jeriendhal | Black Hearts, Part Fourteen

After another day’s worth of meals, Mark was removed from his cell, permitted a sonic shower and given back his clothes, which had been tossed into a laundry and quick dried while he scrubbed nearly a week’s worth of grime and fear sweat off himself. The alien boy, Terinu, he hadn’t seen since the child had submitted himself to Chan, having been escorted off to more private accommodations

Afterward he was escorted, not back to his cell, but up to the ship’s combat tactics room, where Mavra Chan was waiting for him. She sat in the tactics room’s central station chair, at the center of the ship’s nervous system, like a predatory hawk. Behind her the first officer stood at her right, and another of the feather haired aliens on her other side.

“Ah, Lord Mark, you’ve already met Brooks, and this is Captain Aynish,” Mavra said, gesturing to the two men. Brooks scowled in Mark’s general direction, while Captain Aynish merely gave him a brief nod and proceeded to ignore him.

“I appreciate the shower, milady, but I do wonder why I’m here,” Mark said in return, as if he couldn’t bloody well guess why he was here.

“I expect I’ll be needing your advice soon,” she said. “We’ve arrived in the Jackson’s Whole system and are coming up on a rather heavily armed space station.”

“That would be Baron Fell’s facility,” Mark said. “He has the contract for overseeing the defense of Jacksonian local space and monitoring ship to surface travel.”

“One of the more powerful Barons?” she asked.

Mark nodded, then paused for a moment. Was now the proper time to start feeding Chan disinformation about the Jacksonians, in the hope of tripping her up and providing a useful distraction? No, not yet, he realized. He needed her to start trusting him, before he would be able to betray her in any useful way. “Baron Fell’s specialty is weapons, ship mounted, personal, and otherwise, though in recent years he branched out to genetics after acquiring his late half-brother Ryoval’s facilities.” After Mark had kicked said brother in the throat and crushed Ryoval’s larynx, he did not add.

“Oh, one stop shopping, how terribly convenient,” Chan purred. “Does he do hostage negotiations as well?”

“I don’t believe so,” Mark admitted, “though there are a number of brokers who specialize in it. I’d give you names, except it’s been several years since I’ve been here, and the profession has a remarkably high turnover rate.” Mostly because the scum involved tended to be shot with extreme prejudice by irritated law enforcement personnel from more legitimate governments.

“We’re being hailed by the station, Lady Chan,” one bridge crewman announced, “audio only.”

“Put it through,” Captain Aynish ordered.

…or be destroyed. Repeating: Attention unidentified vessel on approach vector to Fell Station. Cease acceleration and identify yourself, or be destroyed.

Aynish checked a display and reported, “The station is powering weapons, Milady, and appears to be readying fighters for launch.”

“Cease accelerating and open a channel, Captain,” Chan ordered, rising to her feet. “Attention Fell Station, this is Lady Mavra Chan of the Celestial Marauder, and I’m here to do business. I request to be assigned a docking orbit and an interview with Baron Fell.”

There was a brief pause on the com, and then the voice answered in a more friendly tone, Orbit vectors being transmitted now. A House Fell representative will contact you shortly to attend to your needs.

“You misunderstand me,” Chan said evenly, “I wish to speak to Baron Fell directly.”

A House Fell representative will call you shortly, Lady Chan, the voice repeated.

Chan’s lips thinned in irritation, “I strongly suggest you check your long range scans to see how my ship entered the system. Or better yet, check with your jump point stations to see how I didn’t enter the system. Then inform Baron Fell I’m willing to speak to him first, before I go to any of his peers.”

There was a very long pause at the other end of the line, during which Aynish reported the station powering down from its defensive posture. Please stand by for Baron Fell, Lady Chan, the Fell Station com officer said with much greater politeness.

“I think that’s quite enough bait for now,” Chan said wryly. She asked Mark, “Just how powerful is this Baron Fell?”

“He’s a direct descendant of some of the original founders of the planet,” Mark said, “And damned near as old. If enough of the other barons combined their forces they could probably take him down, but it isn’t in any of their best interests, and the price wouldn’t be worth it.”

The tactics room viewscreen came to life, revealing the face of a young boy, perhaps fourteen, wearing a neatly tailored uniform in the House Fell green. He smiled and said, “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Chan, I am Georish Stauber, the Baron of House Fell.”

“Is this a joke?” Chan demanded.

Meanwhile, Mark found his vision had become a blurred red haze, as he realized what had happened to the old man he had least signed a Deal with. You wear the corpse of a child, he thought, and let Killer whisper sweet plans into his ear. Instead of, say, reaching through the viewscreen and acting on them, he instead smiled brightly and said, “Baron Fell, you’re looking much healthier since we last met.”

“As are you, Mark,” he replied. “My new body has proven to be extremely invigorating.”

“I’m sure,” Mark purred. Turning to Chan, he explained, “Baron Fell has recently transferred his brain from his old shell to…” his murdered twin’s “…a newly cloned body.”

“I fear I’m still taking a rude delight in appearing before people and startling them with my apparent age,” Fell admitted modestly.

“I see,” Chan replied. If she felt any horror at the origin of the Baron’s new body, she certainly didn’t show it. “Forgive my reaction, I wasn’t familiar with the brain transfer business until quite recently.”

“Really? If you paid any attention to the more vulgar newsnets, you’d think it was our only product.” Fell clasped his hands together. “Now then, Lady Chan, what brings you to our fair world?”

“As I said earlier, I want to do some business. An auction, I was thinking.”

Fell nodded. “My station crew reported that your ship has some… remarkable… performance characteristics. I assume your interest in an auction is related to this?”

“Partially. I have a few other products I’m interesting in offering, primarily biological.” Chan waved to Captain Aynish, who stepped into view of the camera pickup.

“Mmm, well, that’s certainly an interesting genetic modification,” Fell allowed, looking slightly bored.

“Not a modification, a new species,” Chan corrected. She sat back in her station chair and steepled her fingers. “An alien. I offer you the genetic sequences of at least three different, sentient species. Possibly four, if I think there’s someone here who can match my price.

Mark stiffened. Was Chan talking about Terinu? Just how much would one of the Barons, or worse, the Cetagandans, pay for such a unique being?

Fell continued to look unimpressed. “Lady Chan, that scam has been tried numerous times. There are no aliens in the Nexus, and likely never will be.”

Mark leaned towards Chan and spoke sotto voce, “Tell him you’ll allow his med techs to examine the DNA of any random crewman they choose, so long as the sample doesn’t leave your ship.”

Chan made a covert chopping gesture and the audio was cut off. “Like hell am I letting his people get a look at my ship and defenses before I’m ready to sell its technology.”

He rolled his eyes. “You don’t think you’re being hit by every scanning device the station has now? Of course he’s going to try to pass off a couple of engineers as gene techs when he sends his people over, but if you keep them clear of Engineering and Tactics it isn’t like they’re going to see anything of importance. Believe me, Baron Fell is your best bet for getting the Deal you want. Pissing him off first thing is not a viable strategy.”
“Hmm.” Chan gestured for the audio to be restored, and turned back toward the screen, the smile having never left her face during her conversation with Mark. “Very well, Baron, since you are having such a hard time believing me, I’ll give you a little reassurance. Feel free to send over three of your people to the Marauder to examine any six of my crew that you choose. Any samples they take they may examine while aboard my ship, but such samples and their detailed genetic sequencing will stay in my possession until they are sold at auction. Is that an acceptable Deal?”

Fell’s face went from bored to intrigued as he listened to her offer. “Completely, Lady Chan. Maintain your parking orbit and I will send a shuttle with my team to dock with your ship.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting them,” Chan said. “Would you care to come aboard and dine with me, once they’ve finished their task?”

“Alas, security concerns prevent me from taking you up on your offer,” he replied apologetically. “I do, however, invite you to dine with me, if you would accept.”

Chan glanced briefly to Mark, who gave her a short nod. “Certainly, Baron, I’m looking forward to it. Mavra Chan out.” Looking pleased, she told Aynish, “Make ready for visitors, Captain. I want to put on a good show when they arrive. We want to make a good impression. If this Deal works out they way I think it will, there will be a new Baron on this world soon.”

Guess who’s coming to dinner, Mark thought savagely.

TBC