Graveyard of Empires Read online

  Other than the goatee he was bald. His eyes were sunken and skin stretched, sallow. Captain Queston wondered if perhaps the youth had spent the better part of his life malnourished.

  It would certainly fit the rumors surrounding him. Darius fought and killed the people who saved him from poverty and fled here to start a revolt. Out here, on Tellus, the people worshiped the very ground he walked on. He was going to save them from the First Citizen and Republic and give them everything they deserved.

  Such silly nonsense. The only thing these people deserved was a bullet.

  Lyle stopped in front of the throne, craning his neck to look at the child. Maybe if I join Darius, the people will side with me instead of him, he realized. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Why would they side with Darius, a child, over one of the greatest military minds the Republic had to offer?

  It had been four years since this revolt began and the Union was born. Four years of defiance, and what did the little revolt have to show for it? Three poor little planets on the edge of Republic space, hanging on by a thread. Tellus was the only planet worth anything. The others were simply too poor to matter.

  Lyle watched Darius on his throne, unimpressed. One of the keepers coughed. The air brushed against the back of his neck. The sound echoed down the hall and back to them several times before fading away.

  He waited for Darius to speak.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he tapped idly on a data pad on his lap. If he even knew the Captain was there, he didn’t show it. Arrogant child.

  Captain Queston was used to dealing with his kind before—pretentious and overconfident as only a young man can be—and this would be no different. Darius sought the same things all young men seek: entertainment and glory.

  And he’s getting both. As much as the Captain hated Darius, he had to admit that his plan was effective. He had seen the effect of Darius’s rhetoric personally when he landed his shuttle. The planet was in the middle of a revolt against the greatest superpower the galaxy had even known, threatened by a war they couldn’t possibly win, and outclassed in every way that mattered. And yet, rather than being too terrified to act or think—as would have been appropriate—they had hope that they could win.

  Hope. As though hope will protect them from the First Citizen’s wrath.

  But they were just civilians, easily molded and even easier to break. Darius could preach all he wanted about the glory of his cause, but he had no chance of actually accomplishing the quest he’d set for himself.

  The arrogant fool would end up getting everyone who joined him killed.

  3

  Which wasn’t why Captain Queston was here. Or rather, it was precisely why he was here. Captain Emilio Finch, the asshat who seized his ships, controlled three warships, none of which were Capital Class. When Darius and Tellus turned traitor, Emilio swore fealty to Darius. His punishment for such a crime would be an ignoble death.

  Another thirty ships could join Darius tomorrow, and it still wouldn’t be enough to make the galaxy worry. No matter how big you build your marble seat, child, you’ll never be able to fill it.

  Lyle stood before the marble stairs and waited.

  A long minute passed.

  Shooting Darius now was a decent idea. He’d been ordered by Captain Finch to come unarmed, but he’d slipped a holdout pistol through security just in case. They hadn’t even searched him, the idiots.

  But, if he shot Darius, he would be putting his ships at risk. They were flanked and outnumbered. Right now he would be hard pressed to make it off the planet into warp if he shot Darius. Better to finish this situation, regain control of his fleet, and strike at Darius when a better opportunity presented itself.

  Darius tapped his data pad, the sound echoing in the room.

  Lyle stared up at Darius with mounting rage. He wondered what was going through the young man’s mind. Did he understand how offensive he was being to his elder? His better?

  If Darius was even half as smart as people claimed, he was probably trying to decide how deferential he should be. Lyle was a veteran Captain. Surely Darius understood just how important Lyle’s support would be to his cause? Captain Lyle would legitimize this piss-ant revolution.

  Lyle was more decorated than any other Captain in the fleet. And he’d worn every one of his medals for this ridiculous occasion.

  Lyle needed to have control of this conversation.

  Why is it so hot in here?

  Lyle tugged at the collar of his shirt, loosening its grip on his neck and then offered a thin bow.

  “Distinguished Noble,” he began grandly, more than willing to be the first to speak. “I come before you today to swear fealty to your cause. I would like to offer gifts on behalf of a future without the Republic.”

  He finished with a flourish and a bow and waited for Darius to respond. Time fluttered past with scarce notice. Darius stared at him as if bored and then tapped a few quick strokes on his data pad.

  He seeks to throw me off guard, Lyle decided, still benevolent. He thinks that if he doesn’t respond, I’ll panic. But he doesn’t understand the kind of people I’ve dealt with. He’s nothing. A nobody. I’ve written Peace Treaties with Warlords. I can handle a little bastard child.

  He gestured toward the three Keepers with his arm and continued, “As you can see, the gifts I have brought to you are exquisite specimens from my own collection, gathered at great personal cost. They serve in my Ministry—” still no reply “—and I have more than sixty-thousand men aboard four ships. All of them are ready to defect and swear fealty to your cause.

  “In addition, I have gathered pass codes to defense grids protecting two Core Worlds that I would be willing to divulge…provided you accept.”

  Again Darius refused to respond. He looked thoughtful for a moment and then wrote another note on his data pad.

  Lyle tugged at his collar again and fought down embarrassment and ire. To ignore him once was a calculated offense, but now Darius was bordering on insolent.

  Was he actually thinking about whether to accept Lyle’s offer? Four ships—all of which were more powerful than Captain Finch’s pathetic offerings—was nothing to scoff at? These were warships, each capable of large scale engagements.

  This proposal from Lyle was the best stroke of luck Darius could ever wish for. And that wasn’t counting Lyle himself, the most distinguished Military Leader apart from General Nicolai himself!

  “Surely you accept my oath, so I see no need to further waste your time. I’ll have one of my Commanders send you a copy of—”

  “Do you like Bakka?”

  The interrupt was smooth. Darius spoke with ease and his voice carried weight.

  Lyle stuttered. “…what?”

  “Do. You. Like. Bakka?” Darius asked, slower this time. He emphasized each word.

  Lyle was nearly shaking from the insolence. What the hell kind of question is that? Does he think me a petulant child? I could draw my gun and end his life in a second, ending this entire uprising in its infancy! Perhaps that would be for the best…

  “It’s a fruit pastry, local to Tellus,” Darius continued, oblivious to Lyle’s rage. “I had never tasted it before I arrived, and it was a piece of sheer luck that I picked Tellus as the world to help found the Planetary Union. The pastries here are quite delicious.”

  Lyle shook his head, seething. “I don’t see how that relates—”

  “See, my conundrum is this: keepers don’t retain full faculties after the lobotomy, yet they still enjoy sweet foods. Most things don’t affect them, given their state of being, but they react with great pleasure to sugar. I think it’s an innate human feature that can never be taken away. Something hidden within the lizard brain, I suppose. Do you agree?”

  The last words hung in the air between them, echoing softly off the marble as Lyle searched for a response. Where is he going with this?

  Darius’s tongue poked out the side of his mouth as he thought. He punch
ed a few more times on his data pad and looked expectantly back at the Captain. Lyle rubbed his temples and blinked a few times. His mind felt fuzzy with…

  Anger…?

  Of course, he was angry, but…but he wasn’t, was he?

  He suddenly wasn’t sure.

  “Yes. I think I see where you are going…but if we can turn back to the business at hand…”

  “Whenever I find Keepers, I kill them,” Darius said, his voice flat. He could have been talking about the weather. “But not because I’m angry with them, you see? They are an abomination, but it isn’t their fault. I don’t want to punish them, and I certainly wouldn’t make them suffer.”

  “Um…okay…?” Lyle said. He felt heavy, like a weight was resting on his mind, trying to drag him to the ground. He suppressed a yawn, and shook his head, trying to clear it. What the hell is going on?

  “So I stuff Bakka with poison and let Keepers eat the sugary pastry. They gorge themselves on the sweet treats as their lives ebb away.”

  As he said the last part, another section of marble separated along the right wall, revealing a door. It sunk into the frame.

  A woman—she couldn’t have been more than seventeen—walked out of the hidden doorway. Her mouth was curled in a sweet smile, and her hips swayed as she walked.

  She was carrying a silver tray in her left hand. It took him a minute to recognize the little pink pastries, and when he did his mouth hung open. Bakka. Lyle recognized it as a childhood treat popular on most worlds among the wealthiest of families.

  Suddenly he found it difficult to breathe.

  4

  The young woman had to be one of the twin sisters who fled the church with Darius, either Maven or Alyssa. Lyle didn’t know a lot about them except that they were in Darius’s inner circle. They had allegedly become generals in his army.

  He found that to be a stupid decision. They were untested. You don’t put a novice in a veteran’s position and expect greatness.

  Doubtless Darius’s decision was based purely on his adolescent need for the woman’s approval. She was beautiful by any standard with blue eyes that danced with amusement.

  This was probably Alyssa. Rumors claimed that Maven was difficult to look upon. She was scarred at birth with some sort of accident and he’d always imagined a girl with a tail. Or gills.

  This sister wore her jet black hair at neck length. Evenly cut bangs fell down her forehead to just above her eyebrows, framing her smooth face. She wore a miniskirt that barely reached her thighs and a white v-cut blouse. Both her face and chest were dotted with freckles.

  She walked over to Lyle, smiling lasciviously at him, and offered the tray to him. Lyle felt sweat dripping down the back of his uniform and fought the urge to adjust his collar again. He stared at the pastries with mild fascination and tried to think through the ramifications of what was happening.

  Things weren’t going as planned. Not at all. He wasn’t even considering how to regain control of the conversation. Now he just wanted to get out of here and never look back.

  “Would you like a pastry?” Darius asked politely. His words carried, slapping Lyle like a wet towel. Captain Lyle blinked a few times, forcing his thoughts to coalesce. They were jumbled, as though they’d been pushed out of order in his head.

  “What? No…no…no, thank you,” he mumbled, clearing his throat.

  Darius gestured and Alyssa shifted a few steps, offering the tray to the Keepers. Lyle fought the urge to slap the tray out of her hand. Instead, he watched in horror as the blank-eyed Keeper grabbed a thick pastry and shoved it in her mouth, barely chewing. She swallowed a huge mouthful.

  Lyle watched in awe, expecting the lobotomized girl to keel over at any moment. That’s crazy. This is crazy. Darius wouldn’t poison my Keeper in front of me, would he? That’s murder, even against such partial-people.

  But he still expected it to happen. A moment passed. The Keeper chewed. Nothing changed.

  Alyssa walked up the stairs to Darius. He took an offered pastry from the tray and waved her away. She glided to the bottom and stood off to the side, watching Lyle with a calm expression on her face.

  Darius bit into the pastry and then let out a sigh of pleasure.

  “Delicious,” he said, wiping his mouth and setting the pastry on the edge of his marble chair.

  “It…uh…” Lyle managed, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. It was too hot. The world was practically swimming.

  “Now, let us talk business. You offer me your pledge of four ships. But you could have brought four hundred ships if you so desired. Perhaps even thousands would join if you truly intended to defect. But you don’t, do you?”

  “I…of course, I…”

  “So the only real question we have to resolve is, “Who else knew you were coming here to kill me?”

  5

  “This was a lone wolf kind of decision, wasn’t it?” Darius added. “You asked Nicolai for permission to attack me, but he denied you, so you came of your own accord. You figured killing me would propel your standing, and once you’d accomplished the task Nicolai would have to forgive and reward you.”

  Lyle took a step backward, hands shaking. He looked around, hearing a pounding on the walls. No, it was in his ears. He considered trying to run away but knew it wouldn’t work. The grand entrance hall had seemed long on the way in. The trip out would be impossible.

  “But there were some things they didn’t tell you, weren’t there?” Darius said, apologetic. “Like who I really am? Where I really came from? And most important, what I can do. I doubt even Nicolai himself knows the half of it.”

  Lyle felt his mind closing in panic. He can’t know that’s why I’m here. He’s bluffing. He has to be. Any fool would think I might have wanted to kill him, but he can’t know for sure!

  Darius stared at him for a long second and leaned back, waving his hand dismissively. Suddenly, everything changed. It was like a cool breeze washed over him, wiping away his headache. The pressure he hadn’t even realized was there disappeared. The world felt lighter, cleaner.

  What just happened? What the hell just happened?

  “No matter,” Darius said. “You don’t need to tell me everything. I have other ways of extracting the information I need. Without you, though. I don’t really need you, anymore. I suppose you are just as useless as I feared.”

  “The…uh…codes,” Captain Lyle said, rubbing his forehead and taking another half-step backward. “I know codes that can bypass…”

  “These?” Darius asked with a light smile, holding up the data pad and turning it to face Lyle. Even if Lyle could have read the numbers from this distance they would have been too blurry to understand. His vision was swimming in terror. “They were at the forefront of your thoughts. You shouldn’t offer up your bargaining chips so easily.”

  “I would serve you…” he whispered, right hand gliding slowly toward the holdout pistol in his pocket. Could he draw it before Darius’s guards took him down? I should end the uh…the um…resistance…in the name of…that person…the one I serve…

  No, he wouldn’t be able to, he realized. Whatever was happening was something he didn’t understand. He’d come here sorely ill-prepared. He moved his hand away from the gun and used it instead to wipe his forehead.

  Darius watched his motion and made a tsk-ing sound. “You brought a weapon, even after we agreed that you would come unarmed.”

  “It’s not loaded!” Lyle insisted, fighting down panic.

  “Isn’t it?” Darius asked. Lyle felt his hand jerk down of its own volition. It grabbed the gun and yanked it out of his pocket. Then his arm rose ever so slowly toward the side. The rest of his body was still under his control, but sluggish, as if he were lying under several tons of mud.

  He watched in helpless horror as the gun took aim, zeroing in on the temple of a red-haired keeper. The vacant young woman stared forward, not even registering his change in posture.

  “You say it isn’t
loaded,” Darius said, leaning forward in his throne. “Let’s find out.”

  Lyle couldn’t stop it. He felt his finger pull the trigger.

  The loaded bullets were hollow point, a personal favorite. There was a resounding crack in the air, followed by a miniature explosion. That was followed by a splash as droplets of warm blood hit Lyle’s exposed hands and face.

  The young Keeper stayed standing in the same exact position, minus half of her head. The crash of the gunshot reverberated through the dim hall violently, ricocheting painfully off walls and bouncing back. The pain in his temple from the noise was nauseating, and he heard a ringing that came from everywhere and nowhere. Gore splattered the floor, wall, and pillar behind the Keeper.

  Time froze.

  The body slipped to the floor.

  Captain Lyle Queston let out an agonized sob.

  “A lie?” Darius said, his voice soft. “Dear Captain, you can’t expect me to trust a liar, can you?”

  As if in a dream, the gun reversed direction and he felt the muzzle touch against the side of his head. This can’t be possible. He’s just a child! He’s just a goddamned child! The barrel scalded his skin from the last shot.

  “Please…” he managed to sputter. “Please…”

  He pulled the trigger.

  And then it ended.

  Chapter 15

  Sector 4 - Tellus

  Darius Gray, Alyssa Ophidian

  1

  Darius rubbed his temple’s and let out an exhausted sigh. His head hurt, the same way it always did when he exerted himself.

  The ringing wouldn’t stop. He should buy a sound dampening system, something so that at least high frequency sounds like gunshots wouldn’t echo so damn much. Or at least he could invest in some earplugs.

  Not that it would matter if he wasn’t given time to put them in. He hadn’t been expecting the gunshots; they weren’t part of his original script, but he considered them a good improvisation under the circumstances. And Alyssa had followed along perfectly with her puppet master impersonation. She was a firebrand.

  That’s what he loved about her.