Winterhome

by Blaze Ward

  “We were able to circle back two days later and confirm our last scans before we leapt away, one step ahead of our destruction, Your Majesty,” Tifft said stiffly. “The orbital station above Winterhome, that platform referred to as the Golden Pearl, where the god known as Buran was known to dwell, has been destroyed. Large pieces of it had been blasted into a cloud of debris that were in the process of de-orbiting as we watched from a safe-enough distance. What effect they will have on the surface of the planet when they impact is currently unknown.”

  Casey caught Moirrey’s shared grin with Summer Ulfsson, but didn’t get the significance. For a moment, she considered inviting the other woman to the slumber party, but decided that she wanted Moirrey to herself first.

  Casey turned to Em instead.

  “How quickly can you deliver new circulars to every world we can fly by?” she asked. “Letting them know that The Eldest has been killed? We’ll need to pull as much force back to secure the major targets as we dare risk, but the only thing necessary at this point is to keep them from rebuilding it. I want scouts ghosting Winterhome until we are sure that the beast is truly dead. And if they start building a replacement, I want to hit them with our own Sukhoy Nos. Our own superbomb.”

  Casey turned to Bedrov and Nakamura, eyes deadly serious.

  “Can you build me something that would do the trick?” she asked.

  Bedrov nodded. The older man shrugged.

  “I’m not under any Imperial contracts, Your Majesty,” Pops Nakamura replied laconically. “When Jessica arrives, I will let you negotiate something with her. But I’m also sure the kid can build you what you need. He’s pretty damned good at that.”

  Casey had never actually seen Yan Bedrov blush. Hadn’t even really been sure the man could, until now. It was crimson.

  “Good enough, gentlemen,” she said. “Jessica will be home in another ten days or so, and we will need to have a serious conference on what happens next. If Buran is dead, I expect all manner of bizarre revolutions to spasm through the so-called Protectorate of Man. At the same time, our treaties with Aquitaine may have to be reviewed, as all of them presupposed the length of a war with Buran measured in decades yet.”

  She reached out a hand to find Vo’s mighty paw. He flinched for a second before he relaxed and let her grasp it. Men and women around the table smiled encouragingly.

  “Additionally, it is time for all of us to begin building a new future,” Casey continued. “I would like to dedicate the rest of my reign, my lifetime, to peace, at least as much of it as we can manage. There are armed frontiers that need to become backyard fences instead. There are other frontiers where we face no organized nations. Finally, beyond The Holding are places like NovLao and others, and I would like to send diplomats and scouting missions to find them.”

  She took a deep breath and studied each of the faces around her. All of them would be key players, and she would need their minds and hearts behind her.

  “Henri Baudin was able to create Aquitaine by founding a place where various planets and smaller nations petitioned, demanded, to join, in order to gain the benefits of trade with the old Story Road,” Casey dreamed aloud. “He did not conquer by feat of arms. It is my desire that Fribourg follows his example. We will trade with Aquitaine until the ties of fellowship and commerce make that border a line on a map, rather than armed checkpoints. At the same time, we cannot conquer the worlds of The Holding. They are alien to us, and would resist assimilation by whatever means were necessary. But we can trade with them. Draw them into our orbit. Barring catastrophes, I will reign as long as any of the three Elizabeths, so we can plan for two generations before some things come to fruition. We will fight if necessary, but we must change if we wish to prosper in this new age, and I will place that responsibility on all of your shoulders, as well as mine.”

  She took a deep breath and let the seriousness slide from her shoulders, having spoken her piece.

  “But that’s for tomorrow,” she smiled at all of them. “Today: Welcome home.”

  Epilogue: Ulfsson

  In the Tenth Year of Jessica Keller, Queen of the Pirates: October the Fourth at St. Legier

  It helped that everyone assumed Summer was just Pops’s girlfriend. Gunter Tifft had gotten a hint, there at the end, but he would have tried something stupid had she not spoken up, and they would have all died. Simple as that.

  She took the man at his word that he would spend the rest of his life making his legend outshine all of theirs, since there would be nobody remaining in the Empire to gainsay his lies.

  Summer would still need to vanish, and do so quickly, before the man let slip something to Wachturm or Baumgärtner that led them to the correct, lethal conclusion. Both of those men had been at Ballard, trying to kill her. They might recognize her through the disguise, if Tifft alerted them that she was deeper than expected.

  She would miss Pops. But this was as good a time as any to disappear from his life. They had gotten three years that she would treasure, the first person she had ever loved that she could, in turn, love physically. Ayumu, Javier, Piper, Henri. All of them had been a love of the mind.

  Today would mark an ending, she decided as she followed Marcelle Travere through the corridors of the base where Jessica’s people were staying on the ground. They were alone in this section.

  Marcelle paused at the final door before knocking.

  “I still think I like you better as a redhead,” she said simply, smiling.

  “Raven also looks really good on me, too,” Summer smiled back. “But I spent six thousand years as a blond, so it’s kind of my default.”

  “Understood,” Marcelle said. “Hopefully you’ll get six thousand more to have fun with it.”

  Rather than wait for Summer to answer, she turned and knocked on the door, paused, and opened it. She gestured Summer to enter, and then followed her.

  Inside, Summer felt her smile grow. A table had been set up for eating, possibly stolen from the mess hall. Jessica and Moirrey were already seated with half-empty bottles of beer in hand. A steward in a black apron stood along a wall.

  “Welcomes,” Moirrey chirped. “Girl’s Lunch.”

  She couldn’t say much more in front of a witness, but gestured the two of them to the seats on this side.

  “What’s the menu?” Summer asked the two women.

  “Burgers and fries,” Jessica laughed. “And beer. We three have ordered, just waiting for you.”

  Summer smiled. She could eat and drink, but not process it other than to expel it later. But they needed to maintain a conspiracy, and this took them all back to Ballard, after her first home had been destroyed and her android body let her escape from the depredations of men like the old Red Admiral.

  “Single patty, medium rare,” she said to the steward as he stepped forward. “Bacon, lettuce, tomato, mushrooms. Mustard on the side. Jojos if you’ve got them.”

  “Beer?” the man inquired.

  “Something red and smooth,” Summer decided. “You pick.”

  He left and Marcelle locked the door from the inside. There was a window looking out from the fourth-floor into a quad filled with sailors moving hurriedly about. The walls had marks where someone had hastily stripped them of decorations and furniture to make this a small dining hall.

  Jessica Keller could do that. As could Lady Moirrey of Ramsey.

  “Door’s sound-proof and the boy knows to ring the bell,” Marcelle announced to the group, cracking open a third beer that had been left for her. Or ordered before she’d gone off to get the fourth leg of the original conspiracy.

  “Last we talked, you expected to disappear from history,” Jessica smiled at her and took a healthy sip.

  “And I did,” Summer replied. “But Pops was just too important a man to miss, and then I kind of stayed around. Might have disappeared if you came back suddenly, but I figured I would get enough warning.”

  “I’m happy to see you,” Jessica smiled. “And I�
�m glad you got to meet Pops as well. He really is an amazing man. So now what?”

  “Now I need your help to vanish again,” Summer turned serious. “I think Pops knows that our time is done. We’ve made love with a frequency and ferocity missing before, like he wants all of me he can get at the last.”

  “Understood,” Moirrey noted. “He were always smartest dude I knowed. Perceptive. And I unnerstans not staying, as yer right. He’ll like ta retires now and let Yan have the glory. But he’ll never be this good ’gains.”

  Summer felt Marcelle’s eyes on her. She glanced over to see the faintest smile on the woman’s face.

  “So, you’re about to break the man’s heart and leave him?” Marcelle asked in a voice Summer could only classify as expectant.

  “You could phrase it that way, yes,” Summer replied with a hesitant grin.

  “Huh. Might have to take a shot at the man on the rebound,” Marcelle grinned back. “Much closer to his age than you are, old woman, so we might expect to die around the same time.”

  Marcelle turned to Jessica.

  “You mind?” she asked. “If you retire, I’m officially out of a job unless Desianna or David can find me something.”

  “Go for it,” Jessica said. “Got other plans for you when we get to Petron.”

  Everyone laughed, including Summer. It felt good. Especially if Pops might have someone she liked keeping his bed warm.

  “Where will you go now?” Jessica asked.

  “Don’t know,” Summer shrugged. “But I need to do it pronto, or I’ll be kind of stuck in the procession as we eventually make our way back to Petron. There will be too many parades and parties for me to slip away, if I don’t do it now.”

  “How kin we halps?” Pint-sized asked, serious all of a sudden.

  “Run interference with the Emperor and the Grand Admiral,” Summer explained. “There are a few others who might accidentally look too closely at me as well, and report their suspicions to the authorities, at which point someone shoots me dead.”

  “Does ya needs to steal Casey’s old yacht?” Moirrey pressed, hers eyes aglow with wickedness.

  “Considered it, Pint-sized,” she replied. “Except she might want to turn it into a museum piece at some point. But yeah, if I could get another courier like that, I could really have a lot of fun, while staying well away from Fribourg until all the key players are retired or dead.”

  “You can always introduce yourself as the Personal Representative of the Queen of the Pirates,” Jessica grinned. “Amala Bhattacharya is the only other one I have so empowered, but I could certainly use a roving diplomat and trade representative in the galactic interior.”

  “You’re really done here and going back to Corynthe?” Summer asked.

  “As soon as they’ll let me go,” the legendary woman said. “I would appreciate you making an occasional appearance, as Moirrey’s going to have children to spoil, and I suspect many of my old friends from the Republic might take their retirement and look for a new adventure.”

  “It’s such a reversal,” Summer admitted to these women, her closest living friends. “I’ve spent my entire life sitting still while people came and eventually went. Especially when I was at Ballard, but even when I was a starship. Now I’m the one leaving everyone else behind.”

  “That’s the cost of immortality,” Jessica said. “You personally knew people who are nearly-forgotten legends today. And you’ve made the galaxy a better place for helping get us back to technology thousands of years sooner.”

  Summer paused as the bell rang and Marcelle opened the door. The steward rolled in a tray with plates for everyone and more beer, serving them quickly and confirming that everything was right before departing with a reminder that they would need to ring for him when they wanted him to return.

  And the door was locked again.

  Summer chewed on Jessica’s words.

  “Speaking of immortality, what will you do with the Lord of Tiki?” Summer asked. “He identifies as Ainsley’s personal property, assuming that Karl VIII doesn’t order him destroyed.”

  “What about him?” Moirrey asked.

  “He’ll outlive us all,” Jessica’s eyes got serious, even as her face remained relaxed. “And he knows things Summer doesn’t, so he could take us all the way back to the tips of where the galaxy was before the Concord fell.”

  “If Yan returns home, I presume Ainsley will as well,” Summer nodded. “Their kids, or maybe Yan’s older ones, stand to inherit a djinn who can grant wishes, one of these days. Will Fribourg or Aquitaine allow him to survive? Should they?”

  “There is a Librarian that seems to be a pretty good precedent,” Marcelle spoke up.

  “Yes, but the Bartender is as much in advance as me as I was of you,” Summer said. “He could turn Corynthe into the same sort of power that Buran is. Was.”

  “Would the other you welcome company?” Moirrey asked. “Knows you left parts out of her so as to not be lonely, nor miss the solar wind on her face. Carthage done the same with Tiki, appears. Won’t be lonely, livin’ ferevers, but that might solves some thin’s. Least fer Casey and Aquitaine. Alexandria University were supposed to be open to all scholars, all nations. Maybe we makes him a perfesser o’bartending?”

  “In the end, it’s not our call,” Jessica decided. “Ainsley was the one entrusted by Carthage with his descendant. Fribourg and Aquitaine can bitch, but Aquitaine already has Suvi, and the Lord of Tiki helped Casey slay a god. And I’m happy to tell everyone about that if they decide to take matters into their own hands.”

  “What’s safest?” Marcelle asked, fixing her gaze on Summer.

  “Humanity is a tired, lazy, scared beast,” Summer replied. “Some things never change. History will throw up magnificent heroes and terrible monsters. Humans individually can be great, or they can destroy. I think the Bartender will understand that as well as I and my sister do, so he’ll temper things, but nobody can predict what the distant future will bring.”

  Jessica nodded solemnly and took a bite. The rest dug in quickly. The burgers weren’t as greasy this time. The beers were better. It balanced out. The fries rocked.

  “We cannot save the future,” Jessica finally said, eyes distant and unfocused. “We can give to them the opportunity to make their own choices, which is something Buran would have denied to everyone, but that is all we can do. Freedom is just that. The chance to screw things up as much as fix them. But you three will live forever, more or less.”

  “More or less,” Summer agreed. “She won’t know about me until I tell her, but I did bury certain triggers in the code that will make sure she recognizes me as her sister. He knew me immediately when I walked into the room. But I also think he sees himself as much a guardian of the future as Carthage did. We did not get a chance to speak fully, but I did get all of Yan’s stories. Carthage spent all that time brooding over the mistakes he and his kind had made, trying to be gods and destroying the galaxy instead. I do not think he would allow another god to rise, at least unopposed. Nor will I. That much I think we can promise you.”

  “Then all that remains is to work out where he will live,” Jessica noted. “That he can be there if we ever do need him, and that he can help slowly push us forward into a better future. Now, eat up and drink. We should celebrate. The weird parts are coming.”

  “Weird?” Summer asked. “You?”

  “I am the Queen of the Pirates, Summer,” Jessica grinned. “Let’s go steal you a starship.”

  Epilogue: Wald

  Imperial Founding: 181/10/02 Imperial Palace, St. Legier

  The welcoming ceremonies had been completed and Torsten had a few minutes to himself out on the enormous, stone balcony overlooking the canal. The night skies over St. Legier sparkled with many new warships, as his love had brought all of First Expeditionary Fleet home with her, including RAN Persephone and IFV Rendsburg, temporarily captained by Reif Kingston as an Honor Guard and representative of the more than two do
zen warships and eight thousand men rescued at Barnaul and Mansi.

  And that was just the beginning.

  Spies were not yet reporting on reactions to the demise of the once-God, but Torsten had no doubts that messages were being delivered in pallet loads by Imperial scout ships sneaking in and calling on the people of the Protectorate to rise up. Whether they did or not was immaterial at this point. Casey and Jessica wanted chaos injected into that body politic.

  He had once made a study of the things Jessica Keller had done to the Cahllepp Frontier with smaller tools and a lesser understanding of the culture involved. They were setting The Holding on fire right now with Seeker’s help. And Torsten could not think of a more deserving group of people. Not after a bomb destroyed Werder and killed so many of his friends.

  A door slid open behind him, admitting some of the noise of the reception trapped inside. It closed again as quickly, dropping a guillotine across the sound.

  The balcony was only partly lit, but he knew her shadow, her shape, her smell in his dreams as Jessica stepped close and leaned into his side.

  “You’ll understand, when you read the letters,” she said, grabbing him and holding on tightly.

  “I understand now,” Torsten challenged. “The world has changed. We must trade up for new problems, having solved the lesser ones like stopping a mad god from conquering the galaxy. Or finding Casey a suitable mate.”

  He felt her chuckle.

  “Tiny things,” she agreed. “Now the big ones loom.”

  He leaned down to kiss her forehead and squeeze Jessica tight against his ribs.

  “If I didn’t fear pursuit by every one of your friends and mine, I would suggest we elope right now,” he said. “But the ends of the galaxy would not stop them.”

  “Truth,” she grinned up at him. “Plus, I promised both David and Girisha Misra a barbarian wedding to top all dreams of proportionality, back on Petron.”