Hostile Genus: An Epic Military Sci-Fi Series (Invasive Species Book 2) Ben Stevens (best contemporary novels txt) 📖

his back, there were three trusted men, in Shanty-appropriate street clothes, who had positioned themselves in strategic locations throughout the bar, keeping tabs on and preventing Matiaba from escaping out the back.

Matiaba, closest aide and practical second-in-command of the Republic under Chairman Accoba Warbak. A true weasel of a man who had been responsible for the capture and creation of Lucy, Maya’s oldest guardian, among many other crimes, including prostitution and torture.

The aide had gone missing during the events of the Purge and it had been assumed that he was dead, although a body had never been recovered. Now, more than three weeks later, here he was, in the flesh, nursing a jar of Belsen’s famous hooch and acting as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

Miller’s men had informed him that they had reached out to Belsen, the pub’s proprietor, and informed him what was about to go down. Now Miller looked to the bar and made eye contact with the man, nodding to him.

“Bar is closed!” Belsen shouted, getting every bit of mileage out of his barrel-sized chest and sounding as if he had a megaphone at his disposal. “Clear the room! Now!”

A multitude of confused imbibers glanced around, not understanding. Only one figure remained cool and still—Matiaba.

“I said out! Now!” Belsen retrieved a pump-action pre-Storm shotgun and chambered a round for effect, sending the previously chambered round flying across the room.

Getting the message loud and clear, everyone, human and Displaced alike, abandoned their poison and began filing out toward the door.

Belsen approached Miller near the rear of the herd, a sheepdog to the sheep.

“Try not to make a mess, man,” he said.

“I give you my word,” Miller replied, placing one huge hand on the equally big man’s shoulder.

“Gig’s up, Matiaba. We have you surrounded. There is no escape this time,” Miller said as he approached the aide from behind. He signaled his men, front and back, and the five of them arranged themselves into a large circle around Miller and the former aide.

“This time? Escape? Whatever are you talking about? I never escaped to begin with. I thought we were free now,” Matiaba said without turning around. The aide extended one lithe leg under the table and pushed a chair back for Miller.

“We are free, Matiaba. But you, you won’t be for long. You need to answer for your crimes.” Miller walked around the table to face Matiaba, ignoring the offered chair.

“My crimes?” Matiaba looked up at Miller over the top of his brew. “Pardon me, General, but all I did was follow orders. Surely not every officer in the Republic that wasn’t part of your Underground Resistance has been arrested.”

Miller stopped, caught off guard, and stared, slack-jawed.

“From what I’ve seen, every able-bodied man and woman in Home that didn’t leave with the Old Guard has been given a new job. Have you asked yourself why I didn’t leave with the Schismatics?”

“I—uh… no. I haven’t asked myself that,” Miller said, collecting himself. “Though you should be asking yourself that. We are taking you in, Matiaba.”

The former aide stopped smiling and sat up straight, pulling the wrinkles out of his shirt as he did.

“Again, I ask, why am I being treated differently than any other soldier in the former Republic?”

“You know why,” Miller said. “For the things you done.”

“Things?”

“What you did to Lucy, for starters.” Miller signaled to his men and their circle around the table tightened.

“General Miller, I fear you aren’t hearing me. The ‘things’ I did were nothing more than me following orders.”

“Nice try,” Miller said. “Come on, get up. Don’t make me tear this place up.”

“No need to be dramatic, I will go with you.”

“You… what?” Miller asked.

“You heard me correctly.”

Miller glanced up to the faces of the men who now stood behind the table, reading them, hoping somehow to see what they might think of this peculiar and unexpected turn of events.

“At the very least, I would like a fair trial. Allow me to present myself to your council. Allow me to make my defense. Clear my good name. That is why I didn’t go with the Old Guard. Clearly, you must see that I had the opportunity?”

Miller found that he couldn’t argue with the logic. Matiaba hadn’t been seen or heard of since before the Purge. He could have escaped if escape had been his plan. But what was his plan?

Miller caught the scrutinizing glances of his men, no doubt all wondering what he would do. He shifted in place for an uncomfortable minute. Matiaba remained seated and staring at him, but bore no hint of irony or cockiness, yet Miller found himself unable to trust the man.

“Fine. I’ll take you to the council. You’ll get your fair trial. But you had better not try any funny stuff.”

Raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture, Matiaba stood. “You have my word.”

10

“Please, allow me,” the bellhop said, holding the door open for Maya, now Lily Sapphire. She smiled, curtsied, and walked into the room.

Lucy quickly moved to follow, but the bellhop deftly positioned himself between the two women.

“We have a room prepared for you just downstairs, miss.”

The bellhop, a short, weaselly, sweaty man, raised a conciliatory hand to Lucy and motioned to his left, back out into the hallway from which they had just come.

Lucy smiled at this, cocking her head slightly, taking perverse pleasure in the fact that were she of the mind, she could rend the upper half of this man’s body from the lower with a roundhouse kick.

“No bother,” Maya called out from inside the penthouse suite. “She will be sleeping with me, Mister…”

“Pedro, Miss Sapphire. Pedro Gonzales, at your service.” He stepped aside and bowed his head.

“I did not realize that your assistant was with you.” He leered at Lucy as she walked past him and licked his sweaty lips. Lucy suppressed a shudder like a sick person attempting not to vomit.

“And the boy?” Pedro inquired, his eyebrows arched in a knowing expression.

“Please, I would have him in here