The Holocaust Piano
by Phaedra7veils
Chapter 9: Showdown on Von
Part 1
Once they cleared Amoi's parched, smoke-tainted atmosphere, Merc sighed with relief. The spaceport authority had no problems with Amoians leaving their sinking ship of a planet. As his own heap of space debris-pocked junk fired up, they weren't even hailed and questioned by customs controls; departure procedures usually took hours, longer because he wasn't Elite. Their return trip wouldn't be so easy.
"Who's our contact?" He asked Hilarion as the Sapphire relayed coordinates to the Von Ambassadorial Estate Satellite Colony.
The Elite remained cool and taciturn, although he had dropped the sarcastic edge to his remarks. For the purpose of this mission, Merc felt he could at least pretend that the man was merely reserved and shy.
After a few moments of careful consideration, Hilarion replied, "Admiral Hahna."
"Hahna! – The Admiral?"
"Yes."
"The Admiral's on Von?"
"Yes."
"We're meeting The Admiral on Amoi's official diplomatic port of entry colony?"
"Yes, yes, yes! Stop asking the same question ... and no. There's no 'we'. I'm meeting The Admiral on the Von moon. Whether or not you go is up to him."
Merc gave a low whistle. It took guts for Kressellian Raiders to harass a fleet as imperial as the Federation's. For Admiral Hahna to park himself on a Federation stronghold under the snooty noses of its super-intelligent allies, the Tanaguran Elite, required not only guts, but great huge cajones as well. Merc was impressed. Or he would be, if he weren't so confused.
After his stint on the mining asteroids, the smuggler was certain he had seen everything and no tale of corruption, double-dealings, or backstabbing could ever shock him again. During their work together, he long suspected that Katze was in league with the Tanaguran Syndicate, but the scarred mobster had never let so much as a squeak pass his lips. Since his shoot-out with Federation agents, he learned that not only had his smuggling ops been conducted entirely under the gaze and with the tacit approval of the Blondies, but it appeared that the Syndicate, itself, was in league with the enemies of their own Federation Alliance. He wasn't sure which end was up in this newly reconfigured understanding of the Glan Outworld System.
The Admiral was the most notorious smuggler in that quadrant, renowned as a ruthless daredevil and master strategist. He controlled the entire outer planetary sector with that adept team of privateers called the Kressellian Raiders. Depending on who a person listened to, the Kressellians were either brutal thugs or heroic champions of the oppressed, but the only listening Merc did was the sort with a potential pay-off.
As a naive teenager fresh from Sharffai City, Merc started his space career in a Federation security detail guarding miners in the Piercks Asteroid Belt. After being left to die during a raid facilitated by his own commanding officer, one rigged to look like the work of Kressellians in order to avoid turning over that month's bounty, the young Mercure had a major attitude adjustment.
The first and most obvious result was that he started treating the rumours and bad press which followed the Kressellians like political propaganda. Maybe the stories were lies; maybe they were true. Probably, he would never find out which was which, but, since bastards like his former CO were twisting them to their advantage, he wasn't going to accept anything at face value.
The second thing was, from that moment on, he stopped working exclusively for the Federation. Because his life and livelihood depended on it, he kept the façade that they validated all his credit passkeys, enough to pass a routine border investigation, but he was for hire through and through. He even shortened his name to emphasize that mercenary nature.
"How did a Sapphire like you manage to hook up with Public Enemy No. 1?"
Hilarion tipped his head back with a gesture of irritation and took a deep breath. "What do you mean a Sapphire like me? In your entire life, have you ever met a Sapphire? No, wait! Forget this Sapphire nonsense, in your entire life have you ever met anyone like me?"
So much for shy and reserved.
"In case you haven't noticed," Merc spoke between gritted teeth, "I have been trying to be civil. You are a guest on my ship."
Another deep breath.
"Yes, understood. I've never felt any particular affinity with other Sapphires, if you must know."
Merc gaped at him for a moment, wondering if the irony managed to sink in a little.
"Yeah, a double-edged sword, that hair-colour thing, isn't it?" He finally managed. "Never went for it much myself. As for designing a social order on that basis, we're in one-hundred per cent agreement here; total crap- reasoning! Now try tossing in some artificial genetic enhancements, an elitist education, some exclusive citizen passkeys...."
"You're not from Tanagura."
"Not originally, but what does that have to do with the price of Pets in Kaan and Rijina?"
"Enhancements usually enhance."
"What?"
"Whether you acknowledge it or not, whether you like it or not, genetic enhancements are an improvement."
"That so?" Merc lit up a smoke. "Depends on what you define as an improvement, doesn't it?"
"That's true." The aggression drained off the Sapphire's shoulders. "Funny, I've always thought of myself as a fair-minded individual. It's very strange to have these imbalances reflected back to me."
"Fyss, you beat the crap out of me because I didn't call Raoul 'Lord Am.' If you're so fair-minded, what the hell was that about?"
"Brain damage," a trace of smile flickered at the corners of Hilarion's mouth, "of the genetically enhanced sort."
"I'm not laughing."
His passenger shrugged and turned his attention back to co-piloting.
"And I noticed you evaded the question."
"Which one?"
"What do you mean –? The Admiral — oh, forget it! You seem to forget we're on the same side."
"Are we?" Hilarion sent Merc a shrewd glance from where he had been analyzing spectral scans for the presence of ships. "It isn't my story alone to tell. Can you understand that?"
"Clear as Ceres!" Merc puffed on his cigarillo so hard, it took less than half a minute to burn straight to the filter. He tossed the spent butt into a trash containment compartment with a loud, "Tsk!"
"What is your problem now?" Hilarion asked.
"Nothing. Just something weird I remembered."
"Anything relevant?"
"No, just ironic."
When it became clear that the Elite was not going to press him for further explanation, he supplied one anyway, "The company I worked for in the Piercks Belt used to mine for sapphires among other things. I once thought they were beautiful — damned beautiful!"
Merc could tell the Sapphire was listening, even though he pretended to be completely absorbed in trajectory calculations, "Even though the only ones I ever got to see had great, huge flaws."
Hilarion stopped pretending.
"When I nearly got myself killed protecting the guys who dug them up from their own employers, it hit home that they were just a buncha stupid rocks."
Raoul's attention had been so focused on unraveling and solving problems that he never noticed the heaviness in his muscles. It was getting time for him to catch up on some sleep. Yet, even now, problems pressed so much that his mind kept turning back to them, the way soreness pulsing from a wound pulls attention back to it. Not that the Elite to whom he had delegated the survival of life on Amoi weren't capable of handling their jobs. They were doing splendid, if not miraculous work.
Colin Venables' engineers had accomplished wonders shifting the aetheric filtration system to the controls set when the planet was first terraformed. Just in the nick of time, too, since the fire in Flare had cranked up air pollution to dangerous levels and levels of cyanophytic algae which fed oxygen into their planet had taken another severe beating.
The fire bothered him, how it just happened to start in the most luxurious commercial district in Tanagura. There would be major political fall-out if the aftermath wasn't handled properly. It could even topple the Syndicate, a circumstance that made it too suspicious to be a mere accident. Tibór was investigating the fire under Paviter's direction, along with a few trusted Elite security personnel from Eos, all capable detectives. Raoul was certain they would find the cause. There was no reason to obsess over suspicions.
Biotechnicians were being diverted from the Kalgas to deal with the algae situation, which added more stress to the already over-burdened medical facilities. Still, Raoul was confident they could resolve this provided they didn't run out of power first.
The primary power-supply once channeled through Jupiter and now completely clotted with alien fibres, had been drained bare. Everything depended on the primitive power grid that their ancestors had rigged up, a clunky system which relied too much on cables and flimsy machines, but it kept critical systems up and running. If people couldn't handle a few periodic rolling blackouts, that was tough.
Comm-links and the holostream had fallen off the previous night. Some of the older unmanned satellites still worked with radio waves, and the brilliant Serge Renaud had coordinated his Sapphires to jerry-rig a transmitter and link emergency communicators. Really, the man should've been a Blondie!
What with the industrial sector in Neil Darts closed down, the fire in Flare, the tenuous situation of the clone nurseries under Guardian, the moratorium on flights into Amoi, and the rolling blackouts, their economy had pretty much flat-lined. There would be hell to pay.
Perhaps it was better that fewer messages zapped back and forth. The more things were spread by word-of-mouth, the slower the pace that misinformation spread. And it was as sure as death that misinformation would spread.
Which led Raoul to think of the continuing thorn in his side, Xavier Rex, and his legions of petty managers who couldn't see past their credit accounts...
He rubbed his temples and decided to use the trip back to Amoi after the formal dinner to catch up on his sleep.
"Hey!" Katze reached over and stroked a cool hand across his forehead. "Any chance of dropping the rampant anxiety for awhile? At least until we land on Von?"
Raoul started, stunned. When had he lost his Blondie composure? He dared not risk showing weakness in front of the Federation at this evening's dinner. As the leader of the Syndicate, he had to appear charismatic, which was to say, untouchable. Yet how could this happen when his body vibrated with tension? Too much for him even to sleep.
He looked back at Katze. His toy-Elite's attitude had changed over the course of these long days, especially after the misunderstanding over Merc's mind-wipe had been cleared up. He had been quite affectionate during the drive to the airport, almost as though he were developing an emotional attachment. Raoul smiled. Maybe it was time to begin the test.
Over the wrist-transmitter which was so similar to the ring which activated Katze's Pet Ring, he relayed new instructions to his Car. "Paviter, place the ship on autopilot. I want you to enter the Soma Chamber and set it for an hour. We have no need of your service until it comes time for landing procedures."
Paviter's face left no doubt as to how unhappy he felt over this.
Katze remembered how infantile it had made him feel to be ordered to bed upon arrival at Raoul's penthouse, and that was for a natural sleep. He almost felt a flash of sympathy except that the overgrown kid had been awake so much longer than him.
"If there's an ambush, you will need me at the helm. I'm the best fighter–" The Car was actually arguing with a Blondie, with Raoul of all people. He must've been more exhausted than he looked. If they came under ambush, the mistakes he was likely to make from fatigue placed them at greater risk.
It seemed that Paviter had just become aware of that, too. With a startled snap to, he apologized and reset the controls, then disappeared into the Soma chamber.
Somatic sleep technology had come a long way since the advent of deep space travel but it still couldn't match the result of a good, long, natural sleep. Natural sleep healed everything — body, mind and emotions — whereas the artificial comas rested only the body.
The earliest experiments in long term artificial sleep induction had resulted in test-subjects waking up like newborns, completely wiped of all their learning and accumulated personality, unable even to look after anything but what came without thought. Those earliest sleep-induction chambers became the basis for Tanaguran mind-wipe technology.
Biotechnologists soon realized that these results would prove disastrous in their attempts to colonize space, so they modified the frequencies so as not to affect thinking patterns. The mind still felt overstretched when a person awoke; instead of releasing the daily cache of information and activity into the subconscious and moving into a more peaceful condition, it was as though an inner 'pause' button had been hit. Thoughts, at least those generated within the individual and not plucked out of the more subliminal activities, resumed at the exact place where they had left off.
In terms of short-term rests, however, there was a different sort of cost to modified sleep induction. Once the thoughts resumed exactly as they were, emotions quickly followed suit and it took a lot less time for the body to feel tired again. Sleep induction bought a little extra time and physical refreshment but that was all. And if a person depended on these machines for short-term sleeps over a long period, their brains became damaged, susceptible to psychotic breaks or chronic depression.
A person as tired as Paviter could easily doze off into natural sleep, which was why Katze felt puzzled by Raoul's order. Also, he took Paviter's warnings about the possibility of ambush very seriously. After recent events, he couldn't help but feel alert and hyper-vigilant. So much so, that when Raoul reached over and brushed the hair off of his forehead, just as he had done to the Blondie earlier, he jerked back and bumped his head on the spaceship's titanium panels.
"Don't be nervous," Raoul murmured. Katze felt long fingers slip through his red locks to massage the place where he had hit his skull. Nervous? Why should he feel nervous? Unfamiliar sensations had started traveling up his spine, like carbonated water, sensations akin to nervousness, except pleasant and sparkling.
Okay, he felt nervous. Anybody would be in his situation.
"There are some things you should know about Elite protocol," the Blondie murmured between slow, moist kisses left as he trailed his lips along the lean muscles of Katze's neck, under his jaw, and along the shell of his ear. "Things you never learned during your training as Furniture."
Katze tried to relax into the smooth touches. The topic of conversation wasn't helping any.
"As a member of my entourage, the only orders you are obligated to obey are mine. If we should become separated though, you will be vulnerable."
Suddenly, it was hard for Katze to concentrate. Raoul's kisses made him feel lightheaded, as though they had finally burst clear of Amoi's gravity. The man's voice was so deep and sultry, it lulled his thoughts into a receptive state.
"Other Elite will envy you and wonder why, out of the pick of them all, I should choose you. If you are out of the circle of my protection, they will challenge you. Count on it."
He hadn't even noticed when Raoul's long white fingers had slipped under his robe and began to unbutton his dress shirt until he felt their touch run up his abdomen, trace the outline of his chest and then flick at his nipples. His heart gave a peculiar jump.
"...at two paces behind your superior at all times."
Hunh? "Sorry? I drifted off there."
"You aren't paying attention, Katze." Raoul reached down and unclasped the seatbelt. "Maybe I should watch —" kiss "— to see how closely you've been listening —" kiss "— and punish you for any mistakes you make."
"You're distracting me," Katze complained, and hated himself the moment the words spilled out. Damn! Was he that much of a whiner?
With a quick tug that felt like the entire spaceship had spun out of control, he suddenly found himself pulled out of his seat and straddling Raoul's lap. The man's strength and speed devastated him. His head reeled. Was he supposed to feel in danger, or aroused?
"There will be many things to distract you tonight, things beyond what you were accustomed to witnessing at even the most decadent Pet Parties you ever served under Lord Mink in Tanagura," Raoul spoke severely. "Even if you do not partake in this formal dinner, even if you stand behind me throughout the entire affair, be confident that there will be distractions. It is what diplomats do! It is one of their most effective strategies."
Katze was still panting with shock. Even so, even with Raoul's caution fresh in his mind, he nearly lost it when the man ran his hands up his thighs, clasped his buttocks and slowly squeezed.
"Believe me when I say that, even with my protection, you must not offend a senior Elite by breaking protocol at a formal State supper. Do you understand, Katze?"
God! The man had shifted a hand to the front of his trousers. His erection had somehow grown without his even being aware of it, of nothing more than the vague pleasurable sensation, a sensation that now gave him the urge to thrust and arch his back. Now that it had been brought to his attention, his erection had grown positively acute and Raoul was gripping it very firmly. He threw his head back and groaned.
"Do you?"
Katze hated this, being treated like a child while his body was at the mercy of this Blondie's touches. It was undignified and embarrassing and he couldn't get enough of it. He wanted more of those touches. He wanted the man's strength.
"Yes! Yes! I've got it," he cried. "But it sounds like a pain in the ass!"
Raoul chuckled and started to undo the fastening in those trousers.
"It is all that," he said, slipping Katze's hard cock out of the confines of that fabric. Slowly, he began to stroke the velvety skin. "Literally, if you aren't cautious. It's the Jades and Sapphires around whom you will have to be most careful. The Platinas and other Blondies will likely pretend you don't even exist, but the green and blue Elite will be most anxious to assert their superiority over you. So, listen carefully!"
Listen? Katze could barely hear. White noise was pounding in his ears. He was even disconnected from the soft sounds that escaped from his own throat. Nothing seemed as crucial or important as the sensations like electrical shocks that seemed to radiate from the root of his testicles up the length of his cock, concentrating in the sensitive nerve endings at the head. It was too bewildering, too dizzying.
"It is not unheard-of that certain Elite kidnap other subordinate Elites. There doesn't even have to be a reason, some minor affront, something stupid. They will kidnap, restrain, and quite possibly drug you. Then they will order their harem to reassert their dominion over you in a way that you find both humiliating and painful."
Somehow, the meaning of Raoul's words had penetrated the miasma swirling around Katze's mind. It enraged him that such demeaning things were allowed to transpire, that he should actually need to receive instruction in how to avoid it. He couldn't believe his body continued to respond in full sensual abandonment in spite of those enraging words. Yet, there he was arching backwards as tension built in the muscles of his thighs and buttocks. The heat was unbearable. A sheen of sweat glimmered over the surface of his skin.
"Ah ... ah ...ah..." his voice had grown louder.
Abruptly, Raoul's grip grew tight. A keen of pain burst from Katze's throat as the Blondie's other powerful hand curled behind his neck and yanked him forward so that his ear was right next to the man's lips.
"I don't want anyone else to touch you. Understand?"
Katze's face burned almost as red as his new hair, hair that now draped across Raoul's shoulders. He couldn't speak. All he could do between the forced gasps of breath is close his eyes in shame at his wantonness, at his lack of self-restraint, and give this overmastering man an affirmative nod of his head.
"Excellent," Raoul pulled him into a deep kiss, stroking his tongue across the surfaces of Katze's mouth. Then he sped up the strokes until Katze's release tore through him.
After a minute or two listening to his heart yammer, Katze clued into the fact that he had slumped against Raoul's shoulders.
"Shthh-sssorry," he pulled away. Raoul held up his huge hand to where Katze could see it, covered with his ejaculation. It took another minute before he realized that Raoul wanted him to clean it off, so fighting the urge to gag, Katze stuck out his tongue and lapped away the traces.
As he did this, Raoul gave a last piece of advice with respect to protocol. "The important thing is not to speak first or look another senior Elite directly in the eye when they address you. You may, of course, treat Onyx and other Rubies, even those belonging to other Blondies, like your personal slaves. But even if you follow no orders but those that I authorize, you must respect the tier of Elite."
"Respect the goddamned tier!" Katze mumbled.
"Now there's something I want you to do for me." the corners of the Blondie's mouth quirked upward. His eyes were dark and hooded. He pushed Katze to his feet and tugged on his sleeve, signaling his desires. Katze blushed, then sank to his knees between Raoul's outstretched legs.
Afterwards, as Paviter docked the ship, Katze turned to Raoul and said, "Just to double-check, do you mind if I run through that list of protocol once more?"
They were standing at the doors waiting for the vacuum seal to break.
"Now? Isn't it getting a bit late?"
"Well, there weren't that many special instructions."
"Very well, proceed."
"Always stand or follow at a minimum of two paces behind you and to your left, unless you are joined by a senior Elite, in which case, I move behind the both of you."
"Correct."
"I am to stand four paces behind you and to the left at the supper table, just in front of Paviter, in the event that you have instructions for me."
"Right."
"I'm not to drink or eat."
"No."
"I'm not to speak unless spoken to by senior Elite above the Ruby tier."
"No."
"And I'm not to look any of the senior Elite directly in the eye."
"Excellent, you've got it."
"There are no exceptions to the no-looking rule?"
"None that I know of."
"These rules commence the moment this door opens?"
"Yes. The moment we are in public, it is considered an official State function."
"And if I insult a senior Elite, it is likely that they will assault me in some sort of offensive manner?"
"That better not happen!" Raoul growled, "Nobody is permitted to touch you."
"Ah-hah," Katze unfolded a pair of sunglasses so dark that, once they were perched on his nose, no one would be able to see his eyes.
Raoul laughed. "Very clever, but you do realize that you can't wear those at the dinner?"
The seal finally broke and the door swung open to an official reception committee.
"Yes, I realize," Katze replied, looking Raoul directly, steadily and very publicly in the eye, before slipping them on.
At a formal state dinner, it was considered the height of rudeness to speak across one's immediate neighbours, so Raoul was safely shielded from questions posed by Hazall, who sat to Florien's right. This wasn't to say that Hazall didn't attempt to circumvent protocol.
"I am pleased to see that Tanagura's First Blondie, Lord Am is as strong, powerful and capable as his predecessor," Hazall lifted his glass in a formal toast. "To his health and longevity!"
The entire table lifted their wineglasses in salute.
Raoul sipped and nodded the briefest of acknowledgments, then resumed his conversation with the envoy from the Piercks Confederate to his left. He had already declared his intention to use this supper to reinforce Florien's authority during the enclave. He had no intention of letting Hazall undermine that resolve.
"It is gratifying to a humble civil servant such as myself to see how your standards of excellence have reached an even higher bar," With loud, granite-chunked announcements like these, Hazall tried to bully his way into Raoul's conversation, but the envoy from Piercks, a dark haired and dark skinned young man with thick spectacles, turned out to be modest and charming company. He and Raoul shared an interest in the effects of environment in the mutation of human genes, so there was no trouble resisting Hazall's most blatant ploys, especially when they began to discuss the effects of music and sound patterns.
Besides, Florien was handling the conversation adroitly, as should befit any Blondie engineered and trained to the Von line of diplomatic status. Hazall didn't appear to be aware of how skillfully he was being led. During a lull in his discussion with the envoy — and how Raoul respected a man comfortable with long silences! — he overheard one such exchange.
"That is a spectacular piece of jewellery on your wrist, Mr. Hazall," Florien sallied. "May I ask where you found it?"
"Do you not recognize the style? It's from one of your own Tanaguran shops. I bought it just a day or two ago."
"Surely not! Our mines were tapped out decades ago."
"Nonetheless, it is the work of one of your very own artisans. He is becoming quite famous. And Tanagura has no need of mines. It is such a pillar of economic strength that it is a small matter to arrange for raw materials to be imported. I wore it in tribute."
"How kind! As the cultural attaché, I am supposed to know all about our wonderful talented people and, here, you've educated me."
"You give me far too much credit. It is easy to overlook a single person."
"No, no! I enjoy receiving this sort of lesson. I am filled with appreciation. May I inquire where you purchased the piece, so that I can sing this fellow's praises far and wide?"
"You certainly may. I acquired it at The Treasury."
Florien peered at him with sharp gray eyes. "The Treasury in Flare?"
"One and the same."
"The one owned by Xavier Rex?" Florien looked back down at his salad course.
"I believe so. One of his many shops." A bead of sweat broke out at Hazall's hairline. He looked sharply back at the Blondie, but the handsome diplomat merely skewered a spear of asparagus.
"I shall have to ask him all about this artist-fellow," he replied, popping it in his mouth.
Merc was just getting accustomed to the idea that Admiral Hahna — The Admiral, Commander of the Kressellian Raider Fleet — was shaking his hand when the man's head exploded. It seemed like a full minute passed between the moment he was spattered with blood, fragmented bone and gore and the moment the Kressellian First Mate shrieked, "Hit the deck!"
Stupified, he was still shaking the dead man's hand when he and Hilarion were bowled over by the First Mate. This is how, seconds later, they came to be sprawled on the floor behind a massive granite plinth with a headless corpse underneath them and a very pretty young woman stretched on top. She didn't stay there long enough for this to fully register, however. Before he could suck some air back into his winded lungs or shake the image of the man's gory death from his head, she made one quick somersault and rose to her feet, shouting commands to other Raiders and squeezing off bolts of serious fire-power.
"I've got to stop ending on the floor like this," he wheezed at Hilarion, who had the grace to offer him a hand up. The muscles and scar tissue in his barely healed stomach were painfully pulled. He and the Sapphire were of no use in this situation anyway. Besides being thick and sticky with gore, they couldn't tell the difference between friend and foe, and ended up randomly firing their pistols at anyone who aimed at them.
This First Mate was an amazing fighter. She lined up her sights and caught two assassins with one shot just as they were leaping from the second storey banister. Then, after a shoulder roll took her out of the line of someone else's fire, she drew her sabre with one smooth stroke and lopped off the head of another fighter who had her backup pinned behind the curving stairs.
It didn't take long for Merc to realize that the Admiral, the dead one who had shaken their hand was a fake and that this girl — yes, this girl — was the real one. The fact that her Raiders kept addressing her as 'Admiral' or 'Hahna' had more to do with this than any swift-thinking recognition of her superior fighting skills or putting of two-and-twos together on his part. He hadn't even gotten used to the idea that the Raiders were an equal opportunity fighting force.
He and Hilarion had just walked through the door of his spaceship when she called out to them, "Greetings! Do I have the pleasure of addressing Sir Hilarion Fyss and company?"
At first the two men only stared, she had worn such strange clothes. Her torso was sheathed in a formal blue doublet with tails trimmed with gold and brass; long, shapely legs sucked into tight, white calfskin breeches; tall black boots; and the most outlandish hat, like an upside-down crescent moon perched on her head. She had tiny brown freckles spattered over the bridge of her nose and quite a gap between her front teeth, which Merc would've never noticed ordinarily except that her smile was so wide. The most astonishing thing of all was that she wore an ancient sabre. Merc doubted that she even knew how to use it.
Hilarion stepped forward.
"First Mate Sam to Admiral Hahna at your service," she gave him a smart salute, and then giggled.
"I had no idea the Raiders followed such formalities," he bowed slightly and frostily in return. "Naval officers? Traditional dress uniforms?"
"Not at all," she giggled again. "It's a disguise."
"Clearly not plainclothes."
"Now you're teasing me! Only the really, really important people wear plainclothes on Von. It's the surest way to attract attention." She leaned forward and gave him a conspiratorial wink. "I am here to meet you and conduct you safely to the Admiral. I figured the safest way was to dress up as a senior Novaterran Naval officer, seeing as they are so common."
"Not in this sector of Glan."
"Maybe not, but I couldn't really disguise myself as Federation now, could I? Someone might actually have the audacity to bark an order at me. Then where would we be?"
"In deep–" Merc broke off.
She leaned over the railing on the toes of her highheeled boots and planted a kiss on the tip of his nose, like pushing a button. Merc and Hilarion gaped. Then, with a swivel of her hips, she sauntered back up the docking platform. "Coming, gentlemen?"
For a second, the two men gaped at each other, then back at the sway and swing of her well-rounded hips.
"So that's how they motivate Raiders to spread murder and mayhem throughout the Outworld sector!" Merc muttered.
The smuggler gave Hilarion a tiny shove, "After you."
The Von Ambassadorial Estate Colony was one of the most beautiful places to which Merc had ever flown. It was green with a pearly white sky and fresh, humid air, so unlike the orange and pink haze of Amoi. Trees lined the streets. The sweetest scented blossoms grew everywhere and melodious bird-song dazzled his sense of hearing. The buildings were not glass towers or old dumps, but graceful structures constructed from warm-coloured materials like the moon's red rocks.
But even more striking than the moon's natural beauty was it's proximity to Amoi and the other moon. The gravitational pull of the two moons left them spinning around each other, a rotation which took a full ten hours, and when the other moon passed between Von and Amoi, there was a sound like distant ocean breakers rolling into shore. It wasn't possible for sound to travel through the vacuum of space, so this was a phenomenal occurrence that Merc had never understood.
Then there was the incredible beauty of Amoi, itself. From space, its dunes looked like the pink and peach coloured ridges of a scallop shell. Its shallow oceans reflected a bright turquoise. Cliffs of pyrite sparkled and gleamed like gold.
Merc admired this view of Amoi, as their hovercar stalled behind a line of traffic. Eventually he had to ask, "What's the hold up?"
"An entourage of armoured vehicles," the First Mate peered over the shoulder of her Car. "Must be–"
"Lord Am," Hilarion said. "Lord Am is on Von. This would only happen for such an important visitor."
"Indeed?" Her blue eyes grew more suspiciously innocent. "Well, if it doesn't bother you, we could get out and walk the rest of the way. It's just around the corner. Probably quicker than waiting."
When he noticed the seal beside the front entrance of the house they were about to enter, Hilarion nocked an eyebrow. "The Novaterran Consulate?"
"Yes, well, they had it all hermetically sealed up until the next outworld expedition, didn't they?" She huffed. "One of the first things to go when they decided to cut back on expenditures. Where do you think we picked up the spiffy uniforms?"
"Spiffy?" Hilarion was poised to hyperventilate.
"Don't worry so much!" She patted his arm, "we'll put it back the way we found it. They'll never know we were here."
Less than five minutes later, they were locked in this gun-battle.
"Hey, Sapphire! Why didn't you tell me you'd never met the Admiral before?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"It's gonna be kinda tough to pick up those computer components if we don't find some way outta this mess."
Hilarion stopped shooting and gave Merc a strange look.
"You're right," he said. "I need a plan."
Then he leapt at the Admiral and tackled the woman.
"That's your plan?" Merc wasn't entirely convinced.
Explosion!
Someone had tossed some sort of percussion grenade into the building. If they managed to make it out alive and intact, Merc seriously doubted the Admiral was going to leave the consulate in a condition fit for habitation. Flames sucked every trace of oxygen out of the air and replaced it with shrapnel and shards of flying glass. The screams of the dying reminded Merc of that awful day the SERT-4 mine was attacked.
Hilarion had slung Admiral Hahna over his shoulder and was charging toward the front door. Without a second thought, Merc followed him.
The Holocaust Piano – chapter 8 << >> The Holocaust Piano – chapter 9.2