“My Lord, are you certain you wish to pursue this course of action?”

“Absolutely, Chief Inspector.” Lord Texas Morgan’s eyes were worried and his brow was furrowed, but his voice had the confidence he’d trained it to have when he was least certain of victory. More than once it had been enough to bluff opponents into compromise, if not outright surrender.

He hoped today he could bluff himself.

“As you wish, my Lord,” Inspector Kai said. “But we now know for certain that he is…he is in that particular, ah ‘restaurant’ in the third sector.”

“Well and good, Kai. I have it on the highest authority that he’ll learn his lesson well enough on his own, and that he’ll be free of that, ah, particular influence within the hour. After that, he and I will have a long discussion, and that will be the end of it.”

“Yes, my Lord. I will keep my channel monitored in the event you re-evaluate your decision.”

“Thank you, Chief Inspector Kai.”

The radio fell silent. Lord Morgan held his face in his hands and wished for something more simple to cross his desk than a family crisis. LIke a crime wave. Or an attack by the Corporates. Or a plague like the one that swept through half of Old Earth twenty centuries ago. Or even the mythical Rapture that some idiots still proclaimed would happen every few years.

“Hell of a job to have,” he said to himself, looking at his own Pater’s portrait on the wall. “How’d you ever do this?”

Dallas strode up the stairs to the second floor where he knew that Secunda, her Momma and sisters all slept. He’d never been this far, the rules of courting and etiquette being rather firm for members of his family and station. Instead, Dallas and Secunda had gone for long walks on the grounds of his family’s estate, holding hands and looking up to the stars at night. Or playing checkers or chess on the back tables of the restaurant when business was at a low ebb; one time had been particularly racy, as they’d whispered innuendoes to one another when a Knight had taken the Queen, or the Queen had captured the King!

Several times he’d met them at Sunday Mass at St. Mazinga’s, and marveled at how beautiful and pure Secunda looked compared to the few other women her age in the pews. Both Secunda and her Momma had their long hair fixed in simple, perfect waves. Momma Prima’s gray hair was simple and dignified, her smile that of a woman who, though poor, had dignity in the work she did and meant for others to know it. And Secunda had dressed in a beautiful modest gray dress with pink trim, and her smooth, lovely skin, green eyes and wide smile had beckoned him to sit beside them, ignoring the small glare that Father Shen had given at the interruption to his homily that Dallas’ late entrance had caused.

Most of all, Dallas remembered the day, now barely a week ago, that after mass and coffee he and Secunda had begun a conversation that had started in the front pew of the Church. Before Dallas really knew what was happening he and Secunda were before the steel-trimmed marble altar, holding hands, looking deep into one another’s eyes, and smiling uncontrollably while pretending to exchange their vows like a true husband and wife.

The creak of the stair brought him back to the present. Dallas stopped, then breathed again as he mounted them. The happy chills of memory flowed in and around him as he ascended. His more worldly friends had tormented him mercilessly about the storybook purity of his and Secunda’s courtship. What did they know? It was hard enough to escape or sufficiently bribe the handlers Pater had assigned him since his childhood to give him enough time alone with Secunda to share their first hand-holding, their first kiss, their…

At the top of the stairwell now. The walls were dark, and made of the same faux wood paneling he’d seen below.

His eyes quickly adapted to the dark, and he saw a short hallway with four doors along each side.

Conveniently, there were small signs sticking out with the names of each girl’s room, with each name written in elegant, slightly off-center calligraphic script.

“Prima, Sextas, Quinta, Quarta, Triana, Secunda!” he whispered as he found the clear white rectangular sign standing proudly perpendicular to the doorframe. He checked his comm- two in the morning. She’d probably be cranky, but sacrifices had to be made in the cause of love, liberty, and getting off-planet, fast!

He knocked rapidly at her door.

He waited, heard nothing.

He knocked rapidly a second time.

Again, nothing. No noise of any kind.

He knocked again. “Secunda?” He said, “Please answer the door! It’s me, Dallas!”

Now he did hear rustling, movement, and mumbles behind the door. She must be awake!

Locks beeped, and the faux wooden door swung open silently, just enough to see her perfect…

Face?

Secunda looked different.

Dallas had expected to see her in a state of just-awoken disarray. But this was different; she looked like she’d taken time to get ready, but she looked more…garish? She’d beamed on much more eye makeup than usual. Her blush, usually understated and barely visible, looked like a pair of crimson swaths across her cheekbones. He hair looked like it had been worked on, but pulled and shaped more to look like something designed to catch the attention of someone walking by rather than the long, beautiful waves he’d been used to seeing each time he’d arrived to court her.

Yes, garish would be the best word to use. He’d learned it from his tutor when they’d studied the Japanese culture of Old Earth, and-

No, focus.

Was she getting ready for something? She was in her bathrobe, and-

“What- Dallas?” She'd started the sentence with laser-beam thin narrowed eyes, the heavy level of makeup on the nanites sprayed on her eyelashes hiding her eyes’ whites.

“Hello, my dear! I have wonderful news for you! May I come in?”

“Uh- wha- no! No! It’s - it’s just not…whaddya want?”

“Proper? I understand. Here, I- I brought you something, along with wonderful news!”

“Um- Dallas,” she said, the door opened only enough to show her face, her eyes flicking to the right. “Dallas, you’re gonna need to come back in the morning.”

“I’ll be gone in the morning, Secunda! I’ll be off world, and you with me! I- look, this isn’t exactly how I planned things, but here.”

He dropped to one knee, opened his small backpack and took out the rolled-up paper he’d been carrying since he’d left Austin’s hab.

“What’re you doing?” Secunda said quietly.

“This,” Dallas said, clearing his throat as he undid the ribbon that held the scroll in place. Once undone, he unrolled the paper and began reading the words on it.

“To dearest Secunda, fair and true,

Whose grace transcends the earthly plain,

With golden locks that catch the morning's dew,

And eyes of green, a realm where love may reign.

Thy smile, a beacon in life's tempest sea,

Guiding my heart with its gentle light,

I stand before thee, on bended knee,

To pledge a love that time shall not smite.

Thine heart, a holy shrine, devout and pure,

A vessel blessed with Catholic grace,

In thee, my love, forever shall endure,

A sacred bond, time cannot efface.

Oh, Secunda dear, with joy profound,

Wilt thou, in love, with me be bound?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Wait- what?” She said. “Did you just- did you just propose to me, Dallas Morgan?” her voice suddenly went up in volume.

“I have indeed, my lady!” Dallas said, rising to his feet. “Will You Marry me?”

Any look of annoyance that had been on Secunda’s face suddenly disappeared, replaced by the sweet, coquettish look Dallas had seen and fallen in love with on all their pairings. “Dallas, um- Dallas, my dear, this is so sudden, so unexpected, and I,” she paused to put her hand to her chest, “I am decidedly not at my best! If you could return in an hour and- hey, waitaminute! Where’s my ring?”

“I- I couldn’t afford one, not yet. I cashed my trust fund, but we’re gonna need that money for travel and to set us up. Come with me! We’ll wake up Father Shen, he’ll marry us, and we’ll head to the stars together! Once I have us set up, we can-”

“Wait- you cashed your trust fund?”

“Uh- Yes. Why? Do you have money?”

“No, no, wait- you want to leave here? What about your position?”

“I’m leaving it! I talked to Pater, and he didn’t approve! So I stole my grandfather’s sword, and I *didn’t* tell the ride I purchased on credit to burn the pickup! Now, all we need to do is take the family’s…”

“Dallas, if you aren’t- if you haven’t- don’t you see? How are we going to earn money when we’re on the rim? Or in the core?”

“I’m going to take our ancestral Battle Mech, the Galatine. It’s still got the fuel cells in it from its last fight, and those don’t rot out or dissipate! We’ll liftoff together, get picked up in orbit, and from there, get dropped off at a-”

“No, Dallas.”

Dallas blinked.

“What?” he said. Someone just could have told him the world was actually flat, or that his family was dead and had all been replaced by robot doubles, and his reaction would not have been noticeably different.

“I’m not going. I’m not leaving New Avalon. You’re going to be poor inside of a month, and I’m not interested in that.” Her demeanor had changed a third time. Her smile, sparkling eyes and erect, dignified pose were all gone. They’d been replaced by a steely-eyed look, flat mouth and the kind of slouch that Dallas had associated with miscreants lined up against city walls wasting their lives away.

“I- Secunda, I don’t understand, you-” he stood. “We talked about- about our lives together!”

“That was when you had a title and a future.”

“I do have a future! I’ve got all I know, I’ve got a sword! I’m going to have a Battle Mech I could hire out, and-”

He stopped, suddenly, as Secunda looked to her right and the door opened all the way.

Now, standing next to Secunda, was a man a little taller than her but a bit shorter than Dallas, with longer dark hair. He was stripped to the waist with a lower- tunic covering his midsection and the top part of his legs.

“Is there a problem, here?” he said in a bored voice.

“No,” said Secunda. “Dallas here was just leaving.”

“No! No I’m not! Secunda, is this man pressuring you? Does he hold you and your mother in some kind of - some kind of bondage?”

“Pal,” said the man, glaring at Dallas and raising his voice, “you want that kind of action, you gotta go a few doors down the street! I run a clean place here, and all the girls under my roof don’t help per-”

“Fine!” said Dallas. “I see what’s going on here!”

“Do you really?” Secunda said, rolling her eyes as doors in the hallway began opening and her sisters began standing at the doors with annoyed expressions on their faces.

“Yes!” Dallas said. “Sir, I don’t know who you are, but-”

“My name’s Hardin.”

“Fine! Hardin! You and I both have a claim on Secunda! Prepare yourself! I challenge you to a duel! For her!”

“Claim?” Hardin said quietly, looking over at Secunda, who held up her hands and shook her head several times.

“Yes!” Dallas said, stepping back and standing erect. “I formally challenge you to a duel for the heart, soul, and hand of this young lady! Prepare yourself!”

“Lemme get this straight,” Harin said, smiling and leaning on Secunda’s doorframe. “You wanna challenge me? To what? A sim game?”

“A fight, brigand! Hand-to-hand combat! Right here, right now!” Dallas roared, dropping into the same fighting stance he’d used against his own father a few hours before. “I warn you, Hardin, that I’ve been trained by the best Martial artists on this world, and I took the third overall title at the tournament of the-”

“How do I know you aren’t gonna power up that cute little light-thrower on your belt?”

“Sir!” Dallas said, his stance unchanging but his eyes riveted to Hardin’s, “If you knew the first thing about honorable combat, you’d know that I cannot escalate the fight to that degree unless provoked! To do otherwise would instantly lose me the-”

Dallas never finished his sentence.

Hardin leaped at him. He was shorter than Dallas, but with powerful arms that knocked aside Dallas’ blocks as if they were attempts by a child to ward off the blows of an abusive father.

Dallas tried to step back, but Hardin rained blow after rapid blow to Dallas’ head, neck, shoulders, and ears.

Dallas’ head began ringing and spinning with the first landed hit. Another hit landed and now his jaw felt like it was floating loose in zero gravity, with the world ringing loud and whining incessantly in his ears.

The ringing was tinged with the high-pitched cheers of women, yelling and clapping as Dallas went down. Dallas was grateful almost for the fall. According to the rules of a duel, he’d have at least ten seconds to-

*WHUMP!* The kick to his ribs made him gasp for breaths that wouldn’t come. He felt things inside him bend and crack. The breath had left his body and wouldn’t come back in, no matter how hard he tried to will his useless mouth and lungs to suck in the air he so needed.

His chest, his gut, his back, the explosions of pain kept blasting in regular intervals without respite, pity, or respect. What was wrong? This wasn’t how a fight was supposed to go!

“Huh!” Dallas heard Hardin say, as something cold and dirty scraped against his face and left a bad stink in his nostrils. “Get that sack of -[mumbled words] here, and don’t any of you get any ideas of leaving me or Ma again!”

Two sets of powerful arms grabbed either side of Dallas by his shoulders. The world spun as he was propelled up, around, and heard clomping noised as he was bumped down the stairs.

“Ugh..ugah- wah?” he said, his rebel mouth refusing to form words.

“Shuddup,” said the voice of Secunda’s Momma next to his ear. “Stupid frapping idiot. Months of her an’ me playin’ dress up an’ church, and you hadda go ruin it. Yer lucky you got just a beatin’. Hardin’s shot men for ‘way less. Now,”

Dallas heard the sound of a door opening, and a blast of cold night air slapped him in the face and made his eyes open wide and look around. “Wha- Momma?”

“Just Ma, fool,” she said. Dallas was suddenly free of her embrace. The world spun for a moment, and then another blow slammed his already hurt side and head. He cried out and tried to keep the yell to a decent-sized grunt.

Breathing now, in pain-filled gulps that kicked his chest, gut and neck each time he inhaled, Dallas looked up. Momma/Ma was standing in a ratty housedress, her makeup and styled hair now smeared and disheveled. Secunda stood beside her. The eyes that Dallas had gone to sleep dreaming about now looked cold and hard as ice chips on an Outside night.

“Se-seh-secoo..nah…” he barely spat out, his puffing-up eyes searching, hoping, praying to find the girl he’d loved somewhere in this new face that now hovered ten feet and ten-thousand light years above him.

He looked at Secunda’s mouth. The mouth she’d used to kiss him and melt his heart with a well-practiced smile. It now curled its upper lip and turned from him as she headed back through the door of the restaurant.

Dallas closed his eyes. He barely noticed as another pair of much gentler arms picked him up, placed him on a cushioned seat that smelled of cigavape smoke, and another door slammed behind him. The rev of an engine and the familiar sense of anti-grav generatires lifting him off the street and into the air brought a surprising, if small amount of comfort to Dallas, even though it seemed like his body was a single, throbbing wound.

A click sounded, and soft music began playing through the ‘horse cab. A singer’s voice began wafting around Dallas’ head, the voice he could not precisely place, but recognized only from the few times he’d entered his Pater’s study while the older man had been working on a difficult issue and needed help to focus.

There goes my only possession

There goes my everything

“Don’t you worry, pard,” said the deep, soft voice from the driver’s seat. “I’ll get yeh t’where y’all ‘ll get fixed up.”

I hear footsteps slowly walking

As they gently walk across the lonely floor

And a voice is softly saying

Darling this will be goodbye for evermore

There goes my reason for living

There goes the one of my dreams

There goes my only possession

There goes my everything

“Ha-hank, oo…” Dallas mumble through swelling lips.

“Don’t think nuthin’ of it, pard. Just enjoy th’ride, and listen to the song. Nothing beats classical music, pard, when your heart’s broke.”

Dallas settled back and looked up at the sky through the rear window. He tried to think of Secunda, but the pain was greater than the aches on his body. A single tear rolled down his cheek as ‘horse hummed over the city and the voice of a man dead ten centuries crooned softly about a kind of pain and anguish men had known for ten-thousand years or more.

As my memory turns back the pages

I can see the happy years we've had before

Now the love that kept this heart beating

Has been shattered by the closing of the door

----

TO BE CONTINUED...