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

squirmed
in embarrassment, pulling away slightly from Les’s body.
    Les cleared his throat. “Um. Where are
we? Besides ‘in deep shit in a ventilation duct’?”
    So they were both going to ignore
it.
    “Above the starboard hull of the
space-station,” said Royce, taking care to keep his tone even.
“Right where the Imperial cruiser should be.”
    “We missed the ship?”
    “Yup.”
    “Kova have taken the station?”
    “Yup.”
    “We need to get back to the planet,
within the hour, or my head explodes?”
    “Yup.”
    “We can’t get through Kovan security
like this?”
    “Nope.”
    Les sighed. “I’m fucked.”
    “ We’re fucked,” corrected Royce.
He could feel Les twitching against his chest; the man would have
twisted around to confront Royce, eyes flashing, had it not been
for the probes stuck into his head. Royce smiled ruefully.
    “I’m not leaving you,” said Royce.
    “I-”
    “No. Think , Les. What would you
do if you discovered than an Imperial Agent was being
set-up—fatally—to steal tech that will start a war? Could you turn
your back on a brother-agent, continue onwards with your mission,
in such a circumstance?”
    Les relaxed. Then, surprisingly, he
chuckled. “You’re right, of course, but I might not have been quite
so…touchy-feely, full-body-contact, with a brother agent.”
    So they were going to talk about it
after all.
    “I can’t…,” Royce trailed off. Then he
cleared his throat. “You were having mini-seizures by the time I
dragged you in here. I had to restrain you while I dealt with the
chip. But I didn’t touchy-feely you, if that’s any
help.”
    Les clucked his tongue. “You passed up a
perfectly good opportunity to grope me? That doesn’t sound like the
Royce Ree I knew.”
    And just like that, Royce’s good mood
evaporated. “The Royce Ree you knew was married to you.”
    Les was silent for a time. When he spoke
again, his tone was absolutely neutral. “You were right. As always.
The Emperor does not assign missions directly to covert-ops,
regardless of whose mother he dines with. I assume you have a
plan?”
    Royce sighed. “Sort of. I need more
information. From you, to start.”
    Les settled back against Royce’s chest,
careful to keep his hands to himself. “I’d been driving a desk for
months at HQ. It was getting old. I put my name on the field-ops
roster again. Got assigned a watch-and-report on Baldasshi…about a
standard-year ago. Then, six months in, a deep-cover courier showed
up. Had all the right authentication, the passphrases—I ran all the
checks. I’m not gullible, Royce.” The last was a plea.
    “No, you’re not. This whole thing stinks
of something way above our pay-grade. The programming on the chip’s
shit. The hardware’s real. So what happened next?”
    “We met in my rented apartment for the
implant-surgery. A quick nanobot job. Not quite professional, but I was out of it for most of the time. After the
op, the courier handed over my cover ID at the research lab, then
left. I started ‘work’ a week after.”
    “If you’re caught or killed,” said
Royce, frowning, “there’s no plausible deniability in the
situation. The Spymaster couldn’t simply claim you went rogue.”
    Just the mere suggestion that the
Emperor had ordered a drive stolen…half the Houses would turn on
him. Civil war was a very real possibility, and once Trinity
started fracturing from within…
    Les was shivering. Not surprising. The
vent was getting cooler as the station gradually transitioned to a
simulated Baldessh night.
    Abruptly, Royce made a decision.
“Alright. We revert back to my mission’s cover—Imperial couturiers
answering the Princess’s summons. We go down to the planet, reset
your chip. You then steal a ship with a real FTL drive so you can
get off the surface safely.”
    Meanwhile, I hunt down the fucker that
put that thing in you, and castrate him with a rusty spoon—
    “While giving fashion advice to