Page 99 of Smuggler's Beauty

If she had permanently altered the nature of his talent, he could use it to shield her from the coming storm.

Assuming she’d let him.

It killed him a little every time he watched her instinctually withdraw. He’d like to pummel every person who had taught her that she was something that should be hidden away, a dark secret to be locked in a vault and forgotten about.

It was going to make meeting her parents super awkward.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Emil Bellica dockedhis planet hopper with practiced efficiency. The central spaceport in the southern hemisphere of Tanalia was a newly constructed building. He had wanted something erected that would allow easy access to his newly built barracks on that side of the planet. No frills, smooth lines, fifty-six docking bays ready to transport troops and crops on and off Tanalia.

After gathering the documents he would need for the day into his briefcase, Emil smoothed the lapels of his suit jacket and exited the hopper. Janice had arranged for an assistant to greet him as he entered the spaceport.

The man who was waiting for him, Emil’s name written in big block letters on recycled paper, was typical of the Tanalian conscripts. Hair just a tad past regulation length, tattoos peeking out under the sleeve of his uniform jacket. The decades of occupation had done little to completely eliminate the individuality endemic of the planet’s inhabitants. Emil knew one could only apply so much pressure at once before a bend turned into a break, but still.

You’d think signing up for galactic military service would trigger the desire for a haircut.

The man saluted. Emil vaguely wondered what adding a set of clippers to the standard kit recruits received would cost against the expense of hiring barbers to work each base. Surely the machines would be less costly than paying for the service? He made a note to crunch those numbers when he got back to the ship.

Gesturing to the recruit to follow along, he strode out of the spaceport. Emil knew his ground transportation would be close to the exit. Janice knew he’d want to be efficiently and silently transported to the base as quickly as possible to discuss security modifications now that the Amplifier was confirmed to be associating with known criminal elements. Prying updates from the Twins had been a nightmare. Emil had once again been reminded why he rarely hired subcontractors. Entirely too many opinions about their own worth

The possibility of common thieves cracking high-level military security wasn’t completely improbable. But it was looking more and more likely that he had a mole. The punishment for treason on Bauder was always death. Emil liked having his facts straight before he wasted valuable resources.

The young man with the floppy paper scurried to catch up with him and guided them toward a waiting vehicle. It was sleek, discreet, and appointed with everything he would need to finish the morning round of reports before his first meeting. Once the door was opened for him, Emil slid in, opening his briefcase to get started.

A view screen was tuned to a local station, the weather report presenting the next week’s forecast. He made a mental note to dig his rain gear out of the storage container in his hopper when he returned for the evening. No sense in wasting time lookingfor it in the morning when he knew there was a downpour in his future.

He thought back to his last meeting with the Alpertti princess. The details were still sharp in his mind. Idealists were so easy to manipulate. You just strike at the heart of their principles, and down they go, falling on their own swords. Big hazel eyes full of righteous indignation, and absolutely no sense of self-preservation.

Qualities that could be harnessed quite easily by a dissenting element in the population — if they could find the will to organize. Did that will exist in Tanalia today? It was the question that had been plaguing him since he’d realized her abductors had left behind all his research, not to mention the full tanks of Amplified energy.

The slow burn of a planetary takeover Emil had committed himself to was taking longer than he’d thought. Despite his careful silencing of dissenting voices, resentment still stewed at Bauder’s presence on the planet. He couldn’t fathom why they clung to their worthless artistic pursuits, their insistence on individuality of spirit when he had presented them with the far superior path of order, efficiency, and productivity.

The question was, were there enough of them to form some sort of rebellion?

Emil’s thoughts were interrupted when the view screen’s picture started to pixelate. He gave the top of the view screen a good thump with the flat of his palm. Sometimes a gentle nudge would fix a technical problem. It was a time-honored tradition in technical service circles. That and unplugging something for a few seconds solved most problems in his experience.

His thumping did nothing. The image on the screen had re-pixelated. Instead of the weather report, he found an image of the Grand Opera House that once stood in the main square of Randelie. The building had never been restored to its formergarish excess, having been rebuilt to his specifications. Soft music Emil didn’t recognize came from the speakers. The driver was tapping his fingers in time.

Must be a local folk song. Typical sentimental garbage.

Then, a voiceover started. A steady, clear mezzo-soprano, reminiscing about performances she had seen in the building growing up. Another building, another memory. The voice and the photo faded out, replaced by bold, white text on a black background:

Remember who we are.

Emil’s eyes snapped to the screen, his every thought consumed by the voice lilting from the speakers. He remembered it well. The screen pixelated, the weather report returned.

“When it rains, it pours, Louise,” the weatherman said to the anchor sitting behind the desk. She tittered mindlessly and reminded the audience to hunt down their umbrellas.

Emil shut off the view screen.

It was now crystal clear to Emil that someone was plotting against him. He didn’t usually make the mistake of underestimating his opponents. “Know thy enemy” was practically tattooed on the underside of his eyelids. He had done his due diligence in researching the crowned Alpertti and the next two in line. They were weak, sentimental, and overly cautious. Unwilling to take big swings. Dedicated to public service and personal sacrifice in the name of the greater good.

Emil had thought the same thing was true of Evelyn Alpertti.

It seemed that he was wrong.

The Twins were proving to be a useless expenditure. How hard could it be to find one naive brat flying through this sectorof the universe with a bunch of crooks? Emil was seriously considering severing the contract, penalty clauses be damned.