“The transfer of command is complete only when Lancer Tal releases it into the care of Admiral Serrado. When two hands remain on the sword, this ceremony has ended.”
“Admiral Serrado,” Andira said clearly, “do you stand ready to accept command of the AFS Phoenix?”
“Lancer Tal, I stand ready to accept command.”
“Admiral Serrado, you are now commander of the AFS Phoenix. Lead her well and with honor. May Fahla fly with you.” Andira stepped back, leaving the sword in Ekatya’s hands.
Ekatya stared at it, seemingly oblivious to the applause and roars of approval. Then she nodded and looked out at the audience, waiting as it gradually quieted.
“What Dr. Rivers hasn’t explained,” she said when she could be heard, “is that the crew member bearing this sword to and from the ceremony also bears a great honor. That individual is chosen by the commanding officer as a reward for meritorious service.” Her gaze dropped back to the sword as she added, “You may have guessed this part of the ceremony was a surprise to me.”
Chuckles rippled through the crowd.
“I had no say in the selection of First Guard Sayana.” She turned to face Rahel and held out the sword. “But if I had, it would still have been you. First Guard, I entrust this sword to you for safekeeping. Return it to my office, where it will remain for the duration of my command.”
Rahel held a fist to her chest and bowed her head, then accepted the sword. As she marched off the stage, Andira addressed the crowd.
“This concludes our ceremonies today, and just in time. I’m told the food and spirits are ready for a proper celebration!” She swept both arms upward, urging the applauding crowd to stand, and the band struck up a sprightly tune.
“This should be an improvement over the last one,” Fianna said. “No Protectorate Fleet dokkers stuffed into uniforms and weighed down with medals.”
Lanaril remembered those all too well. “And better food, I hear.”
Salomen stepped over, her eyes sparkling with happiness. “Better spirits, too. Fahla, it felt good to see Ekatya reclaim that sword. As if some part of me has been tense ever since she gave it up last moon, and now I can finally relax.”
“Now you can all relax,” Lanaril said. “It’s been a long, difficult path, but you’ve reached the end of it.”
“The end of this one, yes.” Without looking, Salomen held out a hand, smiling when Andira walked up behind her and clasped it. “The brighter path is just beginning.”
49
Truths
“What are the truths you should be open to?”
Lanaril seemed startled by the question before understanding dawned. “Ah. After the raising of the banners.” She sipped her Synobian Sparkler and hummed in appreciation. “This is quite good.”
“If I didn’t know better,” Vellmar teased, “I’d say you were stalling. You said you’d tell me later.”
“We’re at a reception.”
“You are stalling.” She tilted her head toward the crowd milling about the luxurious conference room. “We’ve made our rounds. Everyone is occupied with their own conversations. What better time than now?”
“Later tonight, in the privacy of my quarters?”
“You’re hoping I’ll forget.”
“Little chance of that,” Lanaril muttered.
Vellmar had just decided not to press further when Lanaril set her glass beside the yellow Filessian orchid in a nearby niche.
“You’ve spent most of our relationship thinking you had to work to deserve me,” she said, taking one of Vellmar’s hands in her own. “The truth is, I’ve allowed it. I’ve let you carry the burden of proving that we can work. I’m the one who needed convincing. You’re the one who always knew.”
This was not at all what she had expected. “Lanaril—”
“You asked. Let me finish. The second truth is that I’ve realized it’s not a matter of deserving. If it were, you would not have come back to me after the battle. That was a gift I did not earn.” She held up her free hand, stopping Vellmar’s protest. “The third is that you are a gift. Unlooked for, unearned, yet here regardless, and I love you.”
She waited, a slow smile curving her lips while Vellmar tried to get her brain cells coordinated.
“I, ah . . . Goddess above, you do know how to take my legs out from under me.” With their hands clasped, Lanaril’s honesty had come through in a molten rush, leaving no room for doubt. Vellmar threw her earlier plans out the window and decided, for once in her life, to act on impulse. “May I share a truth I’ve recently realized? Fair trade?”
Intrigue lit Lanaril’s face. “No trade necessary, but I very much want to hear it.”
Vellmar caught her other hand. “Lancer Tal thinks she burdened me. In truth, she gave me a gift. You’re wrong about one thing—I didn’t always know we would work. I worried that I didn’t have enough to offer, and someday you’d stop telling me that I did. That’s no longer a concern. I have a future. Even if I don’t rise to the State Chair, I know I’ll go far enough to hold my head high next to you. That was all I needed. Lanaril, will you go into that future with me? Will you kneel with me before your fathers and ask for my inclusion?”
She had certainly tipped the balance back. Lanaril was so surprised that a sonsales could see it. The tumbling emotions flowed through their skin contact, a symphony of sentiment whose instruments fell away one by one until only the soloist remained.
“When I severed my bond, I swore I’d never believe those promises again,” she said. “I decided that no Alsean could be held responsible for promises the future would not allow them to keep. I lost my faith. Not in Fahla, but in the strength of our hearts.”
Vellmar tightened her grip, needing the contact. Lanaril’s answer was in her touch, and she was desperate not to lose even a fraction of it.
“You gave my faith back to me. I trust your heart.” Her smile was glorious. “A future with you sounds like the greatest gift I’ll never earn, but I’ll be glad to spend my life trying. Will you kneel with me before your mothers and ask for my inclusion?”
“My mothers are going to have kittens,” Vellmar blurted. “A whole litter of vallcat kittens!” She pulled a laughing Lanaril into her arms and wondered why the entire room didn’t light up with the joy that poured from both of them.
Then Lanaril kissed her, and she forgot the room, the people in it, and the ship that carried them.
50
Uninvited
“Would you look at that!”
Boundless delight sang through their link, interrupting the story Tal was telling Ekatya. She turned to follow Salomen’s line of sight.
In the far corner of the room, Vellmar and Lanaril were making a public display the likes of which she had not seen since the march in Blacksun. Then, Lanaril had announced their relationship to the world by giving Vellmar a warmron and a kiss on a global broadcast.
This kiss was in danger of melting the bulkheads. Though they were tucked away from the crowd, awareness of their display was radiating outward, quieting conversations and bringing smiles to nearly every face.
“That’s a little unusual for Lanaril, isn’t it?” Ekatya asked.
“Oh, yes.” Salomen bounced up on her toes, too gleeful to stay still. “And for Fianna, too. She’s in uniform. At a reception. There’s only one reason why she would forget that.”
“I need a cultural hint.”
“I wondered if promoting her would push her in that direction,” Tal said.
Salomen slipped an arm around her waist, happiness pouring off her in a dazzling wave. “I don’t think it was the promotion. I think it was the truth.”
“Could someone spell it out for the Gaian?” Ekatya demanded.
She had made such progress over the last moon that Tal sometimes forgot about her weak point. Ekatya was no outsider, but it would take many more moons before she fully believed it—and much more cultural immersion, as Lhyn called it.
“One of those two asked the other to bond with her,” she explained. “That’s the only time a kiss like that would be appropriate in a setting like this.”
“Betting both sides?” Salomen joked. “You know it wasn’t Lanaril. Fianna is the one who takes risks.”
Ekatya watched with renewed interest. “Great galaxies. I’ll have to rethink my impressions of Lanaril. Look at where her hands are.”
Lhyn appeared next to them, breathless and grinning. “I take two ticks to visit the toilet and look what happens. Can you believe it? Tell me someone recorded this.”
The couple finally managed to separate their lips but made it no further than that. They leaned their foreheads together, twin smiles gracing their features.
Well, if Vellmar decided to do this in public, she deserved what she got.
“Now that’s what I like to see in my Guards,” Tal called out, silencing the few remaining conversations. “Healthy ambition!”
Vellmar jumped back, her entire body telegraphing surprise, while Lanaril lifted her chin with a smug expression.
“I’m the one who just landed the Emissary,” she said. “Which of us has more ambition?”
Their audience laughed, and Tal began the applause that spread to every corner of the room. Vellmar looked briefly embarrassed before giving Lanaril another scorching kiss.
Whoops and whistles filled the air, including one shockingly shrill whistle from Lhyn. Tal turned to see her taking two fingers out of her mouth.
“Allendohan technique,” she said with a shrug. “It’s how mothers call home their broods.”
“You’re teaching me that,” Tal informed her.
“If you think you can learn.”
She would have responded to the blatant challenge, but Lhyn headed straight to Lanaril, Rahel pushed her way through the crowd to give Vellmar a double palm touch, and everyone was suddenly talking at once.
“There’s something in the air at these receptions,” Ekatya said. “First Alejandra’s news, now this.” She gave her drink a suspicious look. “Maybe it isn’t the air. Maybe I need to have Zeppy check the matter printers.”
“Why would you do that when the results are so marvelous?” Salomen set off to offer her own congratulations.
“She makes a fair point,” Tal said.
“Still, I should know if—” Ekatya stopped, her head tilting as she listened to something on her internal com. The shift in her emotional signature was unnerving. “Thank you, Ensign. I’ll take it in the small conference room. It’s Sholokhov,” she said in a low voice. “Why would he be calling now?”
“Why is he able to call you is the more pertinent question. I issued orders the day of your retirement. Any calls from him go to me or Ambassador Solvassen. We fenced you off.”
“He’s using the priority blue channel. The protocols are still active, and those calls don’t come with an ID code until I put in mine. It wouldn’t be anyone else.”
“You’re not doing this alone.” Tal kept pace with her as she strode for the door.
“He won’t talk to me if you’re there. We need to know what he has to say.”
“I’ll stay out of sight.”
Ekatya did not reply, her emotional signature rigid with apprehension. They left the cheerful, noisy party behind and crossed the corridor to a much smaller room, where the wall display already showed a blue emblem.
The door closed, plunging them into silence.
“Stand over there.” Ekatya pointed to a corner on the same wall as the display.
Tal complied, wishing circumstances were different so she could joke about obeying orders.
At the oval table taking up the center of the room, Ekatya activated a control pad and entered a code. Though Tal could not make out details, she saw the emblem shrink to nothing before it was replaced by a string of Common characters.
“It’s him,” Ekatya confirmed, tapping the pad once more. “Here we go.”
The uniform color of the display shifted to a moving image, blurry from this angle but definitely a head and upper body.
“Director Sholokhov,” Ekatya said, adding a short phrase that Tal’s earcuff translated as “What a surprise.”
“A good one, I hope.” He sounded jovial. “I wanted to congratulate you, Admiral. You finally have the rank you deserve.”
“Thank you. It’s certainly good to be out of the cage.”
Ekatya said nothing more, the silence growing until he broke it.
“How things have changed. I suppose the days are long gone when you asked what you could do for me.”
“Why are you calling?”
“I already gave you my reason.”
“Merely to congratulate me?” she asked with a skeptical lift of her brows.
“Perhaps to congratulate us both. And your other tyree. It’s not often an opponent deceives me. She had me convinced she would throw you out the airlock if circumstances called for it.”
He didn’t sound offended, though Tal couldn’t be certain without seeing him.
“I’m . . . surprised,” Ekatya said. “I thought—”
“That I’d be angry? No, I believe it was more of a disappointment. All that insistence on your vaunted honesty, yet you’re no different from the rest of us.”
“You forget I learned from the best,” she said evenly. “I never lied to you. I simply didn’t tell you everything.”
“You said you couldn’t influence her decisions.”
“That was and still is true. Loving Andira doesn’t give me any power over her professional choices. She keeps that separate from her personal life.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care if you do.” Realization broke across her face. “I really don’t,” she marveled.
Tal would have given anything to see Sholokhov’s face in the ensuing silence. Not being able to sense him over the quantum com had been a serious handicap during their negotiations; only now did she realize how much she had relied on her sight.
“Interesting,” he said at last. “But it doesn’t change the outcome. We all got what we wanted. I have the empaths and the heavy cruiser, Lancer Tal has her ship, and I put you in charge of the new Alsean Fleet.”
Tal frowned at the phrasing.
“That’s why you’re calling,” Ekatya said. “You had another reason to want me in charge. I knew it was more than my inducement to leave Fleet quietly.”
“This is what I’ll miss. Watching you catch up to me. I’m sure you’ll yank the priority blue protocols as soon as I end this call, though I’d advise you to give me a way to contact you. I have my fingers in pots all over the galaxy. You never know when I might be able to pass on something useful.”
“You already have a direct line to Ambassador Solvassen and Lancer Tal.”
“Ah, but they’re not you. Though I admit I have new respect for your Lancer.”
Don’t do it, Tal thought. She didn’t want him to have continued access for this kind of game playing, but she could sense it. Ekatya had already concluded that—
“I’ll think about it.”
She silently swore. Ekatya was strategizing as an admiral should. That didn’t mean she had to like it.
“Excellent. I knew I could depend on your common sense. And your ethical sense, which is why you are where you are. You assumed that I saved your command to gain a conduit to Lancer Tal. I didn’t correct you then.”
“I’m waiting with bated breath,” Ekatya said flatly.
“To repeat your words, I never lied to you. I simply didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
Tal heard a creaking sound, probably the material of his chair as he leaned back. It appeared he had a story to tell.
“The Protectorate did agree with the Voloth Empire on one thing,” he began. “The Alseans are an unknown and possibly unlimited power. That makes them a potential threat. The Voloth unfortunately responded with their usual lack of imagination. Brute force acquired their territor
y and held it, thus brute force would surely remove this threat. That error cost them an empire.”
“But you had more imagination.”
“I had more subtlety. The Alseans can’t be stopped. Holding them back was never the solution. But they’re a brand new power, just stepping into the stars. They can be molded.”
“You are something else. You’re expecting me to mold the Alsean Fleet to your specifications?”
“Oh, no, Admiral. I’m expecting you to mold them to yours. The ever-righteous Admiral Serrado, always standing up for her definition of what is principled and correct. You’ll shape that fleet from birth, imposing your limitations on it. I didn’t know what to expect from the Alseans, but I know what to expect from you.”
“Honor?” she asked in a dry tone. “The same ideals as the Protectorate Fleet?”
“Ideals are for when circumstances allow. You’ve never learned that and you never will. Lancer Tal knows better, but she’s bound by an interplanetary agreement. Even if she weren’t, she can’t afford to remove you after the fanfare of your promotion, that touching oath, and taking command. You’ll stay right where I need you to be.”
“I’m right where I need to be. I’m where Lancer Tal needs me to be. If that works to your benefit, so be it. Perhaps the Protectorate will finally stop seeing us as an unknown power and realize that we’re exactly what we’ve said all along.”
“We,” he echoed. “That didn’t take long.”
“A foreseeable consequence to being hounded out of the organization I devoted my life to. The Alseans value me for the same thing the Protectorate feared in me. I’m home, Director. As you said, we all got what we wanted. Although I got a bit more,” she added. “I know you didn’t bust Greve down to ensign for me, but it made my day.”
“Only one day? I’m disappointed.”
She lifted her hands. “Figure of speech. Suffice to say it was extremely enjoyable.”
The chair creaked again.
“Some gasbags need to be popped,” he said. “That one was overdue. I didn’t appreciate his handling of one of my best resources. I didn’t appreciate Lancer Tal’s handling of you, either, but I’ve had to reassess that reading.”
Alsea Rising: The Seventh Star (Chronicles of Alsea Book 10) Page 39
