Someone long thought dead has come back to haunt Earth and Kalquor. Blythe must decide between keeping the peace or letting those best left buried set the two worlds against each other again...and perhaps destroy her relationship with Clan Deram.
* * * *
Earth II
It was early afternoon. After spending hours at work, Blythe continued to feel at odds where Clan Deram was concerned.
She gazed unseeing at vids of the latest election campaign rallies of Stacy Nichols, Earth II’s current governor; and Ken Bryant, her biggest opponent thus far. Bryant remained a determined contender despite his marriage to a teenager on the original Earth having been brought to light. The marriage had ended when Earth’s then-Holy Leader had decided to add Bryant’s young wife to his harem of adolescent girls.
Too many had accepted Bryant’s account of the events, in Blythe’s opinion. The lieutenant governor had asserted he’d married his ward, who’d been the daughter of a deceased close friend, to protect her from Browning Copeland, the head of the Church and original Earth’s government.
“Some protection,” Blythe had told Clan Deram as the scandal was debated by her fellow Earthers. “The poor girl ended up dead, the same as so many of Copeland’s wives when they reached a certain age.”
Nonetheless, the conservative faction of Earth II, particularly the traditionalists known as Earthtiques, had rallied to Bryant’s version of the events. Blythe believed them willing to pardon the worst sins in order to wrest control from Stacy Nichols and the majority of the legislature, which condemned Bryant as a sexual predator and willing minion of Copeland on old Earth.
“How does Governor Nichols manage to work with him?” Blythe had wondered. The pair had been assigned to lead Earth II by the Galactic Council of Planets before Bryant’s pedophilic marriage had come to light. It must be galling for Nichols to look at Lieutenant Governor Bryant’s admittedly handsome mug day in and day out.
Her thoughts at the moment were far from Bryant’s long-dead underage wife or the election, though she’d been busy working on a story about the leading candidates’ different approaches to gaining office. The day had been a struggle to get through since her conversation with Clan Deram over breakfast.
Forget crushes. I’m falling for them. The knowledge was a stab to her gut. What had been a ploy to regain access to Alpha Space Station’s private areas…a ploy to help her sniff out news and indulge in some clean, old-fashioned lust…had transformed into full-blown attachment.
It threatened to become more. Blythe felt herself teetering on the edge of actual love, of all things.
Deram, Selt, and Hadlez weren’t anything like the men she’d known in the past. Though they took the upper hand during sex, they otherwise treated Blythe as an equal. Sometimes better. The trio listened respectfully when she spoke. They asked her opinions and considered them seriously. Selt could be overprotective, but he was typical of a Nobek. He behaved in the same fashion toward his clanmates.
If not for the secrets she sensed they held back, if not for her own skeletons she kept locked tight in her closet, what they’d built thus far would be perfect. She’d even consider the potential of becoming their Matara, the Kalquorian version of a wife, if the circumstances had been different.
“Impossible,” she muttered. Blythe Nelson forged her own path. She had a career, she had command over her life, and she’d make a difference to the galaxy on her own terms. Clan Deram would have to remain what it was: a pleasant, temporary diversion.
Her mind set, at least momentarily, Blythe focused on the vids and wrote notes for her story.
An hour later, she was pleased by the work she’d managed. It was close to the end of the day. Not having wasted its entirety struggling with her growing regard for Clan Deram made her feel better about herself. If she could keep her head on straight, she’d finish the story in the morning. Since her plans didn’t include visiting a rented room on the space station that night, she stood a good chance of doing so.
She gave her attention to the latest news vids, though nothing particularly remarkable was going on. The system would have alerted her to anything important breaking, but she scanned her feeds from her own bureau, from the Galactic Council, and the Kalquorian Empire. A trial date had been set for the former speaker of Earth II’s legislative branch after it had been discovered he’d been behind an attack that had maimed and nearly killed Governor Nichols’ Imdiko lover. The Galactic Council was discussing the merits of bringing the planet Trag into the fold…ridiculous. What were they thinking? Former Emperor Yuder, father of the current Kalquorian Emperor Clajak, and Empress Jessica’s mother Tara McInness had announced their intent to clan. About time; they’d been together for nearly a decade.
Blythe’s alert com line uttered a ping for attention. She glanced at its readout with little interest. An automated statement greeted those who decided to send her messages with a reminder it was a news com connection, not a personal frequency. It didn’t discourage a fair number of men from asking Blythe for dates. There were also those who wanted to call her a bitch, whore, and any number of crude names when they disliked her reports.
Her finger automatically reached for the keys to either delete the incoming message or forward it to law enforcement, depending on the level of abuse. It froze as she absorbed the title.
The Holy Leader is alive and being held prisoner on Kalquor.
She blinked. After a momentary surge of interest, her first instinct was bullshit. Browning Copeland had been killed during Kalquor’s civil war, when he’d thrown his support and the few ships loyal to him behind the traitor Dramok Maf. Everyone knew the story.
The icon noting there was an attached vid blinked. Still bullshit. There’d been numerous rumors of Copeland surviving the horrific explosion that had destroyed his ship, accompanied by vid “evidence.” Most were obvious fakes, easily discounted. The few well-constructed attempts could be proven phony, thanks to a number of detection programs, many of which Blythe possessed.
The half-second of hopeful excitement died. Blythe’s finger hovered over the delete command. Only the fact it would take no more than a minute to confirm the message was a sham kept her from doing so.
The title was the sole text of the message. Blythe frowned. Most would-be fakers would include a breathless account of how they managed to get their “proof” and ask for money to provide more.
She played the vid, her counterfeit detection programs activated as it began.
An old man paced restlessly in a space devoid of any objects beyond a couple of blankets on the floor and a Kalquorian-style toilet, the type with an attached basin one might wash his hands or face in. The wall in the background was distant, offering the illusion of a spacious cell. Kalquorian cells were containment field-based, their barricades invisible to the eye unless something touched it.
The man bore a resemblance to the last images taken of Browning Copeland. If it were him, the thick, glorious flow of white hair had thinned so the pink skin of his scalp showed through. His blinding white robes were nowhere in evidence. Instead, a dust-gray jumpsuit hung on the man’s thin frame.
Blythe’s gaze narrowed. A live actor might be wearing enough makeup to approximate an older Holy Leader. AI-generation would have no problem producing an aging Copeland from stored files.
“Volume up,” she said, wanting to discern the man’s muttering. It was a waste of time, but the vid wasn’t the dramatic production most fraudsters sent her. Its lack of spectacle was actually more captivating than previous forgeries she’d seen.
“…will wreak vengeance on my tormentors. I pray you send these sinners who collude against me, your most devoted of servants, straight to the pits of the abyss, where their flesh will burn for eternity. Hear me, your only remaining prophet, in my darkest hour of need…”
Blythe considered running voice recognition software, but the audio could have been taken from past vids of Copeland. His voice could have been aged to the creaking tone she heard, as his features had been aged. Except vocal inflections and speaking patterns were difficult to replicate in such a manner. Damned if she didn’t hear the bastard in her head, courtesy of the speeches of her youth, which had been mandatory to watch. The man in the vid had the same speech peculiarities she remembered, a habit of dramatic pauses. In which case, a talented impressionist must have been behind the voice, if not the entire performance.
It could all have been easily faked. She was certain it was. Still, the footage bothered her. It was an itch between her shoulder blades she couldn’t reach to scratch.
“Computer, run voice recognition software.”
She watched the entire two minutes before the vid abruptly ended. In all that time, the man hadn’t stopped his pacing or hectoring prayer. He hadn’t confronted whomever had recorded him to screech for rescue or any such nonsense Blythe had seen from past counterfeits.
The computer’s soft female voice spoke. “Should I replay vid or submit analyses now?”
Blythe hated to discover the knot in her gut was wrong. This was yet another sham. It had to be…except she had the internal jittery feeling she got when she’d stumbled on something truly newsworthy.
Her instincts were usually quite good, but they weren’t perfect, she reminded herself. She’d been wrong before.
Never mind. It’s garbage, the same as the others. Take the reminder you’re a mere mortal and make mistakes.
Smiling in acknowledgment of her many shortcomings, Blythe said, “Submit all analyses.”
The computer reported as the results appeared on a new screen and scrolled. “Probability of AI-generated footage based on video and audio: ninety-three-point-seven percent against. The footage was taken by a consumer-grade handheld device, most likely of Kalquorian manufacture.”
Blythe’s heart beat quicker.
“Analysis of human subject of footage: no evidence of prosthetics, makeup, or digital effects applied. Facial recognition of subject: allowing for aging and austerity of diminished lifestyle, subject appears to be Browning Copeland of original Earth. Probability based on appearance alone: ninety-one-point-two percent. Voice recognition of subject: sound, patterns, intonations, and phrasing matches Browning Copeland of original Earth eighty-three-point-one percent.
“Analysis confirms the authenticity of the vid. Analysis shows no evidence of post-production tampering, digital, mechanical, or otherwise. Aggregate of evaluations confirms the sole subject of the vid is Browning Copeland of Earth at eighty-seven-point-two percent certainty.”
Blythe stopped breathing. Galactic Council courts required only an eighty-percent certainty of vid identification to bring criminal suspects to trial. Eighty-seven percent confidence, coupled with other physical evidence, almost always led to convictions.
At the very least, such a vid would move the GC to demand Kalquor allow it to investigate whether the empire illegally held Browning Copeland, supposedly dead for ten years.
Blythe’s inner trembling had moved to her hands. The story was huge, and it had been dumped in her lap.
Which was a concern. Why had the footage been sent to her rather than a Kalquorian news bureau? Or directly to the Galactic Council, which would immediately order an investigation into the possibility the empire illegally held a war criminal? Was the vid truly from Kalquor, or did some other planet have Copeland? Could he be held by a faction that wished to start trouble between Earth II and the people who’d been so instrumental in bringing it to life? If so, why was it coming to light five years after the Holy Leader’s supposed death?
The hated face of Calvin Mitchell flashed across her mind’s eye. The former speaker of Earth II’s General Assembly was in prison awaiting trial for hiring would-be assassins who’d attacked the governor’s Imdiko boyfriend. He couldn’t have sent her the footage, but he wasn’t the only Earthtique eager to bring bad blood between the planets.
There would be Earthers who’d rally to the former Holy Leader if he were still alive. What was mostly low-level dissension with the occasional violent flare-up against the progressive leadership in charge of Earth II could explode if Blythe revealed the vid’s existence.
Her journalistic creed demanded she report the truth, no matter the consequences. She had a job to do, and she took pride in doing it well. The ramifications to the peace the galaxy currently enjoyed gave her plenty of pause, however. Was she ready to light the match?
As she pondered her next step, another consideration demanded her attention. What would exposing the Kalquorian Empire’s potential secret mean to her tremulous but strengthening ties to Clan Deram?
* * * *
Blythe Nelson is certain Clan Deram is keeping something from her. The clan of spies finds it difficult to stay a step ahead of the wily reporter who’s winning their hearts. What they don’t know is Blythe has a secret of her own. New love can’t survive without trust, and neither side is ready when the truth comes out.
Dramok Ospar, determined to return to the political stage, strikes up a deal with Royal Councilman Oiteil. Unaware he’s dealing with a Dark entity controlling Oiteil, he finds himself fighting for his honor, his relationship with his clan…and his life.
The Kalquorian Empire, already struggling against the Darks infiltrating its highest offices, suffers a new blow when it’s revealed it’s keeping a prisoner from the war against the first Earth: Holy Leader Browning Copeland. The schism between Kalquor and its allies grows deeper, setting the empire against the rest of the galaxy.
As chaos descends on rioting Earther colonies, the Galactic Council of Planets, and Kalquor, a desperate group of humans and Kalquorians race to stop the force behind the turmoil: the Darks. Can they loosen the grip on their worlds the enemy seeks to tighten, or is all lost?
Releasing March 29. Pre-order ebook or buy print now:
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