Marauder Aegus Read online

  “Anya,” I say, mouth agape.

  “Anya,” he says. “Take me to Venus.”

  4 Aegus

  “I...just left Venus! I’m not going back there!” she shrieks.

  I notice then the gleaming ruby on her ring and realize she must have been someone important there. Rubies like that cannot be found on Venus.

  I move toward the docking gate and order my biosuit to interface with the computer. It’s a simple hack and the door opens up.

  “Are you coming with me?” I ask.

  She’s followed me to the door, but she’s frowning at me. Her face is flushed with anger, which I must admit makes her all the more attractive to me.

  “Why the hell would I come with you?” she snorts.

  I point down the terminal corridor where I notice the slow advance of security robots in our direction. Behind them march the cowardly human guards, afraid to take on a Marauder without a shield of robots in front of them.

  “They don’t want me,” she says. “I’m…”

  Her voice trails off.

  “Shit!” she shouts. “You idiot! I was less than an hour from freedom, and you ruined everything!”

  I bow my head to her and say, “I owe you great shame debt, and if you help me to Sankt Petersburg, I will be even deeper in your debt.”

  “What? Really?”

  “Yes–”

  “So, you owe me like, two favors?”

  “At least,” I start to stay, “But we–”

  She grabs my arm and starts tugging me into the docking gate.

  “So you’ll help me?” I ask.

  “I’m so mad at you,” she says, looking up at me. Her blue eyes betray something other than anger, and my chest tightens at the implications. “But I want those favors.”

  I seal the door shut behind us, and she leads the way into the shuttle.

  “I hope you can fly this,” she says, buckling into one of the seats, “because I can’t.”

  I trained hard for every aspect of this mission, in orbit around Titan and later on Mars. Flying a simple shuttle like this is nothing.

  “Yes,” I say, strapping into the pilot’s seat. “Will they have scrambled fighters to intercept?”

  “No,” Anya says. “Not yet. Just drop fast into the ionosphere, that’s where my father’s territory begins. They can’t touch you after that.”

  Her father? Anya...Anya Ivanov, daughter of the Tsar. The Tsarevna.

  This was not the stealthy infiltration of Sankt Petersburg for which I had planned, but ever since my arrival in the solar system years ago, nothing has ever gone according to plan.

  I detach from the docking gate and slam the throttle to reorient the ship. I scan through the windows to make sure no one is going to shoot us down, and then I burn hard to bring us into the atmosphere.

  Venus’s atmosphere is the thickest in the solar system, so I can’t exactly nosedive into it without burning up, but at nearly the last moment, I dive hard and adjust for a shallower entry.

  The alarms blare as I skid across the atmosphere, barely pulling the nose of the ship up in time.

  “Shit,” Anya says. “You’re cutting it damn close.”

  Sweat drips down my forehead, but I keep calm as the warnings begin to die off. I’ve entered into the ionosphere now, and neither of us died.

  “So what was your plan?” Anya asks.

  “Irrelevant,” I say, focusing on the view through the window. It’s nothing but thick clouds of carbon dioxide, and I can’t see more than a few hundred meters in front of me, and nothing but more and more thick clouds.

  She laughs.

  “Old plans must be discarded as the situation changes,” I say, trying to sound confident.

  “And what’s the new situation?”

  “As soon as word reaches Sankt Petersburg, they’ll think I’ve kidnapped the Tsarevna.”

  From the corner of my eye, I see her bolt upright in her seat. “You know–”

  “Yes,” I say. “Will you tell them otherwise?”

  “Yes,” she says. “But once we are in the city, don’t forget that you owe me. Three times now.”

  “My original plan,” I start to say, “was to steal this very shuttle. Without you here, I couldn’t have risked going straight to Sankt Petersburg, so I’d have located one of the great floating jungles and attempted to gain favor with the tribes.”

  She scoffs. “Good thing you found me then, that plan sucks.”

  “You’re quite confident,” I say, looking back at her. “For someone whose plan failed.”

  She flushes with anger, and I can’t help but grin.

  “It’s irrelevant!” she says, rolling her eyes. “I have a new plan now.”

  “When will I learn of this plan?”

  “Whenever I decide to tell you,” she says, crossing her arms.

  “I will help you so much as I am able, and so much as it does not interfere with my greater mission,” I say.

  “What is your mission?” she asks.

  “To end the civil war.”

  My HUD blinks, and I see I’m receiving a communications request from Sankt Petersburg.

  I accept the request, and an angry man’s voice fills the shuttle.

  “You fucking monster! Give me back my daughter, or I’ll–”

  “Papa!” Anya shouts. “I’m fine! He didn’t kidnap me...nothing like that.”

  “Anya…” he says. “Show me you’re okay. Prove it.”

  I flick on the video, and I see a man with deep frown lines and bushy eyebrows. He looks at me with a snarling anger, but his face softens when Anya approaches the screen.

  “Papa,” she says. “Meet Aegus, my fiancé!”

  The Tsar’s eyes bulge, and then his face falls to a cold, simmering anger.

  “Come home, Anya, we’ll...discuss this later.”

  The screen cuts off and my anger flares.

  “Fiancé?!” I jump out of the pilot’s seat and stare down Anya. My ears are pricked up tight in fury, but I don’t dare so much as raise my hand to her. “This is your plan?”

  “You never even bothered to ask me why I was running away,” she says, looking up at me with those alluring blue eyes. “Did you even care?”

  “I had other things on my mind, woman, like ending this war.”

  She stares up at me, not backing down.

  “So tell me, now that you’re deciding to tell me things,” I say. “Why were you running away?”

  “Because,” Anya says, “my father wanted to marry me off to some old fat baron from Earth.”

  I narrow my eyes and my ears pull back onto my head. “You had no choice?”

  “No,” she says. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this...but it might help you, on your mission.”

  I try not to lash out at her again. She might be a treasure trove of information that could be priceless to me, but she will probably only tell me things that relate to her forced marriage–things that will benefit her and her insane plan for me.

  “Yes,” I say. “Please go on.”

  “My father is sick of this blockade. It’s starving us out, and I overheard him mention he’s seriously thinking of giving into the Empire’s demands. Rejoining the Empire under some kind of ‘One Empire, Two Governments’ scheme.”

  No. I’m too late.

  “Anya,” I say. “There will be no ‘Two Governments.’ Your father will become a puppet, and under General Bahamut, there will never be unification with Mars.”

  She starts to pace back and forth. “I know! You think I was running just because I had to marry the baron? It was my last real chance to get out before everything went to hell.”

  My original plan would likely have taken about seven months, which is how long I have until the first Marauder warships arrive. The warships that are supposedly loyal to me. If they arrive to see a unified humanity, the likelihood of them staying peaceful is hugely increased. My plan was to slowly gain the Tsar’s favor by bringing th
e jungle tribes back into the cities, and by showing him my strength as a leader.

  Now I have...how long?

  “Anya,” I say. “When will your father surrender?”

  “Well,” she says, “I was going to have to marry the baron in two weeks, so it would have to be before that.”

  Two weeks.

  “And Bahamut is in Sankt Petersburg,” I say to myself. “Will he kill me on arrival?”

  “Not if you’re my fiancé,” Anya says, grinning.

  I let out a huge sigh of relief.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Anya says. “Bahamut wanted me to marry the baron, so he’s still probably going to try to kill you, but he’ll have to be sneaky about it, which should buy you some time.”

  “Great,” I say, staring out into the clouds.

  5 Anya

  I see the gleaming lights of Sankt Petersburg as we approach. I feel no real emotion other than dread: no relief that I am home again, and certainly no feeling of comfort.

  Sankt Petersburg is a gleaming city floating through the Venusian clouds. In the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, oxygen floats like hydrogen or helium does on Earth, and the city’s ten kilometer-long oxygen tanks keep the city of two hundred thousand people afloat.

  The surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead, but this high up it feels like a chilly winter’s day on Earth. And the gravity on Venus is just a tiny fraction less than it is on Earth, which is why Venus is the Empire’s prime target for terraforming.

  It’s why they want the planet back, and why they want me to marry the baron.

  I shake my head. They’d ruin this planet just like they did Earth.

  Royal fighter jets scramble from the city and begin to “escort” us toward the docking platform.

  “He’s trying to make sure I don’t change my mind,” I say.

  “I’m not used to Venusian customs,” Aegus says. “What is expected of your fiancé?”

  I lick my lips thinking about it.

  “It depends,” Anya says. “How mad do you want to get my father?”

  “If he’s angry,” Aegus says, “will it make him more or less likely to change his mind about surrendering?”

  “Okay,” I say. “So you don’t want him angry. You’ll have to try to charm him then.”

  Aegus grins, and his ears flick up and down, “I’m almost as good at charming as I am at killing.”

  “Please don’t use that line on my father.”

  If Aegus’s plan sucked, my plan sucks even worse. I had about twenty minutes to think it out, but I’m committed to it now. There was a zero percent chance I would have been able to get to Mars from the locked down spaceport, and Aegus was the solution that had...presented itself.

  The solution that also happened to be sinfully sexy, bulging with muscles, and–I hate to admit-–charming as hell.

  “Speaking of killing,” Aegus says. “How do you think Bahamut will try to do it?”

  “Well,” I say, “every time someone spoke out against him or got in his way, they were ordered quite suddenly on assignment ‘in the jungle,’ and a few days later they were ‘killed by savages,’ so getting sent to the jungle isn’t a good sign.”

  Aegus nods. “I think I could make good progress with the jungle tribes...it would make sense for your father to send me there. To prove myself.”

  I feel a tightness forming in my chest. My father is going to be seething angry, and it’s unlikely he’ll accept an alien husband for me. If he orders Aegus to prove himself in the jungle, I’ll be left completely alone, and Aegus will likely never come back.

  “But don’t worry,” Aegus says. “I’ll protect you. I won’t let them separate us...it’s my fault you’re in this situation in the first place.”

  The dread in my gut gives way to a feeling of flying freedom, like zero-gravity but with more...flying. Soaring.

  “You protect me out of obligation?” I ask. “That’s it?”

  Aegus looks down, but his ears perk up. “It doesn’t matter why. Just know that I protect you.”

  I feel myself blushing, so I look down, too.

  “What’s with your armor?” I ask, trying to change the subject. “It shielded me and healed me.”

  I touch the place on my throat that had been cut open leaving me to suffocate and bleed out, but there’s not so much as a dull scar remaining.

  “The armor will help me keep you safe, and it’s–for now–the most powerful weapon in the solar system.”

  “What about the other Marauders?” I ask.

  “Okay,” he says. “It’s a three-way tie with the other two.”

  He stands up and slams his fist into his teal chest plate. “It can easily stop bullets, and I can form it into any shape I want. I can also fire plasma beams, though that uses up a lot of biofuel.”

  “Biofuel?” I ask.

  “Anything I eat is broken down to feed the suit. I eat...a lot. Though I’ve been scooping antimatter from Jupiter for the past year, and I brought enough with me to stay fully stocked for a year.”

  “Show me how it can change shape,” I ask, putting a hand on the chest plate. It really is hard.

  His fist begins to grow into a hammer shape, and his other forms into a large shield.

  “Cool,” I say. “And can you make it arm me like that, too?”

  I try not to laugh as I ask, and I bite my lip to hold back the smile.

  Just as I expect, the armor starts to melt off his body and it rushes across my clothes, hardening.

  As most of the material covers me, Aegus is standing buck-naked in front of me. I widen my eyes and look down at his big–really, really big–teal dick.

  “I thought it was teal,” I say. “But I just wanted to make sure.”

  The armor melts off me instantly, and quickly covers his gleaming purple–and teal–body.

  He looks at me with burning green eyes, and I swear I see the faintest hint of a grin forming at the corners of his mouth.

  Aegus moves back to the pilot’s seat as the autopilot disengages, and he takes hold of the flight stick.

  “Look at you gripping tight to that flight stick,” I say, strapping myself back into the passenger seat.

  “I see what you are implying,” he says. “But a flight stick and a penis are two different things.”

  “Come on, Aegus,” I say, laughing. “If we’re going to pretend to be engaged, it only makes sense that I’ve seen you naked.”

  “What about the other way around?” he says. “I have not seen you naked.”

  I feel myself blushing, and though he doesn’t turn his head back to face me, I can just imagine the devilish smile on his face.

  We pull into the docking platform, and the automated docking arms grab hold of the ship. They jerk the ship into the docking bay much more forcefully than usual. I’m sure my father saw to that–even the docking arms show how angry he is.

  When the doors open, two of the royal guards are standing there with guns raised.

  “Lower your weapons,” I shout. “Or is this how you greet my fiancé?”

  They give each other hard looks, but finally lower their guns.

  Aegus steps out onto the platform and reaches his hand back for me. The gap between the ship and the platform is only a few centimeters, and it’s almost comically chivalrous that he’d help me over such a tiny gap, but I don’t deny him.

  I take hold of his hand, and I can’t help but smile at how warm and inviting it is, but it’s still hard and solid. His grip is like a rock, and I know I can depend and count on his protection.

  He pulls me onto the platform and neither of us let go of the other. I continue to grip his hand and stare up at him. A movement in the corner of my eyes breaks my gaze, and I look over to see my father approaching, flanked by four more guards.

  I’m still holding Aegus’s hand, and to my surprise, he doesn’t let go even when he sees my furious father–the Tsar of Venus–storming toward him.

  “Two guards for
me and four for you?” I ask.

  My father stops a full five paces away from us and he looks down at me with crushing disappointment. “Anya, I’m glad you’re safe.”

  Then he looks up at Aegus. “Mister...Aegus, do you have a surname?”

  “No, your Excellency,” Aegus says, bowing down.

  “So I shall just call you ‘Aegus,’ I take it?”

  “Yes,” Aegus says, nodding.

  “General Bahamut wanted me to execute you,” my father says to Aegus.

  “Is that a question?” I snap. “Or an order?”

  “Anya,” Aegus says, giving me a chiding look. He looks back up to my father. “I realize I’ve put your Excellency in a difficult position.”

  “Difficult?” my father says, his high brows rising up toward orbit. “Yes, it’s been quite a fucking shit storm the past few hours. So let me see if I have this story right. Anya runs away like a child, goes into the spaceport, sees this...strong...man–alien–and somehow convinces him to marry her? Did you get cold feet, Anya, or–”

  “Excellency,” Aegus cuts in. “She is my fiancée!”

  My father stares him down. Aegus puffs out his chest, not giving an inch.

  Father sighs, and looks at us both. “Well, come to dinner this evening. I’ve made it explicitly clear that General Bahamut is here as a guest, and he has no authority here...for now. This means you are safe as the General respects Venusian sovereignty. Interpret that as you will.”

  “I understand,” Aegus says. “I’m used to protecting myself,” he looks down at me. “And those close to me.”

  Close to him. Does he mean that I’m just centimeters away from him and holding his hand, or does he mean actually close, as in we’ve known each other–though it’s only been for a few hours–and he really feels something for me?

  I check myself, remembering that I should be hating this guy for throwing a wrench into all my plans. If not for him, I’d be on my way to Mars now, and my father throwing away our legacy to the Empire would not be my problem anymore.

  Aegus grips my hand and walks chest first down the platform and into Sankt Petersburg.