Criestia threw up her hands in defeat. Rene found it difficult to keep his eyes off Solae in her gossamer gown. She was heart stopping lovely and seemed like a Fairy Queen out of fable rather than a mortal woman. He felt ridiculously out of place in the simple hospital gown that he was wearing. He cleared his throat when he realised that silence had stretched.

“You can’t seriously think that recruiting Syshin is a goo…” Ten began but Rene held up his hand to silence the man.

“What I think doesn't really matter compared to the Duchess’ wish,” he said with a quiet sternness to his voice. Ten had been a help, but he was getting somewhat above himself in so openly questioning Solae’s orders.

“But for what it is worth, no Syshin has ever fired a weapon at me or tried to drag Solae off into slavery, unlike a rather large number of humans at this point.”

“I’m also afraid that General Bhast hasn’t departed with her ship, she is currently hiring local mercenaries to track you down. I don’t know if you have time to go shopping through the local slave markets…”

“I can help you,” came a voice from the doorway. All eyes swiveled to the the door, though Rene’s side tightened painfully and he had to turn his chair in order to see the speaker. Rosaria stood in the doorway dressed in a sober black jumpsuit that wasn’t quite skin tight. Swirls of patterned embroidery broke up the lines of her body and gave the impression she was wearing several layers. The bruises on her body were not visible which, now that Rene thought about it, was probably the point.

“Mistress Rosaria…,” Ten began but she held up a hand in unconscious imitation of Rene a few moments before.

“I have extensive knowledge of Mistress Thorne’s operations, she showed them to me herself,” the girl elaborated. She made a slight curtsey towards Solae in a fair imitation of Imperial Court fashion.

“I have decided not to return to her, and she will not be pleased. If you agree to take me with you, I am willing to help you find the slaves you desire.”

“The people,” Rene corrected. Rosaria looked up with a hint of irritation on her face, but quickly smoothed it over.

“The people you desire then,” she amended.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Emmaline slid towards the distressed man even before she was certain of what she was going to do. Quickly she drew a scarf from her sarai and tied it over her head to give herself what, in the Empire, would be the look of a soothsayer or fortune teller. The move also showed off her blonde hair, making her appear strange and exotic by Arabyian standards. She caught the fellows wrist with her fingers.

“Away with you woman!” the man snapped by reflex. He had a clean look to him, perhaps a minor merchant who invested in the caravans, though his face was haggard with worry and lack of sleep.

“I am cursed by the gods,” she declared dramatically.

“I can see the strands of fate and follow them to their ends!” she hissed. The man raised his hand as though to strike her but hesitated a moment.

“You would know the fate of your caravan, set out from the City of Slaves seven nights past!” she declared dramatically. They had an audience now, the denizens of the bar glancing at her with a mix of expressions from skepticism to desire and not a little fear.

“How did you know that?” the man demanded, as though he had not been moaning about it for all to hear.

“I see many things, perhaps I can tell you of your caravan,” Emmaline declared.

“Speak then woman,” the man snapped through the eagerness in his eyes belayed the anger in his voice.

“The Gods do not reveal the fates of men easily,” Emmaline told him, leading him towards a booth at the rear.

“An offering is required,” she whispered.

“What kind of an offering?” the merchant asked. People always got suspicious when you asked for payment up front, so it was best to camouflage what you really wanted.

“Gold yes, but more importantly, blood,” she told him, taking a seat in a booth across from the merchant. His eyes seemed to be drawn to the eyes of her staff so she held it up more as a dramatic prop than for any real effect she expected it to have.

“Blood?” the merchant replied in a dreamy voice. Emmaline nodded encouragingly.

“Blood and Gold,” she confirmed as the merchant drew a hand full of gold pieces from his pouch and set them on the table. Emmaline produced a small knife and muttered some nonsense snatches of Imperial Opera and then drew the blade across the mans palm allowing the blood to dribble over the coins. Whispering a word of real magic her eyes became shining gold as she drew on the Winds of Magic. The gold coins seemed to sink into the dirty wood of the table, her legs concealing the fact that they dropped into her hand beneath it and vanished into her robes. She pretended to read the pattern of blood remaining once the coins had ‘vanished’ and gasped theatrically.

“Death!” she declared in a loud voice that carried through half the tavern.

“Bandits and buzzards, ruin and wreck, the caravan will never see the walls of Copher!”

The merchant leaped to his feet, eyes wide and panicked, and then rushed from the tavern.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

“We can work with that. Can you give us any more details about this assignment?” Sayeeda asked. Gregorious smiled an avuncular smile.

“Your eagerness does you credit Captain, but today is for celebrating my daughter’s betrothal. A toast to the happy couple!”

It was nearly noon by the time Junebug was able to make her excuses and slip away from the gathering. Mostly to irritate Neil she invited Saxon to join her. The Hex agreed with what Sayeeda thought was enthusiasm but she was still having difficulty reading the alien’s moods and emotions. They made their way down to the shipyard where the Highlander had been moved from its landing pad.

The slip the Highlander was moored in was a dry dock, evidently used to repair the ocean going warships of this world. Dozens of armored plates had been removed by hydraulic derricks and technicians swarmed over the ship, replacing wiring and refitting the components damaged in the blind RIP jump from the Terran Cruiser.

“It looks like a partially stripped kill,” Saxon observed. Sayeeda shook her head.

“No, she is strong, she lives,” Sayeeda disagreed as she walked down into drydock, ignoring the iodine smell of old seawater and the acrid byproducts of welders and soldering irons. It felt somewhat sacrilegious to have other people working on the ship, but the damage had been severe for the four of them to put right. She wondered how Neil would find it, living on Chalcedon with Indra, perhaps Taya would stay too make some kind of life for herself. A world with such a porous nobility would suit her. Junebug lay a hand on the hull of the Highlander feeling the cold metal under her finger tips.

“She is your X’anada,” Saxon hissed behind her.

“My what?” Junebug asked.

“A steed for a warrior,” the Hex hissed. Junebug trailed her fingers along the ship’s armored plate.

“Something like,” Junebug agreed. Whatever Neil decided to do this was no place for her. She didn’t know that there was any place for her. Once this job was settled and the Highlander was repaired she would leave, although how she would do that without her pilot she had no idea.