Page 42 of Into The Rift

“There’s plenty of food and bottled water. It’s in the storage cabinet behind you and is replenished on a regular basis.”

“Pton food?”

“Well, of course, it is. Pton food is far superior to anything I’ve eaten from your people.”

“Ha!”

Since there wasn’t a lot to respond to in that, I said nothing and watched him as he turned away and began opening cabinets. He picked around and found a few containers and out them on the counter. I figured it did me little good to just stand around and watch him, though that was increasingly what I wanted to do.

I left him to the airing out of the sheets and blankets and went to make sure there was no sign that anyone had been using the facility recently. I checked every room and found nothing, so I finally began to relax.

I sat down in front of the communications modules to find government channels I could monitor and try to pick up on any news or chatter from the planet. I was especially interested in Lady Melanius and any news of her fate. Was she still imprisoned or had her family managed to win her release?

I felt guilty about the affair we’d had—not because of any concerns over Linnius and his feelings. He didn’t have any feelings that I could see. But I didn’t want anything to happen to Melanius. She was a strong woman and capable of handling herself, and she never should have allied herself with Linnius in the first place. But she had, and now she was paying the price. Melanius was more of a friend than anything else, though we both used each other for casual sex from time to time. It didn’t mean I wasn’t worried about her.

I was attracted to both women and men and had no preference for either sex, really. Lately, however, I’d come to especially like small, blue-haired young men who were half Jayronian and half Tygerian and totally exotic and adorable.

And “adorable” was a word I’d never used before in my life.

Jago was also incredibly irritating and yet somehow endearing at the same time. He was someone who filled my thoughts and left little room for anything or anyone else—which didn’t make him one bit less annoying.

“Niko?’

As if on cue, Jago spoke behind my chair, and I turned to look at him.

“Yes?” I answered, despite his use of the ridiculous name my grandmother saw fit to call me. We needed to talk about that soon.

“I’m sorry to bother you…” he said in a little stilted voice to make sure I knew he was still angry.

“Since when?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Go ahead. What is it you need?”

“I was wondering…do you have a plan yet? For taking care of the emperor? How are you intending to kill him?”

“At the moment, I have no idea.”

“You don’t?”

His tone was incredulous, but I’d had little time to think of any kind of plan yet. I was busy trying to keep us alive.

All right, I’d had years to think, but that was part of the problem. I always thought there’d be time and things would be clearer. I was busy with my own work and consolidating my own position in the world and things hadn’t seemed pressing.

This was before he’d started his aggressive moves against all the neighboring planets and advertised his ambitions to branch out even into the next galaxy. His assumption of power had been almost insidious until suddenly, he was a clear and present danger, fully realized. I’d hated him for years and had vowed revenge, but that was as far as it had gone. At least to this point.

“No, Jago, I don’t have an established plan yet. He keeps bodyguards around him at all times, and he pays them well to keep them loyal.”

“Would it be possible to get to them and pay them off to get them to look the other way long enough to do it?”

“Probably, with enough money and enough time. I don’t have either of those things.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

“There is no ‘we’ in this. You’ll out of this altogether.”

“But maybe I can help.”

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