The Scarlet Empress Read online

  SOAR TO THE HEAVENS WITH JET PILOT &

  RITA AWARD WINNER SUSAN GRANT!

  “A roaring conclusion [to the 2176 series] . . . a terrific romantic thriller and a deeply moving tribute to liberty.”

  —Mary Jo Putney, nationally bestselling

  author of A Kiss of Fate

  “[Grant writes] highly original, exotic, and steamy adventures about aviatrix heroines.”

  —Chris Gilson, author of Crazy for Cornelia

  THE LEGEND OF BANZAI MAGUIRE

  “[A] cliffhanger conclusion, awe-inspiring characters and droll humor.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Grant strikes gold with an amazing new heroine. . . . Exhilarating.”

  —Romantic Times (Top Pick)

  “Grant’s superb writing talent shines in this action-packed and thought-provoking story.”

  —Old Book Barn Gazette

  “Filled with humor, suspense, and romance, The Legend of Banzai Maguire is not to be missed.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Ms. Grant . . . absolutely blew me away with The Legend of Banzai Maguire. . . . It is fast-paced, keep you on the edge of your seat reading.”

  —Timeless Tales

  THE STAR PRINCESS

  “Sexy humor and playfulness make this tale of romance and political intrigue a hot buy!”

  —Romantic Times

  “A fascinating storyworld. . . . I strongly recommend The Star Princess as a thoroughly enjoyable experience.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Witty dialogue, well-developed characters, and insightful explorations . . . abound in this funny, sexy story.”

  —Library Journal

  MORE PRAISE FOR NEW YORK TIMES

  BESTSELLING AUTHOR SUSAN GRANT!

  CONTACT

  “Susan Grant’s splendid visual imagery, natural dialogue, and superb characterization . . . will wring your emotions, touch your heart, and leave you breathless.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Susan Grant continues her stratospheric ascent with her latest, combining action and romance in a gripping, thought-provoking package.”

  —The Romance Reader

  THE STAR PRINCE

  “Political intrigue, deadly intentions, and power struggles give the plot of The Star Prince the depth and passion that is fast becoming Susan Grant’s trademark.”

  —The Midwest Book Review

  THE STAR KING

  “Drop everything and read this book!”

  —Susan Wiggs

  “Excitement, action, adventure and wonderful romance!”

  —Romantic Times

  “Evocative and exciting!”

  —Mrs. Giggles from Everything Romantic

  ONCE A PIRATE

  “Grant’s background . . . brings authenticity to her heroine.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The best romance I read this year!”

  —The Romance Reader

  “A delightful, sexy story [that] you won’t want to put down. A real winner!”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “ Once a Pirate is a fast and rollicking adventure. Following [Grant’s] career as she hones her craft will be a pleasure!”

  —The Romance Journal

  A ROYAL WELCOME

  There! A shadow moved under the water. Long and dark, it glided beneath the surface. Cam almost swallowed her heart.

  Powerful arms propelled the bounty hunter through the water as easily as a fish. As he stopped to search the boulders along the rim of the pool, his long black hair fanned out, undulating with his movements. He pushed off again, his stomach flex-ing. A set of six-pack abs warned Cam that he’d be no easy man to overpower. All the more reason to cork him on the first try. A head start was going to be very important in this match.

  She readied her rock for striking. Closer, sugar, come a little closer to me. The second his head came above water, she’d whack it like a coconut and run like hell.

  Other books in the 2176 series:

  THE LEGEND OF BANZAI MAGUIRE by Susan Grant

  DAY OF FIRE by Kathleen Nance

  THE SHADOW RUNNERS by Liz Maverick

  THE POWER OF TWO by Patti O’Shea

  Other books by Susan Grant:

  THE STAR PRINCESS

  THE ONLY ONE (anthology)

  CONTACT

  A MOTHER’S WAY ROMANCE (anthology)

  THE STAR PRINCE

  THE STAR KING

  ONCE A PIRATE

  SUSAN

  GRANT

  THE SCARLET

  EMPRESS

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  DORCHESTER PUBLISHING

  Published by

  Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  200 Madison Avenue

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © 2004 by Susan Grant

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Trade ISBN: 978-1-4285-1694-6

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-4285-1693-9

  First Dorchester Publishing, Co., Inc. edition: December 2004

  The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Visit us online at www.dorchesterpub.com.

  My heartfelt thanks to authors Patti O’Shea, Liz Maverick, and Kathleen Nance for agreeing to be part of the 2176 project; to Chris Keeslar for the hard work in helping make it happen; to Dorchester Publishing for going with my idea in the first place; to Susan Squires, Ronda Thompson, and Pamela Britton for their equine expertise; to Cindy Holby and Patti O for spur-of-the-moment reads; to Mary Jo Putney for her lovely quote; and to Màili/Holly for coming up with a fantastic title for this finale book. Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to all the readers who came along on this wild ride. Your support and enthusiasm mean the world to me.

  THE SCARLET

  EMPRESS

  Life will throw you a ninety-degree left turn when you least expect it, but that’s no excuse to travel along riding the brakes, I always say. If you live too carefully, you risk lo
sing the thrill of the journey. I know. I had two chances to navigate life’s path, and each time the ride got wilder.

  My name is Maguire, Bree Maguire. Most know me as “Banzai,” my fighter-pilot call sign, the earning of which is a story in itself. My gutsy Japanese-American great-grandmother’s actions may have won me the label, but my flying was the reason it stuck. Debate all you want about the fine line between “insane” and “fearless,” but me, I laughed at danger. As a pilot I pushed the limits; I skated on the edge. The more risk involved, the more eager I was to tackle the mission. I was everything I wasn’t in my personal life, where I preferred to proceed with caution, yellow warning lights flashing.

  Then everything changed.

  One long-ago wintry morning, my wingmate and I took off from our airbase on a United Nations–sanctioned patrol sortie known as Operation Keep the Peace. We expected the usual drill: a flyover of the North Korean side of the border, then of the Southern side, a few easy hours carving racetrack patterns in the sky. As flight lead of a pair of F-16s, a position I’d earned through rank and experience, I’d oversee the overall handling of the mission—a routine mission. In the spirit of sudden sharp turns, it turned out to be anything but.

  Shot down and captured by a mad scientist, my wingmate and I slept through almost two centuries imprisoned in biostasis deep in a cave before anyone figured out we were there. When I woke, the year was 2176 and everyone I knew and loved was dead.

  Or was missing. My wingmate was gone, and no one knew what had happened to her. I vowed to find out, no matter how long it took. Not only was I the flight leader and responsible for her safety, Lt. Cameron “Scarlet” Tucker was my closest friend.

  Cam was a top gun soaked with Southern charm. With a Southern-belle mother and an army-general father, she was supposed to have gone straight from charm school to hosting soirees for a West Point–grad husband. Instead, she set her sights on the U.S. Air Force Academy, pilot training, and fighter school, taking distinguished grad honors at all three. Few seemed to grasp Cam’s potential, and I loved nothing more than watching her smash expectations. She was never one to give up. She’d fight until the end. That was why, no matter what anyone told me about the hopeless odds of finding her, I knew she was alive and looking for me, too.

  Complications—big ones—kept us apart. Our new world was nothing like the one we’d known. I was the “guest” of Prince Kyber, the acting emperor of Asia. Gone was the United States, the country we’d served and loved, swallowed up by a meganation called the United Colonies of Earth that for all its foibles had actually delivered on the promise of stability and world peace. It stretched across the globe, with “colonies” of Mexico, Antarctica, South America, and the Middle East. The cost? Liberty, free speech, and a government elected by the people.

  Someone wanted to change all that, though. A mysterious freedom fighter I knew in those days only as the Shadow Voice, or the Voice of Freedom, was a defiant advocate for liberty who seemingly granted me none of my own by sweeping me into the heart of a revolution.

  A revolution that began as a tax revolt, like four hundred years before.

  But this wasn’t just any tax; nor was it just any revolt. Like everywhere else on Earth, in the UCE the Interweb was the main source of communication, entertainment, education—everything. In dire need of funds, the overextended nation’s bureaucrats had slapped a tax on the Interweb to squeeze money from its most powerful colony, Central—what had once been the contiguous United States. Like the British in pre-revolutionary America, the bureaucrats seemed indifferent to the almost universal resentment the new tax created.

  That was where the Shadow Voice, or the Voice of Freedom, came in. Its goal? To make sure the events of 1776 repeated themselves: a full-fledged rebellion in Central, leading to independence and democracy as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. But to accomplish that, the Voice claimed to need me.

  I was the equivalent of Paul Revere’s ride, the Boston Tea Party, and Yankee Doodle all rolled into one. I stood for freedom and democracy, Uncle Sam and apple pie—everything that had been lost when the USA became part of the UCE. If you think I saw myself in those terms, rest assured I did not. I didn’t want to be the revolution’s mascot any more than I wanted to be the Voice of Freedom’s muse. This wasn’t my world. It wasn’t my war. My duty was to find Cam, and that was all.

  The Voice was patient, though. Or perhaps it knew me better than I wanted to admit. Using quotes by the Founding Fathers, it grabbed my attention. Playing on my patriotism and my inbred sense of duty, honor, and country, it lured me closer. “ ‘The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands now deserves the love and thanks of men and women.’ ”

  It worked. I took the bait. That was how I ended up in the middle of the Indian Ocean, waiting to make contact with a nameless, faceless rebel instead of searching for Cam, all while praying that the guilt of that decision didn’t eat me from the inside out. Yet, given the chance to save my country and everything it stood for from extinction, how could I refuse? I sure as hell couldn’t. Neither, it turned out, could Cam.

  Those earlier adventures I recounted in The Legend of Banzai Maguire, but what you know is far from the final chapter. I am an old woman now; it has been over seventy years since Cam and I began our journeys, and high time, she says, that I finish telling the rest: how in a world turned upside down, two men vied for our trust—and more. One was supposed to be an enemy; the other an ally. Both gentlemen, we soon learned, were a little bit of each. Their love for us and ours for them proved essential to the destiny we were born to fulfill. Our exploits, they say, are legendary. But more than that, they are true.

  Now, sit back and let me tell you a story, a story of the heart. Four hearts, to be exact . . .

  “I am well aware of the toil and blood it will cost you to come to me, Banzai Maguire, but come to me you must. Hear my words; heed my call. I am waiting for you.”

  —The Voice of Freedom, heard on the Trans-Malaysian Interweb, October 2176

  Chapter One

  Rocks pelted a sleek black sedan making halting progress through the streets of New Washington, DC. Hastily erected electronic barriers restrained an angry mob. Black-clad UCE police were too overwhelmed trying to keep the protestors in one place to worry about the few who got free.

  A small group ran onto the road and emptied their arsenal of rocks at the approaching sedan. A proximity alarm beeped inside the vehicle, and the driver braked.

  “Go!” UCE Supreme Commander General Aaron Armstrong rapped his knuckles on the clear barrier separating him from his driver. Do not stop, he mouthed to the sergeant, who floored the accelerator. There was a thud, a jerk of the steering wheel. A body tumbled over the bumper, striking a corner of the windshield before rolling off into the street.

  How am I to avoid hitting them when they throw themselves at the car? Once more, he pressed the phone to his ear. “Back with you, Mr. President—”

  A flaming pipe glanced off the hood and whacked the shatterproof windshield.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” Armstrong grumbled. “Next time I’ll take a heli-jet.”

  The sedan accelerated. Armstrong could no longer see the individuals in the crowd or read the slogans on the signs they carried. The gaudy American flags—it seemed every protester brandished such an artifact now—became a broad, neutral blur. Speed had canceled out the fury of the mob.

  The general relaxed against the rear passenger seat. It was recently upholstered in UCE blue; he could smell the new leather. He lifted the phone back to his ear. Before he could speak, a communicator resting in his other hand vibrated: once, twice, three times. His fingers flexed convulsively around the unit. It repeated the code, as he’d hoped. Finally. He had waited long enough for this moment. Too long, he often feared of late.

  “Hello? Are you there, Aaron?” the president was shouting into the phone.

  “Indeed I am.” A
smile curved the general’s mouth. “And with news. Good news.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone line. It was the closest he’d ever heard Julius Beauchamp come to breathless anticipation.

  “We found her,” Armstrong told him.

  “Banzai Maguire s . . .”

  “Yes. We’ve a positive location. The team is in place.”

  “Grab her! Despite our every effort to stop those broadcasts, the damage done, Aaron . . . it is incalculable. Banzai’s ability to escape us has reached mythical proportions amongst our citizenry. They say she turns to air to slip out of any trap, that she catches bullets with her teeth! She can change the minds of men with a single look.”

  “Surely you don’t believe that, Mr. President.”

  Beauchamp growled. “I want her heart on a platter.”

  “A bit medieval, that, but it can be done.”

  “Banzai is the worst threat we’ve faced in two centuries. Her weapons? Passion. Inspiration,” the president spat. “That’s my job, Aaron—my job to inspire the people, not this outsider’s. She doesn’t know jack about our world. Her actions prove it. She doesn’t understand how only we, the UCE, stand between world peace and chaos. I want her silenced. I want her gone.”

  Armstrong smiled. “All but done, Mr. President. All but done.”

  “And the second pilot? Lieutenant Tucker? Could she have been raised, too, like the legends suggest? Any sign that she survived?”

  “None yet. She wasn’t in the cave where Banzai first surfaced, though they were said to be buried there together.”

  “A paradox. How do you explain it?”

  “Interference by an outside party is my hunch. Someone wants her as badly as we do. If Cameron Tucker’s alive, Mr. President, I’ll find her. Meanwhile, we soon will have Banzai.”

  Ahead, several hundred protesters broke through a barrier and surged into the street, setting off the black sedan’s proximity alarm once more. A soft computerized voice repeated the warning: “Stop. Obstruction in roadway. Stop.”