by A. K. DuBoff
“It’s the bomaxed Lower Dynasties! Everything is a political power-grab game to them. Like that shite that went down with Arvonen and the Gate research that got us all in this mess. Ridiculous.”
“I know.” Raena took his hand. “You’re doing great, Ryan.”
“The fact that business is good is secondary. I still feel like we could do more to create job opportunities and help make things more affordable so people can get ahead in life.”
“That will always be a challenge for us. We both grew up without the comforts of wealth and power being givens in our lives, so we think about those who are living paycheck-to-paycheck. No one else in the High Dynasties will ever appreciate that perspective. It’s why it’s so important we stay the course and lead by example.”
“Right, and we’ve made a good start. But reducing transit fees and opening up new shipyards is just scratching the surface.”
“These things take time.”
“I know. Still, it’s frustrating. I got handed all of this wealth by birthright, yet it’s all tied up in DGE, and I can’t do what I’d like to help families improve their circumstances.”
“The harsh truth is we can’t help everyone personally. However, these little price cuts, new jobs, and scholarships will reap long-term benefits.”
“Your grandparents are on board, but the other High Dynasties need to rethink their businesses, too.”
“Once they see what good work you’re doing, I’m sure they’ll follow suit. With all the colonization expansion going on, DGE is primed to shine.”
“And I have every intention to do the Dainetris name proud. The Dynasty is here to stay this time,” he said, resolute.
The whole mess with Dainetris’ temporary fall from power two centuries prior turned Raena’s stomach. The Priesthood had ruined Ryan’s ancestors when they spoke out against the organization’s misconduct, so it was no wonder people nowadays didn’t trust leaders to act in the public’s best interest. Even once files detailing the Priesthood’s millennia of corruption had been released, too many people were still skeptical about the High Council’s intentions. ‘Doing the right thing’ wasn’t a sufficient motive, apparently. But we’re not like the Priesthood.
Raena and her husband had truly tried to live by ‘doing the right thing’ as their mantra. She’d been handed so much power at a young age, and though she hadn’t wanted any of it, she couldn’t turn away when others were counting on her. The power distance between rulers and their people had become so great that they needed someone like her who hadn’t lived like royalty for her whole life. She could help heal the divide.
With that mindset, every one of her business decisions, political moves, and personal relationships needed to pass an ethical test designed to favor the public good. Outsiders could be as skeptical as they wanted, but Raena had made it her life’s mission to be the kind of leader people wanted to have, not just the one they were stuck with. That’s why it stung so much to see the posters suggesting she was part of a devious plot fueled by greed or megalomania. I’ll prove to them I’m not in this for myself. Every day I can try to be a better person.
Food arrived, breaking Raena from her ruminations. The hot turkey and cheese sandwich was one of her favorite lunches, so at least the day had that going for it.
“So, my parents will get in this evening,” she said after finishing the first quarter of her meal. The gooey cheese oozing from between the bread didn’t make for the most delicate eating experience, but the chef had never failed to deliver after Raena had a heart-to-heart with him about the merits of carbs and cheese. Comfort food was called that for a reason, after all.
Ryan swallowed a bite of his own sandwich with a more restrained portion of fillings. “I’m curious to learn what prompted the visit.”
“Me too. It’ll be strange having them here. The last time we were all together on the island, it still had so much of the Priesthood in the space.”
“All the more reason to make new memories.”
“Yeah, I know. It sucks that there’s this other stuff going on. It would be nice to just have family time. I think my grandparents are planning to come over, too.”
“Speaking of which, should I invite my mom?” Ryan asked.
“That’s a great idea! It would also help with the optics—a proper family gathering that isn’t restricted to TSS special guests.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. “Not everything is about how things look on the news, you know.”
She took a mental step back. “Sorry. What I meant to say was, it would be lovely to see her.”
“I don’t know if she’ll go for it. It still freaks her out to be around High Dynasty types like that.”
“Well, you’re one of those now.”
“I guess so, but it’s different with immediate family.”
“Then the answer to making her comfortable is to nurture a closer relationship with us,” Raena said. “If she can think of you purely as her son, without the external factors, then that’s how she can think about me and my family, too; let us be people rather than figureheads.”
“That’s easier said than done.”
It had taken a while for even Ryan to build a sociable relationship with his mother as an adult, after growing up away from her as a Ward—essentially foster care, as Raena understood the arrangement. All the Priesthood’s doing, to keep an eye on Ryan once he’d been discovered as a lost scion of the allegedly extinct Dainetris bloodline. One of his ancestors had somehow escaped the Priesthood’s purge of the Dainetris line after they’d criticized the organization. Living under an alias, fallen from grace, the survivor’s descendants spent generations unaware of their true lineage.
So, despite being directly in the Dainetris line herself, Ryan’s mother could never see herself as highborn, having already spent a lifetime in poverty and servitude. It saddened Raena to see the woman struggle with her own identity in such a way. Ryan had slowly come into his own as a Dynasty leader, but his mother had insisted on remaining in her small apartment and maintaining a modest lifestyle. The arrangement made family get-togethers a little awkward, to say the least.
“I really want your mom to feel at ease here,” Raena said, looking her husband in his eyes. “She’s always welcome.”
“I’ll extend an invitation, but this might not be the best time for her to come, truthfully. I don’t expect this to be a particularly restful visit.”
“That’s a fair point.”
Ryan smiled at her from across the table, sensing her souring mood. “Hey, we’d be doing something wrong if this were easy. Being the cornerstone of a galactic empire is complicated.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, it is. I never understood why anyone would want to run for president back home, and that was just for a single country!”
“Didn’t someone say that not wanting the job should be the top metric for qualification?”
“I’m not sure about the quote, but I think there’s truth in the statement when it comes to politics.” She wiped the cheese grease off her hands with her cloth napkin. “And, on that note, I was thinking that we should put out some kind of press statement.”
“What about?”
“Something to get ahead of this growing unrest in the Outer Colonies.”
Ryan leaned back in his chair. “I’ll defer to your lead. I’m finally starting to get my head around DGE’s operations, but this political ruling stuff… you’re a natural.”
“Sorry to break it to you, but I’m totally faking it, buddy.” She smiled, but it didn’t quite touch her eyes.
“Could have fooled me.”
“I don’t know. I just think about what I would want to hear, or what I would want a leader to do, if I was an average person on the street. Whenever there’s uncertainty, you want your leaders to step up and tell you it’s going to be okay, right?”
“But we don’t know for sure that it will be all right.”
“That doesn’t make for a very good press rel
ease, does it?”
“No. It’s hard for me, though, to not be forthright,” he said.
“It’s not a lie,” she assured him. “It’s giving hope. Everyone wants to look forward to a better tomorrow.”
— — —
Jason knew it would take more than a day to process the change in his relationship with Tiff, but he wished he could fast-forward to the part where they were comfortably long-distance friends and everything was great.
Since he, thankfully, didn’t have any classes scheduled for the day, he spent the morning and most of the afternoon in his office catching up on the administrative work that had been deferred for his trip to Prisaris. It was the most mundane part of being an Agent. He knew his father hated it, too, which didn’t help. Though things were about as streamlined as they could be, entering notes about each student’s progress and scores, designing lesson plans, and staying abreast of threat assessment reports was nonetheless time-consuming.
Just as he was feeling like it might be possible to knock out the rest of his backlog before dinner, a message from his father flashed across his touch-screen desktop.
>>Come to my office when you have a moment.<<
That meant ‘right now’, but Jason appreciated that his father wasn’t the kind of commander to make everything an urgent order.
Shit, what now? Jason caught himself. Shite, he corrected mentally. Tiff was right; he was Taran and needed to adjust his speech. This is going to be foking weird.
He sent an affirmative acknowledgement to his father and then quickly locked down his office systems before heading to the High Commander’s office down the hall. The doors were closed, so he alerted Wil telepathically that he’d arrived.
“Come in,” his father replied.
Jason entered and closed the door behind him before taking a seat in a guest chair. Across the wooden High Commander’s desk, his father was tapping out a message on his handheld. He glanced up with a welcoming nod and smile to Jason while he finished whatever he was working on. With a sigh, he set down the device.
“Why does everything always seem to converge? It can never just be one thing.”
Jason shrugged. “The Universe is testing us, I guess.”
Wil studied him. “I saw Tiff’s transfer come across my desk. How are you doing with that?”
Leave it to his father to read between the lines. Though Jason had never directly discussed his relationship with her, his parents were frustratingly perceptive, even without telepathy. To them, it had probably been obvious from the start what was going on.
“I’m sad to lose a friend here, but I look forward to staying in touch and hearing how she grows into her new role.”
His father nodded sagely. “Some relationships are what you need at the time.”
“Yeah. This will be good for her. And me.”
“I hope you know, I’m always here for you if you ever need to talk.”
“I do, thank you. I’m good. Really.”
“Okay.” He looked down at the digital reports fanned out on his desktop. “This situation is going to demand our full attention, I’m afraid.”
“I’m ready.”
“Good,” his father said, “because I’ll need you to help Michael keep an eye on things around here for a few days. Your mother and I are taking a trip to Tararia.”
“Seriously, a social visit now?”
“Yes, it’s a good opportunity to see your sister, but that’s a bonus, not the reason.”
Jason felt the burn of embarrassment for jumping to conclusions. He hadn’t seen his sister much in the past decade. It was unfortunate that their two paths had taken them apart, but such was life.
“We’re going to look through the Priesthood’s physical archives to see if there’s anything else about the treaty,” his father continued.
“There’s more you haven’t gone through?” When the organization had been ousted five years prior, the TSS had conducted a raid of the island’s structures before handing it over to Ryan as the new seat for the Dainetris Dynasty. Jason had assumed that any physical archives found in the depths of the former monastery had been seized at the time.
“I never conducted an inspection myself,” Wil said. “There’s only one way to find out if the other Agents missed anything.”
“I wonder what else you might come across down in the depths.”
His father nodded. “The Priesthood kept a lot hidden. Admittedly, I haven’t gone to search before because I’m hesitant to find out what else they might have been keeping from us.”
“I think it was the right call, at the time, to not dig too deeply,” Jason said. “It let us get a fresh start after they were gone. History is great once you have proper perspective, but it can color judgment.”
“It can. But now, we need the kind of insights only past experience can offer.”
“I hope you find answers.”
“Me too. This ancient war is a mystery.”
“Do you think the Priesthood intentionally buried the records of that war, too?”
“My impression is that this conflict pre-dates the Priesthood’s existence—by a lot. So, any records that may exist would have been locked away simply because no one knew their significance.”
That was a strange thought. The Priesthood had an omnipresence in Taran society that made it feel like the organization had been around forever, even though Jason was aware it had only wielded significant power for the past two thousand years or so. Records from before that time had been intentionally destroyed or altered to help the Priesthood’s nefarious ends, so it was anyone’s guess what Taran life may have been like during a war a hundred thousand years ago. Finding records about the war would not only help address their current alien problem, but it might offer a fascinating window into their own race’s history. That was well worth an exploratory trip.
“I hope you can find the text of the treaty,” Jason said.
“It would certainly make things easier.”
“I’m happy to go with you, if you want another set of eyes.”
His father gave a morose nod. “Under any other circumstances, I’d love for you to come along so we could all be in one place as a family for a change. But… Well, let’s just say we’re going to leave the Conquest here. If there’s an incident here at Headquarters while we’re away, you know what to do.”
When most parents go away for the weekend, they tell their kids not to throw a party. Mine leave me in charge of the deadliest warship in the TSS fleet. He wasn’t sure what that said about their lives, but he took it as a compliment. Nonetheless, it drove home the gravity of their situation. “Are you sure leaving Headquarters right now is a good idea?”
“We need answers, and we can’t get them here.”
Jason nodded. “Okay.”
His father looked him in the eyes. “I trust you, Jason. I wouldn’t ask anything of you I didn’t believe you could handle.”
“I know. It’s just…” Jason searched for the words, “you’ve talked about the Bakzen War and how it changed everything. What having responsibility for so many lives did to you. I don’t know if I can handle it as well as you did.”
“You won’t be alone, just like I wasn’t. This family—and our extended TSS family—sticks together, especially when things get tough.”
“I’m in no rush to be making leadership calls.”
“And you won’t have to right now. Michael will be in charge of TSS operations, but the Conquest is yours. You’ll be the only one here who can use the weapon to its potential, should it be necessary.”
Jason had trusted Michael as a family friend for his whole life and respected him as a leader, so the TSS was in good hands. Still, it was a little exciting to know he was second-in-command. “Will the Conquest even do any good against this enemy?”
“I hope we don’t need to find out.”
CHAPTER 7
Tararia was a sight to behold from above. With its expansive oceans and green lands
, the world resembled the best parts of Earth. However, unlike the planet that served as host to TSS Headquarters, massive orbital structures surrounded Tararia to support its role as a commercial and transportation hub. The sprawling spacedocks stood out as reflective gems against the starscape, with sculptural designs that were equal parts form and function. All manner of craft were docked along the concourses, from small surface-to-port shuttles to massive cargo haulers. Even so, Wil and Saera’s TSS transport ship, with its clean lines and almost iridescent hull, was a striking contrast to the surrounding civilian vessels as it nestled into its berth.
“Ready?” Saera asked Wil as they prepared to disembark.
He nodded. “I hope we find what we’re looking for.” I feel it’s here. Somewhere.
“Me too.”
They boarded one of the smaller transports used by dynastic delegates for trips to the planet’s surface. Though Wil generally disliked traveling in a craft that he couldn’t pilot himself, he’d learned to yield control and enjoy the view on the journey down.
The shuttle descended through the atmosphere with barely any sense of motion, thanks to the advanced stabilizers. Only the immense ocean between the First and Third regions was visible as the craft broke through the upper layer of clouds. As it turned and headed south, Morningstar Isle came into view.
An elaborate white stone estate rose above the sheer cliffs along the northern coast. Its carved towers and terraces contrasted the darker rocks, but the forms were a natural extension of the landscape. The structure wrapped around a courtyard facing the inner span of the isle, which sloped into a lush valley dotted with colorful gardens. On the opposite side, bright red flowers dotted the top of the cliffs—the morningstars that had inspired the island’s new name. Smaller structures lined the southern coast, mostly housing for support staff.
The transport ship came to rest on a landing pad positioned near the eastern entrance to the castle-like structure. A handful of attendants stood ready to greet them.
Wil exited the shuttle first, followed by Saera. He breathed in the salty sea air, its somewhat foul aroma of seaweed and fish a reminder of how he had become accustomed to highly filtered environments.
