Read The Emperor's New Clothes (Royce Ree #1) for Free Online

paused to take a breath.
“Are you in trouble with the Kova?”
    Royce glanced up at the woman; her eyes
were frightened—she’d caught her father’s whispered accusation. The
crow was awake now, taking the scene in with its beady
crow-eyes.
    Royce went with his instinct.
    “Yes,” he said. “And probably with your
High Command too.”
    “Black, black sheep,” wheezed the
old marine. “Sold us out to the Kova. Child, give him the
cart.”
    “Da!”
    “ My cart,” snapped the man.
“Empty it.”
    “But Da, how will I—”
    “If I may make a suggestion,” said
Royce, as he reached into his belt-pocket, “a porter will be more
than happy to transport you and the—” he glanced at the old man’s
shoulder-tabs, “lieutenant, for a small fee.” He then pressed a
couple of hard plastic rectangles—two of his untraceable
credit-chips—into the woman’s hand.
    She looked down, saw the number
displayed on the readouts. Her eyes grew wide. “Um. Alright. Yes. A
porter.”
    It took a few minutes to unload
everything from the hover-cart, strap Les’s still-unconscious frame
to the tow-pallet. Once the transfer was complete, the lieutenant’s
daughter made a call to the transportation service.
    Royce thanked the two, and left them
sitting on their luggage, as he began to push the cart towards the
mouth of the corridor.
    “Give ‘em hell!” called old man after
them.
    “Squaak!” That was the crow, obviously
in agreement.
    Despite his mounting panic over Les’s
condition, Royce grinned to himself, and gave the Peacekeeper a
half-salute.

7 DAYS
AGO

“ The near-religious zeal with which
each civilization protects its FTL-variant makes any kind of
comparative study impossible. The whole thing might as well be
magic.”
    -Introduction to Spaceflight
Mechanics
    193rd Edition
VENTILATION DUCT, SPACE-STATION,
BALDASSHI PLANETARY SPACE
    “Hush, hush now, you’re safe,” whispered
Royce as Les slowly came to with a groan. His body was propped up
against Royce’s chest, his legs trapped under Royce’s to stop the
thrashing. Royce knew it would take his ex a few moments to adjust
to the surroundings.
    Once he did, “Another ventilation duct?”
asked Les. “Where the hell are we, Royce?”
    “In deep shit.”
    Les struggled in his grasp, tried to sit
up.
    “Stop!” commanded Royce. “I’ve got three
probes stuck into that thing in your skull. If you pull any of them
loose….”
    Les’s struggles ceased immediately.
“What happened?”
    “Your drive-core was a fake,” said
Royce. “The chip didn’t see a Baldasshi FTL field once it got to
zero-gee. And as far as I can tell, that triggered a
failure-condition.”
    “The Kova were leaving ,” said
Les. “Told you it was important.” The last came out as a whisper.
“They can’t legally take the core, but they took it anyway,
switched it out for a fake.”
    “So it seems,” said Royce.
    “I should be dead.” Les’s voice was
calm. A false calm, Royce knew, born of shock and an operative’s
training.
    “Yeah well the drive’s not the only
thing that’s fake,” said Royce. “Chip’s software is a hack-job. I
reset it with jerry-rigged probes. But we need to get out of
null-gee before it recalibrates. In…um…Maybe forty-five
minutes?”
    “Can you deactivate it?” asked Les.
    “Not without better equipment.”
    Seemingly oblivious—or uncaring—of their
awkward positions, Les moved his body to a slightly more
comfortable orientation, careful to keep his head still. In doing
so, his hand brushed lightly against Royce’s leg. Royce bit back a
groan at the sudden contact. Why is it that you can manhandle
him three ways to Trinity to get him in here, prop him up between
your goddamn legs and touch him everywhere when he’s unconscious
without twitching, but you react like a virgin schoolgirl when he
touches you accidentally?
    And reacting he was. There was no way
Les was not feeling Royce pressing against his hip. Royce