Cypher: The Dragon's Bidding, #2

By Christina Westcott

Can she kill the man she loves to stop an assassination?

If you like your SFR to be a mixture of Firefly and Babylon 5, spiced with a dash of Aliens, then you'll love this action packed 2017 SFR Galaxy Awards winner.
A murderous computer program has seized control of her cyborg partner's body and mind, turning him into a super assassin bent on destroying everything she's vowed to protect. In a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, Kimber FitzWarren faces her deadliest challenge yet, a man with all the skills and knowledge of her lover Wolf Youngblood, but controlled by the mind of a killer. Fitz has to find a way to protect her Emperor while keeping her adversary alive until she can free her partner.

A prisoner in the dark labyrinth of his own mind, Wolf struggles to regain control of his body, concocting a plan to use the killer as a Trojan Horse to lead him to his attacker. In the meantime, he can only watch as a helpless passenger as the assassin plots to kill all the people he loves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christina Westcott
• Release date: Aug 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9798201267889

Christina Westcott

As long as she can remember, Christina Westcott has had imaginary people living in her head. Cyborgs, mercenaries, wizards, dragons and cats. Lots of cats--shape shifting cats, talking cat and telepathic cats. After continual nagging from this bizarre cast of characters inside her, Chris decided to turn them loose on the world in her science fiction and fantasy stories. She's been a collector of not only books and cats, but of experiences, riding in rodeos, driving racecars, and flying airplanes. All good experience for becoming a writer. She lives in sunny Southwest Florida where she delights in telling all her friends "up north" the local temperature in the middle of January and she proudly wears the moniker "Crazy Cat Lady". You can catch up with Chris at facebook.com/christinawestcottauthor and while you're there sign up for her newsletter. Then check out her Pinterest page at pinterest.com/chriswestcott33/ to see how she envisions her imaginary worlds. 

Book preview

Cypher

Christina Westcott

CYPHER

Copyright 2016 by Christina Westcott

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, locations, and events are solely a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or any events, location, or organizations is purely coincidental.

All Rights are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except for brief quotations used in articles and reviews.

First electronic publication: August 2016

Cypher. (Late Scyran Empire—532 to 893 ER)

(1) n. A secret way of writing; a code.

(2) n. A person of no importance, especially one who does the bidding of another and seems to have no will of their own.

(3) v. Military. To erase all records of an individual, rendering them nonexistent.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER ONE

Wolf Youngblood tapped his knuckles against the shuttle’s armorglass window. Too easy, he muttered, but Kimber FitzWarren’s augmented hearing picked up the words. She studied her partner’s profile and chuckled.

Easy? You must have a different definition of the word than I do. I recall taking a slug to the chest. You getting shot. My ship crashing. Being swarmed by mind-sucking parasites, attacked by giant bugs, and tangling with a pair of imperial warships. Not to mention the past two months of non-stop political wrangling, deal making, and ass kissing to set up a workable new government for Ari Ransahov.

The shuttle banked, and through the window Fitz spotted their destination below. A crowd surrounded Dragonhalle, the site of every Scyran Emperor’s coronation for the past two centuries. Onlookers surged around the building and overflowed into the streets and surrounding parks, altitude rendering their colors into a restless pointillist painting. The people of the Empire had come out en masse to celebrate the passing of their old ruler and greet the arrival of the new.

Wolf squeezed her hand. You know what I mean. Since we left Baldark I’ve expected to run into some kind of resistance from the old Emperor’s cronies. Ashcraft had over two decades to corrupt everything he touched—senators, contractors, functionaries, even the military. I thought someone would take a shot at us. He tapped the armorglass again. Not this walk in the park.

It’s not over yet, Fitz said. I keep expecting to see Janos Tritico grinning from the crowd just before the world blows up in my face.

You’ll never see Jan. He stays in the shadows, keeps his hands clean, and pulls the strings, like a good puppet master.

And I let him get away. Fitz grimaced, remembering that smiling face in her gun sights, and her hesitation.

I couldn’t hang onto him either, Wolf said. Jan’s slippery. We’ll get him, but until we do, he’s the reason all this quiet is grating on my nerves.

Leave it to you to get antsy when things go right.

Fitz guessed Wolf wasn’t the only one spooked by the quiet. Arianne Ransahov rose from her seat and made her way down the passenger aisle toward them. The tall, copper-haired woman had been a legend, a hero to Fitz and every other graduate from the Imperial Academy, but in the last few hectic months, Fitz had got to know her as a charismatic, if flawed, human being. And a friend. As the shuttle turned onto its final approach, Ari stumbled and dropped into a seat across from them.

Careful, Fitz said. Wouldn’t do to break your neck on the way to your own coronation.

Not that it would matter to Ari—to any of them, not with the alien symbiont living inside them and healing their wounds with incredible speed. A short time ago Fitz had been dying of Tinkerman-Kasahari Syndrome, the disease that shortened the life of all cybernetically augmented personnel. Now she was a Lazzinair, named after August Lazzinair, the doctor who stumbled across the life-extending procedure decades ago. Virtually indestructible, perhaps even biologically immortal, she could die of catastrophic injuries, but the symbiont would continue to repair all but the most horrific damage and stave off the ravages of age for only the gods knew how long. She hadn’t quite got used to that; the thought still made the breath catch in her throat.

Ari’s hands twisted together in her lap as she stared out the window at the spires and sky bridges of Striefbourne City growing closer as the shuttle descended.

After all this time, it’s hard to believe that I’m back, and in a matter of minutes, I’ll be stepping up to the Dragon Throne. It all seems...

Too easy? Wolf asked.

Fitz shot him a sideways glance before turning to Ari. Easy or not, it looks like you might get that bloodless coup you wanted.

Ari’s hope to bring change to the Empire without a protracted civil war had been little more than wishful thinking, but when they’d jumped back to Scyr, a taskforce half the size of their little fleet of co-conspirators had awaited them at the hyperlimit. With the bulk of the Imperial Fleet at Rainbow, Meyerbridge, and Beckswold, and the carrier group securing Hideyoshi Shipyards, little remained in the Scyran system but a single group of outdated ships making up Home Guard.

Fitz had stood at Ari’s shoulder as Home Guard’s commander, Admiral Alois Pettigrew, contacted them. A short man, his white uniform stretched across a paunch that suggested a predilection for sweets. Whether it was seeing the legend of Ari Ransahov alive and defiant, or realizing his current Emperor was a bent and drooling husk, Pettigrew had sensed change in the wind and ordered his fleet to stand down and let them pass.

Fitz’s stomach had been a hard knot during the long fall into the system, barely able to keep food down. She’d waited for the wail of battle stations or a pulse rifle fired from a shadowy corridor, but they never came. She sighed in frustration. Wolf was right—too easy, but in a few hours it would be over. Ari would be the Emperor, and Fitz would begin her new job of protecting her liege every waking hour.

The ship’s landing skids crunched onto the pavement, and a shudder rippled through the cabin as the engines spun down. Fitz leaned across Wolf to the window, studying the crowd encircling them.

A cordon of white-and-gold armored Praetorian Guards struggled to restrain a crowd of people anxious to get their first look at their new leader, and their last at the man who had created so much terror and destruction in their lives. The circle tightened as the press of humanity drove the guards forward.

The Emperor’s Guard, Wolf said. Do you trust them?

Fitz knew that Wolf’s interaction with the Praetorian Guard the last time he’d been on Scyr had been less than pleasant. Their loyalty to the Emperor and the Dragon Throne is legendary.

Yes, but Ashcraft is still Emperor for a few more minutes, technically. He nodded his head toward the figure slouched between two Marine medics. Vladimir Ashcraft’s hands quivered against his seat’s arms, and a drop of drool hung at the corner of his mouth.

Trust me, they realize the best course for the Empire is to put him aside and let Ari take control, Fitz said.

I hope you’re right. I wouldn’t trust them to dig a latrine.

I’m sure they’ll do what’s right, if only in self-interest—and besides, as Ari’s Chief of Security, they’ll be under my command. Don’t worry. As long as I’m in charge, I won’t let them lay a hand on you.

His blue eyes twinkled. Can you say the same for their commanding officer?

Fitz matched his grin. I can guaran-damn-tee you, soldier. Tonight I’ll lay way more than my hands on you.

I’m looking forward to holding you to that promise, Colonel.

As Wolf pulled on his black armored gloves, Fitz caught the glint of the platinum ring on his finger, the mate to the one she wore. Exchanging rings during pair-bonding was a custom on Willcommin, Wolf’s homeworld. On the trip back to Scyr, they’d posted an open-ended bonding contract. Neither a dry-sounding legal agreement nor rings made her want to spend eternity with this man, but love—an emotion few augies ever had the chance to experience.

Weapons check. He slapped down his tinted visor and stood, a tower of black armor. They each carried an Acton Mk IV strapped under their arm and a standard military-issue pulse pistol on their belt, along with one of the old fashioned slug throwers. Since tradition stated that Emperors couldn’t go to their coronation armed, Ari had loaned Fitz her unique Koenigsagg-designed pistol. They also carried various knives, hide-out guns, and other lethal devices—some not entirely legal—secreted around their armor at Wolf’s insistence.

Unarmed, Ari should have been accompanied by a phalanx of augmented bodyguards, but she trusted only the two of them. Fitz joked about her protection unit consisting of one and a half augies. Wolf couldn’t match her in strength and speed, his modifications being old and long out of date, but what he lacked in cybernetic assets he made up for in years of experience, first as an imperial officer and then a mercenary commander.

The medics helped Ashcraft to his feet. Before they’d left their flagship, the Arianne Ransahov, he’d been given an injection of axathyline to stave off the ravages of the neurodegenerative disease eating away at his brain. Ari wanted him lucid enough to facilitate the transfer of power. As he shuffled past, flanked by his minders, a glint of intelligence showed in his eyes. And hatred.

Fitz followed the trio into the airlock, waiting as the outer door opened and the ramp extended. She wanted Ashcraft to be the first out, to show the crowd what the madman who’d terrorized them had become. Immediately after the coronation, he would be ensconced in a plush, high-security sanitarium for whatever time his disease left him.

A broad cross-section of Striefbourne City’s population had turned out, judging by the whiff of unwashed bodies and pricey colognes flowing through the hatch. Business suits blended with gray work coveralls and thrift store rags, but at the sight of their old tormenter, their voices united, swelling into chants and screams.

Murderer.

Kill the bastard and his augie monsters.

The hair on the back of Fitz’s neck bristled at that remark. This could get ugly real fast. She commed the medics. Get him inside. Protocol be damned. If he won’t walk any faster, sling him over your shoulder and carry him. Move now, before someone gets killed.

At first the Praetorians held the tsunami of protesters back, opening a path to the bronze doors of Dragonhalle, but the crowd poured forward. Raised hands clinched into fists, and debris flew out of the crowd, pelting Ashcraft and the marines. At first only garbage—half-eaten meat pies, food wrappers, and cups, many still full, splashed around the three, but then a rock smashed into one of the medics, staggering him. With vengeance’s floodgates open, anger poured out as people began stripping the nearby flowerbeds, hurling rocks and ornamental pots.

The mob pushed toward the object of their hatred, and one of the guards holding them back slipped, falling to his knees. The crowd rolled over him.

With the situation teetering on the verge of chaos, Ari brushed past Fitz and moved to the bottom of the ramp. Only those closest noticed the tall woman, at first. Missiles in their hands forgotten, they quieted, and a sigh rippled across the crowd as more and more turned to stare. The marines seized the opportunity and pushed through the wall of protesters, hustling Ashcraft into the safety of the hall.

Ari stepped from the shadow of the aircraft’s wing and sunlight illuminated her, turning her hair into a halo of red-gold. She reached into the crowd, squeezing extended hands, grasping shoulders, and ruffling children’s hair. Fingers reached out to touch her, stroke her sleeve. A white haired man in a military jacket several decades out of date braced to attention and saluted her. Ari returned the gesture, and hundreds of voices roared their approval.

Fitz pushed her way through the crowd to reach Ari. Due to the noise, she could only contact Wolf over her comm. What does she think she’s doing?

She could hear a chuckle in his voice. Being Ari.

If one of Tritico’s assassins is here, she’s a tempting target.

If someone shot her, she’d only get back up again.

And that would raise more questions than we want to answer right now. Fitz tried to urge Ari into motion, steering her through the parting crowd.

Maybe not, Wolf said. Listen to what they’re shouting.

At first she heard only noise, but then her acute hearing began to pick out words and phrases.

A miracle...

She hasn’t aged, not a bit.

Great Hansue be praised. The gods have sent her.

They moved in the eye of a hurricane of adoration. Hands stretched out to their messiah, and Ari seemed intent on touching every one of them. The trio reached the building, but not until the huge doors clanged shut behind her did Fitz allowed herself to heave out the tight breath she’d been holding.

I can’t believe what happened out there.

Just a little of the old Ransahov magic, Wolf said.

But the sunlight. Even she couldn’t control that.

She saw the opportunity, figured how they’d react, and made the most of it. That’s what she’s good at.

They fell in behind Ari as a pair of Praetorian Guards led them along a wide hallway, its plush carpet swallowing the sound of their footsteps. Forced to move at Ashcraft’s shuffling pace, Fitz inspected the rich wood-paneled walls and old 2-D paintings, probably looking like a gawking tourist. Statues of heroes and emperors flanked them, and she half expected to see one wearing Ari’s face. Admiral Kiernan had brought her to Dragonhalle once as his bodyguard, but that had been to the Assembly room only, not this posh area of private office suites and conference rooms.

More than just the site of the Dragon Throne, senators, elected by their constituents, met here to hammer out legislation and present petitions, but the ultimate power remained with the Emperor and the two Triumvirs—military and civilian. The Scyrans’ hybrid Imperial Republic served them well, as long as the Emperor remained fair and just, but two decades of Ashcraft’s rule had showed how horribly things could go off the rails with a despot in control.

Wolf leaned close to whisper, not using his comm. We should have brought the cats.

Too many people. They’d have been trampled in that mess we came through. Behind the tinted visor, she couldn’t see his face to judge his mood, but he held his shoulders tight, his back rigid.

I’d like to be able to tap into Jumper’s empathic senses about now, or perhaps Faydra’s telepathic ability.

What’s wrong?

Before he could answer, their guards stopped at a double door, pulled it open, and ushered them into a room, its desk and over-stuffed couches suggesting a waiting area for an inner office. A second pair of white-armored guards flanked the exit in the opposite wall.

Can you download a map of the building and tell where we are? Wolf asked.

Fitz linked into building security and pulled up the floorplan, viewing it on her inhead display. Now she understood her partner’s unease. We’re not near the Assembly Hall; this is the far side of the complex.

That’s what I feared, and our two escorts haven’t left. They’re standing behind us, blocking any retreat. He pitched his voice low, staying off the comm to prevent the Praetorians picking up their conversation.

Fitz fought the urge to turn and confront the pair behind her, but instead scanned the other two. A sense of wrongness rippled down her spine. I recognize the taller one. He’s an augie. The Praetorian Guard won’t recruit from SpecOps.

The internecine rivalry between the Imperial Guard and Special Operations had been long-standing and vitriolic. Fitz eased her hand closer to the slug thrower on her hip. I’m betting all four of them could be augies. Her combat systems lit up, feeding her scenarios and probabilities, and targeting reticles flashed on her inhead display.

And we walked right into their trap. Wolf’s ploy to keep their conversation secret had failed; the augies’ enhanced hearing would have picked up their whispers as easily as if they’d been shouting.

Fitz rolled her shoulders. You grab Ari and stash her under that desk, then take the two at the back. Her weapon blurred from its holster at the same time as all four of their attackers launched into hyperkinetic speed.

Cyan bolts of energy crisscrossed the room. Behind her, Wolf’s slug thrower thundered. Glass shattered. Ashcraft and his two guards blocked a clear shot at her attackers, forcing her to jink to the right, but the augies ignored her, concentrating their fire on the old Emperor. The Marines hadn’t pulled their pistols clear of their holsters before they were cut down. A wild shot burned past the now-collapsing trio, catching Fitz in the side. Her battlesuit absorbed the energy, dispersing it, but a flash of heat made it through the armor to scald her skin.

The closer of the two augies charged her. She stitched a line of slugs up his chest, hoping to find a seam, a weakness, anything. Each hit must have felt like a hammer blow, but he didn’t acknowledge them. As he plowed into her, Fitz grabbed his shoulders and fell back, letting momentum and her boot in his midsection carry him up and over. She rolled to her feet, bringing her pistol around, but her opponent wouldn’t be getting up. A red puddle formed beneath him; one of the slugs had found a way through his armor.

A bolt of energy struck her back, then a second and a third, overwhelming her battlesuit’s ability to ablate the heat. Composites boiled, peeling back. Her armorcloth undersuit fused to her skin. She could smell her flesh burning. Responding to her brain’s spike of endorphins, her onboard pharmacopeia dumped painkillers into her bloodstream, along with a double hit of the elixir that supplied the symbiont with the glucose and protein it needed to repair her wounds.

The second augie leaped over the tangle of bodies and backhanded her into the wall. A side table splintered behind her, the edge driving into her burned back. Her vision dimmed. She slid to the floor as her opponent pounded her. Augies weren’t above using weapons, but most preferred to do their wet work in close and personal with fists and feet and knives.

Fitz rolled into a ball to protect her head, but a savage kick got through and spider-web cracked her face shield. She’d managed to hang on to the slug thrower and tried to bring it up, but the augie ground her hand beneath his foot, wrenched the weapon from her grip, and flung it across the room.

He dragged her up by her combat harness and pinned her against the wall with a hand around her throat. If he landed a blow on her, she’d be out of the fight and unable to protect Ari. Fitz fished behind her back, seized the handle of her vibroblade and pulled it free, igniting it.

An illegal modification of a shipyard worker’s cutting tool, the v-blade could slice through six centimeters of hull plating, so Praetorian armor presented no problem. Fitz jammed the v-blade into his belly and ripped upward, opening armor and muscle like a baked crustacean dinner.

Across the room, the remaining two augies doubled up on Wolf. Fitz knew from experience that with his outdated augmentations he could hold his own against one augie, but two out-classed him. A florid-faced augie had his arm around Wolf’s throat, choking him while his partner pounded him.

Shouts sounded in the hallway, and fists hammered on the door. Reinforcements. But for which side?

Ari charged into the fray, wielding a vase like a club. Fitz grabbed her jacket and pulled her back, then shoved her none too gently away. Stay out of this.

She pulled the Acton from her shoulder holster, thumbed the power setting down to stun as she vaulted onto the closest augie’s back, then jammed the barrel under his chin and stroked the firing stud. He folded up like wet cardboard, dragging her down with him.

At least she’d have one alive to question when this mess finished—assuming the stun beam hadn’t scrambled his brain.

As she struggled up, the remaining augie hurled Wolf at her and together they collapsed into a tangle of limbs. Fitz tensed at the flash of light on a blade as the augie blurred into motion, but he didn’t come after them. He paused only long enough to slit his stunned colleague’s throat, then kicked open the door and bulled through the knot of Praetorian Guards trying to force their way inside.

Stop him, yelled Fitz. Lock down the building. I want him alive.

Not one of the guardsmen moved to follow the fugitive, and Fitz noticed their weapons were pointed in her direction. A tall man with captain’s bars on his collar faced her, eyes cold and jaw stubborn. His gaze swept the room, taking in the three bodies in Praetorian armor. She could well imagine his thoughts.

I don’t take orders from no damn wirehead, he said.

Fitz bit back her anger until she had time to draw a calming breath. His name tag read Weiland, and a query of her newly acquired personnel files showed a Captain Shabuoth Weiland had recently been posted as the commander of the palace’s detachment of Praetorian Guards.

Great. They were probably going to be butting heads on a daily basis.

"Well, Captain, you’d better get used to it, because as soon as Ransahov becomes Emperor, I’m going to be her Chief of Security. As I see it, that makes me your boss. So if you want to continue wearing that pretty white armor, you will obey my orders. And you can start by getting a med-team down here with a couple of stasis boxes. There might still be someone alive in this mess, and I want some answers. Starting with how four strangers—four augie strangers—waltzed in here and set up an ambush, and none of your people noticed."

She started to turn away, but stopped. And one more thing, Captain. If I ever hear you call me a wirehead again, you’ll be lucky to get a job cleaning toilets in a mag-lev station.

Fitz pulled off her helmet and raked her fingers through sweaty hair as she joined Wolf. He leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath.

I see imperial politics haven’t changed, he said. Still a blood sport. He removed his own helmet, then pulled a small med-case from his pocket and fumbled it open.

Here, let me do that. She took the case from him and extracted two ampules of the elixir and injected him.

Just some broken ribs. I’ve had worse. What about you?

The post-battle adrenaline left her trembling, and her stomach felt knotted around glass shards. I feel... She rolled her shoulders and flexed her back. A little sore, but I just took several pulse bolts to the back. I should be on my way to the med-bay, but I feel fine.

His smile widened. "The first time you walk away from a fight that you really shouldn’t have survived can be quite an experience. Not that you ever get used to it or take it for granted, but the memory of that first time sticks with you. It marks you as some...thing different."

Fitz tucked the med-case back into his pocket. As much as you depend on that stuff to keep you functioning, you might want to consider having an onboard pharmacopeia implanted. And while you’re in the tank, why not have all your augmentations brought up to date? I read the specs on the newest updates when they repaired the damage I sustained on Baldark, and they’re pretty slick.

You mean become augmented?

Technically you already are an augie; just a pathetic one. Don’t you want to be faster and stronger than I am?

Perhaps I like you being the stronger, more assertive one. Particularly in bed.

Fitz snorted. I might not always be around to save your butt. Just think about having the updates done, would you? She grinned, amused at turning the tables on his incessant need to protect her.

I’ll think about it, but Ari plans to keep me busy making nice with the leaders of those three worlds Ashcraft grabbed. She’s got an elaborate plan for war reparations to try to make them like us again. She’ll learn—nobody likes the Empire, except our money when we’re trading and our warships when they’re threatened by the Landers Federation. He pushed a strand of sweaty hair off his face. And I want to get back to Rainbow and check out the damage Ishtok Base sustained from that imperial attack.

Fitz understood his need to get back and see what remained of his previous life. Wolf had lost his mercenary base, his home, and a few of his friends when the Empire attacked the Midworld Alliance.

The Founder’s Day celebrations start soon, and the Fleet always stands down for that, so I doubt she’ll have you out showing the imperial colors until after the holidays. That’s a week—ten entire days—you can take off. A few of them in the tank to get the augmentations done, then we can spend the rest of the holidays alone, just the two of us.

Does that mean I get to miss out on all the balls and speeches and fancy dinners where I have to wear a bloody uncomfortable dress uniform and shake hands with a pack of idiots I’d rather punch in the face?

Fitz snickered. We’ll see. Will you do it, please?

We’ll see, he parroted back to her.

Ari approached, handing over the weapons they’d dropped in the struggle. I don’t think anyone’ll be needing that stasis box, she said. From the looks of Ashcraft, those augies were serious about silencing him.

Fitz checked the ammunition counter before holstering the slug thrower. Yeah, they went after him first; must have been worried we’d get some names, contacts and numbered bank accounts out of him, but I don’t know. His mind was pretty far gone.

Do you think your old buddy Tritico is behind this? Ari asked Wolf.

Assassination is Jan’s favorite strategy for dealing with inconvenient information leaks.

Fitz lowered her voice to keep the guardsmen from overhearing her remarks. Then why not just have a sniper take him out? Why come after us, too? Tritico has to know his chances of killing any of us is practically non-existent.

That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t try, he... Bloody hell. Wolf straightened. "What if he only wanted to delay us?"

Ari’s eyes widened. So he could get to the Assembly Hall first and declare his claim to the throne.

In the two and a half centuries of the Late Scyran Empire, there had rarely been two simultaneous claimants to power, but on each occasion the senate had split its allegiance between them, resulting in a long and bloody civil war.

Captain, we need an escort to the Assembly Hall. Now, Fitz called to the Praetorian’s commander.

When Weiland didn’t jump to comply, Ari turned on him. You heard her, Captain. I suggest you obey. She’s only slightly less intolerant of insubordination than I am.

The guardsman hustled his people into a formation and led the trio back down the art-lined corridor to a set of ornate double doors bearing the imperial seal.

You’re sure this is the right place and not another trap? Wolf asked, the question earning him a scowl from the Praetorian captain.

Fitz checked the structure’s map on her inhead display. This is it.

Ari straightened her jacket, brushed her hair back, and nodded. The guards pulled open the doors, and they stepped through into the great oval hall. A wave of noise swept over them; the muttering of countless voices, the shifting of a thousand impatient bodies. At the sight of the tall, red-haired woman, the crowd stilled, sound fading as if every person there held their breath.

The Dragon Throne dominated the far side of the room, surmounted by the golden likeness of a bull quolla, hood flared and its fangs bared, poised to gobble up any pretender to the seat of power. To the right sat the military contingent, Maks Kiernan at the fore. The last remaining member of Ashcraft’s Triumvirate, today he wore his red uniform for the final time. The domestic Triumvir’s position on the left remained noticeably vacant. The woman who’d held that post had been caught trying to abscond with a sizable portion of the office’s budget, and if she watched today’s proceedings at all, it was from a high security detention cell.

An assemblage of appointed or elected representatives from every star system, world, protectorate, and orbital