Benjamin Gold

Location: Gold Island, Aurum, Gold Technologies Corporate Territory, United Commonwealth of Colonies

Ben groaned as consciousness gripped his mind. He heard the soft lapping of waves against the distant shore, the cry of gulls as they coasted on the thermals, and the murmuring of voices as the house’s staff went about their daily routine. He rolled from one side to the other and looked into the mess of hair that was his fiancé. Her arm was draped over him, and her lithe body was tangled in the sheets. The tangle wasn’t even from crazy monkey sex, she just tossed and turned a lot in her sleep. It was one of the many things he had to get used to with her.

They were both still coping with galactic jetlag. That was a bitch. Ships operated on standard twenty-four hour Earth schedules; but going from being stationed on Earth for months, and then a ship’s schedule since The Disaster – which was what everyone was calling the shitstorm in the Sol system now-a-days – adjusting to a new planet’s solar rotation was tough. If there was anything bad about coming to Aurum that he could think of, it was its planetary rotation: a twenty-eight hour day. It played hell on one’s circadian rhythm when you arrived, but a lot of people swore by it when they adjusted. The planet had a nine-hour standard work-day, but that left three hours for additional activities. At the moment, that meant sleep for the newly arrived Gold family.

They’d flown down from orbit to the family estate, which happened to sit on a private island the size of Massachusetts. Even better, the island was man-made by Thomas Gold himself right off the coast of the capitol city. Even better than that, it was big enough to require a delegate to the planetary governing body. Guess who that was?

The compound itself was a palace in everything but name. In reality, it was more like several palaces as there were homes and staff scattered across the island to take advantage of its great views and minor seasonal changes. This afternoon, which felt like morning, they were at the main compound that surrounded the end of the ten-kilometer bridge that lead to the capitol.

Instead of bedding down in the golden monstrosity, Ben and Jacobi had opted for a smaller guest house, that was still three times larger than anything either of them had ever lived it. By the time they arrived, it was already prepped by the staff and ready to receive them. They ended up just passing out, but now that the room’s sensors were detecting their stirring, things were starting to come alive. A holoscreen popped up with a local morning news station on mute. The scurrying of the staff became more pronounced as they hurried to finish whatever they were doing to prepare for Ben’s awakening.

To the locals, the Gold Family was legendary. They were the people who’d sculpted this paradise from nothing. They owned whole systems, spent GPDs of entire system’s economies on frivolities: although the last one was his half-sister Lillian, who was most likely dead now. Nevertheless, her itchy trigger finger with the family checkbook added to the family’s mystery. All of that was on top of the enhanced genome, and the golden sheen to their skin and hair that made them stand out just a bit from normal people.

As far as he knew, Thomas hadn’t used Gold Island – a stupid name if there ever was one – in years, and now it was the sight of some big conference set to go down today. To say the staff was a little panicked was an understatement.

“What . . . where . . .?” Jacobi groaned into the pillow as her hand felt around for him.

“I’m going to hit the shower,” Ben informed her as he entered the space large enough to hold a family of four.

The autowash setting on the shower felt like a million tiny hands massaging the weariness and dirty out of him. It was better than a massage, and he emerged clean and invigorated. He gave Jacobi’s protruding ass a quick slap to get her moving. Her cursing followed him as he walked down the hallway to the kitchen and dining room.

The staff practically tripped over themselves when he appeared. “Good morning, sir . . . hello, Master Gold . . .” were the common forms of address. He just told them to call him Ben. The look they gave him made it sound like he was the crazy one, but they quickly nodded and laid out a spread fit for a king – or in this case a prince.

“Native and imported fruit, pastries, pancakes, waffles, cereal, oatmeal, four different types of juices, and even a bottle of champagne if we want to start this party early,” Jacobi tried to keep her jaw from dropping as she appeared ten minutes later and plopped down next to him. The staff didn’t defer to her the same way they did Ben, if anything they worshipped the ground she walked on. She was the woman who’d bagged a Gold. That was the dream. Jealousy hid in the eyes of every woman that laid eyes on her.

“They must be used to Liliana staying here,” Ben waved and a person took away the bottle. Both of them wanted their wits about them.

He had already linked his IOR to the island’s net and was busy running a sorting algorithm for anything important he thought he needed to know about. The number of hits he was getting would take him days to go through, so he further filtered to things happening today.

“We’ve got the morning to ourselves,” he informed her as she plowed into the pastries. Her own enhancements were begging for calories after being imprisoned on the carrier. “Prep for the party from 1400 until 1800 . . .”

“Four hours to prep. I already showered,” she replied as some red jelly leaked down her chin.

“I’m not even going to touch that one. You’ll be with mom and Hope for those four hours, they’ll fill you in. There’s a family meeting from 1800 until whenever we’re done, and the party starts at 2000 and goes until it stops. Knowing these things, it will be sometime around sunrise.” He skimmed the guest list, which was a who’s who of corporate elite from all over the Commonwealth. “We should just stay out of the way this morning. It’ll be a logistical operation on par with a division landing on a hostile world for the next eight hours, so the farther away we are the better.”

And that was what they did. They went down and walked the beach for kilometers. Ben carried lunch in a basket, and they had a picnic away from civilization, followed by some pretty mind-blowing sex on the beach; and that didn’t refer to the drink. They returned just in time for an army of fashion experts to descend on them. They were unceremoniously yanked apart and sent to different buildings to prepare. Ben’s transformation from sand-covered-man to heir of the galaxy’s largest corporation took only half the allotted time, so he spent the rest of it digging into what his father might be planning. He knew some type of corporate takeover was coming. Companies were weak after the loss of so many tangible assets on Earth. That made them ripe for the taking. Since it might not be a hundred percent legal to seize things lost by your competitors during an unprecedented invasion of humanity’s home system, his father was going to move with speed and strength to take what he could. Possession was still nine-tenths of the law, and if a company no longer existed when the dust settled, they couldn’t try to get back what had been taken from them at a steal.

Ben guessed dozens of men and women were walking into this party like lambs to a slaughter, and judging by the RADM’s statements two days ago, the fleet was going to back Thomas’s play because they were bought and paid for.

he realized how condescending that sounded as he sat in a suit that felt like he was wearing a cloud of happiness, reading away on his next-gen IOR, on his family’s private island, on a planet his family owned – and the cherry on top – when his gorgeous fiancé entered looking fucking incredible.

“Wow,” was all he could say as she stepped into the room. He wanted to marry her right here, right now.

The dress the army of stylists had dressed her in was an off-white cream that made her flawless skin shine, and her luscious hair look like it was blazing with life. They’d grown it out until it was damn near waist-length, and then done some artful, complicated bun-hairdo thing that must be all the rage right now. She looked perfect, there was no other way to describe it. Then she stumbled and he had to catch her. He smelled the champagne on her breath as he scooped her up.

“Had a little too much to drink,” he chuckled as he placed her in a chair in one of the many dens in the big house. Staff was busy decorating everything else in whatever theme his father had planned, but this den seemed to be safe for the moment.

“Oh yeah,” she half shouted as she ran her hands over his chest. “Damn you look good.”

“And you look absolutely perfect,” he replied, only to be surprised when she frowned.

“Yep, got to look perfect,” she hiccupped. “Can’t be looking anything less than the best.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied, unsure what to say. “Did something happen?”

“Did something happen?” her eyes swiveled to track him like point defense lasers. “Ha . . . you don’t know. This is going to be fun,” she reached for the table and swiped at nothing but air, as if she was expecting a flute full of bubbly to be present. “Don’t worry hot stuff, you’ll see at this family meeting.”

he scratched his head, and he accessed his IOR to get his fiancé a pill to sober her up.

A minute later the doors flew open and Thomas, Miranda, and Hope entered all looking exquisite, if not troubled. The last expression was only for the women, if anything, his father looked hungry; and not in the “I need a good steak” kind of way.

“Good, you’re both here,” Thomas stepped to the front of them as Miranda and Hope closed in protectively around Jacobi. “Here’s the plan . . .”

“Yeah, what the hell is going on?” Ben interrupted. His anger flared a bit. “Did someone do something to Jacobi?”

“Not at all. In fact, I’ve spared no expense for this to be the best day of her life,” Thomas replied, with a bit of bite to his tone.

“Yeah, she looks fantastic,” Ben rolled his eyes. He looked over his shoulder and saw her wiping away tears.

“I don’t know what that’s about,” Thomas waved that off. “I hit everything on her wish list: sleeping in, a breakfast with pastries all the way from New Paris, time alone with her fiancé, a picnic on the beach, a little extra on the beach . . .” Ben blushed when his father mentioned that, “ then she wanted to look like a princess. As you can see, she looks extraordinary, and to add to that, the most important and wealthy people in the galaxy are here to bear witness. Not to mention her own parents, who I had flown in last night.”

“Your parents are here?” Ben had yet to meet the Wentworth’s for logistical reasons.

“Of course they are,” Thomas snapped.

“Wait for it,” Jacobi stated.

“Why wouldn’t they be here for their daughter’s wedding.”

Ben just stood there speechless for a few seconds. “Wedding?” he finally asked, stupidly.

“Yep, we’re getting married today,” somehow Jacobi had a flute of champagne in her hand. “Congratulations!” she raised it, and drained it in one gulp.

Ben plopped down on the couch next to her as his mind went blank.