Siege of Praetar (Tales of a Dying Star Book 1) (12 page)

Kotra dipped his head. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Lord Bruno.”

Dok looked up from his engine. Bruno realized he’d been shouting. He lowered his voice and said, “Get rid of the worker inside. Within the hour. Tell him you’re taking him into town or something, and do the deed there.”

“Do you care if the body’s found?”

“No. Just don’t let anyone see you.”

Kotra smiled and returned to the workshop.

Hopefully Dok doesn’t have a fit
, he thought. The engineer didn’t like new workers. But it had to be done. This one would have asked more questions and started checking fuel levels on outgoing freighters. Dok would eventually find out.

It occurred to him that the tanks would need to be filled more. It meant less profit, but he couldn’t have ships communicating back that they were stranded in open space. If word spread business would shrivel, and Davon wouldn’t be pleased. No, the freighters would need to be given enough fuel to reach Oasis. He would need to tell Rief, the only one entrusted with fueling the ships.

He wandered over to where Dok worked. The engine’s side panel was removed and the engineer was bent with his upper half inside. Bruno banged a meaty fist on the metal, and Dok jumped out of the engine.

“Have you made progress with Akonai’s project?”

Dok’s mouth hung open, and his eyes darted around. “Akonai, Akonai’s project?”

Bruno forced some patience into his voice. “Yes. The project for Akonai. How many more are built?”

“I don’t. I don’t
understand
. No shipment this morning, no progress. No new parts, no new rowbits.”

“The shipment didn’t come?”

“No, Bruno.” He cowered back against the engine, his eyes wide. “I’m sorry, sorry. I don’t know why. They don’t tell me why. I can’t…”

Bruno left him stammering apologies and returned inside.

Rief stood on the raised platform watching some gamblers throw dice in the corner. He jerked back to attention, facing forward, when Bruno entered. “The factory shipment,” Bruno barked, “did it not arrive?”

“It did not, Lord Bruno.”

“Why in the stars wasn’t I notified?”

“You were with the girls,” Rief said. “You didn’t want to be disturbed.”

He said it plainly, but it annoyed Bruno all the same. His men should be more fearful when he raised his voice, like Dok. His shift ended soon, but Bruno told him, “Take two men and go to the factory. Bring the foreman here so I may speak with him.”

Rief glanced at the dicing table, and for the briefest of moments opened his mouth, but then thought better of it. He grunted and bowed before leaving the chamber, his boots echoing down the front hallway.

Gamblers came and went, whores began their work, and Bruno tapped his fingers on his throne. Food was brought from the kitchen, but he was too buried in thought to eat. The freighter shouldn’t have breached the blockade. It was the first, out of dozens launched. The purpose of the blockade was to keep the Praetari laboring while the Empire prepared to leave the system. If the blockade was lifted, did that mean the Empire would soon evacuate Praetar? Was that why Lenir had not made his delivery--because production was tapering off? He would need to ask one of the girls at the factory. Perhaps the woman who sent her children on the last freighter. “She seemed desperate enough,” he announced, though nobody dared look up at him.

Davon’s request was queer too. It couldn’t be a coincidence, him demanding more launches after a freighter escaped safely. Bruno felt helplessly uninformed. He wondered how much Davon would tell him, if he forced the issue.

The sky overhead turned yellow, then grey, then black before Rief returned. Two guards followed behind him, flanking Lenir. The foreman’s clothes were dusted with yellow and torn at the collar. Rief grabbed him by the sleeve and threw him to the ground in front of the platform. The customers all shifted to one side of the room before continuing their activity.

Lenir opened his mouth to speak, but Bruno cut him off. “Your shipment did not arrive this morning.”

“I cannot do what you ask,” he said, still on his knees. “It is not possible. The factory docks are watched throughout the day.”

Bruno clenched his jaw until his ears hurt. The foreman wasn’t afraid, just confused. At least the previous man, Jin, had the decency to look afraid. “I can assure you it is possible. My men gave you instructions--what more do you need?”

“Your instructions are
wrong
. The docks are not clear at that time. They’ve doubled the number of peacekeepers, because of my predecessor’s theft.”

The guards looked to their master. Even some of the Station’s patrons stole glances at the platform. Nobody spoke to Bruno that way.

He nodded to Rief, who pulled back his boot and planted a blow on Lenir’s head. He fell forward on his chest and groaned, but screamed in earnest when more blows pummeled his ribs. The crowd cringed away. Rief was out of breath when Bruno finally commanded him to stop, but continued to snarl down at the unmoving foreman.

“I don’t care what difficulties you encounter. That is your responsibility. Find a way. Bribe them, if you must.”

Lenir possessed enough strength to raise his head. “Bribe them? They are peacekeepers of the Empire!”

I’ve had enough of this
, he thought. “You’ve already been paid, Melisao. Every moment you delay, your theft becomes more severe.” He nodded to one of his guards. “Loddac tells me your family came to Praetar with you. You have a child, a girl of seven?”

Loddac grinned yellow teeth. “That he does, Lord Bruno. Sweet little thing, still pudgy. I bet she’s warm.”

The wounded man’s eyes opened wide.

“So you see?” Bruno said. “Your decision is an easy one! Make your delivery by dusk tomorrow, or we will unburden you further.”

Lenir tried to climb to his feet, but slipped and fell back on his face. Eventually two guards stopped laughing long enough to grab him by the shoulders and drag him from the room. The music returned to its normal, booming volume.

Bruno swung his attention to the table, his appetite returning. He picked at a few oysters, slurping them down. He liked a man with a family. A solitary man could take any manner of beating, broken ribs and torn fingernails and needles jabbed into his eyes, and remain fearless. But a man with a family had one purpose, one single reason for living. Only a father could experience true loss, so only a father could experience true fear.

It was pointless to hurt a man’s family, though. They were his primary motivation. Remove his wife, or his children, and you removed his desire for life. And then what leverage would you have over him? Grief was unpredictable, and Bruno was not in the business of taking chances.

No, it was the
threat
that was ideal. Give the man a taste of violence and his mind will imagine something far worse than anything Bruno could do. And Lenir had a long walk back to the city to think.

Still, something was unsettling about the man. He never had this much trouble with Jin, who supplied them with the parts without protest. But Lenir worried him. Bruno was not convinced the shipment would come, and even if it did the foreman would need to be prodded again and again. He seemed like that type of Melisao. Bruno glanced to his left, to the massive bay door that covered most of the wall. They were already too far behind schedule. Akonai was not an understanding customer.

As if the thought conjured him, the desert dweller appeared in the doorway. He looked out over the occupants, the dancers and gamblers and whores, with disgust. He met Bruno’s gaze and held it as he strode across the room. The crowd slid away from him, leaving a circle-shaped clearing that drifted toward the front.

One of the guards rushed to fetch a second chair, but Akonai stopped in front of the platform. Everything about him was exactly in its place: his hair was neatly combed and parted, boots shiny and unsmudged. He was foreign in the writhing disarray of the Station. He seemed foreign to the entire planet.

Bruno wiped away sweat from his forehead. “I hadn’t expected you, Akonai. It’s good to see you, of course, but…”

“I have come for another status update,” he said. His face gave no hint of emotion. “I have reason to believe you will not meet the date we agreed upon.”

Bruno forced a nervous laugh. “That’s absurd. We’ve had some delays--there always are with such a large request--but they have been minor. What reasons do you have to doubt?”

“I have sources.” He looked around the room, his eyes stopping on the bay door. “Our doubts would be eased if I could inspect the product.”

“You know that’s not possible,” Bruno said. “The fabrication process uses unsavory chemicals. My engineers don’t mind breathing them, but we don’t want to put you at risk.”

Akonai tilted his head and watched him, considering his words. He looked like he was inspecting a machine that wasn’t broken yet, but was making a strange noise. Sweat stung Bruno’s eyes but he forced himself to keep his hands still and match the man’s gaze. Why didn’t the desert dweller sweat? His clothes were thicker than Bruno’s.

Finally Akonai nodded, as if a great decision was made. “No, we don’t want that.” And with that he left as suddenly as he had come.

When he was out of sight Bruno turned to Loddac and said, “Why wasn’t I warned? Are the guards at the gate asleep? Go check. I want any man who isn’t alert to be thrashed.”

Bruno slumped back into his chair and closed his eyes. If he couldn’t make his shipment to Akonai on time he would have the desert people as enemies. If they didn’t launch more freighters then Davon would stop tolerating him. He was spread too thin. He felt his power slipping away, like sand through his fingers. Something needed to be done. Something to emphasize that he was in control.

Loddac returned and claimed none of the guards were sleeping, and that they never saw Akonai enter or leave. Bruno didn’t believe it, but waved it away. “I need Kari. Find her.”

“For Lenir?”

“Maybe.”

Loddac smiled, knowing that he may get the foreman’s pudgy daughter after all.

Kari was usually somewhere around the Station, and it didn’t take Loddac long to return with her. She was the shortest woman in the room, but with round hips and a tiny waist that would have sold well if her head weren’t shaved bald. She wasn’t one of Bruno’s whores--he wouldn’t dare suggest it, not even jokingly. Kari was an assassin.

Her thumbs rested behind her belt, and her brown coat swished around her knees as she walked. Where the Station’s customers had parted for Akonai, they practically leapt out of Kari’s way.

She took the chair that was fetched for Akonai, slouching into it with an arm over the back. She looked around the room with green eyes, bored, as if trying to decide if she would rather be gambling or drinking. For all the sweat on Bruno’s face his mouth was dry as dust. He drank deeply from a cup of yellow liquid on the table. “Care for anything, Kari? Stingwater, food,
plourine
...”

She took the cup from his hand and emptied it in one swallow. Her voice was rough like sand, at odds with her petite frame. “Tell me what you need Bruno. There is a boy I must find and do terrible things to.”

That could have meant a target, or one of Bruno’s prostitutes. He wasn’t sure. “A man named Lenir may need to die.”

“He is a Melisao.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, the foreman of a factory.”

“A Melisao death requires a Melisao price.”

“Of course,” he said, waving a hand. “Whatever you need is yours.”

She was silent, and for a moment Bruno thought she would refuse. She rarely took jobs against blue-eyed targets. Finally she nodded.

He told her everything he knew about Lenir: his age, physical description, the factory he oversaw. Loddac gave her the location of his home. Kari didn’t write anything down. She simply listened, nodded, and remembered. She had a flawless memory, especially for every favor she’d done for Bruno. “This is the fifth job this month,” she said, looking at the table of food.

“I wouldn’t need you if everyone obeyed me.”

She examined an oyster between her fingers before tossing it back onto the table. “How soon?”

“Not immediately. Perhaps a day. I will know for certain tomorrow night.”

A knife was suddenly in Kari’s hand, and she speared a roasted leg of meat. With deft skill she cut away everything from the bone, letting the fatty meat fall back to the table until only the bone remained. She cracked it in half and sucked the marrow from one piece, then the other, before dropping them to the table.

“Is there anything else?” She twirled the knife between her fingers. Her gaze was fixed on the floor with calculated disinterest. Bruno knew she was waiting to see if anyone would challenge her weapon.

“No,” he said, eying the knife, “that was all.”

The knife disappeared with a flourish, and she strode down from the platform. Loddac hopped out of her way. From the workers in the corner she selected a bare-chested man who was well-muscled, leading him from the room by his belt. Loddac watched her with a look of lust or respect, but she only made Bruno feel uncomfortable. He disliked relying on her. “Lenir had better make his delivery,” he announced to the platform.