Hegemony at dalou, p.11
Hegemony at Dalou, page 11
Was this supposed to be a battle? A free-for-all on all sides?
“That would be excellent,” Emperor Osamu said now, turning right and left to take in the various flunkies who might have all drawn the short straws today. “I will need some time to freshen up and prepare for the investiture later. Please, guide me to my chambers.”
Makara wanted to step back. To just remain here in the chamber, alone perhaps with Samnang, but something in Lady Kugosu’s posture forbade that, in ways that Makara could not spell out clearly, until it hit him.
She’s making it all up as she goes. Just as the rest of us are.
Fourteen(?!?) and thrust into this impossible situation. At least Makara had known Morninghawk for many years. Heavy Escort, occasionally prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to protect more important players. Such as the Emperor of Dalou, the Crown Prince, and two Personal Representatives of the Shogunate, including a favored daughter.
Even Wulfa hadn’t been that dangerous. And she just intended to kill him.
Still, it framed things for him. Perhaps elevated him to a new place. Makara Omarov, Harbinger of Doom, turned enough in place to look back without turning his back on anyone. He found an older clerk in the surrounding group that looked like maybe he knew what the hell he was talking about and pointed at the man directly.
“As the Emperor instructed,” Makara called over the utter silence. “Lead us.”
Around them, the others began to shift inward. To turn away from whatever weird confrontation this had begun as, and wherever it had ended. They started to move to the far door to the chamber.
Makara had no idea where the hell they were going, but the rest didn’t seem to even know what they were doing right now, so he supposed that he had exactly that much advantage on the rest.
And Lady Kugosu had ordered him to continue being Morninghawk.
Makara Omarov would not disappoint.
He just needed to know whose doom he would herald next.
TWENTY-FIVE
DATE OF THE REPUBLIC NOVEMBER 16, 411 RAN URUMCHI, ELLARIEL ORBIT
Phil had a hard time not acting. Not even reacting. Just sitting there perfectly still and hoping nothing crazy/stupid/bad/terminal happened while he was watching. A Dalou Incident and he probably needed to go at least as far as Meerut. If not all the way to Ladaux.
He sighed heavily when the Emperor’s shuttle landed safely. That eliminated an entire subsection of contingency plans. Junkyard would have been in heaven. Phil already had tasted hell.
Heather was projected around his table as a holographic ghost, as was Iveta. With Harinder, they all watched him. Now would be a good time for Markus to deliver a little coffee with a hard slug of rum in it, but the current wardroom staff weren’t nearly that ambitious with the boss. Nor had any of them served with him long enough to have their own piratical nicknames.
“Now what?” Heather asked. “Should we head over immediately?”
“Absolutely not,” Phil growled at her. Then he stopped and breathed again. “Sorry. No, they need time to process this shit internally. Harinder, what’s my current schedule look like?”
“Shower in about thirty minutes,” she said immediately. “Departure in two hours. Short trip over with your team. Reception when you arrive. Then progressively bigger receptions for the next six hours after that.”
He nodded and considered.
“Heather, you move immediately to dress uniform and everything, so you’re there if something happens while I’m busy,” he said. “Iveta, you take the flag, and bring the squadron down exactly one notch. No more. No less. I have left you an order packet to be opened if something prevents me from returning from the station, and we’ve covered your other orders. I’m not going to pretend I’ll get any work done in the next thirty minutes, but I’ll be in my office. Do not bother knocking. Clear?”
He got nods, but this team knew him. Knew his tendencies and foibles. He could rely on them to keep the waters calm. Thus, he retreated to his office. The things he wanted to say could not be committed to even in his personal log, so instead he pulled down that leather-bound notebook that Casey zu Weigand had sent as a birthday present last year. Complete with an ink pen. Hand-written notes.
She had asked for observations from him. Poetical things that she might turn into symphonies, as that was the art she was best known for. All of the paintings that a young princess had done had perished with Werder, save for a few that had been given as gifts and happened to be off-planet or a continent away when St. Legier nearly died.
Her music had survived. Had even held the Empire together in many ways. Especially the memories of a young woman who turned to music to remember her father.
So he wrote. None of it made much sense, as in his mind it was more a letter to a retired comrade than anything. Impressions of Ellariel, after coming directly from Ishiokoh. The chaos of an emperor doing things that did not fit with established patterns, which he suspected she would find amusing in ways almost nobody else in the universe might understand.
Eventually, the door opened and Harinder stood there.
“Time to move,” she said simply before withdrawing.
Phil closed the notebook and rose. Time to turn himself into First Centurion Kosnett.
And wonder if he had miscalculated.
TWENTY-SIX
ELLARIEL-JO ORBITAL PALACE
Makara was somehow the shepherd getting this flock where it needed to go, however insane that concept sounded, even in his own head. The man he had randomly selected had had the brains to grab a deputy and send them off ahead, even as the mob walked sedately in a ring around their Emperor and Lady Kugosu. Samnang paced him ahead of the others, just to one side as though being escorted into battle. Behind him, low murmurs and snatches of conversation as the three key players worked out a new battlefield from the last one.
He dared not speak, uncertain how even his voice would sound, let alone what he might say. The clerks and assistants moved like the damned, raised from their eternal slumber as modern zombies.
They traversed through several corridors and frames to a spot close to the center of the station. Not all that far from where Makara had been staying, so he presumed the guest wing. Hopefully, they had rooms sufficient as to not terminally insult the man walking behind him.
We shall burn that bridge next.
Around a corner, a welcoming committee awaited and Makara found the weight sliding some from his shoulders. More aides. More clerks. More something. The older man leading them walked to an ancient crone of a woman and bowed deeply to her. She did not return it with more than a nod, so Makara promoted her to Hausfrau in his mind and hoped she was smart enough not to argue with him right now.
Making it all up as everyone goes. Because that’s what you did, right?
He moved to stand before her slowly, giving both of them time to judge things. She bowed first, promoting him to a position of power high enough to give her orders.
He did NOT release his held breath loud enough for even Samnang to hear it, but it was there in his mind.
“I herald the Emperor of Dalou and his Crown Prince,” he said simply. Makara had no idea what he was supposed to say here anyway. “Are their chambers ready?”
“They are, Lord Morninghawk,” she replied carefully, nearly knocking him on his ass with such a title. Not even Omarov or Sugawara. Morninghawk.
What the hell?
“Then I place them in your care,” he said, speaking as if all this had been scripted out weeks ago and memorized. “The Shogun will send more heralds soon, so prepare your charges well.”
He blinked once to somehow just get himself past this moment, then pivoted on his heel to face the four killers that had trailed him. Their looks of deep concern DID NOT help his calmness.
Nothing, however, would ruffle the Morninghawk’s feathers, though. Wulfa had been a distant second to this.
“My Lord Emperor,” he bowed again. “Crown Prince. Lady Kugosu. All is in readiness for you.”
Then he stepped backwards until his ass touched the cold steel wall of the corridor.
If the old lady calling him Lord Morninghawk had been over the top, the Emperor of Dalou nodding and smiling now nearly caused Makara to have a heart attack.
“It is well, Lord Morninghawk,” the man said, sweeping by like he suddenly remembered how all of this was supposed to work.
The Crown Prince followed at bit more jerkily, then the entire suite of minions who had been dragged along for this performance. Quickly, the hatch closed and Makara found himself alone with the Shogun’s two women. He did not smile. They did not smile.
The awkward pause stretched to stupid lengths.
He would not speak unbidden.
Samnang was watching the daughter. Lady Kugosu was watching him. Makara was counting his heartbeats, but the damned thing refused to slow down.
He was going to need a shower soon. And any food he ate right now might not stay down long.
Wulfa had been a walk in the park.
Lady Kugosu addressed herself to him by pivoting her entire body this way.
“Thank you,” she said simply. Quietly. They were alone in this corridor right now, so perhaps she was allowed to be human.
He didn’t know. These were games of empire.
“Inspector Sobol, you will accompany me,” the young woman continued. “We need to report to the Shogun what has happened.”
“No,” a voice of perfect doom suddenly filled the corridor.
Male. Not angry. Still, only about as soft as the alloy used to cast starship hulls.
Implacable.
“Father?” Lady Kugosu asked.
Father? The SHOGUN was listening to all this??? Had been, perhaps from the beginning?
Fortunately, Makara had the wall to hold him upright. Nothing else might have sufficed at this moment, and he’d look silly fainting in front of these two woman.
Except that he already suspected they were both tougher than him. Maybe not meaner. But something-er.
“All of you will return to my office,” the man’s voice proclaimed.
The tone of the air changed in such a way that Makara understood he had cut the line from his end.
Orders given. Now, follow them.
He drew a breath and forced his legs to hold him upright. In spite of their wobbliness. He still towered over the two women physically. Just as he did most people.
Makara turned to study both women. They were as white as he felt. That was good. He had been afraid for a moment that he’d fallen in with a troupe of demigods in some terrible, twisted fable.
Which was likely what would happen tomorrow, when all these rumors and stories began to mutate horribly.
Samnang looked like she’d been run over by a ground vehicle. Lady Kugosu had more poise, but that was a low bar at this moment.
“Shall I lead?” he asked her.
“Do you know where you are going?” she asked pointedly.
“No,” Makara replied. “That’s never stopped me before.”
She wanted to argue with him. Say something flip and perhaps biting. He could see it in her eyes. Fourteen years old and charged by their Supreme Lord with handling this insanity. Old age and treachery, against youth and skill, as it were.
He was no traitor, but he’d seen and done things this child had never imagined, though he would never say that out loud. She seemed to sense that now, as she nodded.
“Follow me,” she said instead, waiting for him to nod, then setting off.
Samnang fell in on his flank. It was weird, being escorted instead of escorting.
He wondered how bad this next meeting was going to get.
TWENTY-SEVEN
DATE OF THE REPUBLIC NOVEMBER 16, 411 RAN URUMCHI, ELLARIEL ORBIT
Heather watched the other Command Centurions mill awkwardly in the lounge as everything got organized. All of them were here as guests of Phil, rather than their own stellar nations, so they didn’t have any of their staffs with them. Phil had specifically wanted this as small and discrete as circumstances would allow.
She was in her dress uniform with the epaulets and some of her better awards, including the Intrepid she’d gotten for CS-405’s long voyage, and another one the Emperor of Fribourg had personally pinned to her chest for the same thing. Additionally, nobody got to see the Seventeenth Imperial Police Protectorate tattoo on her back, matching the smaller medal on her chest.
Those folks had petitioned the Crown directly to be allowed to award Phil and his team something for the legends that had arisen around Persephone and their rescue of the imperial prisoners. The Lost. The Aquitaine Senate had been required to pass a second bill authorizing her and the others to accept it.
Phil was leaned in with Harinder, covering last minutes details, so Heather turned to Cruiser-Captain Adham Khan, off Juvayni. Short for a man, shorter than her by a handspan even, though he did not come across as small. As dark as anybody she’d met from the Cluster, but not as dark as the African Diaspora. Van Dyke, trimmed precisely on the sides but growing almost long enough to become a goatee.
She didn’t know the man that well, for all he’d been with them a while. Long on glory in battle, dressed in a uniform that combined black leather, bronze-colored chain mail and a few plates, and tall, leather boots. Starkly primitive, at first glance, but it had the feel of something rather more anachronistic. Probably intended to contrast with the simple cloth uniforms everyone else wore.
He glanced at her now, moving this way as if her look was an invitation to speak. Him and Omarov had been the two Death-or-Glory types, but Makara was quiet about it, while Khan tended towards the braggart end. Also a cultural thing.
“I would like to register my complaint…” was as far he got before she growled at him. At least the man shut up as his eyes got a little wide.
“Nobody goes to this with even a pocket knife,” Heather quietly reminded him with a snarl no one else would hear. “If that’s too much, you are free to return to your ship and await our reports.”
Heather wondered if slapping the man upside the head right now would have gotten him to stare at her so openly, jaw hanging a little slack. Though with his kind, that might be mistaken as foreplay.
“Security Centurion Dar isn’t even allowed a weapon, as we are guests of the Shogun,” Heather continued in a quiet, angry voice. “She can protect you, as Phil trusts her with his own life. Now, did you have anything else to say, Cruiser-Captain?”
Give the man credit. He blinked hard. It was like watching his brain reboot. Nobody at all home for about five seconds.
“No, Command Centurion,” he said quietly with a nod that barely stopped short of being a bow.
She nodded and stepped past the man, just to get out of range, in case she did feel like punching him for something he said. Striker Gotzon Solo, Command Centurion of the Ewin Principalities Light Missile Bombard Shadowbolt, nodded to her from a safe distance, like he’d heard the exchange. Or at least enough of it. And didn’t want to try his luck.
Ewin and Gloran saw themselves as warrior societies, but Heather had to not laugh in their faces right now. They were all show. Pretty uniforms and loud manners. The Republic of Aquitaine Navy would have gone through their entire fleets like shit through a goose, even before the Expeditionary-classes. Now, her colleagues wouldn’t even break a sweat.
She came to rest next to Stunt Dude and Sam, with Captain Xue close enough to form a small bridge quartet if they’d had a table and cards.
“Problems?” Stunt Dude asked.
He’d been a Dragoon. Close combat was in his blood. And he didn’t have that high of an opinion of Gloran martial glories, either.
“Khan wanting to score points,” she said, blowing out a breath. “I offered to ship him back to Juvayni instead of having him come with us.”
“Rude,” Sam grinned. “As I understand it, he’s about to become the first line-serving officer of the Gloran fleet to ever set foot on this station.”
“That is correct,” Captain Xue nodded. “Just as I will be the first among my kind.”
“Really?” Heather asked. “I mean, I know you’ve said things like that, but you never do port calls? Ever?”
“That is correct, Heather,” Xue Dao Zhiou nodded. “How does Aquitaine operate?”
“Even when we were at war with Fribourg, there were certain vessels granted neutrality to carry diplomats and freed prisoners between worlds,” Heather explained. “Since the war ended, I’ve been into port with all the neighbors. Fribourg, Lincolnshire, Salonnia, and Corynthe. Plus others outside that, places that are largely isolated enough as to be pocket nations. Meeting people is how you learn to talk to them. You don’t do that?”
“Heather, we don’t talk to anybody,” Captain Xue laughed quietly. “We’re Yaumgan, that terrible, dangerous, isolationist nation in the back corner of the Balhee Cluster that frightens everyone off.”
Heather had to grin. There was something to that.
“Well, hopefully, all this sets a precedent,” she said. “Phil wants to make friends throughout the Cluster. The only way that happens is if the rest of you start talking as well.”
“Do we know where he’s going next?” Captain Xue asked.
“No,” Heather shrugged. “We have open invites everywhere, but both Meerut and Ellariel kind of took precedence. From here, there will be time organizing everything. I wonder if he might not make it to Yaumgan until last, especially if Ewin needs to be placated and warned off. And Gloran will likely get into a snit over something as well. The Philosophers will be more phlegmatic, one hopes.”
“One hopes,” Captain Xue nodded.
“Okay, people,” Phil’s voice suddenly filled the lounge. “We’re ready to load and depart.”
Heather nodded and moved to the rear of the group, letting him lead them out into the flight bay and onto the shuttle that would carry this group across. Not much better protected than the Emperor had been.
“That would be excellent,” Emperor Osamu said now, turning right and left to take in the various flunkies who might have all drawn the short straws today. “I will need some time to freshen up and prepare for the investiture later. Please, guide me to my chambers.”
Makara wanted to step back. To just remain here in the chamber, alone perhaps with Samnang, but something in Lady Kugosu’s posture forbade that, in ways that Makara could not spell out clearly, until it hit him.
She’s making it all up as she goes. Just as the rest of us are.
Fourteen(?!?) and thrust into this impossible situation. At least Makara had known Morninghawk for many years. Heavy Escort, occasionally prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to protect more important players. Such as the Emperor of Dalou, the Crown Prince, and two Personal Representatives of the Shogunate, including a favored daughter.
Even Wulfa hadn’t been that dangerous. And she just intended to kill him.
Still, it framed things for him. Perhaps elevated him to a new place. Makara Omarov, Harbinger of Doom, turned enough in place to look back without turning his back on anyone. He found an older clerk in the surrounding group that looked like maybe he knew what the hell he was talking about and pointed at the man directly.
“As the Emperor instructed,” Makara called over the utter silence. “Lead us.”
Around them, the others began to shift inward. To turn away from whatever weird confrontation this had begun as, and wherever it had ended. They started to move to the far door to the chamber.
Makara had no idea where the hell they were going, but the rest didn’t seem to even know what they were doing right now, so he supposed that he had exactly that much advantage on the rest.
And Lady Kugosu had ordered him to continue being Morninghawk.
Makara Omarov would not disappoint.
He just needed to know whose doom he would herald next.
TWENTY-FIVE
DATE OF THE REPUBLIC NOVEMBER 16, 411 RAN URUMCHI, ELLARIEL ORBIT
Phil had a hard time not acting. Not even reacting. Just sitting there perfectly still and hoping nothing crazy/stupid/bad/terminal happened while he was watching. A Dalou Incident and he probably needed to go at least as far as Meerut. If not all the way to Ladaux.
He sighed heavily when the Emperor’s shuttle landed safely. That eliminated an entire subsection of contingency plans. Junkyard would have been in heaven. Phil already had tasted hell.
Heather was projected around his table as a holographic ghost, as was Iveta. With Harinder, they all watched him. Now would be a good time for Markus to deliver a little coffee with a hard slug of rum in it, but the current wardroom staff weren’t nearly that ambitious with the boss. Nor had any of them served with him long enough to have their own piratical nicknames.
“Now what?” Heather asked. “Should we head over immediately?”
“Absolutely not,” Phil growled at her. Then he stopped and breathed again. “Sorry. No, they need time to process this shit internally. Harinder, what’s my current schedule look like?”
“Shower in about thirty minutes,” she said immediately. “Departure in two hours. Short trip over with your team. Reception when you arrive. Then progressively bigger receptions for the next six hours after that.”
He nodded and considered.
“Heather, you move immediately to dress uniform and everything, so you’re there if something happens while I’m busy,” he said. “Iveta, you take the flag, and bring the squadron down exactly one notch. No more. No less. I have left you an order packet to be opened if something prevents me from returning from the station, and we’ve covered your other orders. I’m not going to pretend I’ll get any work done in the next thirty minutes, but I’ll be in my office. Do not bother knocking. Clear?”
He got nods, but this team knew him. Knew his tendencies and foibles. He could rely on them to keep the waters calm. Thus, he retreated to his office. The things he wanted to say could not be committed to even in his personal log, so instead he pulled down that leather-bound notebook that Casey zu Weigand had sent as a birthday present last year. Complete with an ink pen. Hand-written notes.
She had asked for observations from him. Poetical things that she might turn into symphonies, as that was the art she was best known for. All of the paintings that a young princess had done had perished with Werder, save for a few that had been given as gifts and happened to be off-planet or a continent away when St. Legier nearly died.
Her music had survived. Had even held the Empire together in many ways. Especially the memories of a young woman who turned to music to remember her father.
So he wrote. None of it made much sense, as in his mind it was more a letter to a retired comrade than anything. Impressions of Ellariel, after coming directly from Ishiokoh. The chaos of an emperor doing things that did not fit with established patterns, which he suspected she would find amusing in ways almost nobody else in the universe might understand.
Eventually, the door opened and Harinder stood there.
“Time to move,” she said simply before withdrawing.
Phil closed the notebook and rose. Time to turn himself into First Centurion Kosnett.
And wonder if he had miscalculated.
TWENTY-SIX
ELLARIEL-JO ORBITAL PALACE
Makara was somehow the shepherd getting this flock where it needed to go, however insane that concept sounded, even in his own head. The man he had randomly selected had had the brains to grab a deputy and send them off ahead, even as the mob walked sedately in a ring around their Emperor and Lady Kugosu. Samnang paced him ahead of the others, just to one side as though being escorted into battle. Behind him, low murmurs and snatches of conversation as the three key players worked out a new battlefield from the last one.
He dared not speak, uncertain how even his voice would sound, let alone what he might say. The clerks and assistants moved like the damned, raised from their eternal slumber as modern zombies.
They traversed through several corridors and frames to a spot close to the center of the station. Not all that far from where Makara had been staying, so he presumed the guest wing. Hopefully, they had rooms sufficient as to not terminally insult the man walking behind him.
We shall burn that bridge next.
Around a corner, a welcoming committee awaited and Makara found the weight sliding some from his shoulders. More aides. More clerks. More something. The older man leading them walked to an ancient crone of a woman and bowed deeply to her. She did not return it with more than a nod, so Makara promoted her to Hausfrau in his mind and hoped she was smart enough not to argue with him right now.
Making it all up as everyone goes. Because that’s what you did, right?
He moved to stand before her slowly, giving both of them time to judge things. She bowed first, promoting him to a position of power high enough to give her orders.
He did NOT release his held breath loud enough for even Samnang to hear it, but it was there in his mind.
“I herald the Emperor of Dalou and his Crown Prince,” he said simply. Makara had no idea what he was supposed to say here anyway. “Are their chambers ready?”
“They are, Lord Morninghawk,” she replied carefully, nearly knocking him on his ass with such a title. Not even Omarov or Sugawara. Morninghawk.
What the hell?
“Then I place them in your care,” he said, speaking as if all this had been scripted out weeks ago and memorized. “The Shogun will send more heralds soon, so prepare your charges well.”
He blinked once to somehow just get himself past this moment, then pivoted on his heel to face the four killers that had trailed him. Their looks of deep concern DID NOT help his calmness.
Nothing, however, would ruffle the Morninghawk’s feathers, though. Wulfa had been a distant second to this.
“My Lord Emperor,” he bowed again. “Crown Prince. Lady Kugosu. All is in readiness for you.”
Then he stepped backwards until his ass touched the cold steel wall of the corridor.
If the old lady calling him Lord Morninghawk had been over the top, the Emperor of Dalou nodding and smiling now nearly caused Makara to have a heart attack.
“It is well, Lord Morninghawk,” the man said, sweeping by like he suddenly remembered how all of this was supposed to work.
The Crown Prince followed at bit more jerkily, then the entire suite of minions who had been dragged along for this performance. Quickly, the hatch closed and Makara found himself alone with the Shogun’s two women. He did not smile. They did not smile.
The awkward pause stretched to stupid lengths.
He would not speak unbidden.
Samnang was watching the daughter. Lady Kugosu was watching him. Makara was counting his heartbeats, but the damned thing refused to slow down.
He was going to need a shower soon. And any food he ate right now might not stay down long.
Wulfa had been a walk in the park.
Lady Kugosu addressed herself to him by pivoting her entire body this way.
“Thank you,” she said simply. Quietly. They were alone in this corridor right now, so perhaps she was allowed to be human.
He didn’t know. These were games of empire.
“Inspector Sobol, you will accompany me,” the young woman continued. “We need to report to the Shogun what has happened.”
“No,” a voice of perfect doom suddenly filled the corridor.
Male. Not angry. Still, only about as soft as the alloy used to cast starship hulls.
Implacable.
“Father?” Lady Kugosu asked.
Father? The SHOGUN was listening to all this??? Had been, perhaps from the beginning?
Fortunately, Makara had the wall to hold him upright. Nothing else might have sufficed at this moment, and he’d look silly fainting in front of these two woman.
Except that he already suspected they were both tougher than him. Maybe not meaner. But something-er.
“All of you will return to my office,” the man’s voice proclaimed.
The tone of the air changed in such a way that Makara understood he had cut the line from his end.
Orders given. Now, follow them.
He drew a breath and forced his legs to hold him upright. In spite of their wobbliness. He still towered over the two women physically. Just as he did most people.
Makara turned to study both women. They were as white as he felt. That was good. He had been afraid for a moment that he’d fallen in with a troupe of demigods in some terrible, twisted fable.
Which was likely what would happen tomorrow, when all these rumors and stories began to mutate horribly.
Samnang looked like she’d been run over by a ground vehicle. Lady Kugosu had more poise, but that was a low bar at this moment.
“Shall I lead?” he asked her.
“Do you know where you are going?” she asked pointedly.
“No,” Makara replied. “That’s never stopped me before.”
She wanted to argue with him. Say something flip and perhaps biting. He could see it in her eyes. Fourteen years old and charged by their Supreme Lord with handling this insanity. Old age and treachery, against youth and skill, as it were.
He was no traitor, but he’d seen and done things this child had never imagined, though he would never say that out loud. She seemed to sense that now, as she nodded.
“Follow me,” she said instead, waiting for him to nod, then setting off.
Samnang fell in on his flank. It was weird, being escorted instead of escorting.
He wondered how bad this next meeting was going to get.
TWENTY-SEVEN
DATE OF THE REPUBLIC NOVEMBER 16, 411 RAN URUMCHI, ELLARIEL ORBIT
Heather watched the other Command Centurions mill awkwardly in the lounge as everything got organized. All of them were here as guests of Phil, rather than their own stellar nations, so they didn’t have any of their staffs with them. Phil had specifically wanted this as small and discrete as circumstances would allow.
She was in her dress uniform with the epaulets and some of her better awards, including the Intrepid she’d gotten for CS-405’s long voyage, and another one the Emperor of Fribourg had personally pinned to her chest for the same thing. Additionally, nobody got to see the Seventeenth Imperial Police Protectorate tattoo on her back, matching the smaller medal on her chest.
Those folks had petitioned the Crown directly to be allowed to award Phil and his team something for the legends that had arisen around Persephone and their rescue of the imperial prisoners. The Lost. The Aquitaine Senate had been required to pass a second bill authorizing her and the others to accept it.
Phil was leaned in with Harinder, covering last minutes details, so Heather turned to Cruiser-Captain Adham Khan, off Juvayni. Short for a man, shorter than her by a handspan even, though he did not come across as small. As dark as anybody she’d met from the Cluster, but not as dark as the African Diaspora. Van Dyke, trimmed precisely on the sides but growing almost long enough to become a goatee.
She didn’t know the man that well, for all he’d been with them a while. Long on glory in battle, dressed in a uniform that combined black leather, bronze-colored chain mail and a few plates, and tall, leather boots. Starkly primitive, at first glance, but it had the feel of something rather more anachronistic. Probably intended to contrast with the simple cloth uniforms everyone else wore.
He glanced at her now, moving this way as if her look was an invitation to speak. Him and Omarov had been the two Death-or-Glory types, but Makara was quiet about it, while Khan tended towards the braggart end. Also a cultural thing.
“I would like to register my complaint…” was as far he got before she growled at him. At least the man shut up as his eyes got a little wide.
“Nobody goes to this with even a pocket knife,” Heather quietly reminded him with a snarl no one else would hear. “If that’s too much, you are free to return to your ship and await our reports.”
Heather wondered if slapping the man upside the head right now would have gotten him to stare at her so openly, jaw hanging a little slack. Though with his kind, that might be mistaken as foreplay.
“Security Centurion Dar isn’t even allowed a weapon, as we are guests of the Shogun,” Heather continued in a quiet, angry voice. “She can protect you, as Phil trusts her with his own life. Now, did you have anything else to say, Cruiser-Captain?”
Give the man credit. He blinked hard. It was like watching his brain reboot. Nobody at all home for about five seconds.
“No, Command Centurion,” he said quietly with a nod that barely stopped short of being a bow.
She nodded and stepped past the man, just to get out of range, in case she did feel like punching him for something he said. Striker Gotzon Solo, Command Centurion of the Ewin Principalities Light Missile Bombard Shadowbolt, nodded to her from a safe distance, like he’d heard the exchange. Or at least enough of it. And didn’t want to try his luck.
Ewin and Gloran saw themselves as warrior societies, but Heather had to not laugh in their faces right now. They were all show. Pretty uniforms and loud manners. The Republic of Aquitaine Navy would have gone through their entire fleets like shit through a goose, even before the Expeditionary-classes. Now, her colleagues wouldn’t even break a sweat.
She came to rest next to Stunt Dude and Sam, with Captain Xue close enough to form a small bridge quartet if they’d had a table and cards.
“Problems?” Stunt Dude asked.
He’d been a Dragoon. Close combat was in his blood. And he didn’t have that high of an opinion of Gloran martial glories, either.
“Khan wanting to score points,” she said, blowing out a breath. “I offered to ship him back to Juvayni instead of having him come with us.”
“Rude,” Sam grinned. “As I understand it, he’s about to become the first line-serving officer of the Gloran fleet to ever set foot on this station.”
“That is correct,” Captain Xue nodded. “Just as I will be the first among my kind.”
“Really?” Heather asked. “I mean, I know you’ve said things like that, but you never do port calls? Ever?”
“That is correct, Heather,” Xue Dao Zhiou nodded. “How does Aquitaine operate?”
“Even when we were at war with Fribourg, there were certain vessels granted neutrality to carry diplomats and freed prisoners between worlds,” Heather explained. “Since the war ended, I’ve been into port with all the neighbors. Fribourg, Lincolnshire, Salonnia, and Corynthe. Plus others outside that, places that are largely isolated enough as to be pocket nations. Meeting people is how you learn to talk to them. You don’t do that?”
“Heather, we don’t talk to anybody,” Captain Xue laughed quietly. “We’re Yaumgan, that terrible, dangerous, isolationist nation in the back corner of the Balhee Cluster that frightens everyone off.”
Heather had to grin. There was something to that.
“Well, hopefully, all this sets a precedent,” she said. “Phil wants to make friends throughout the Cluster. The only way that happens is if the rest of you start talking as well.”
“Do we know where he’s going next?” Captain Xue asked.
“No,” Heather shrugged. “We have open invites everywhere, but both Meerut and Ellariel kind of took precedence. From here, there will be time organizing everything. I wonder if he might not make it to Yaumgan until last, especially if Ewin needs to be placated and warned off. And Gloran will likely get into a snit over something as well. The Philosophers will be more phlegmatic, one hopes.”
“One hopes,” Captain Xue nodded.
“Okay, people,” Phil’s voice suddenly filled the lounge. “We’re ready to load and depart.”
Heather nodded and moved to the rear of the group, letting him lead them out into the flight bay and onto the shuttle that would carry this group across. Not much better protected than the Emperor had been.
