The Shattered Empire (The Shadow Space Chronicles Book 2) (55 page)

He checked the screens one last time before he left the bridge and thought about who was probably down on the moon already.  Admiral Mannetti had brought her carrier for the follow-on attack as well as the
Ironwitch
and the cruiser
Nebula Dawn
.  He had also seen Captain Damien Walter's ship, which he still had to shake his head at... what kind of vain idiot named their ship after themselves?

Still, Admiral Mannetti's pet boy toy was probably helping her to loot the defense platforms, given the position of his ship.  Mason didn't want another run-in with the sulky idiot.  He reached the launch bay just as Asara Khemali stepped off his shuttle, “Captain, she's ready to go, all fueled up.  Try to find us some good loot, eh?”

Mason gave the woman a glare, “You're coming too, these hands are made for fighting and loving, not for carrying.”  He gave a casual wave, “Oh, Kandergain, you can pilot.  I need to catch up on my sleep.”

“Thanks, Captain,” she said with another roll of her eyes.

Mason took the jump seat and sat back.  Through slitted eyes, he watched the crew board the shuttle, even as he thought about the next part.  Asara Khemali and Theresa Lourdes looked nervous, Carlos Ortiz looked excited, probably at the thought of loot.  Ostensibly, the raid was to punish Nova Corp with a secondary goal of freeing the contract workers at the mine.  Mason had even sat through a briefing where they were instructed on how to offer them sanctuary on Halcyon.  With Admiral Mannetti present, it was very likely to take a darker turn.  Some of her people wouldn't hesitate to strip the mine of everything of value, to include the environmental systems that would keep the mine personnel alive. 
Well,
he corrected,
the ones they wouldn't kidnap and sell into slavery on an even worse hell-hole.

A number of the big Centauri corporations and even a few of the ones based on Tau Ceti made use of 'contract' workers: men and women who signed up for the promise of work and pay.  Some of those contracts were somewhat straightforward.  Workers worked off their contract and in the process, could buy a ticket elsewhere, assuming they didn't stay with the company.  Others amounted to wage slaves, paid in company chits whose value fluctuated according to the company ledgers, forced to pay for food, clothing, and equipment at usurious rates.  Of course, since most of those corporations were nationalized under their governments, there was no recourse for them, they worked until they died... and the companies even retained rights over their bodies for medical research.  It was a nasty, ugly business, and one more reason that Mason disliked the Centauri Confederation... and Amalgamated Worlds which had allowed the corporations to do that even under their watch.

Of course, there were Colonial Republic worlds where they simply bought people as slave labor, no questions asked.  Places where the local wildlife made farming by hand a dangerous prospect.  It wasn't remotely cost-effective over the long run, but it
was
simple and required little thought on the parts of such slave traders or masters.  For the comely of the slaves, there were brothels and the like and for that matter, there were planets in the Colonial Republic where gladiatorial style fights were not only legal, but supported by planetary governments.  Flesh could sell and Mason wondered if he had it in him to stand by and watch it happen... or worse, to take part in it himself. 
I have to draw the line somewhere,
he thought darkly,
even if it means blowing this whole thing.

Kandergain brought the shuttle down at the mine's landing pad.  Mason unstrapped and led the way off the shuttle.  There were already a pair of shuttles present, one of them painted garishly purple and gold. 
Crap,
Mason thought,
that idiot Damien is here. 
The shuttle's absurd paint scheme matched the ship in orbit.

As if to punctuate that thought, there was a shrill scream, a sharp sound of hand striking flesh, and the sound of tearing cloth.  Mason's head snapped around and tracked on the crowd of men and cluster of younger women, most of them in gray coveralls.  The exception was one woman, her coveralls torn, a red mark across her face.  Above her stood Damien Walter, the pirate raising his arm to strike her again.

Mason's hands dropped to his pistol butts.  He stalked forward, his long, panther-like stride took him right up behind the pirate.  He caught the man's raised hand before he could swing it.  “What's going on here, then?” Mason snapped.

“Ah... Stavros, late as usual,” Damien said with a smirk as he turned.  He went to pull his hand free but Mason clamped on it.  The other man grunted uncomfortably and then his smirk faded.  “You can let me go, Stavros.”  His nasal whine was harsher than normal.

Out of the periphery of his vision, Mason saw Damien's men start to go for their weapons.  A cleared throat, behind them, caught their attention and the sound of a slide being racked caused them to freeze.  Mason gave a cold, humorless smile, he didn't need to look back to recognize the sound of Lauren's submachinegun.  “Damien,” Mason said, and he let some of the darkness inside leak through to his voice.  “What are you doing?”

Evidently, he didn't realize his danger.  “These young women wanted to take us up on our offer to transport them off this rock.”  Damien leered a bit, “I was just discussing payment.”

Mason's gaze flickered to the girl on the ground, who clutched the torn top of her coveralls over her chest protectively.  His blue eyes darkened at the spreading bruise on the side of her face.  Mason's eyes came up to meet those of Damien and at last the pirate seemed to realize the danger.  “Stavros, come on, they're just women!” At the cleared throat from Lauren, Damien paled.

He really is a spineless, effeminate, little toad,
Mason thought.  He let the man's arm go and took a step back.  “We're on business, here, Damien,” Mason said and pitched his voice so everyone could hear.  “Which means even a ball-less, little fuck-puppet like you should be able to keep his tiny dick in his pants and not piss off our employers.”  Mason put every ounce of his disgust into his tone and picked the vilest insult he could... which also described the man to a fair extent.

Damien's face went pale at the insult and then his face flashed red with anger.  His eyes flitted to his men and Mason could read from their stances that while they didn't necessarily like their treatment, they didn't argue with Mason's words.  “You can't talk to me like that, Stavros!” He tried for confident and strong and came off as whiny and pathetic instead.  “Admiral Mannetti will...”

“Will, what, clean up your mess for you?”  Mason gave a hearty and entirely false laugh,  “Seriously, are you that much of a pathetic little doll that you need to call on your squeeze to do your work for you?”  Mason asked.  At his words, he saw Damien's hand drop to his own holstered pistol.  Yet the white-knuckled grip he had on it suggested that he was more afraid than ready to draw.

Mason stalked forward and leaned over the shorter man, “Tell you what, Damien, you have one way to prove you aren't a cowardly, lying, little shit-weasel... Come now, you've spoken about how fast you are, you even shot that fellow Archambault in a duel.  What about me, here, now?”

Damien cowered back and Mason shook his head in unfeigned disgust.  He turned away and faced the women and girls.  “Go back to your families.  Tell them that Halcyon colony has extended an invitation to anyone who wants out of their contracts here.  I don't know why they're being so generous, but if I were you, I'd take them up on it.  They're a damned sight better than this worthless gutter scum.”

“Look out!”

Mason spun, half expecting the warning, even as Damien got his pistol out and fired.  Mason felt a white hot line of pain across his shoulder as his own pistols cleared their holsters.  Mason fired from the hip and his bullets stitched up Damien's torso, the last pair blasted through the other man's throat.

Mason straightened and turned back to face Damien's crew and the now terrified women.  “You all saw that, Damien drew on me, from behind.”  His shoulder felt like it was on fire and he felt blood trickle down his back from the wound.  He waved at the women, “Get out of here and spread the message.”

His eyes went to Damien's crew.  “Leave that piece of filth lie where he fell.  I've got to go tell Admiral Mannetti what happened.”  He stalked back through them and they parted around him.  Dressed as he was, it would have looked ridiculous, except every one of them stank of fear.

As he passed Lauren he heard her mutter, “Good riddance.”

Mason shrugged and then winced as his shoulder throbbed, “I could have handled it better, I suppose.”

“You handled it just fine,” Lauren said.  “Frankly, if it was me, I would have just shot him first thing for what he was doing.  This way you aren't in trouble for attacking him first.”

“Yeah,” Mason said.  Even so, as he stepped back onto his shuttle, he wondered if that was why he had done it. 
Did I really want to protect those women,
he thought,
or did I just want to kill the man that much? 
Mason found no answer in the privacy of his own mind.

***

Admiral Mannetti stood behind her desk, her hands clasped behind her and her uniform spotless as Mason stepped into her office.  He put as much of Stavros's swagger into his step as he could.  “Admiral, I'm afraid I have to tell you of young Damien Walter's death.”

“I already heard,” Admiral Mannetti said, her voice calm  She stalked forward and stood in front of him, so he had to look down at her.  “His executive officer reported in before you docked.  There is even a video, from one of his men, of the entire encounter.”  She stalked around him in a circle, “You are a
devious
man, Stavros.”

“Admiral?”

She leaned in close, as she made another circuit, her voice pitched low, “You knew that Damien was my favorite, didn't you, Stavros?”

Mason shrugged and then winced again as the wound on his shoulder throbbed.  Lauren had slapped some sealant on it, but it wasn't enough and he hadn't taken any painkillers yet.  “I heard that, yeah,” he said in a bored tone.

She paused in front of him and cocked her head, “But that upset you, didn't it, to see such a weak fool as my favorite.  So you set him up, put him in a position where he had no choice but to attack you so that you could kill him... and take his place.”

Mason opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Lucretta Mannetti pulled his head down to hers in a kiss.  Her hot lips met his and an almost electric current went through him, along with a pulse of pure lust.  Up close he could smell her, a scent of musk that almost overwhelmed him.  Before he could respond to the kiss, she jerked his head back by the hair and slapped him, full on, “That was
very
bad, Stavros.  I liked Damien.  He did what I wanted, when I wanted... he was housebroken.”

The slap made Mason's ears ring, but he welcomed the sudden sharp pain, it gave him a chance to get his own hormones under control.

“You... you are definitely
not
housebroken,” Lucretta Mannetti said, her voice both sultry and dismissive.  “But, you have a certain oafish charm about you.”  She smiled at the expression on his face, “Yes, Stavros, you're cunning too, don't get me wrong, but you aren't smart.  You have no idea what you're getting into with me, none at all... and since you did away with my... how did you put it, 'ball-less fuck-puppet' then I think you'll have to fill his shoes.”  She turned away and the exaggerated swing of her hips suggested just what that would involve.

She turned and went behind her desk and finally took her seat.  “Now then, to business.  You're a man of ambition, aren't you Stavros?”  Mason felt far too discombobulated to speak, so he just gave her a nod.  “How would you like to rule over part, a big part, of an empire?”

Mason's eyebrows went up, “It could be a lot of fun.”

Evidently, that was what she had expected to hear and she gave him an amused and condescending smile, “Yes, it could.  A very lot of fun.  But if you want that, you need to think big... stop thinking with your dick and use some of your cunning.”

Mason stepped forward and took a seat.  “I'm listening.”

“There are people that I work with and for... we're trying to build something, to build a real power, not the broken down wreck that was Amalgamated Worlds or the kleptocracy of the Colonial Republic.  A real empire, with an Emperor... and an Empress.”

“And perhaps room for the Empress's favorite?” Mason asked with a leer.

Her gaze went flat, “Perhaps, so long as he does what he's told and doesn't cause issues.  Issues like killing off her allies nephew.”  Mason frowned at that and she sighed, “See, if you had paid attention, you would have been able to find that Damien Walter was the nephew to President Walter of The Republic of Sedonia... who is Admiral Collae's brother in law.”

Shit,
Mason thought,
I just killed Collae's family, there's no way he won't dig into my past now and if he looks close enough he'll see through it.

“President Walter will not take this well at all, I'm afraid,” Lucretta Mannetti said.  “Which means that they'll want your head on a spike.  What's worse, you big dumb fool, is I
need
their help, so I can't be seen to favor you, even if I do want to rip off those hideous pants right now and make you mine.”