Winterhome

by Blaze Ward

  Vo was up on a ridge with the best magnification lenses he owned, watching various Patrols and teams maneuver below. The men had been cooped up on the Assault Carriers for too long so they were occasionally getting carried away.

  That was okay. He wasn’t keeping score. This was just to burn off nervous energy for the teams that had drawn the short straw. The other half of the legion was sweating in various construction details. And in three days, everybody would swap.

  As Vo watched, Sledgehammer element lined up and cut loose into a pile of rocks designated as a hostile turtle. It was about the right size and height, and even the particle cannons on the Assault Guns couldn’t do that much damage.

  Vo felt a presence stir next to him. Heard Alan grumble under his breath. Mostly the usual profanities.

  “We need to build our own turtle,” Alan finally said aloud.

  Vo lowered the electronic telescope and looked over at his friend.

  Friend? Yeah, probably. They had been through too much together to not be tight.

  “Why?” Vo asked.

  “Well, not a proper mechanical terrapin, boss,” Alan said with a sigh. “Unless Lady Moirrey could come up with something for us. I want something that moves. And is the right size and shape. Shooting back with lasers or small, paint-filled cannons would also be nice.”

  “You’d blow it to hell with the first shot, Alan,” he noted.

  “Only if we use live fire, Vo,” the Primus Pilus grinned. “I don’t want those lazy bastards getting used to shooting at rocks that just sit there.”

  Vo grinned back. Small chance of it, with these men. But Alan was planning for the future. For the next generation of troopers coming up as these men started to retire.

  An idea struck him. Vo laughed outright. Alan turned to stare up at him.

  “So maybe we get the biggest cargo skiff we can buy,” Vo said. “Or have a motor pool Decurion build one with spare lifters. Mount a couple of spare turrets out of stores, and get the armorers to modifying them, to shoot paint rounds or something that goes a long ways, but disintegrates on impact.”

  “Build six legs like landing pylons?” Alan asked. “It would be ugly and slow, but so was that damned turtle at Severnaya.”

  “Yes, and ring it with targeting sensors, so we can score games,” Vo decided. “Have Alistair come up with a damage scale. If the thing works out, we can build a couple more and transport them across a variety of terrains for training.”

  “Any chance they built that giant man-machine thing Lady Moirrey dreamed up?” Alan’s voice got hopeful.

  “No.” Vo said simply. “Wrong culture.”

  “Huh?”

  “Buran is all about the collective action, Alan,” Vo explained. “One man in a fighter is all by himself and can do things without others watching. Same if he has a gigantic, powered exoskeleton. He steps out of unit control. Buran wants every ant in his place at all times. The Mechanical Terrapin requires a whole team of people to operate so there’s no risk of someone running off when battle starts.”

  “Oh,” Alan replied. “Never really thought of it that way, but it makes sense. Lady Moirrey maybe come up with something like that for us?”

  Vo laughed at the wide-eyed greed in Alan’s eyes.

  “I’m sure that someone, at some time in the past, has built one, Alan,” Vo said. “Someplace like the Library at Alexandria Station might have the plans. Or you might have to find a way to bribe Lady Moirrey.”

  “She owe you any favors?” Alan’s voice was hopeful again.

  Vo laughed.

  “I still owe her, Alan,” he said. “Last time I was at Alexandria Station, an Imperial assassin shot me square in the chest armor. I’d be dead, but she chased him off and eventually killed him, while others got me evaced down to the planet below.”

  “Too bad,” Alan replied. “Could have been fun.”

  “Not really,” Vo countered. “I’m rated for heavy EVA armor. It’s a pain in the ass, any time you’re in gravity. The gun’s nice, but smaller than you’ve got on one of the skiffs. Only thing you gain is being invulnerable to most small arms, and the ability to pick up a car and tear it in half if you want to. Your grandmother could outrun you in open terrain.”

  “She can do that now,” Alan laughed. “Some grandmothers take up knitting. Mine does half-marathons.”

  Vo could only imagine that. Alan was a little older than him, thirty-nine to Vo’s thirty-five, but that would make the man’s grandmother probably somewhere in her eighties or older.

  The moment got sober. Conversations did that, when you let them wander around.

  “So what about Barnaul?” Alan asked. “They dangerous?”

  Vo turned to look at the man more squarely.

  “The day one of your lances can’t take out a Shore Patrol, Black Maria, riot control van, I’m gonna have to put you out to pasture, Alan,” Vo announced.

  Alan’s grin was a kilometer wide.

  “Was thinking about those dump trucks, Vo,” he retorted. “Damn things could squish a skiff.”

  “Vulcanized polymers for tires, Alan,” Vo sniffed. “I don’t care if they’re probably reinforced inside with chain mail. You have to have a solid, flexible gripping surface, and you’ll have to spread the mass out over a big footprint, if you don’t want to sink. They’re tough, I’m sure, but they have zero armor, as we count them. Again, if you don’t think you can handle it, I’ll send Pyotr over. It’ll give Chilikov’s crew a chance to get crazy.”

  “Actually, that might not be the worst idea, Vo,” Alan got serious suddenly. “Alien invasion, and all that. Especially if we withdraw them immediately after things settle down and hide them. Maybe suggest we’ve genetically-engineered monsters, or something. Let the survivors play that up when the story gets retold.”

  “You are an evil, evil man, Alan,” Vo shared the sudden grin. “Rearrange the assault planning to drop the Vikings on them first at both the city and the mine. CCLXXIII Heavy can rumble through town behind Sledgehammer and then we pincer the city from three sides. And have Fourth and Fifth Ala train together for a week with the rest of you off building houses. Jessica’s going to want to leave soon enough, but we’ll drive that with our need to pack up the first round of DropShips.”

  “Got it, boss,” Alan smiled and went back to his optics.

  Vo did the same.

  Down below, Sledgehammer had backed off and was beginning a new run, in a new formation.

  Vo didn’t expect anything big at Barnaul, but you never knew when somebody might think they could stop the 189th Legion.

  Chapter LXVI

  Common Era: 13450, Day 152. Winterhome. Palace of the Eldest.

  The future looked brighter than Han remembered. Stepping back from ultimate control as First among even the Mandarins had freed him. He felt thirty years younger, watching the three others who represented the generation behind him grow into themselves.

  In less than sixty days, he would depart the Golden Pearl that had been his home for half a century, retiring to the land of his birth, below on Winterhome. He would leave things in capable hands, even if not quite the cast he had expected. Wa Dahnna Lomek Gar, Minister of the Right Facet, had suffered a mild health event, possibly a heart attack that never quite materialized, but Han had not pressed for the details.

  The Eldest had chosen to retire the man gracefully, as he would need time to recover. His replacement, Au Griblee Austur Wol, was a baby in this group, just turned seventy-two years old, and was built like he should have been a Warrior, but he was a deep thinker perhaps comparable to the minister of the Left Facet, Nu Sheelan Robar Shil.

  For now, Han was happy to let power flow from his hands like water. Ko Quebwas Polen Nim, Minister of the Right Interior, would move up to his pillow soon enough as she gathered the reins. At eighty-two years, she was a short and rotund woman who reminded Han of the ancient images of enlightenment.

  Han smiled as the latest messenger came before them
. He would perhaps miss this chamber more than he would miss the inhabitants, but it had been a central aspect of his life for so long that he was unsure what thing might fulfill him afterwards.

  “What news from the barbarians?” Han asked in a brighter voice than perhaps many were expecting.

  He noted eyes and heads twitch in his direction uncomfortably.

  “Much news, Minister of the Left Interior,” the man said carefully.

  As with all spies, they were chosen for that gift of anonymity that would cause you to forget them three seconds after they left your field of vision.

  “However, little of it is good,” the man continued in a lower pitch. “The piracy problem plaguing the Altai and Lena sectors has grown out of control. They struck the secret prison camp at Mansi four months ago, destroying all orbital facilities and rescuing the prisoners from the surface.”

  Han felt the anger in his heart reflecting off the Mandarins beside him. Taken prisoners were put to work. Or allowed to starve, if they chose. The Eldest believed that labor would bring the barbarians to a finer understanding of the value of civilization. Mansi was one of four such worlds around the perimeter of the Protectorate of Man, where the most difficult prisoners were sentenced, as capital punishment was a tool of last resort, not first.

  “Why were we not told earlier?” Han demanded in a voice that forgot how nice he had considered this day, just five minutes ago.

  “The station was destroyed by a surprise attack, Minister,” the man struggled to keep his voice and posture calming.

  Messengers were not shot, but the man would have to suffer some level of wrath, and had probably drawn the short straw today.

  “In addition, the other stations were threatened with bolide extinction if they did not surrender, after the raiders had destroyed the kremlin on the surface,” he continued. “The crews of the remaining stations were allowed to come to the surface when their platforms were destroyed, while the prisoners were transported to orbit and rescued by a previously-captured hospital ship. We expect that, given their actions over the last year, the barbarians may have made their way to the nearest fortified sector capital, a world known as Osynth B’Udan. We await confirmation from our spies there in as little as three weeks.”

  “Have there been other raids like this one?” Nim asked. Shortly, it would become her problem.

  “No, Minister of the Right Interior,” the man turned his attention to her. “Keller’s Imperial forces have grown more ambitious, but the attack on Severnaya Zemlya appears to have damaged her forces to the point that we can confirm her fleet was at Osynth B’Udan for repairs as recently as four months ago.”

  “So there are at least two sets of attackers?” Nim probed.

  “Confirmed, Minister,” the spy said. “Keller’s forces were accounted for when Mansi was attacked.”

  “Have other sectors faced a similar rise in piracy?” Han stepped back into the conversation. “Or is this contained to Altai, for the most part?”

  “That is correct, sir,” the spy nodded to him. “Samara continues to be ignored, possibly recognized as the trap it is. Lena has seen some intelligence, based on navigation trends, but everything has remained in Altai for now.”

  Normally, Han would issue orders here. But this was no longer his chamber, nor his power. Only his original plan and the glory that had accumulated around it.

  Pointedly, he turned to Nim and let his face speak the question his voice would not enunciate around outsiders.

  “Make your reports available for consumption,” Nim ordered the spy. “You are dismissed.”

  Quickly, and perhaps thankfully, the man backed away, fleeing the room with only a slight amount of psychological trauma.

  “Eldest, what is your desire?” Nim asked as they turned to the rear, rather than Han.

  Buran’s godlike, alien face took form before them, more than a meter tall.

  “Flood Altai with sector forces stripped from others,” Buran ordered. “Keller will escalate her attacks there in an attempt to pierce our border and threaten the inner sectors, while continuing to ignore Samara. She has perhaps smelled that trap and will avoid it. Withdraw the extra forces from Samara as well, leaving the normal detachment. As with all plans, some eventualities never come to present.”

  “Should we attack Osynth B’Udan?” Nim pressed her case.

  She had always been the more aggressive of his comrades. Han would have simply reinforced the holding at Samara, while slowly building new colonies across the M’Hanii Gulf, continuing to push Fribourg back by bleeding their fleet in futile, frontal assaults.

  Nim had made the better case for punishing St. Legier with Sukhoy Nos, the anti-matter superbomb that had brushed aside the capital city’s shields and killed all the residents cowering beneath.

  “Prepare for such an assault by gathering appropriate additional forces at Ninagirsu,” the god commanded. “My calculations show it is the next most likely target for Keller to assault, as she seeks to visit upon The Protectorate a like punishment for their capital world. Once she breaks her fleet there, you shall pursue her home and strike a double blow.”

  “As you command,” Nim replied with obvious glee.

  Han could see the logic of the maneuvering. Emmerich Wachturm, once famed as Fribourg’s Red Admiral, might have fallen for it. Most Imperial commanders would have been sucked under by the rip tides of history.

  But Han’s mind was troubled. Keller Marie Jessica was a different case. Had not The Eldest placed her in the eighth standard deviation for humanity, as a military commander? At that range, it might be possible to name every individual in the category with her, as they would be few, even across the whole of human history.

  Would she follow such direct logic? She had not in any study Han had seen.

  But he kept silent. His time was ending in less than sixty days and he risked being seen as a mere meddler now, if he chose to challenge Nim at the very moment when he was allowing her to usurp his place and his power.

  Plus, the orders had come from God Himself, an ancient being more intelligent than any mere mortal.

  Chapter LXVII

  Imperial Founding: 181/06/06. Imperial Palace, Strasbourg, St. Legier

  Casey had moved from having nearly-constant meetings with Torsten a year ago to skipping days. He had proven his loyalty and competence in the depths of the worst winter and summer of anybody’s lives, so she could leave him alone to work, without needing him to constantly hold her hand, even metaphorically.

  Even when she felt lonely and wanted reassurances that things were going well. The corset of Imperial responsibility was tiresome. She could understand how her father would complain to Em about the fun her uncle got to have, while a mere emperor stayed home.

  Teas with important players, just to reward them for loyalty. Ribbon-cuttings as new buildings, roads, schools, libraries, and other facilities opened, in what would become her new Imperial capital.

  The little things that kept it all running, but didn’t let her have much impact. Even the House of Dukes and the House of the People were currently both in recess, enjoying a month-long stretch of vacation away from the on-going construction.

  But Torsten was coming, so that would brighten her day. The usual one-hour meeting had been extended to two, however that might be nothing, as he might have felt the need for tea to relax from his own day.

  All of Torsten’s hair was coming in gray underneath now, but that was more the stress of his job than anything. And if he wasn’t Father’s age, or Em’s, he was still old enough to be her father. Just as Jessica was old enough to be her mother, rather than just her protector.

  She would miss them both when they returned to their own lives.

  The reception room where she met Torsten was compact. Less formal than the larger one where she entertained guests, as she had four chairs here, a sidetable for the tea service, and not much else. Art reproductions from some of her favorite painters, the originals having
been destroyed. The sidetable itself had been officially looted in Mejico by the 189th when they decided she needed such a thing.

  But not much space. And easily secured, as this was part of her personal suite in the palace, so anyone getting this far had already crossed several layers of security.

  Anna-Katherine knocked at the door, waited a beat, and then opened it far enough to stick her head inside.

  “Your guests are arrived, Lady Casey,” she said formally.

  It had taken almost this long to get her to use that title, rather than Your Majesty.

  But, guests? This was supposed to only be Torsten. Who did he need to bring along, if this was just a normal meeting?

  Clue: it obviously wasn’t going to be normal. The length already proclaimed something was up. The guest list would tell her more before words were ever spoken.

  “Send them in, Anna-Katherine,” Casey nodded.

  The tea was already steeped, because she had felt like it. And a fantastic herbalist had been added to the Household kitchen. A woman who specialized in growing her own leaves in a secured garden, in order to go beyond mere Camellia sinensis and add mints, fruits, flowers and other leaves to make it special.

  Torsten entered first, standing to one side behind the closest chair so that Hendrik Baumgärtner could enter as well, closing the door behind him.

  Interesting. One of those meetings?

  “Please,” Casey commanded. “Sit. Let us enjoy some tea.”

  If that will continue to be possible. What terrible news do you two have for me?

  Her cup refilled, Casey served the two men in turn. It was one of the little things she did to remind herself to remain humble, when she could easily fall into the rut of letting others handle everything for her.

  Torsten was off today. Nervous in ways that Casey couldn’t identify. Unsettled. Was the news that bad?