An 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?”
Hekkar frowned. “Only one person could expect to be known just by referencing his people’s presence when the entirety of the empire had arrived on Falanar.”
“Yeah.” The unease the letter generated kicked in triple at the conclusion. “Dolan.”