Patterns of Chaos: Book One - The First War
Chapter 14

Satisfied with her initial tour of the prototype craft, Calixta settled into her private quarters, and called her Emperor.

“Calixta.” He beamed at her through the screen. “I understand there’s been something of a coup d’etat in North Korea. Your doing, I presume?”

She blushed, and filled him in on the events. “Can’t say I’m surprised.” He muttered. “I suspected that sooner or later that weasel was going to get too arrogant. Are you alright?”

“Perfectly.” She smiled.

“I only ask because you’ve never taken a life before now. It can be hard for someone not used to it.”

Calixta gazed into his eyes. “For the insult to you, I would have burned the entire country to the ground, salted the earth, and done it with a smile on my face.”

Aboard the Chancel, Stragdoc found himself pleasantly taken aback by the ferocity of Calixta’s devotion. And aroused. “At any rate, the nation surrendered to the Alliance hours after you left. While that cuts down on the number of business partners we have, they served their purpose well enough.”

“A distraction, sir?”

Calixta was learning. Fast. “Exactly. While they’re mopping up Terrestrial affairs, we are busy preparing to take the planet back.”

“Which is why I’m at Site A.” The smile she gave him radiated with affection. “The prototype is ready for initial tests of its new engine system.”

“Perfect. If successful, that engine will be expanded and fitted to the Chancel.” Rather than risk the large vessel to a test of the faster-than-light drive, he had ordered a ship to be built around Simms’ engine design. Built roughly to scale, it should accurately simulate the stresses that the Chancel’s ultimate new shape would be exposed to if they found a need to escape.

A flickering light caught the Emperor’s attention. Secure data archives were being remotely accessed. Tapping a few commands, he traced the location to…

On the other end of the video feed, Calixta saw her Imperial lover swear violently. “Someone breached the vault in Toronto.” He ground out.

Calixta closed her eyes, trying to visualize who could be inside. It came quite quickly. “A blonde woman.”

“Yes, I assumed that, thank you.” He snapped. Why didn’t I destroy the contents? He mentally berated himself. “Calixta, gather Karman and a small strike team. Get to the tower and retrieve or destroy anything left there!” He saw her hurt expression. “Calixta. You’re the only one I can trust with this.”

Shaking off his angry sarcasm as a result of the shock, Calixta nodded. “And if the woman is still there?”

Stragdoc grinned wolfishly. “I leave it to your best judgement.”

She nodded, cutting the connection. She knew how best to deal with the mystery woman. She would cut out the bitch’s heart and present it to her master.

Jennifer was still rooting around in the files when she realized something: this was not an abandoned file system; it was remotely linked to the Chancel. She excitedly began digging further, trying to find out the next phase of Paul’s plans so she could get ahead of him.

She only had time to access construction reports, indicating that the vessel was being re-configured, when she heard a loud crunching sound from the roof. Damn. Jennifer scurried to gather as much abandoned wealth as she could comfortably carry.

Footsteps, down the hall. She could sense them, five men and a woman. The woman’s mind stood out the most, her thoughts glowing like magma. No time to flee the room, she knew they had orders to kill. Damn damn damn. She mentally berated herself. Of course he would be able to find out she had accessed the vault.

Casting her mind back to the hall, she heard the woman give orders.

-I want her alive. Shoot to wound, but I want her alive. Understand?

Well that was paradoxical. Jennifer scanned her thoughts more deeply. Oh, that was why. Because she wanted the “pleasure” of killing Jennifer herself. She grimaced, pulling a small conventional firearm before looking to the vault and getting a better idea.

For a moment, Calixta felt different, almost as if feather-light fingers had touched her head. She shook it off. Karman was preparing to breach the door. Suddenly a flash of vision hit her. “Get down!”

Just as she hit the floor, a bar of gold hurtled through the door, striking the man to Karman’s right in the head, felling him instantly. Three more bars followed in quick succession.

Karman knelt next to one of the holes and blindly shot through it. Calixta crawled to the fallen soldier, checked his pulse. Faint, but there. Thank god for Alphite physiology. No, she mentally corrected, thank the Emperor. A bar of silver plowed through the wall above her. She pulled a sonic grenade from the man’s belt and hurled it through the newest hole. Sonics were designed to stun, not kill, but she was still horrified to see it neatly pop right back out on her side of the wall. She grabbed it and threw it away, shielding her ears from the blast. The troops she had brought had worn ear protection at least. Another gold bar, this one only a foot away from her head. This bitch is playing with us.

Calixta was not far off in that thought. Jennifer was indeed having a bit of fun, knowing that if any of the bricks connected, they would not do any lasting damage to her opponents. This time she mentally grabbed as many bars as she could and hurled them through a nearby window, telekinetically directing them to a nearby rooftop. She knew that soon she would have to deal with the military coming up to see what had landed on the roof in addition to Paul’s force of sycophants, so it would be best not to be here then. Glancing back, she saw her female opponent through the last hole she had made and recognized her from the news. “Not your most diplomatic solution, Ambassador.” Jennifer gaily called out, as she settled a new mental grip. This could end very badly, but it was the only solution to her current situation.

Calixta was attempting to line up a shot on the blonde woman, when she suddenly ran for a broken window and leapt out. Unbelievingly, she ran into the room, to the broken glass, expecting to see a blonde smear on the pavement. Instead, she saw the woman gliding to a nearby building’s roof. Karman joined her, staring unbelievingly at the flying woman.

“That...that’s not possible.” Karman stuttered. She landed on the roof, turned and looked at the two of them, smiled sweetly, and made an obscene gesture before a pile of gold and silver bars levitated beside her and followed her out of sight.

He is going to be mad at me. Calixta despaired. She attempted to hide her inner turmoil and turned to Karman. “Destroy the computer. Take everything else.”

She did not hide her turmoil that well, as Karman saw tears in her eyes as she turned away.

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