Mage Gladiator: Chapters 1-3

I'm particularly tired today and not particularly happy with how the next chapter of Unintended Cultivator is turning out. So, I'm gonna call it a night and try again in the morning. But I don't want to leave you with nothing to read. This is one of my back-back-back burner projects that I open up and write a couple paragraphs on every month or so. Let me know what you think. ~Eric

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1

Her imperial majesty, Ariana Jade Margaret Celeste, nodded to her guards and closed the door to her private office. She pulled off the gaudy and, in her opinion, unnecessarily heavy, formal crown of her new office and let it dangle from one hand. She leaned her forehead against the wooden door and let her shoulders slump in pure exhaustion. She’d been on display for the better part of twelve hours, presiding over the internment of her father, giving speeches, and answering the facile and interminable questions from the ravening horde of reporters who so desperately wanted to turn her grief into fodder for the latest news cycles. While she knew, intellectually, that those reporters were a useful tool more often than not, it had taken all of her self-control not to order them executed en masse.  

At least she’d been able to shield her younger brothers from the worst of it. She’d put them behind a wall of stone-faced Imperial Guards and two platoons of Imperial Marines who, dress uniforms or not, had worn the expressions of men and women begging for an excuse to vent their own grief in brutal and violent ways. No one had dared to brave that edifice of flesh and weaponry during the public portions of the day. Both of her brothers were senior officers, one navy, one marine, and had selected the hardest looking of those marines to serve as their personal escorts during the smaller political dinner and reception afterwards. The implicit threat of those escorts had kept everyone except old, personal friends from approaching either man. That had left her to endure to the sometimes sincere, but just as often false condolences of senators and ambassadors.

Now, she was just hollowed out by the pomp, circumstance, and the awful, oppressive grief that had rooted inside her. She didn’t even know if she could muster the energy to cry. She wasn’t naïve. She knew full well that her father had been, at best, a man with countless questionable choices behind him. Some had called him a tyrant, or a dictator, which were both probably true for some worlds. Yet, he had been largely a benevolent dictator. He’d also been the man who doted on her as a child and, against his own misgivings, had let her join the Imperial Army. She understood, now, why he’d been so hesitant. The nightmares weren’t as bad as they had been in years past, but she’d never be free of them entirely. She’s never be free of that campaign on Kanton Prime. So many people had died there in terrible exchanges of weapons fire, orbital bombardment, and magic. She found out later that that single campaign had cost the lives of nearly two million Imperial and Kantonian soldiers.

She’d have died there as well, if not for her father’s insistence that she take Kyle. She’d found the man unnerving at first. Since the war’s conclusion, she wished that she’d never let her father send him away. She stood there, forehead pressed against the door, and wished that this nightmare would end. Except, she knew it wouldn’t. She forced herself to straighten, turned, and very nearly immolated the old man standing there in a pillar of magical fire. It was all she could do to repress that surge of magical power she’d called on instinct. He seemed to intuit what had almost happened and bowed deeply.

“My apologies, Majesty,” said Roderick Abebe, her Minister of Intelligence. “I was told you wished to speak with me after the proceedings.”

She nodded as she caught her breath. She regarded the old man and wondered just how old he was. His hair was pure white, a shocking contrast against his dark skin, but there was something oddly youthful about his features. She’d looked at his file and it was absent any personal details. It was as if he’d sprung to life forty years ago from whole cloth. There was no date of birth, no location of birth, no parents listed, no wife or dependents listed, nothing that might suggest he existed anywhere outside of his office. She walked toward her desk and casually tossed the crown onto a couch. Abebe hissed in disapproval. She sat behind her desk and lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Some respect for the crown, Majesty,” he chided gently, as he picked up the crown and set it on her desk.

“Do you want it?” she asked. “Because I’ll adopt you right now, name you successor, and abdicate immediately.”

The old man stared at her in naked horror. “You shouldn’t jest about such things. If you foisted that crown off on me, I’d be dead within a year from the stress. Besides, I’m too sane to crave such a burden.”

“Pity,” Ariana sighed. “Oh, do sit down, Roderick. I can’t imagine you stood on formality this way with my father.”

“No,” admitted the man, sitting on the other side of the desk. “I also knew your father for a very long time. You and I will need to find our own balance, I suppose. At least, until you replace me.”

“It won’t be soon,” said Ariana in a flat tone. “I need you, so don’t go making retirement plans.”

Roderick smiled and nodded. “As you say, Majesty.”

“We need to talk about the Kantonians. They’re going to try to leave the Imperial Alliance sooner or later. Probably sooner. It’s not obvious, but they’re behind the Hedron opposition bloc in the Senate.”

“I’m relieved you’ve been keeping an eye on the senatorial winds. Jien Laurent is the primary mover behind the scenes there.”

“Really?” Asked Ariana. “I hadn’t pegged him as the ringleader. I thought he was more moderate than that.”

“He hated your father. Hated him blindly. I don’t believe he hates you with the same intensity, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. As much as he loathed your father, Laurent was also terrified of him. I don’t think he believes he needs to fear you the same way.”

“He think I’m weaker than my father, and he’ll try to exploit that. Damn him. I don’t need this nonsense right now,” said Ariana, rubbing at her overtired eyes.

“War is coming,” said Roderick.

He stated it as a cold fact. Ariana had suspected it was true and even made some tentative plans to deal with it if it came down to war, yet she hadn’t really believed it. Only a fool or someone who had never been in one craved a war. She struggled to imagine how the Kantonians had come to the conclusion that a war was a good plan.

“You’re sure?” She asked.

“I am. In and of itself, that’s not the real problem. We have the resources to win a war with the Kantonians.”

Ariana went cold. “What is the real problem?”

“The Isengen systems. If we go to war with Kanton, I believe the Isengen systems will use it as an opportunity to revolt.”

“Revolt? They’ve been part of the Imperial Alliance for most of a century. Why would they revolt now?”

“They’ve always chafed under imperial rule. They came to an accommodation with your father, but if the Kantonians are whispering in their ears that you’re too weak to hold the empire together,” he trailed off.

“They’ll decide the old accommodations don’t apply anymore. Then, we end up in a two-front war.”

“Minimally,” warned the Minister of Intelligence. “We’ll minimally end up in a two-front war. It’s quiet, but there is plenty of discontent in the annexed systems. They know they can’t win in a direct confrontation, but they might feel differently if we’re preoccupied elsewhere.”

“And we don’t have the resources necessary for warfare on that scale.”

“Not at present, Majesty. We can ramp up recruitment, but our citizens have many other options. If we’re going to face major uprisings, we need something more. We need a rallying point.”

Ariana stared at the old man for thirty solid seconds of silence before she spoke a single word. “No.”

“We need him.”

“Damn it, Roderick. We let him go for very good reasons. You know full well what service to the empire cost him last time. Now, now you want to trot him out like some kind of show pony. I won’t reward his service that way.”

“Your majesty, I do know full well what his service to the empire cost him last time. I also know that he is a hero of the Imperial Alliance. The literal only living member of the Order of Stone. He is a legend, and we need a legend. Assuming he’s still alive. No one seems to know.”

Ariana closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “He’s alive. At least, he was six months ago.”

“How do you know?”

She waved at a vase that perched on shelf. Roderick rose to his feet and walked over the vase. She watched as he gingerly reached out and touched one of the flowers in the vase. He looked over at her.

“Glass?” He asked.

“Possibly. He sends me one every year, on my birthday.”

“Then,” Roderick paused. “You know where he is?”

Ariana shook her head. “No. They arrive by courier. He doesn’t tell me where he is or even where he gets those flowers. No one has any idea where they come from. So, it’s less of a clue than you might think.”

“You were looking for him?”

“Not for this. He saved my life. He ended the war, and,” she hesitated, “my family hasn’t done particularly well by him. We showered him with honors he didn’t want. Raised him up as a hero, made him the face of our victory, when all he wanted was to be left alone in his grief. We used him, Roderick. I wanted to ensure he’d landed somewhere safely. That he wanted for nothing. We owed him that much.”

Roderick returned to his chair and sat in reflective silence for a moment. “Yes. We all used him. One could make that argument that he volunteered for it, but we did. Your father told me that his great regret was that he didn’t adopt Kyle into your family.”

“Really? He never said anything like that to me.”

“Oh yes. I asked him why he didn’t. He told me that he couldn’t live with the thought of doing something that would make Kyle hate him that much. I still don’t know what he meant by that.”

“I know,” said Ariana.

Roderick gave her an expectant look. When she didn’t say anything else, he returned to the earlier topic. “You never found him?”

“No. He’d disappeared with such thoroughness that it was clear he didn’t want to be found, even by my family. Maybe especially by my family. I called off the people I had looking. It was the only thing I could do for him.”

“Majesty, I understand your reticence. I even share it. As a human being, I believe we should leave that man alone in whatever corner of the galaxy he’s hidden himself away. As an agent of this government, though, I know that we must bring him back. The return of Kyle Alexander would set the Imperial Alliance on fire. Citizens would flock to the call to arms if it came from his lips. It would make the Kantonians hesitate. I assure you, they remember him all too well.”

“You’d think they’d hate him,” murmured Ariana. “They should. We would. They don’t, you know.”

“Majesty?”

“The Kantonians. He destroyed their dreams of victory. Forced them into the Alliance with that killing stroke. If he’d been on the other side, we’d curse him. They revere him almost as much as the rest of the Imperial Alliance. They don’t remember the blow that ended the war. They remember his tears. When they get poetic about it, they call him the Weeping Warrior.”

Roderick frowned. “I’ve seen images of the sculpture. Frankly, there is something disturbingly religious about the way they treat that sculpture. I hadn’t realized it extended so much to him personally. All the more reason to bring him back.”

“Enough, Minister. I know we have to do it. You can stop trying to convince me. I just hate it. Do you have someone up to the task of finding him?”

“I do. She’s one of my most able assets.”

“Is she up to the task of convincing him to come back?”

“I thought you might send a message with her. It might mean more coming from you.”

Ariana sniffed. “Less than you might think. This might help, a little.”

Ariana activated the computer build into her desk and entered a series of commands. A small bubble lifted out of the desktop. She pressed her thumb against the bubble and winced as a needle extracted a bit of her blood. She rubbed the abused pad of her thumb as a compartment slid open on the desktop. She stared down into the compartment for a moment before reaching in and removing one of the five remaining platinum coins. There were slots for six coins, but there was no record of where that missing coin had gone. It was a small, but nonetheless persistent worry. Ariana examined the coin for a moment. It was emblazoned on one side with the Imperial star of her house and a laurel wreath on the other. She slid the coin across the desk before entering another command into her computer that slid the cover back over the compartment. She looked up and saw Roderick staring down at the coin.

“Give that to your messenger,” she said. “If nothing else, it will ensure that she survives the encounter should she succeed in finding him.”

“Majesty, are you sure this is necessary? This coin, it—” Roderick seemed lost for words.

“It makes your messenger a member of the Imperial family for the duration of her mission. She’ll be my daughter for all intents and purposes, with all the power that comes with it. You know how to gene lock it to her?”

Roderick found his voice. “I do.”

“Make sure she understands that she can commandeer whatever imperial resources she deems necessary. Also make sure that she understands that I will prove most disappointed if she abuses those privileges.”

The old minister nodded. “I’ll make sure she understands.”

“Very good. Now, unless there is some other pressing business that simply cannot wait, please leave me. It’s been an excruciatingly long day.”

Roderick rose, carefully placing the coin in an inside pocket on his suit jacket, and shook his head. “Nothing that won’t hold until tomorrow. Goodnight, your majesty.”

Once Roderick left the room, Ariana found herself staring out the window at the night sky. She could just make out the orbitals that helped protect her world drift slowly across the sky and briefly obscure the stars as the planet turned beneath them. She wondered which of those stars Kyle had run to in the wake of the war.

“Forgive me for this,” she whispered to his memory. “Please forgive me for calling you back to this madness.”

2

The Ministry of Intelligence building was as unassuming and out of the way as a building could be in the sprawling megalopolis of the Imperial City. Grey, unadorned, and lacking any signage, it rose a mere thirty stories in a part of the city where middling, grey buildings were the norm. It was flanked on the left by the offices of an in-system commercial ship builder and on the right by the offices of a respectable, but reserved corporate law firm. That meant that Sara Himura could become anonymous and unremarked in the morning crowd with nothing more than sensible flats, a grey suit, and a moderately priced briefcase. It wouldn’t occur to most of the people around her that the briefcase contained nothing or that she’d had the suit tailored specifically to accommodate the holster for the wafer-thin plasma blaster she carried. The weapon was only good for five shots but, in her line of work, you shouldn’t need more than that. If you did, it meant they should have sent marines.

She’d inherited the lean frame and raven black hair so common among her ancient, Japanese ancestors, although genetic intermingling over the millennia had softened the epicanthic folds around her eyes. She knew she was pretty or, depending on the planet, mildly exotic, but not too pretty or too exotic. She’d never stop traffic, just elicit the occasional smile from a single man. It was useful for her to be nice to look at, but not beautiful. Beauty was a nearly lethal impediment in field work. It simply drew too much attention. Being nice to look at made people more likely to talk to you. Since talking made up around ninety-five percent of her work, she leaned into looking vaguely pretty but avoided those cosmetic tricks that might elevate her attractiveness into something that made men pay too much attention and women dislike her on principle.

Despite all her careful work to remain anonymous, she approached the Ministry building with a cold feeling of apprehension in the pit of her stomach. She’d been recalled to the capital world of August without explanation a month before and left at loose ends. Such things weren’t unheard of, but they usually came after some unusually stressful or violent mission. Her last assignment had amounted to little more than corporate espionage in the Isengen systems. She’d been sent in a year before to gauge their production levels of military equipment. It was the kind of low stress assignment that operators at her level considered a working vacation. Aside from one close call with an in-house security chief that seemed to operate as a professional paranoid, it had been smooth sailing. Her abrupt recall and lack of a follow-up assignment were the kinds of things that made intelligence operatives very nervous. The smart ones started looking for knives in the dark. When she’d been told to come in today, she’d given serious consideration to fleeing the planet, getting some extensive cosmetic surgery, and finding some out of the way world to live on. She’d decided it was too late for that option. If her bosses were about to make her vanish, they likely had contingencies in place if she did a runner.

With all of those cheerful thoughts in place, she mounted the steps of the Ministry building and went inside. She breezed past the reception desk. If she didn’t belong there, she would have been stopped by one of the security personal pretending they were waiting for a meeting in the lobby. Instead, she went to the bank of elevators and rode one up to the top floor without incident. She stepped out of the elevator and was stopped there by two security guards in uniform. They resembled the service uniforms worn by both army and marine personnel for routine activities, but sans any rank insignia or unit patches. They had the youthful, fit air of those recently out of military training, but both of them had the cold eyes of those who had at least seen things that they’re prefer to forget.

“Ma’am,” said one on the right. “I’ll need you to leave the briefcase and your weapon with us.”

It was expected, but Sara still sighed a little. “Very well.”

She handed the briefcase to the one who had spoken. Then, with exaggerated slowness and overly precise movements, she withdrew the blaster. She handed the weapon over to the same one.

“Thank you, Ma’am,” said the one holding the weapon and briefcase. “If you’ll follow White, he’ll show you in.”

She eyed the guard for a moment and said, “I suppose you’re Black?”

The polite expression never changed, but she could see the amusement in his eyes. “No, Ma’am. I’m Smith.”

“Of course you are,” she said with a little huff of laughter.

She turned her eyes on White, who immediately replaced the small smile he wore with the neutral, polite expression they must have gotten from some manual. He nodded at her.

“If you’ll follow me, Ma’am.”

She gestured at him and followed as he led her to an office that she had visited perhaps half a dozen times in her years of service to the Imperial Alliance. The man gave the door three brisk knocks, waited a beat, and then opened the door for her.

“He’ll see you now,” said White.

She gave the guard a nod and stepped into the office. White closed the door behind her and left Sara to inspect the office of the man she normally considered her boss’s boss. For all that he was one of the most powerful men in all of the empire, Roderick Abebe’s office was an oddly Spartan affair. The office was carpeted and the furniture was nice, but none of it was ostentatious. There was wood paneling on the walls, but no pictures or even paintings to break up the space. The man himself was of a medium build, wore a black suit, and was distinguished only by his white hair. Sara thought he looked more like the stereotypical image of a banking executive than a man tasked with all of the officially unofficial work of keeping the empire secure. Much like herself, there nothing known for certain about the work Roderick had done as a field agent, but there were legends about the impossible ops he’d carried off in his day. Sara reasoned that some of those stories might even be partially true, but doubted any of them were wholesale truth. After all, she’d heard some of the stories about her own ops and knew just how off-base some of them were.

Abebe waved her over to the chair in front of his desk. She settled into the chair and did her best not to fidget. She still felt that niggling sense of insecurity, although the banter with the guards had relieved some of her dread. Abebe bestowed a smile on her and his teeth looked impossibly white against his dark complexion. She offered a polite smile in return. The Minister of Intelligence gave her a world-weary look and sighed.

“I didn’t call you here to have you assassinated, Himura. I knew it was a mistake to leave you without a task for so long.”

Sara felt the relief flood through her, though she did her best to keep it off her face. “Sir?”

Abebe laughed. “I’ve been doing this for longer than you’ve been alive. I know how operatives think. How close did you come to fleeing the system?”

She thought about it for about five seconds before she shrugged. “Not that close. It did cross my mind on the way in here today, though.”

“I suppose I can’t complain that you’re at least a little bit paranoid. The reason you’ve been in limbo so long is that I had an assignment in mind for you, but I wasn’t sure of the exact timing or even if it would be approved at all.”

That made Sara sit up a little straighter. Abebe was a man who typically operated with near total carte blanche in terms of assignment specifics. She was sure he ran overall objectives by the emperor or, she supposed, empress, but she couldn’t imagine the kind of assignment for which he’d feel the need to get direct approval.

“I take it the assignment was approved.”

“It was,” said the Minister, but he hesitated.

“Sir?” Sara asked.

“I’m going to tell you more about this than I normally would because I want you to understand what I’m getting you into. The Empress has deep reservations about this assignment. I had to talk her into it and, honestly, I have reservations about this assignment.”

“I see,” said Sara. “Is this an assignment I can decline?”

It didn’t happen often, but every once in a while an assignment came along that even Roderick Abebe didn’t feel comfortable ordering someone to do. On those rare occasions, he’d permit an operative to decline the assignment. She knew, because she’d done it on one memorable occasion. She’d worried at the time that it would mean derailing her career, but it hadn’t. He regarded her for a moment.

“Yes. It is. I won’t order you to do it. I will, however, expect your usual level of discretion about it even if you do decline.”

“Understood, sir. What is the assignment?”

“I want you to find Kyle Anderson. I want you to convince him to return to the Empress’s service.”

Sara sat there in stunned silence for most of a minute. She knew the man’s story or as much of it as any member of the public did. It just hadn’t occurred to her that the man might still be alive. She’d always chalked up his disappearance as a cover story for the fact that someone had gotten to him. Just a way to extend the myth of possibly the most famous man in modern imperial history. Back when it had happened, though, and his face was everywhere, she was one of what she assumed were millions of women who had harbored innocent or not so innocent Kyle Anderson fantasies. For a few seconds, she was a somewhat younger and less jaded version of herself. The idea that she could actually meet Kyle Anderson left her feeling a little lightheaded. Then, the second half of what Abebe wanted her to do finally sank its hooks into her conscious thoughts.

“Wait. I’m sorry, sir. Did you say convince him? Why would I need to convince him? He’s a hero of the Imperial Alliance. He saved the Empress’s life. Why wouldn’t he answer the call?”

Abebe gave her a sad smile. “Because we made him a hero. He never wanted any part of being a hero. He certainly didn’t want any medals or honors. Instead of letting him fade away, as much as he would have been able, we held him up to the light. We heaped honor and glory on his head. Did you know that every single one of the services commissioned him as an officer just so they could slap medals on him?”

Sara blinked a few times. “No. I mean, I remember all of those ceremonies. I guess I never connected the dots.”

“He’s still on their rolls and collecting salaries from them. Not that he’s touched that money. I checked. On top of all that, we shipped him from system to system so planetary leaders could drop their medals around his neck. He put up with all of that unwanted fame and unwanted glory for more than a year. He endured it for one reason.”

“What reason?”

“Because Emperor Daylan Celeste the Third asked him to do it. Kyle Anderson loved Daylan like a father. He’d have done anything for the Emperor. After all of those ceremonies, though, Kyle went to the Emperor and asked to disappear.”

“And the Emperor said yes,” Sara finished for him.

“He did. It might sound like a simple thing, but it wasn’t. Not because Kyle was famous. They both knew that was going to haunt Kyle. By the end, though, after everything Kyle did for him, the Emperor thought of Kyle as one of his own. Letting him leave broke Daylan’s heart. I just thank the gods that no one ever managed to kill Anderson.”

“Sir?”

“Daylan Celeste would have hunted that person to the galactic rim and back. He’d have burned entire systems to cinders to get his vengeance. The gods alone know what Kyle Anderson would have done if someone had killed the Emperor.”

“I still don’t understand. If they had that kind of relationship, why wouldn’t he be willing to come back?”

“He loved the Emperor, Sara, not the empire. He was on fair terms with the imperial heirs, but those relationships didn’t ever come close to the same level of personal loyalty. Do not delude yourself going into this. You will have to convince him to come back. A simple ask won’t do it.”

“Which is why you have reservations about this assignment, and why you’ve told me all of this?”

“It is. You needed at least that much of the story to understand what you’re getting into. I don’t know what argument would sway Anderson. I don’t know if the argument even exists. The assignment isn’t to bring him back. The assignment is to find him and try. If you reach a point where you believe you cannot secure his willing cooperation, come back.”

“I see.”

Sara fell silent and contemplated what she’d be doing. It wasn’t her usual assignment, but she supposed it wasn’t a usual assignment for anyone to bring back a legend. She tried to imagine what she’d say to the man, but that fell apart almost immediately. Despite the man’s fame, she didn’t really know him or what motivated him, and certainly not fifteen years since his last public appearance. Anyone could change a lot in that length of time. He’d probably look the same. Medical science hadn’t cracked the mysteries of immortality, yet, but it had extended the average human life to the better part of two hundred years. At least, it had inside the empire.

What most people forgot was that, before that last duel, Kyle Anderson had stood on the front lines of Kantonian campaign. He might have only been there to protect the now Empress, but Sara didn’t believe for a moment that he hadn’t fought. He’d certainly seen the fighting, the death, and the destruction up close. That would change anyone. Any psychological profile that might be on file from before all of that would prove next to useless. She’d have to figure it all out after she found him. She looked at Minister of Intelligence and found him patiently waiting, his dark eyes searching her face for something.

“Why me?” She asked.

Abebe lifted an eyebrow. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not to me.”

“I suppose that’s fair. You haven’t had the benefit of reading your own psych profile. I picked you because you’re just like him.”

Sara let that idea settle over her for about fifteen seconds before she shook her head in the negative. "I don't see the parallel, sir.”

“You’re not a true a believer,” said Abebe, lifting a hand to forestall her objections. “Oh, you’re loyal enough to the empire, but your real loyalty is to your original recruiter, Marshall Sidorov. You don’t do this work because the empire asks it. You do it because it’s what you’re good at. You do it for us because we got to you first. If some corporate intelligence officer had gotten to you before Sidorov, you’d be providing your excellent services to them.

“Alexander fought because it was what he was good at. He fought for the empire because Daylan Celeste got to him first. When it got to be too much, he left and rarely looked back. I’m sure if we ever pushed you too far, you’d resign immediately, vanish into the galactic ether, and never look back. So, the thing you must ask yourself is, how would someone get you to come back? What would you near to hear? If you can figure that out, there’s a chance you can convince him. So, what do you say? Are you in?”

Sara wanted to say no. This assignment was political in all the wrong ways. While she wasn’t above influencing politics, hers would be the face that Alexander remembered. She would be the person he blamed if it all went wrong. She did not want a man like Kyle Alexander hunting her if that happened. She’d seen the recordings of him fighting. She had zero chance of survival in a straight confrontation with him. She was trained to be dangerous, but it was a very different kind of dangerous. She so very badly wanted to say no, but the chance to meet him was too much temptation.

“I’m in,” she finally agreed.

“Good,” said Abebe, who reached into a pocket and tossed something to her.

Sara caught the object and stared down at it in complete awe. She’d heard legends about those coins, but she’d never seen one. She’d never even met someone who claimed to have seen one. She felt a brief flash of magic from Abebe, too brief to read what he’d done, and then took a sharp breath as pain lanced through the hand that held the coin for a split second. She shot her boss’s boss a dirty look.

“What was that about?” She demanded.

“I gene locked it to you. I suspect you know, but I’m going to tell you anyway. That coin makes you, for as long as you bear it, a walking, talking member of the Imperial family. It gives you the right to take control of any imperial assets you think you need. That means you can draw funds and even, in direst need, control imperial military forces. While the Empress may have her reservations, she doesn’t want you getting stalled by lack of resources. She also told me explicitly to tell you that she will not be pleased if you take undue advantage of the rights and privileges that coin grants you. Do you understand?”

Sara swallowed hard. Imperial justice was sometimes harsh, but almost always impersonal and efficient. Abuse of the coin would be, she was quite sure, one of the few times that imperial justice became very personal and likely agonizing.

“I believe I do understand.”

“Good. Now, I’ve transferred what information we do have about where Alexander went when he left here to your secure dropbox. I’ve also procured a ship for your use called Carmenta’s Dream. It’s waiting at the port. It’s technically a Hermes-class jumpship yacht, although upgraded with our usual package of goodies and toned down in terms of flash.”

“A Hermes yacht? I didn’t know those were for sale yet.”

Abebe grinned at her. “They aren’t and won’t be for the public, at least, not for another year or two. The Mellatanian Yards generally find it convenient to provide the empire with advanced models of their next generation ships when we ask. It should let you outrun just about anything in the skies if you absolutely need to. The usual caveats apply. It should be reliable for normal use, but you may experience unusual problems or failures if you have to push its limits. Any questions?”

“How long do I have?”

“As long as you need to either find him or determine he’s too well hidden to find. Weekly reports, Himura.”

“Yes, sir,” said Sara, rising from the chair.

“Good luck.”

“Thank you, sir.”

It wasn’t until she was retrieving her empty briefcase and weapon from Smith that she realized she had her hand wrapped around the platinum coin in a quivering fist. As she rode the elevator down, she started to wonder what she’d gotten herself into.

3

Tyrel Morales sat across from Jien Laurent and hoped that the news he was about to deliver was met better than he expected. Laurent had a reputation as a man with high ideals, although Morales secretly believed those supposedly patriotic ideals were more artifice than fact. More importantly for Morales’ immediate future, Laurent also had a legendarily short temper in private. How the man had survived in Imperial politics for a decade baffled almost everyone. Morales had been assigned as Laurent’s lead intelligence officer, a “promotion” he’d objected to in terms so strenuous that they’d launched him well over the line into flagrant insubordination. It had infuriated his boss and all for nothing since he hadn’t been able to escape the assignment.  Laurent finally looked up from his computer and his green eyes fixed on Morales.

“Well, what is it?” Laurent asked.

Morales regarded his nominal superior, briefly annoyed by the man’s holo-star good looks, and braced himself. Laurent’s face expressed annoyance, but his tone was unusually calm. Morales hated to do anything that would shatter that calm. It was unavoidable, though, so he plowed ahead.

“I got a report from inside the Imperial Ministry of Intelligence from one of my assets. She says that they’ve dispatched Sara Himura to,” Morales couldn’t quite bring himself to speak the words.

Laurent heaved a sigh of magnificent self-importance and said, “They sent an agent to do what?”

Morales took a deep breath and continued. “The report says that they dispatched her to find Kyle Alexander and bring him back into Imperial service.”

Laurent just stared at Morales with his mouth hanging slightly open for nearly ten seconds before he whispered, “What?”

“I haven’t been able to confirm it independently, yet, but this asset has been very reliable. If they really sent Himura, they mean business.”

Laurent blinked a few times. “She’s good?”

“One of their best, Senator. If she worked for us, she’d be me.”

Up until this assignment, Morales had been a field agent for the Kantonian Intelligence Bureau. He’d been the golden boy of the field division and liked his job. Those were just two of the many reasons he’d objected to the assignment to Laurent’s staff. It wasn’t what he’d been trained for, and he’d gone out of his way to avoid getting that training. Even in the KIB, though, Himura was a name uttered with a kind of disbelief. If even half of what people said about her was true, Morales would give half a year’s salary to take her to dinner and pick her brain. He was quite certain he could learn things from her. He’d give two year’s salary to do the same with Roderick Abebe. Assuming the man wouldn’t kill him. Abebe had a certain reputation that he had, by all reports, earned.

Laurent slowly stood up from his desk and walked over to the window. Morales knew that the senatorial offices were in one of the most secure, heavily-defended building in the Imperial City. It was practically a fortress. While the exact countermeasures in place were kept under a strict need-to-know policy, Morales knew that the windows could withstand just about anything short of a direct missile strike from a destroyer-class military vessel. Knowing all of that didn’t make the security conscious part of his brain howl in less frustration at the sight of the Kantonian senator standing at the window.

“Kyle Alexander,” said Laurent. “Those bastards. Those brilliant, ruthless bastards. To drag the Weeping Warrior back from his self-imposed exile after all these years. Can you imagine it, Morales?”

Morales could imagine it. It was not a pretty picture for his homeworld. The Empress or at least Abebe had clearly divined which way Kanton and her allies were leaning. If they enlisted Alexander’s support, the whole damned empire would rally behind him.

“We can’t let it happen, Senator.”

Laurent snorted. “Obviously. It’d be a catastrophe for us. Still, can you imagine it? What I wouldn’t give to meet him. He’s the real thing, Morales. These imperial fools got that much right, even if they have no idea why he’s a hero. Souls filled with ice, every last one of them.”

Morales didn’t say anything. It hadn’t been his experience that the imperials had souls of ice. His asset in the Ministry of Intelligence certainly seemed to have plenty of passion in her soul. He also very firmly kept his opinion of Kyle Alexander to himself. He’d never seen or understood the appeal Alexander commanded. Morales could respect the man’s skill. Every loyal son and daughter of Kanton had seen the final fight that had left them oppressed beneath the imperial heel. Alexander’s martial and magical prowess was obvious. Morales wouldn’t willingly engage the man in direct combat. The reverence most people held the man in, though, seemed almost heretical in his opinion.

“Orders, sir?”

Laurent didn’t say anything for a long time before he heaved a great, theatrical sigh. Morales wondered if that show was for his benefit or if the senator was performing for himself. The senator walked back over to his desk and sat down. Laurent gave Morales a level look.

“What do you think we should do?”

Morales didn’t quite freeze in his chair, but the question raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Laurent hadn’t asked for an opinion from the intelligence officer in nearly a year. The change in tactics made Morales feel as though Laurent planned on pinning something on him later. He thought it through for a moment and hedged his bets.

“Ideally, if we can, we prevent Himura from ever reaching him. That solves the problem before it becomes a problem.”

Laurent nodded. “Yes, that would be ideal. How would you do it?”

“Divert her, if possible. Lay false digital trails. Enlist informants to pass on false sightings from years in the past. There hasn’t been a reliable sighting of the man in nearly fifteen years. She’d be hard pressed to disprove or prove anything anyone says.”

“Do you think it will work?”

Morales sighed. “No. It might slow her. If we’re unusually lucky, it would slow her enough that her superiors will call the whole thing off.”

“You don’t think they will, though?”

“Unlikely. If they’ve taken the step of sending her, I suspect they’re fully committed. They know as well as I do that finding him will be extremely difficult. With what they stand to gain, though, I wouldn’t call her off.”

“If you can’t divert her?”

“Sanction her.”

“And if she gets to him first, what would you do then?” Asked Laurent in an all too casual voice.

Morales saw the trap then if only just. Laurent wanted to be able to avoid the fallout from the obvious answer. Morales had no intention of giving him that cover. He fixed the senator with a look so hard that the politician flinched.

“I’d follow my orders, sir. Just as soon as you give them to me and get them countersigned by Command.”

Nothing specific changed in the senator’s bearing, but it was still there in all the subtle body language. Morales had just made himself an enemy for life. He didn’t love that outcome, but Laurent had plenty of enemies of his own. If the politician pushed the grudge too far, Morales was relatively confident he could put the right bug in the right ear to ensure the senator had a fatal accident. The spy hadn’t survived in the field for as long as he had by being impractical. If all else failed, the Imperial government wasn’t known for its gentle handling of treason. For that matter, his own government could be persuaded the senator had outlived his usefulness. The evidence could be manufactured, if necessary.

Laurent gave up the pretext of the affable senator and gave Morales a reptilian stare. “Your orders, agent, are to mislead the imperial spy if you can, kill her if you can’t. If she reaches Alexander first, kill them both.”

“Yes, sir. Just as soon as Command confirms the orders.”

“I’m done with you,” said Laurent. “Get out.”

Morales left and made his way back to his own cramped office. Command would confirm the orders. He was sure of that much. They couldn’t let Alexander resume service to Empress. He’d shattered their dreams of freedom once. He’d do it again if he came out of hiding. Morales also knew that no one wanted to be the person to actually sign the order. If he had to kill Alexander and the people of Kanton Prime ever learned the truth about why, the Empire wouldn’t need to do anything. The Kantonian government would fall in a day. Its own citizens would lose their collective minds and kill everyone higher up the food chain than regional governors. If they found out Morales had been the one to actually pull the metaphorical trigger, he’d never see his home again. He’d have to go underground, become someone else, and even that might not save him.

“Fucking hero,” he muttered as an encrypted message popped up on his computer. “What I wouldn’t give to find out you’re already dead.”