The Weapons of War by Dan Schiro

Author:Dan Schiro [Schiro, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Space Opera
Publisher: Dan Schiro
Published: 2019-06-24T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Orion took the executive tube down to the Grand Plaza for a fresh shave and haircut, but Skagg’s place was dark and locked. Had the old poxgane barber finally taken that vacation, or had he simply closed at a reasonable hour for once? With a shrug, Orion headed up to the Palladium Eatery to gorge himself on Fin & Tail sushi.

He got his first clue that not everyone felt the way the Legionnaires did when he sat down at the bar. Bog Gu’labinate, the normally gregarious owner and chef, barely spoke to Orion or met his eyes as he cut precise slices of lockhovven fish and fire eel with his many tentacles. Orion ate while Bog wiped down cutting boards and polished thin knives, making a show of washing instruments that were already clean so he wouldn’t have to engage with Orion.

With his belly full and his bill paid, Orion decided to take a page out of his father’s book. After all, if one was going to wallow in self-pity, they should at least have the class to do it with expensive liquor. He left Fin & Tail, made his way through the Palladium Eatery’s maze of one-room restaurants and took the common gravity lift for the long ride up to the 199th floor. The lift’s other occupants, a gaggle of frayen women with elaborately dyed wing feathers, fell silent when he stepped aboard. The young women eyed him with sidelong sneers until they strutted off on the 188th floor’s boutique district.

When gravity lift doors opened on the lobby of the Orbit Lounge, Orion froze. He had not been this high in Echohax Tower since Election Day, when LaVal LaVoy had kidnapped Katherine Vanlith and goaded him into violence by murdering her. Suppressing a sudden urge to flee the building and hug his body to the Hub’s street, he stepped off the gravity lift. His father wouldn’t have let past traumas get in the way of his drunken brooding, so neither would he. Orion took a deep breath and transmitted his executive credentials from his datacube to open the iris-like door.

As usual, the exclusive club was busy with business owners from the tower’s lower floors and the Hub’s wealthy elite. A sour mutter spread through the room as necks turned his direction and nudging elbows alerted others to his arrival. Though Orion usually visited the Orbit Lounge for its networking opportunities, he got the feeling his public image would need a little rehabilitation before he started handing out business cards again. Nevertheless, he strolled into the well-dressed crowd, ignoring the pinpricks of eyes and bitter whispers as he passed. Crossing the color-shift glass floor, he took a low table by the tall windows that ringed the room. A couple of great apes at the table next to him appraised him with a scathing glare, scooped up their exotic drinks and lumbered off to find another spot. Sinking into the bio-mold cushions of the clear chair, Orion gazed at the alien fish trapped in the tabletop’s slender aquarium.

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