Winterhome

by Blaze Ward

  The growl was larger and uglier this time. She had released an expurgated version of Kosnett’s mission logs to everyone, so they knew what Phil and his team had done over the last year.

  Aquitaine and Fribourg had always traded captured men and women home, none the worse for wear, even in a war that had lasted over a century. Neutral third-parties like Wilankadu had handled all diplomatic functions, at least until the Peace came and the sides finally talked like grown-ups.

  Jessica knew the Imperial captains would happily bombard the world from orbit. Hell, some of her longest-serving men and women had once helped her slam a small asteroid into a moon of Sarmarsh IV, as a way of negotiating with a group of pirates.

  “General zu Arlo,” she turned her attention to Vo now, odd man out from this group, but for different reasons.

  Her folks knew him as one of their own, made extremely good. And most of them didn’t know the extremely secret bits that both Torsten and Em had shared.

  To the Imperials, Vo was the Hero of St. Legier, larger than life.

  Vo nodded at her. It finally felt like Vo wasn’t nervous around her anymore, which said something about how far he had come over the last decade.

  “You brought the Arsenal-class troop transport Dieter Jost with you when you left Osynth B’Udan,” Jessica said, noting the captain that perked up, seated not far away, but hanging closer to the transport commanders than the front line fighters.

  “That is correct, Admiral,” Vo rumbled back. “The vessel does not have any troops aboard her at present, but is prepared. Similarly, Senior Centurion Lau’s Packmule has been refurbished and loaded full, under the command of a new IFV crew picked by Admiral Provst.”

  Calm. Certain.

  Deadly, if you could see the fire that burned in the man’s eyes.

  “Your job will be to liberate Barnaul, General,” Jessica said. “Miners who wish to leave, regardless of nation of birth, will be welcomed aboard and flown to Osynth B’Udan, after which that task force will return here. For smaller raids, we can always transport rescuees on our ships.”

  She noted the way Centurion Veitengruber sat up straighter and made eye contact. It felt like he wanted to raise a hand as she turned to him.

  “Centurion Veitengruber?” she asked.

  “Regardless of nation of birth, First Centurion?” he asked carefully, noting her Aquitaine title, rather than the uniform she wore.

  It was a loaded question. This officer could not return to polite Imperial society with the man he loved, who was also a refugee from the far side of Buran, to top it all off. That much had been made clear in Kosnett’s logs and subsequent messages.

  “I’m aware that we may evacuate people from NovLao and other places, Centurion,” she said. “It is my presumption that they would rather be free at present while we work out how to get them home later. Some may even choose to emigrate to Fribourg or to Aquitaine, at least in the interim. All who wish to leave will be welcome.”

  The man nodded. Deni was aboard Persephone, listed as a supernumerary crew in engineering, but Jessica knew the truth about their relationship. Provst as well, but all he had been required to do was approve the transfer request that enlisted Deni in the RAN as a Landsman.

  “How hard do we push, First Centurion?” Tom Provst spoke up now. “Supporting Lady Moirrey?”

  He had most of the pieces, except Moirrey. And she would be bringing him into that secret tomorrow.

  And Pint-sized had even more of a hold on some Imperial officers than Vo did. Partly, that was how charming the goof could be around them. Partly, it was how close she was known to be to Casey, and what it meant that they had served together. Jessica knew that those same men put Jessica Keller in a category with Vo, more force of nature than human. And that was fine.

  Moirrey got even more points from this audience for personally killing two different top assassins from Imperial Security. Most Navy men loathed the other service.

  Moirrey had repeatedly proven herself smarter and harder than men who prided themselves on their toughness and their discipline.

  “Her mission could win the war, Tom,” Jessica said. “Save the Empire itself. If the rest of us have to be collateral damage, a tool ground down to nothing to give her that shot, it is a price I am willing to pay. And most of the rest of you, I suspect.”

  Growls. Cheers, Exclamation.

  Yes, love for Pint-sized transcended cultures.

  Tom’s eyes narrowed, but he held his peace. Obviously, this was too large a group to explain it all to. Even with Order 48 ensuring that no command officer be taken alive for questioning, as they knew too many secrets that could compromise this frontier.

  Thus, Kigali’s emotional response to seeing Phil alive, when everyone else had expected him to be sacrificed, along with Lau, leaving Skokomish to bring CS-405 home by herself.

  And Lady Blackbeard could have handled that task, based on the record. Jessica looked forward to maybe raiding Mansi soon, just to give Lau and Skokomish their own warships, like Veitengruber had.

  Gone were the days when Jessica could have her command centurions over for tea. Or just bridge, back when it was Denis, Alber’, and Kigali.

  Now she had a fleet, poised on the edge of ruin, or victory.

  “Other questions?” she asked, looking around.

  Too soon, for the most part. Too little upon which to gamble, when Jessica would tell them sometime soon.

  In another week or ten days, Arott would have a temporary battlestation overhead, waiting for Em to deliver the pieces to make a permanent replacement. The 189th would have the start of a permanent operating barracks as well. Em would be scaring up construction engineers as best he could, in order to build even more of an economy here. It would be needed.

  Especially if Pint-sized pulled it off.

  Chapter LXII

  Date of the Republic June 1, 403 The Butterfly, Middle of Bloody Nowhere

  “I knows nobodies can find us here,” Moirrey hadda ask. “But ya dinna breaks it, did ya?”

  Interestin’, Ainsley growled the loudest. She ’spected Yan ta bitch. He were heads down on a console with Gunter, checkin’s somet’in’ an’ mutterin’ some fierceness.

  “If we did, it might qualify as a design flaw,” da Vinci said sharply, scowling up at her.

  Not da Vinci no more, but sounded way more like hers, and not like chilled-max Ainsley Barret.

  Still, Moirrey kept her mouth shut. Fewer flies that way.

  The bridge were still a might testy. Gots worse when Pops meandered in and took one looks around. Almost walked right back out silent-like, but Ainsley see’d him and spoke.

  “Well?” Ainsley snapped.

  Moirrey hunged on pins and tridents fer the words. Pops looked like he swallered a goldfish whole.

  “Good news, bad news,” Pops finally equivocated, lookin’ likes he wanted ta duck incoming beer bottles. “We can fix it. The overload was a result of a tweak we made to one of the crossover arrays. The system briefly hit six point seven on the output curve, before blowing every damned fuse it touched. If we bring it down to a six point five threshold, it should maintain that for at least thirty seconds.”

  “Bad news?” Moirrey asked.

  It were her baby they was messin’ with.

  “The power fluctuations at that level are still too much to program against,” Pops said. “We’ll have to hold it by manually adjusting things. Give me and the kid a year and we could build you a feedback suppressor that could do it, but nothing sooner. Figure time trumps money and safety.”

  “You’d be correct,” Ainsley and Gunter managed to say in perfect unison.

  Like they’d practiced it, er somethin’.

  Gunter nodded and let Ainsley yammer.

  “The Grand Admiral has told Jessica by now,” Ainsley said. “Unless we scrub the mission, there is no way to easily send a message to anyone to back down, after we asked them to go to the wall on this one. What are the risks?”
<
br />   Pops screwed his face kinda sideways and thought while Moirrey watched.

  “We blow up with it, if we take it that far past safety measures, holding the beam,” he decided. “Or we bail early and the system shorts out and stops working. Scuttling charges are on a chemical fuse, so they’ll go boom, but we might not pull it off, and we’ll give them too much information about how it was done if a Sentient system survives to analyze the wreckage.”

  “Agreed,” Moirrey said. She could do that, with the most known experience with AIs in this group.

  Known. Summer probably would have agreed, too. It were ’mazin’ what a super-smart box could do, given enough time and high enough threat.

  “Okay, one, we have the best engineers the Grand Admiral could send,” Gunter spoke up. “Two, we’re all volunteers on a known forlorn hope. Wills have been updated accordingly.”

  Kid were fierce. She hadda give ’im that.

  And grin at the words he chose.

  Bad translators in the way back had turned the old Dutch phrase verloren hoop, literally “lost heap” or “lost battalion” into the thing sounded closest in English, “Forlorn Hope.” Then they goned and done transmitted it to the stars later as a miscommunication that sounded neat, until ya knowed the meanin’.

  Still referred to a group of folks walking inta a meat grinder, expectin’ ta be killeded in the doin’s of th’thin’. Like them.

  “So,” Ainsley speared the kid with her glare. “All in?”

  Gunter’s face got scary-cold as Moirrey watcheded.

  “I watched Second St. Legier from orbit, Captain Barret,” he growled, fierce-like. “Many of my men did, as well. All in to them means trying to hold the generators together so we could turn them off after we succeed, change the aim of the ship, and pick out more targets to hit, preferably on the ground, killing things until someone finally finds us and blows this ship to pieces. After that, we’ll storm Hell and make sure the beast has a front-row seat.”

  Wowsers. Even Ainsley blinked.

  Yan spoke up now.

  “It will hold,” he said in a promise to the death that they might all hafta cash. “I have a tweak I want to program, and then a couple of bus bars to see about moving, Pops. Then we’ll charge everything up and take another shot. Not like that damned planet’s going to mind.”

  Moirrey glanced out the front window at the rock they was orbitin’ and hadta agree. No atmosphere. Carbon-black surface with red blotches from iron underneath gettin’ ’sposed by meteorite hits. And three shots from the Butterfly, carving new formations inta the rock itself.

  Nasty stuff.

  “Imma help Summer cook,” Moirrey suddenly decided.

  She and the babe couldna talk much ’bout important stuff, with all these boys, and one girl, ’rounds, but were nice to be with her. And she had the best cookbook in her head Moirrey’s knowed. Of course she didn’t tell these folks where she learned the recipes.

  But Moirrey standing to leave did the trick o’suckin’ crazy out of the air.

  Yan and Pops headed aft. Gunter and Ainsley did a rock/paper/scissors to see who stayed on the bridge. Gunter won and followed.

  Ainsley could stew for a while. Moirrey’d bring her some wine in a bit and it would make the world all a better place.

  And maybe after dinner, they’d figure out how to make a god go boom.

  Chapter LXIII

  Imperial Founding: 181/06/02 Imperial Hall of Government, Strasbourg, St. Legier

  The numbers never lied. Torsten had seen experts who could make them dance. Cause them to mislead the lazy or uninformed. But never lie.

  And he was probably as expert on numbers as anyone outside of a Department of Mathematics.

  So the truth made him uncomfortable.

  All that crossed his mind as he entered a private chamber specifically set aside, on the fourth floor of an isolated wing in the Hall of Government.

  Four men stood watch outside in the hallway. Armed and generally polite. Ruthless, though. His badge got checked twice before he could enter.

  Inside, the room had not changed appreciably since the last time he had come here a month ago. One narrow table ran down the middle of the wide room, providing a metaphorical curtain wall and moat for the four men on the other side. Various binders stacked up suggested crenellations, and he occasionally expected arrows or boiling oil on his side of that wall.

  Torsten took a seat and watched the oldest man over there. He had not brought anything with him to this meeting. He never did. No paper. No tablet. Even his personal comm was back with his secretary, in case Casey suddenly needed to reach him mid-afternoon.

  Just his mind, and his memory.

  And four of Her Majesty’s most capable spies and analysts prepared to brief him out of cycle.

  That never boded well.

  “Should the Grand Admiral be here?” Torsten asked as the two sides stared across the curtain wall.

  A pause to consider.

  The oldest man had a name. Torsten even knew it. But none of those four liked to be called by anything but random code designations and such, even inside this building.

  Safer for their lives, if nobody could ever connect them with what they did.

  The oldest over there might charitably answer to Six, as his position on the org chart fell first after five political appointees who oversaw the myriad intelligence structures that crossed so many halls and departments.

  “We do not believe so, as yet,” Six spoke carefully.

  Always shade the definitive. Nothing in this job could be declared, except in the past tense. And rarely even then.

  Torsten nodded. They had asked him to come here for a top secret briefing outside the usual. That meant danger at the highest level.

  “Our outfit has many tentacles,” Six began slowly.

  Carefully.

  Hydra, octopus. Whatever.

  “Some of what we uncover is ignored as deliberate obfuscation by our enemies,” Six continued. “False leads designed to identify internal leaks when we react to something only a handful of people might know.”

  “Understood,” Torsten acknowledged.

  “Some of what we do involves coalescing tremendously large data sets and applying a variety of statistical analyses to see what oddities need to be followed up,” the spy said. “You are one of the few people in high government that could follow some of our tools and models, but that’s not why we asked you to join us. We do have the modeling notes handy if needed.”

  Econometricism. Analysis of numbers by turning them into trends and extrapolating them outward. The hard edge of what many dismissed as soft science.

  The numbers that never lied.

  You could misinterpret them. Random events could significantly alter baselines and cause you to see patterns that didn’t exist.

  But the spies knew that as well as he did. Would have redone the numbers a variety of ways. Handed the results to a superior, who might in turn hand them to an unrelated team to blindly replicate.

  Many hands touched it before Six saw the results.

  They must be good.

  Or bad, as it were.

  Torsten nodded again. It was almost a kabuki he played with these men, but everyone understood. Some foolish politicians sought the definitive when building sand castles in the rain.

  Others might assume this was nothing more than reading tea leaves.

  Torsten knew better.

  “The Grand Admiral is a military man,” Six said. “A man of action. This is not a military issue. At least not yet. Our threat originates in the civilian realm.”

  Good. Em had enough on his plate already. Adding restive nobles would be perhaps a bridge too far.

  And it would be nobles. Commoners, by themselves or in small groups, did not represent a threat. If they gathered into large enough groups, they became movements, and the government had tools to engage them as well. Thwart them if necessary. Redirect them where possible. Many got introduced t
o the Hall of the People and given a chance to see the sausage of government being made.

  A few even stuck around and made sausage.

  The nobles would be the problem. Always.

  But there were tools to deal with them, as well. The new Hall of Justice had the pieces seconded from Imperial Security, as it was being dismantled, to investigate things. It must fall outside of their purview.

  Or they found something. Something dangerous. Something terrifying.

  Torsten blinked and caught his breath. Sat back a little in his chair, having unconsciously leaned forward.

  “Tell me,” Torsten steeled himself.

  “The Palatine Governor from Aquitaine,” Six said. “Judit Chavarría. Former Premier of the Republic.”

  Yes, that would be terrifying. The people liked to think of Aquitaine as a new friend of the Empire, but that was seeing Jessica Keller rescue them, time and again, from an even more dangerous foe. And their own stupidity.

  Judit was a power in the Republic, magnified by her decades-old friendship with the current Premier, Tadej Horvat. And she was here, speaking for Horvat’s government.

  And apparently making Torsten’s spies nervous.

  “What has she done that we could prove well enough to go public?” Torsten asked, leaping forward from the assumption that these men were competent at their jobs.

  Public was the key. If you had a double-agent in place, the last thing you wanted to do was out them, unless they held the balance of the Empire and you had no choice.

  Better to get your enemies on something simple and indirect, like tax evasion, rather than bring in a witness to testify, especially if that witness could continue to burrow in after deeper crimes with the survivors.