Chapter 21- Jel

"…a stress-induced episode. I can't share any more with you at this stage." The soldier's tone brokered no argument, and Jel's lip curled around his teeth, unable to mask his distaste even as the lingering scent of the exotic spiced meats the human had brought tickled at his nostrils.

Even though it had been one of the best meals he'd ever had, the feeling that something was deeply wrong had left a bitterness in the back of his tongue that only grew with each word the soldier spoke.

She was rank-and-file, or at least she appeared to be. Jel had his doubts. There was no red button on her lapel, but her eyes shared the same keenness of the Garrison troops he'd seen earlier in the evening, and her presence made his skin crawl in the same way.

Her arrival at the door to their suite had come some half an hour after they'd returned from dropping the human at the med bay, and he still wasn't sure what the true purpose of her visit was. She'd been altogether unhelpful, refusing to answer any of their cautiously phrased questions, and reciting instead a brief, scripted apology from the Admiralty along with an assurance that their interview would be rescheduled just as soon as the human was able.

"But—" Skara started.

"Now dear," Jel smiled prettily and patted his wife on the arm. "Let the nice soldier lady get on with her work. No doubt we'll have a chance to check in on the specialist soon enough." He looked his wife in the eyes meaningfully. Later he willed into that stare. She nodded reluctantly.

"I'm sure the Specialist will be in contact with you just as soon as she is well," the soldier said dismissively. She moved toward the door. "Please rest assured that she is receiving only the best of care.

"No doubt," Jel kept a straight face.

When the door clicked shut behind the soldier, Skara whirled to face him.

"The hell do they mean, 'stress-induced episode'? The doct—"

"Hang on a second." Jel walked across the room to rifle through his bag. Rummaging through recording hardware, storage devices, and personal effects, he straightened up after a moment clutching a small black sack. "Here."

He opened the drawstring at the top of the bag and then unzipped an inner compartment. Taking his communicator from his pocket, he placed it inside and then held out a hand for Skara's.

"Wait, really?" she raised an eye. When he didn't blink, she snorted and tossed her device across to him. He dropped it into the bag, then zipped up the compartment and closed the pouch. "Don't you think you're being a little paranoid?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Not really, no," he answered. "They searched everything before we entered the system, it wouldn't have been difficult for them to install a few little extras while they were at it. You may have noticed, but the Admiralty is very interested in controlling as much of the narrative around Ervamir 3 as possible. I wouldn't put it past them."

"Whatever," Skara rolled her eyes. "As long as we talk about what the hell is going on here. The doctor clearly said the human was rejecting implants that didn't appear on her charts. That shouldn't happen." She leaned in, her teeth bared in agitation. "It should have been years before anything beyond the standard translation package was cleared for humans. Did you see the look on the doctor's face? He was furious."

"The Garrison showing up is also strange," Jel agreed. "Why send so many soldiers to check on one patient, even if she's the Admiralty's project human? This whole thing stinks." He let his head fall, rubbing at his temples. "I was so looking forward to that interview, too."

"I'm sorry love," Skara sidled up next to him, then leaned in and tucked Jel's head beneath her chin. "This was meant to be a big break for you."

He leaned into her embrace, and a tiny fraction of his stress unraveled. He frowned, thinking. "It might still be. Where there's smoke, there's fire. I need to talk to Rumarr. I'm taking my communicator back out. Let's wait until she's here and clued-in before we talk about this."

---

"And you're sure the doc said it was her body rejecting implants?" The ursinian raised a fuzzy eyebrow. She'd come as soon as they'd called and stowed her own communicator without fuss as she entered.

"Certain," Skara confirmed, tapping her foot in agitation. "He wasn't happy about it either. One of the attendants said her sheet was clean, no record of anything but the translator chip going in. It's possible that...." she hesitated, a range of emotions playing across her face that eventually settled on disgust, "...if the human's been walking around with neural implants, she might not even have known about them herself."

"That's…" Rumarr paused. "Distressing." Her expression was a flat line, stony and grim, a far sight from the fiery and passionate woman who'd challenged the Admiralty officials during their press conferences.

"You're not shocked," Jel observed.

"I've seen first-hand some of the things the Imperium has swept under the rug," she said, tapping a claw on the table absentmindedly. "It's a big galaxy, there's plenty of room for things to start festering at the edges. Obnit 6 was bad. Ervamir is a whole different level of fucked up."

"I just can't honestly believe that the Admiralty would turn around so soon after what happened to the humans and double down on the atrocities." Skara rubbed at her temples. "Installing any kind of nonessential neural implant without the permission of the host goes beyond serious crime. It's pure evil."

"The Admiralty probably isn't even aware," Rumarr scratched her chin. "At least, not as a whole. We're a long way from the core worlds out here. Jelakka," she looked over at him. "Did you read my piece on the trade embargo of the Irrthunk system a few years back?"

Jel frowned. "You'll need to jog my memory."

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"There were rumours that the price of platinum was set to tank after huge finds in the asteroid belt surrounding the cradlemoon of the Irrtrunsk people." Two more claws joined the one tapping on the table, drumming out a trio of staccato raps on the hard surface. She went on. "There was a mad rush of independent outfits into the system, miners who dropped everything to fill as much cargo space as possible with the material and haul it back for a huge profit. Only things didn't end up that way for them."

"I remember now," Jel nodded. "The false idol scandal."

Rumarr scoffed. "A scandal would imply that someone was punished, or at least came off looking bad." She looked up to see Skara's confused face and continued, "just as the first waves of independent miners entered the system, the Irrtrunsk started denying access to the deposits on religious grounds. Most of those miners had already obtained rights but were informed that there had been an error in translation that voided their contracts. Instead, the Irrtrunsk would only be selling platinum to the largest conglomerates in the system, on the condition that the 'sacred material' be used to construct statues in their Goddess's honor."

"I think I've seen one of those!" Skara exclaimed. "At the museum of sociology on Hecat 4. It was barely the size of a figurine."

Rumarr nodded. "The embargo carried on for over a year, and of course, the price of platinum across a large part of the galaxy dropped to a suspiciously low level in that time. Once the easy pickings had been had, the Irrtrunsk were 'persuaded' to open the market back up, allegedly in thanks for the proselytization that the conglomerates had done on their behalf. The Admiral in charge of the system retired that year and rotates between several private estates, where I hear she is routinely joined by high-profile mining executives."

She snorted "Of course, it turned out later that the Irrtrunskian people were largely agnostic and had been offered a lot of money for an exclusive deal brokered by the corporations and enforced by the local Admiralty." She sighed, "normally the ones responsible would have been stripped of their ranks once that news came out, but the Irrtrunskians are also one of the largest producers of BA47 in the Empire, their moon is the perfect environment for it to propagate. Without their biofarms, our fabrication hardware wouldn't run nearly as efficiently and our fleets can afford to venture further out because of them. To avoid disrupting Imperial supply lines, the whole thing was swept under the rug. My point is," she carried on. "That when the Admiralty acts in counter to its own rules, it's always worth checking where the money is."

"You think we're dealing with corporate interests here?" Jel asked.

"It's just a thought," the large woman shrugged. "At any rate, if the Imperial Garrison is involved, then so is the Admiralty in some capacity. I just can't help but feel like something isn't adding up."

"You'll keep an eye out then? For anything out of the ordinary, I mean." Jel's eyebrows raised.

"You think I'd miss a moment of this?" Rumarr snorted. "I live for this shit. You, on the other hand, are a fashion journalist. No offense intended," her eyes flicked to meet his. "You're probably thinking about staying up here in orbit, but my advice? Take the shuttle tomorrow morning and let me handle this. Go do the work you came here to do."

When Jel opened his mouth to counter, she held up a hand. "You told me on the ride here that your job was important, maybe more so than mine, and that might be true. But my job involves taking a whole lot more risk. I'm sure your wife would appreciate it if you left the investigative journalism to someone who knows what she's doing."

Jel glanced at Skara out of the corner of his eyes. To his chagrin, she was nodding gratefully to the ursinian, though she stopped when she noticed him staring at her. She sent him an apologetic look. "Sorry love," she said. "But I think Rumarr has a point. I don't want you stuck in the middle of all this. You said you were coming here to make a difference, and I can respect that." She leaned in, until her eyes, earnest and pleading, were all that filled his vision. "But I'm worried you'll end up on the wrong side of some powerful people. Who even knows what might happen if they decide you're in the way."

---

"No! Please, no! Goddesses, I'll do whatever you want, please! One more chance!"

Only the moonlight lit the interior of the The Matriarch's office, casting everything in pale silver and the black shadow of space as a quivering ball of pink skin and matchstick bones rocked back and forth in the center of the room. A rivulet of blood, dark brown in the soft light of the celestial body ran from the joint between ear and cranium to streak the dark slate tiling, but it dared not lift its head to stem the flow.

"I feel that I have given you enough chances as it is." The Matriarch sipped again at her goblet, tipping back her head, and smacking her lips as the crimson liquid slid down her throat.

"I'll do better!" the ball whimpered, tucking its tail in against its body. "Just leave my family alone, I beg you."

"Is this truly the thanks I get for saving you?" she thought aloud, swirling the liquid around in the glass habitually. "It's not easy to fake a suicide, as I'm sure you might have guessed. Do you know what they call you now?"

"I…"

"Jespara the butcher. It has quite the ring to it, wouldn't you agree? The woman who green-lit the extermination of the humans, whose incompetence resulted in billions of innocent deaths."

"I… I didn't… The Admiral, she…"

"The Admiral wanted results, and you weren't moving fast enough for her," the Matriarch sneered down at the pathetic creature as it groveled in front of her desk. "I should know, because I wanted results, and she wasn't moving fast enough for me. But it was your name that signed off on that analysis. You're the one who should have caught the error. Their blood is on your hands, and that planet that you fucked up was supposed to be mine."

She leaned a little closer, but not so close as to chance accidentally catching a whiff of the groveling ex-scientist. "So unless you want your family's blood to join the stuff already staining your claws, you will tell me what went wrong this time."

"It… it could have been any number of things," Jespara cowered, finally peering up from the floor. When the Matriarch's muzzle twitched in agitation, she panicked, prostrating herself on the ground. "Bu-but I can find out! I just need—" she stopped, her eyes wide as the Matriarch raised a hand.

"You need what?" the Matriarch wrinkled her nose. "More time? You forget that you are dead, and dead women have all the time they need. Maybe I should send some flowers to your husband. I hear the petals of the Dulun lily are particularly…"

"Samples!" the scientist squeaked. "I need samples. Healthy brains, more subjects. The human's scans showed agitation and fluid build-up in the ventromedial—"

"How many?" the Matriarch interrupted. She held up her glass to the moonlight, examining it, and the light cast through it suffused her face with the same bright red of the liquid within.

"W-well," Jespara stammered. "Tens of them, certainly. Hundreds if possible. I'd need to run tests on neuromodulation and hormone regulation to see if—"

"You'll have your test subjects then," the Matriarch snapped, losing her patience. "And you will deliver a functioning prototype within the next two months. When the new fleet arrives, I want it to be above an Ervamir that is under control." She leaned back in her chair and stretched a leg out languidly, her foot bare, long claws catching the moonlight and shining like the scales of a serpent. She sipped at her glass again and turned away. "You can go."

The door clicked shut, and the Matriarch once again sat in silence, staring out over the most beautiful planet she'd ever laid eyes on. Her planet. The satisfaction of looking out over the tiny, insignificant lives of billions of lessers only grew day after day, and sent a pleasurable thrill coursing down her spine. Such a shame there weren't a few billion more. It would be hard to reap the kinds of rewards she'd anticipated before everything went tits up.

While one hand still held her chalice before her, the other snaked up to pinch lasciviously at a breast. Perhaps she shouldn't have sent her toy away so soon. With a twitch of will, she instead opened a channel to her assistant.

"Send Mister Reveliin up to my office," she ordered, as her hand crept lower down her body. "His counsel is needed, urgently." She ended the call before hearing a reply, still staring out the window at her green and blue treasure, and less than a minute later, the door to her office creaked open.

She smiled as he knelt without prompting, her eyes still fixed ahead, roaming over the hills, valleys, clouds, and oceans of her prize. Her legs parted.

"Get to work," she said, and he obeyed. They would all obey.