Lord Regret's Price: A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 3 (3 page)

Even the backwoods colony had heard of her marvelous inventions. She’d had a hand in everything from devising the massive dome that stretched over Londonium, protecting the heart of Britannia from all threats, to improving ship engines so that travel in deep space was reduced to days and weeks rather than years. Her wit and charm were legendary as the once-ruling lady of Society; her intelligence, unbounded.

Her beauty…

Well, Gil had to admit that he’d been struck dumb at the first sight of her. Small and seemingly delicate, she’d stirred up all his protective instincts. She might be a foot shorter than him, but explosives came in small, curvy packages. Then he’d begun to see demonstrations of her fiery personality, and he’d known the truth.

Charlotte needed no man’s protection. Though she might—on occasion—allow it just to appease his need to keep her safe.

He’d never imagined that he might find himself walking out of a sex toy shop in Zijin with such a beautiful lady smoldering on his arm.

Despite his happiness, he couldn’t deny the kernel of ugliness in his heart as they walked back toward the inn. The small hope that maybe her other man was gone for good.

He’d been furiously, terribly afraid for her safety once he’d learned of her association with the galaxy’s infamous assassin, then appalled that she actually
loved
the man. But then he’d met Sigmund Regret. He’d seen how quickly the man killed to protect her. And he couldn’t fault the man’s deadly skills, not when it came to keeping their beloved out of Queen Majel’s hands.

He’d be the first to admit that he’d rather be alone with Charlotte. She’d taken care from the beginning to appease them both. He had no cause for jealousy, not really. She never slighted or favored one over the other, even though he sometimes wished…

I want her heart all to myself.

Reluctantly, he voiced his concerns. “Do you think Sig will come back?”

“Of course.” She spared a glance up at him as if surprised at his concerns. “He’s still close, though I don’t see him yet.”

“How do you know?”

“I feel him.” She reached up and touched the heart-shaped locket wrapped in gold filigree. Gil didn’t know exactly what it contained—her science was beyond his understanding—but whatever secrets were hidden in that necklace had managed to save both her life and Sig’s before they’d left Americus. The memory was enough to make him haul her closer, fighting the instinct to sweep her into his arms, carry her to the ship and flee to the most remote edges of space he could find. “Ever since I healed him that first time, I’ve been able to sense his nearness. Since…”

Since she’d almost died. To keep from squeezing her arm too hard with his furious need to keep her safe, he gripped the handle of his six-shooter, hidden beneath his coat.

“It’s strange,” she mused. “My nanobots lived inside him for seven years, keeping his heart beating. When he gave some of them back to me, it’s like they carried part of him with them.”

“Like his memories? His thoughts?”

“No, not at all. It’s more subtle than that. I just…know him. At a bone-deep level. Yet I’m still confounded by him at the same time. There are many things I don’t understand, but I know one thing above all. He won’t fail me.”

“Do these nanobot things talk to you?”

She paced alongside him for several steps before she answered. “Yes and no. They don’t speak to me directly, but I regularly download logs to my datapad. I can see what they’re doing and it’s remarkable. What they’ve done for Sig is beyond astounding. They’re not only keeping his damaged heart beating, but they’re also improving his metabolism, building his muscle tone, speed and hand-eye coordination. He was a formidable assassin before the accident that nearly killed him, but now… Gil, he’s like a superhuman.”

“And you,” he whispered solemnly. “What are they doing to you? What
can
they do to you? Is it safe?”

“Most of them returned to Sig. That’s why he’s still alive.” She paused in the middle of the alley, rising up on her toes to see over the surging crowds. “Look, is that a Razari?”

“Charlotte,” he firmed his voice, trying to draw her attention back to him. “I insist that we discuss these nanobots still inside you. I don’t understand.”

“Later.” She patted his arm and beamed up at him. “Do you think he’ll speak to me?”

“Who? Sig?”

“No, the Razari.” She nibbled on her lip and dropped her gaze. “Britannia did horrible things to them, Gil, thanks to me. They used my research to destroy them. There are so many things I’d hoped to learn from them…”

“Your nanobots were used to destroy people?” The same ones living inside her now? He clenched his hand harder around the gun, fighting the urge to shake her. He hated not understanding her technology. Not being a part of something she shared with Sig.

“The nanobots distorted and manipulated their DNA.” She said it casually, so absorbed in trying to decide if she dared approach the alien that she didn’t see how her words affected him. Suddenly queasy, he fought to keep his face smooth even though his stomach ached like Sig had sucker punched him.
Manipulating DNA. If they’re doing that inside her…

Neither she nor Sig might even be human any longer. How could he protect them both from something he couldn’t see and didn’t understand?

“I must have a word with the Razari. Wait here, Gil.”

She’d long mourned the loss of the crystal she’d been studying before she’d been forced to flee Britannia. Yet the Razari artifact had been instrumental in her faked assassination. Only as long as her index finger, once the crystal was cracked, it released a chemical reaction powerful enough to melt her carriage and destroy any trace of her missing body. The Razari used them to power their ultrafast engines, but her instincts insisted that was only the beginning of how they used the incredible crystals.

Pretending interest in the nearby rug shop, she edged closer, studying the alien out of the corner of her eye. Female, she thought, though it was hard to tell. They were humanoid but their skin coloring and larger musculature made it difficult to determine gender. While its clothing wasn’t all that different from what the multitude of humans dominating the market wore, the alien’s skin tone was a dark greenish-brown, the color of brackish swamp water. Long, twisted clumps of hair, wrapped in cord, hung down her back, the same brown-green color as her skin.

There. Charlotte held her breath and risked another longer peek. The Razari wore a crystal around her neck like a piece of jewelry.

Why would they wear such a powerful energy source—or weapon—about their necks? Stunned, she forgot to turn away when the alien caught her stare. So many questions rushed through her mind like noisy flocks of birds.
Were you there when Britannia attacked? Can you give me a firsthand account of what happened? Have you always worn the crystals…or is that something new that you began only once Queen Majel took an interest in your planet? How can I possibly make you understand that I regret…

“Britannian,” the alien said the word like a vile curse, curling her lips to reveal wicked, inch-long fangs.

Charlotte inclined her head and held out her hand. “How do you do?”

Evidently, she’d managed to knock the alien back on her heels with surprise. Hesitantly, she took Charlotte’s hand, but didn’t give a polite shake and release. She gripped hard, perhaps a show of strength, like men squeezing each other’s hands to see who would flinch first. So Charlotte held just as tightly and didn’t back away. In fact, she stepped closer.

The alien was nearly as tall as Gil and built just as solidly. She imagined the damage those fangs would do, especially to a vulnerable body part like her throat. Gil was probably beside himself with alarm, but Charlotte couldn’t miss this chance to find out more.

Keeping her voice low, she cast her gaze around the busy market, searching for anyone who might be too interested in their discussion. “Do you understand me?”

“Yes. We took care to learn your language quickly. Not that it saved us.”

“Not everyone supports what happened on Razar. In fact, few do.”

“I don’t believe you.” The alien squeezed harder, drawing Charlotte close enough that her skirts began to be crushed by the other female’s body. “No one stopped the attack, not before, not after.”

“No one could. The Queen is not a woman to be trifled with.” To be fair to Majel, she hadn’t approved the attack on Razar in the first place, but Charlotte wasn’t prepared to leak that information. Not yet. It was one sure way to confirm that Lady Wyre—Queen’s confidante and the only lady who could possibly know that MIGS was violating the Queen’s orders—was still alive. She risked pushing with a question. “Were you there when the attack came?”

The alien let out a low, vibrating hiss that sent shards of ice slicing down Charlotte’s spine. “Yes.”

“Please, tell me what happened. I need a first-person account.”

“Our technicians think they somehow uploaded a virus to our main system that infected our replicators. The virus…” The alien narrowed her eyes, hesitating, as if reluctant to say anything more.

“Please, I must know,” Charlotte whispered furiously. “I’m one of the few people who might be able to help.”

“Help?” The alien made a rough sound that might have been a laugh. “How can you help when our planet has been nearly destroyed? When only a handful of us survive intact? Our people have been enslaved and none of you care. Our planet has been raped for the great Britannia’s coffers. Our children…” She made another raw growl of pain. “We’ve been irreparably changed.”

“The virus leaped from the computer systems to your people.”

The alien stiffened, lifting her head and staring out over the crowd. “Such a thing should not be possible, but yes, that’s what we suspect. An inorganic virus that invaded organic tissue and began…mutating.”

Nausea made Charlotte’s stomach pitch. Her fingertips burned with cold. Or maybe she was simply losing feeling in her hand that was still clutched in the alien’s iron grip.
My nanobots. Dear God. What have I done? I knew MIGS had taken my research and twisted it. I knew… But hearing it is so much worse than I imagined. They saved my life and Sig’s, but killed millions more.

The alien lowered her head to whisper directly against Charlotte’s ear. “What no one outside Razar knows is that we could transform before. Now that transformation is worse.”

“What do you mean?”

The alien gripped her forearm, squeezing so hard Charlotte involuntarily gasped. Nails lengthened, pricking through the sleeve of her gown. Impossibly long nails…no, claws. Stunned, she leaned down, eyes locked on the alien’s arm. Something moved beneath the swamp-colored skin. Glittering scales?

“The virus magnifies the transformation, taking away our choice, our honor, our very identity. Your Queen has created a race of monsters. Monsters who will devour the flesh from her bones and her scientists if given the chance.”

Charlotte could only draw shallow, rapid breaths, fighting to keep her feet. Her knees weakened, her head dangerously foggy. She knew Sig had been changed, but those changes had been improvements. He was better, faster, stronger.

Not a monster.

“I…I must…help you.”

“It’s too late. The virus has infected every Razari, whether they were on the planet or not. It spread from computer to computer, ship to ship, male to female to child. Once they start, the mutations are impossible to stop. Our best scientists have tried.”

Despite her horror, Charlotte’s mind buzzed with possibilities. The nanobots in Sig had been amplifying his abilities to make him better. What if that was all the Razari virus was doing? Highlighting their existing ability to transform—making them more powerful? “Have they tried reprogramming the virus?”

The alien narrowed slitted eyes, her breath a low hiss. “How?”

Claws dug into her arm, nearly breaking the skin, but she didn’t react.
I can’t show any weakness. No hesitation. No fear.
“I think I could do it.”

“There are rumors that have reached even Razar that the Queen’s Physician was responsible for the technology that destroyed us.”

Charlotte held her breath for a count of ten and slowly released it in a controlled exhale that revealed nothing. Hopefully her face remained as blank. “I heard the good doctor was assassinated.”

The alien nodded and even managed a smile, although the curve of her lips didn’t indicate friendship, but rather what Charlotte feared to be a taste for flesh. “The story goes that the infamous assassin Lord Regret was hired by the Razari to kill her with one of their crystals. Our methods—if we could have gotten our claws on her—would have been much less…public. A quick and merciful death is a right reserved for the honored who fall in battle. Not pathetic scientists playing with creation and destruction.”

“What if the creator was not the destructor?” Charlotte weighed each word carefully. The very reason Queen Majel wanted her dead if she couldn’t have her research was that she knew too much. She didn’t dare spread too much of the truth, for then the Queen would have absolutely no doubts where those secrets originated. “Something created for good might be warped by others into a weapon. Yet good might still come from it.”

Long moments ticked by while the alien mulled over her proposition. Sweat trickled between Charlotte’s breasts and her face began to ache from keeping the serene mask while her life might hang in the balance. She didn’t doubt that Gil and Sig would be on the alien in a moment’s notice, but the woman was so close, they might be too late. Besides, she couldn’t fault the woman in the slightest. In many ways, she did deserve to die. She was counting on the alien’s desperation to save her people to outweigh her desire for vengeance.