by Rachel Ford
“In session…the proposal for an advisory council.”
“Oh.” She understood, now. “It was nothing, Brek. We need an onboarding process for new ministers – not just to explain parliamentary processes, but all of this: where our offices are, how to request committee proceedings, and so on.” She shook her head. “We’re figuring it out as we go, but I’m sorry you were ever put in that position.”
Chapter Ten
Minister Trigan was taking his leave when a thought occurred to him. “Have you talked to him, Nikia? Your brother, I mean?”
“What?”
“Since your parents’ deaths, have you spoken with Diven at all?” He suspected that she had not. This was the first time she’d re-watched the broadcast from that day. If she could not stand to see the footage, it followed that she had probably not been up to facing the brother who had had a hand in those killings, either.
She confirmed his suspicion with a shake of her head. “No. I…I’m not sure there’s anything to say.”
Brek hesitated. He’d probably already overstepped the bounds of what he should and shouldn’t say in the circumstance. But it seemed to him that Minister Idan was facing this decision utterly alone. And if he’d already overstepped, well, he might as well help if he could. In for a copper, in for a silver… “Perhaps not,” he nodded. “But before you make any decisions, maybe it would be worth finding out.”
She considered this for a moment. “I don’t know that I could,” she said in a minute, and there was a softness, a sadness, to her tone that affected him almost as much as the sight of her tears earlier. “I don’t know if I could face him after what he did. I…I don’t know.”
“And you never will,” he reasoned, “unless you try.”
She studied him for a moment. “You must have brothers of your own?”
“No,” he admitted. “I do not speak from any experience.” Then, he reconsidered his words. “Not of having family, anyway. But I do speak from the experience of having none left. And it is a cold and lonely existence, Minister Nikia.” He meant that. His life had been nothing but empty since his mother, his last relative, had passed away. It had been one long, meaningless day after the other for him. He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy, much less this sweet-faced, sad-eyed woman who had already suffered so much. “I know it may be the only choice. But – if I may offer advice – be sure first. He is your brother.”
Then, having long taxed the extent of liberties allowed an acquaintance, he quitted her office with a few words of encouragement and farewell.
His own chamber was not far down the hall from hers, but on crutches it seemed slow going. He passed the doors along the way one at a time, and the darkened offices beyond, reading the brass nameplates. Raylor Elkar. Niil Bik. It was odd, he thought absently, that Niil was situated here, and his brother half a hall away.
When he got to Giya Enden’s door, he scowled at the name. Enden had been one of the lead judges during Velk’s trial. It had been his call, while Nikia was hospitalized, to saddle her with this burden. He knew little besides this of the man, except that in his first days in office, their political opinions usually seemed to align. But the latter did not make up for the former in his eyes.
It was a wicked expectation to hold of a sister, to condemn her own brother. It was a cruelty, not a kindness, and how anyone could think otherwise baffled him.
He might have believed things were different on this planet, that family did not amount to as much on Central as it did on Theta, except that he had seen her tears. He’d seen her raw grief, he’d felt it as soon as he’d caught her gaze. It was the emptiness he’d known, putting his mer in the ground, knowing he would never see his mother again in this lifetime. It was the hollow feeling of being truly alone in the vast universe, with no one to spare a thought, a well-wish, a kind word now and again. It was the reality of losing everything that actually mattered.
He’d felt that when he stepped into her office, as real and tangibly as he had felt the cold assail him a thousand times as he stepped out of his hut on wintery Thetan mornings; as tangibly as he could feel the warmth of the Central summer when he stepped into the midday light here.
He settled behind his desk, trying to prop the cumbersome cast up in as comfortable a fashion as possible. Then, still fussing now and again with the leg, he turned to the stack of papers on his desk, and the digital forms on his console.
He stared at the pages, at the words scrawled across them. His eyes lost their focus, and the ink began to dance and blur in his vision. He found himself thinking again about Nikia Idan, and the wretched situation foisted onto her. He found himself thinking, too, about Parliament, and the tasks ahead of them. He felt less optimism now than he had earlier in the day. How could a body that had gotten such a simple thing so terribly wrong handle the complex ones? She was the face of the revolution, and yet they’d done this to her. How could he trust them to do right by the rest of the empire, if this was how they had repaid the woman to whom they owed their freedom at all?
“Minister?”
He started at the sound of a voice at his door, and in doing so whacked his leg into the desk. A shiver of pain shot down his ankle. “Dammit,” he winced. Glancing up, he saw Nikia Idan standing there, and he apologized for his language, “Sorry.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yes. I just…bumped my cast a little. But what can I do for you?” He started to stand.
She protested, “Please, don’t get up. I’m sorry I startled you. I just wanted to let you know: I thought about what you said. And you’re right. I’m going to go there, to see Diven.”
He got to his feet anyway. Somehow, he didn’t like her to see him as an invalid. He was a minister of the empire, not a sick child. “I’m glad.”
She nodded. “Me too. Whatever…whatever happens, whatever he says, it is the right thing to do. And I want to thank you for helping me to see that.”
“Of course.” He smiled. “I hope it is a good visit, Nikia.”
“I’ll know soon enough, either way.” She smiled too, with a touch of uncertainty and, perhaps, trepidation in her expression. “Well, the prison will be closed in a bell and a half. I’d better go, if I’m going to make it. It’s a good fifteen-minute walk to the station, from here.”
“Tonight?” Brek frowned.
“I’d rather know now, instead of brooding over it all night.”
“But…walk? Can’t you call your car?” The idea of a young woman walking the streets of a city alone at night alarmed him.
“Oh, I don’t have a car.”
He blinked. “You don’t have a car?”
She shook her head. “I’ve no need of one. Doctor Kel’s home is nearby, and even if I return to my own…” Her face drew into a frown, as if the idea of that perplexed her. “There’s a train station within walking distance.”
“You mean, public transport?”
“Yes.”
He stared at her for a moment, too surprised to speak. “But…I have a car, and I live just across the block. Surely you should have a vehicle?” The idea of a pregnant woman, much less this one, on whom so much of their revolution hinged, walking the streets while he rode in the back of a chauffeured vehicle, sat utterly wrong with him.
She smiled curiously at him, as if surprised in turn by his astonishment. “I’m used to public transportation, Brek. I’ve used it for months. You are a guest to Central, and a Thetan dignitary.” She shrugged. “Of course you need a car.”
“At least let me call mine, then,” he said, “for you tonight.”
“What?”
“To visit your brother. You said the station is fifteen minutes away. And from there, the prison will be further?”
She nodded. “But I do not mind the walk.”
“It is late,” he persisted. “And if the visit does not go well…”
She hesitated, considering his words.
He took the opportunity to add, “Better to h
ave a vehicle waiting, Nikia, than to have to walk to and from the station.”
“But how will you get home?”
“Send the car back for me,” he shrugged.
“It will be two hours at least before it returns.”
“Then…let it drop me off first. I am mostly done here anyway.” This was true enough. He’d been accomplishing nothing, so he might as well go. “Or, better yet, let me go with you.”
It was her turn to stare in surprise. “Go with me?”
“Just to the prison. I know you’ll want to talk to him alone. But so you will not be alone, on the return trip. I’ll be – I’ll be a kind of moral support, if you need it.” She was not in a state to face a trial like this entirely on her own. He knew that. Her wounds were too recent, the pain too raw.
Uncertainty spread across her features. That she was not wholly opposed to the idea, he gathered from her hesitance, but still she seemed poised to refuse. “I can’t ask you to do that,” she said at length.
“You don’t have to ask, Nikia. I’m offering. You shouldn’t have to face that alone. And if I can help, I will.”
Chapter Eleven
“Well?” Elgin wondered. “Anything yet?”
Dagir shook his head. “No sir.”
He nodded, scrutinizing the other man for a moment. His eyes were bloodshot, and deep, dark half-circles had formed under them. “You’ve been at this for almost three days, Lieutenant. How many hours of sleep have you had?”
“I’m fine, sir.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“A few. It’s enough.”
Elgin sighed. “Look, Dagir, I want to figure this out as much as anyone. But let someone else take lead while you get some shuteye.”
“If the admiral is up to something, sir, we need to know what,” the other man protested.
“And the work will keep going. Vor can take point. But you need to sleep.”
Dagir glanced away from his screen long enough to fix him with a glance. “Is that an order, Captain?”
“Does it have to be?”
“No sir,” Dagir sighed. “I’m almost done with this log. Can I finish it, at least?”
Elgin nodded. “Yes. But, then, I want you to sign off.”
“Alright. A couple of hours of sleep won’t hurt.”
“Eight.”
“What?”
“Eight hours. Minimum.”
“But Captain-”
“It’s not a negotiation, Lieutenant. I need you to be sharp on this. We can’t afford to miss anything because you’re too tired to catch it.”
“Yessir,” the other man returned, with every ounce of protest he could squeeze into the tone before overstepping.
Elgin ignored it. He wasn’t a parent, but he’d had younger siblings growing up. And it seemed to him, there were days when being a captain was not much different than being a parent. He had to navigate the same morass of personality conflict and temper, of contending egos and misbehavior, of personal growth and focus – and make sure his crew ate their proteins and had their nappy time on top of it all. “Very good,” he said mildly. “Give me a status update before you go.”
This had a twofold purpose. The first, was the obvious reason: to stay abreast of his team’s progress. The second, though, was accountability. Lieutenant Dagir had been working this hunch obsessively. And though he appreciated the other man’s zeal, he also knew the cost such dedication would have on the quality of his work. If Dagir had to report first, he couldn’t forget to turn in.
Elgin left the work crew and set his steps back toward the bridge. He’d reported Dagir’s findings to Parliament, and they’d sanctioned a detour to one of the border stations. It had taken a bit of wrangling. They were eager to grill him on the proceedings on Trapper’s Colony, but they’d settled for a compromise: he’d report remotely, in about twelve hours.
Elgin was a seasoned veteran, but he was not immune from nerves. Especially when it came to trying to appease politicians. They’d had his initial report, of course – and all the intervening days to come up with reasons why he should have succeeded despite Nees’ opposition, to find fault with his actions.
It didn’t help that he’d specifically requested this mission. He’d believed, wrongly as it happened, that his rapport with the governor would count for something.
But, that was too harsh. He still believed it counted. Just, not enough to change her mind. In the final calculation, though, that would be all that parliament cared about: he had failed to change her mind.
Well, brooding over it won’t change a damned thing. Whatever ire he had raised, whatever dressing down he could expect, it would happen all the same, however much he worried about it now.
“Captain on deck,” someone called as he stepped onto the bridge.
“As you were.” A few heads turned for surreptitious glances, but his bridge crew resumed their duties, and he took his own place. Leafing through his waiting messages, he frowned. There was one from Captain Mercer, commanding officer of the Tribari Starship-Seven – another of the fleet leaders. The other man was a competent officer, if not a paragon of courage and moral principle. He’d sat out one of the most important battles of the revolution, waiting to step in only until Elgin already prevailed.
He was not one for holding grudges, but the captain of the TS-Supernova firmly believed that men showed you their true selves in the worst of times. And the self that Mercer had displayed was opportunistic and cowardly.
Still, he was a colleague, and one of the few high-ranking officers who had refused orders to fire on the Tribari people. Now and then, Elgin had to remind himself of that, and he did so as he opened the letter.
Elgin –
Read your report on sightings of Lenksha’s fleet. Concerning business. I’ve requested more patrols along the sentry belt, but haven’t gotten very far with parliament. They say the priority is supply runs and transports from the prison colonies.
Wondering if you could put in a request too? You have a rapport with some of the ministers that I don’t (for some reason, they like you). And maybe they’ll be more amenable to the suggestion if they hear it from more than one of us.
M.
His frown deepened as he read the note. He could practically hear Mercer’s voice in his head – his laughter as he reached the bit about the ministers liking him, his annoyance that they hadn’t listened to him yet.
He knew the captain of the Seven well enough to know that he probably would have preferred dental extraction to writing this particular letter, asking for his help. Just as he would have preferred it to giving his assistance.
But the fact was, Mercer was right. The sentry belt, the ring of unmanned stations around Tribari space, needed eyes in the sky. Until they figured out what Lenksha was up to – and probably afterwards, too – the military needed to prioritize defense of the empire.
This was not a way of thinking palatable to many of the ministers, he knew. Not everyone in this new parliament had much use for the military. To many, it was a tool of oppression, the shadowy hand of Velk and the Supreme Leaders before him.
Elgin couldn’t resent them, exactly, for thinking it. They weren’t too far from the truth. For too many generations, the military had done the bidding of the Supreme Leader and parliament. It had imposed their brand of order on the chaos of the worlds around them.
But just as parliament had been reborn, so had their new military. Just as parliament’s generations of sins, of the blood it had ordered spilled, was forgotten, so must the military’s for the empire to function. Because, to the military man’s thinking, it was naiveté bordering on childishness to think that an empire could function without a military.
The wolves were at the gate, more literally than parliament seemed to realize. And, for all their good intentions, the soft ministers of Central were lambs before the onslaught. They might not care for the men with blood on their hands, but if they wanted to prevent the spilling of their
own, they needed them all the same.
So, gritting his teeth, he typed out a two word response.
Will do.
E.
Then, he pulled up a fresh message template, and began to draft a request to parliament. Better, he thought, to send it now, before the hearing about Trapper’s Colony. Better to send it while his word might still carry some weight.
Governor Nees sighed, staring at the balance sheets before her. Independence might sound well and good, but when it came to the mechanics of it, it was something of a nightmare. The empire was many things, some good and some evil; but it was nothing if not efficient. From supply runs to interplanetary transportation, they knew how to make it all run smooth as clockwork.
Now, here she was, starting almost from scratch, negotiating contracts with independent suppliers, trying to find reasonable rates and quality work for things that were once just assumed.
“You’ve been at that all through dinner, Ari,” Tig said. The smell of coffee hit her nostrils, and she glanced up to see him standing there, extending a mug of dark, steaming liquid in her direction.
She felt the creases in her forehead relaxing. She wasn’t sure what Tig was still doing here. Hell, she wasn’t really sure why he’d dropped by in the first place. Something about picking up something Tal had forgotten earlier. He wasn’t very specific, and she hadn’t pressed too hard.
She took the mug and inhaled a long breath, luxuriating in the aroma wafting off her coffee. When she took a sip, she sighed. “You make a mean cup of coffee, Mister Orson.”
He grinned, pulling out a seat next to her. “Well, we’ve all got our talents.”
She smiled. “Well, mine certainly isn't contract review.”
“No,” he agreed, “yours seems to be scaring the socks off those imperial military boys, and sending them packing.”
She laughed now and shook her head. “Elgin’s a good guy. An Imperialist, but a good guy. And he didn’t leave because I scared him off.”
“Far be it from me to contradict you, Governor,” he teased, “but I know what I saw.”
