CHAPTER 11, Dragon's Revenge

MARTIN CHECKED the readings on his handheld. Two meters ahead of him, a security sensor read body heat and movement. Anyone or anything generating more heat than a servobot, or moving more than half a meter above ground would be recorded. Melinda’s flunkies monitored everything in the palace except Melinda’s office and private quarters. She could alert them to record there, too, but that required her voice and thumbprint override.

He did not want Melinda to know where he and his friends were every femto of the day. Especially since she had lodged them in the far guest wing, kilometers of corridors and staircases away from Martin.

He ducked directly beneath one of the sensors, trusting that his black leather pants and dark skin shirt, both woven with deflection threads, would mask his body heat. In this position, with the sensor angled toward the other side of the corridor, security should not be able to detect his movement.

A servobot came along, sweeping the edge of the corridor. It bumped against his feet, backed up, and scooted around him. Martin held his breath, praying that nothing internal to the machine reported the obstacle back to security.

Hopefully, the thing was programmed to ignore stationary pedestals and free-standing art. Melinda indulged in new decorations in binges. She hadn’t bought any new artwork in almost a year. Time for things to start showing up in different places again and new ones filling odd gaps.

Melinda never discarded anything. Art she no longer wanted in the palace ended up in warehouses or servants’ quarters until she craved change once more.

Martin dropped to his belly and scooted along in the wake of the servobot. Within a few meters he found the next space of dead air beneath a sensor on the opposite wall. He slid upright, back against the wall. So far so good. No blips in the sensors that his handheld could detect.

Just a few more meters and then he could round a corner into the guest wing. Melinda hadn’t updated security there quite so recently. He could bypass it all with one loop of fiber optic cables.

“Martin, there you are,” Melinda called out from the opposite end of the guest wing where she had lodged the Earth dignitaries.

“Melinda.” Martin stood stock-still, wondering what lie he could come up with to mask his movements.

“I see you are on your way to visit your friends. I just saw them in the pool. That Quinn gentleman is most charming and Kurt Giovanni has wonderful manners. I must commend him to his father.”

Melinda checked her chrono that sufficed as a handheld. She removed an electronic pencil from her ear-ring and tapped something into it. Then she returned the pencil to her ear jewelry where it attached with a molecular bond.

“While I have you, perhaps it is time to introduce you to your new bodyguard and driver,” Melinda said brightly.

“What happened to Miles and Jim?” Martin asked. He hadn’t really liked the pair, but he’d sort of gotten used to them, knew their weaknesses.

“I decided they were more useful elsewhere.” Her eyes narrowed. They had left Martin in Quinn’s care yesterday without her permission.

Two men, nearly identical in height, breadth, and dark suits marched into view. They moved in step and swung their arms in time to their synchronized movements.

“Martin, meet John and Karl.” Melinda nodded to the two men as one, not differentiating between them. “Until this mess with the Earth diplomats is cleared up, I want these men with you at all times. All times.”

“But, Melinda, I had hoped for some time alone with my friends. I haven’t seen them in over two years.” Martin hated that he sounded like a little kid whining.

“I’m sure we can dispense with the dippos by tomorrow. Then you can have some privacy back.”

“I don’t see what threat they can pose to us, Melinda.” He almost called her “mother” just to annoy her.

“They seem to think I should know something about this missing judicial cruiser and their passenger. I don’t and that bothers me.” She paused a moment tapping her toe and her fingertip against the chrono.

“Not that I know of. But I’d better find out what they suspect quickly. Martin, return to your room and that map of yours. See if you can plot where that ship disappeared and where it might have gone. I’ll begin researching that girl—their passenger. Lucinda Baines. Does the name mean anything to you?”

“Baines?” Martin had to think a moment. Melinda must be running scared if she included her son in her plans and research. “Didn’t a Carolyn McArthur marry a planetary governor named Baines, reuniting the former royal house with a cadet branch, thus forming a possible dynasty?” he recited a history lesson, and gossip that Jane had given him.

“Ye . . . es,” Melinda said. Now she tapped her teeth with her fingernail, a true sign of her agitation.

“But our current emperor’s father won the election in Parliament and proceeded to begin major reforms in the bureaucracy. The Baines faction couldn’t skim off nearly as much in profit from taxes as they had.”

“Sounds like Lady Lucinda is off somewhere planning a coup d’etat. I heard her name linked romantically to Eric Findlatter, the emperor’s nephew.”

“I need to know more about this woman. Go do some research and report back to me before dinner.”

“Will still be here when you finish. More incentive for you to get right on it and stop testing the new security upgrades.”

“Of course I knew. And you did very well. Security shows you still in your room. If I had not spotted you with my own eyes, you might have defeated the system completely. We can’t allow that. I’ll fire a few lay-abouts in the monitoring room and demote some others. That ought to bring them up to speed in plugging the holes.”

“And thank you, Martin. Now I know where the weaknesses in the system are. We will make a formidable team.” She turned abruptly and headed back to her own wing, doubtless to figure some way to use the ambitious Lucinda Baines. By dinnertime, Melinda would likely know the woman’s shoe size, color preference, and the names of her last six lovers.

“Don’t suppose I could postpone that research until after a swim with my friends,” Martin mused.

“No,” his guards, jailers, replied in unison. They each grabbed one of his elbows and marched him back to his own quarters.

“Searcher, this is Jester, come in, please,” Loki whispered into his handheld. He watched his screen anxiously for any flicker that might indicate a response.

With Konner and Dalleena off on some private errand—probably more lovemaking—and Kim checking Pryth, now was the best time for Loki to contact his own lover.

He hugged the cliff face near the path to the beach. A freshening breeze nearly blew him back into the heart of the village.

After interminable moments the screen on his handheld went from gray to black and then brightened enough to reveal the shadowy outline of Paola Sanchez, formerly a corporal in His Majesty’s Imperial Military Police.

“Searcher here,” came her crisp reply. The static of distance and a lack of satellites created a delay between the movements of her lips and his hearing the words.

“Searcher, I have new intel on the monster in your backyard,” Loki said. He couldn’t help the smile that crept across his face. Short and stocky, with dark hair, and an authoritative air, Paola represented everything he disliked in a woman. But she was the best lover he had ever been with. Cyndi’s wild moans and thrashing paled in comparison to Paola’s intensity and true passion.

“Is this just another excuse to drag me back to Coronnan for a face-to-face debriefing?” she asked with a big smile.

“Then you have honestly found someone who will talk about the monster I’m chasing?”

“More than that. Konner and Dalleena encountered a coil of huge black snakes. Very venomous, very aggressive. Dalleena said the dominant matriarch had a head as big as a man’s and a tongue as long as an arm. She also has six pairs of batlike wings. The rest of the snakes are ground huggers.”

“That’s the best intel I’ve had in six months. No one in the port city seems to know why they can’t stray beyond the wall after dark. Digger—er, Ross Duggan—up north is having similar problems in his city. I think I need to come there and talk directly to Konner and Dalleena,” Paola finished.

Nine months ago, when Loki and his brothers began the plot to trap the IMPs on this planet, they had found unexpected allies among the first landing parties. Paola, a corporal with ten years’ experience, would never rise higher in the ranks because of her bush origins. She had gladly sided with Loki, after bedding him, for the chance to command her own troops. Thirty other women from Jupiter had joined her for similar reasons.

Ross Duggan, or Digger, had been an IMP sergeant with a grudge against GTE politics. He’d sided with the O’Haras for the opportunity to earn more money in order to free his family from indentured servitude. Now he commanded his own troops north of Paola in a different port city hoping to carve out some land and a place to bring his family once Loki sold some surplus produce on the black market and purchased the Duggans’ indenture.

“I’m on my way. Dawn your time.” The port city on the big continent was close to a thousand klicks east and another thousand north of Coronnan.

Loki sighed on a smile. He did that a lot when he talked to Paola. He needed Paola’s vibrancy to remind him that not everything about his life was one dismal trial after another.

He hadn’t used the shuttle to raid Base Camp, so he might as well use it to consult with the chief Amazon on the big continent. He stepped away from the shadows that hid him.

“Wasting fuel again?” Konner asked. He stood between Loki and the shuttle, hands on hips, feet firmly planted.

“Why aren’t you making love to your wife? Back in the clearing,” Loki replied. He’d not get around his brother easily, judging by the deep frown on his face.

“It’s not a waste of fuel, if we can defeat the monster serpents and expand the port,” Loki continued his defense. “We need a thriving port city to increase trade. Can’t do that if the snakes keep everyone behind walls.” They’d known for months that some monster preyed upon the populace; they just had not seen or heard about the nature of the beast.

“Agreed. But we need fuel to get back to Sirius. Someone sabotaged three of our cells. We haven’t got any fuel to spare. If you haven’t forgotten, I need to get back to Aurora to claim my son.”

“I haven’t forgotten. What good is claiming your son if we haven’t got enough of an economy on this planet to support ourselves?”

“I’ve rekeyed the ignition in order to keep Kat from stealing Rover. It only responds to my DNA now. Either I approve the mission or the shuttle goes nowhere.”