“Holy shit,” Adelina said quietly.
“Right?” her daughter added.
The doors behind them snapped open, making Adelina twitch in mild alarm. She turned to see Gleb and Luna walk in with Noa, Maeve and Hela who was laughing at something someone must have said before the door opened.
Luna saw her sister’s questioning look. “It’s Kace,” she explained. “Noa said he survived the night. He’s back aboard his ship drinking plenty of water.”
“His ship?” Adelina asked. “I thought he was from San Diego!”
“He is,” Gleb confirmed. “But he was also one of the first people I met when I arrived. He helped me fit in and, when I needed ships and crews to protect Irth, he was more than willing to step up.”
Luna was looking down the long central space of the fighter hangar. “This is as good a space for us to talk as any boardroom,” she said, waving up at a group of crewmen working on a fighter.
She turned to face the group and sat.
Adelina moved to reach out, drawing breath to shout a warning, but her sister didn’t fall on her backside. A seat flowed up out of the deck plating.
“That is several different kinds of cool,” Adelina observed, watching the tracery of gaps in the decking close up.
“Hah!” Gabriella laughed, now seated. “I see why you couldn’t tell us anything beforehand. If you said I’d be doing a trust exercise with a spaceship, we’d be driving home right now, worried about your sanity.”
Adelina realized she was now the only one standing. She moved back a bit so she wouldn’t be blocking her daughter and… began the ‘landing’ procedure.
Even knowing there’d be a seat there, she still felt a surge of resistance from her instincts as she started awkwardly lowering her backside like she was getting ready to lay an egg. She nearly abandoned the attempt at the point of no return.
Of course, everyone was watching her. “I’m alright,” she insisted.
“Better than alright, I’d say,” Luna told her. “After all you’ve seen in the last half hour, I can’t say for sure I’d be so composed.”
“But you are, composed.” Adelina pointed out.
“Yeah, but I was a part of this from the moment I dragged him into our elevator in San Diego.” She jabbed a thumb at her husband.
“How did you find out?” Gabriella asked. “I mean, did he bring you up here? What did he bring along for the big, show-and-tell moment?”
Luna gave her niece a suspicious look. “I’m gonna assume that’s an innocent question. He…” She looked at Adelina, pursing her lips.
She still doesn’t know her own tells, Adelina thought. That simple Human foible was immensely reassuring. This was still her little sister and she was trying to decide how much to reveal to Adelina.
“I can handle it, Sis.”
Luna sighed. “He demonstrated an ability that nobody on Earth has.”
“O...Kay…”
“Ai! Grow up! I’m not talking about sex!”
“So what did he do?” Gabriella asked.
“This,” Gleb said from behind them.
“Shit!” Gabriella jumped up from her chair.
“Language!” Adelina scolded automatically.
Luna needed a few seconds to stop laughing. “You can take the girl from Earth,” she said, still giggling, “but you can’t take the mom out of the girl. I never would have expected that to be your response!”
“You ever see Mom let up?”
“Fair enough,” Luna conceded. “But that’s what he showed me as proof.”
“How did you do that?” Adelina asked him but he was gone again. She turned to find him taking a seat next to Luna again.
“Well,” he began slowly. “A short time ago, none of us could do anything like that. We were no different than you, except we were grown in chambers by a corporation that sold us to the lord of Kish as slaves.”
He gestured to Eth. “We were never children, like you. We became conscious as adults, with knowledge already programmed into our minds. We were created for combat and we served our lord so well in the Brush-Fire Wars that he freed our people.”
He looked at Eth again. “Then we arrived at an ambush and the Varangians, the emperor’s personal military, were there, preventing the ambush from triggering. They requested an interview with our lord but it was just a cover for their real intent.”
“What did they want?” Gabriella asked eagerly.
“Me,” Eth said.
Everyone looked at him.
He shrugged. “I’d met one of their people at Kwharaz Station and he seemed to take an interest in me.” He grimaced. “Perhaps it might be more accurate to say they already had an interest…” He stopped talking and turned to look behind himself. “Wonder how many times I’ve died…” he muttered.
“What?” Gabriella asked.
“Nothing,” he shook his head. “Best to just keep things simple.” He took a deep breath and resumed.
“They took me to a portal in their ship. It took me out of the Universe, in a way. I found myself in a place that… had more dimensions than we’re usually comfortable with.”
“Why the hell would they do that?” Adelina asked.
“If you find out...” Eth shook his head. “… Let me know. Expecting a straight answer from a Varangian is a sign of insanity. All I know is that they were curious about our presence in the empire, about our impact on its affairs.
“The experience changed me. I could do what you saw Gleb do just now.”
“I was able to learn,” Gleb said, “but not everyone can. Scylla, who was also taken to the same place, has a much better grasp of the intricacies. She’s kind of our high priestess.”
“She taught me,” Luna said.
“You can do that?” Gabriella whispered.
Luna nodded. “That, and… other things. But we’ve got a lot of open cans of worms here. Let’s focus on why we asked you to come here today.
“These guys were never kids. They have no idea what it’s like to grow up but their sterility implants are being deactivated by some techs we have on loan. There are going to be lots of pregnancies happening and none of them know the first thing about being a kid or being a parent.”
“This is a pivotal moment for our species,” Gleb said. “Irth will eventually have to learn that they’re a part of the republic and our people will have to learn how to be a people.”
“Our people from the empire,” Luna reminded him. “The folks on Earth are our people too, now.”
He nodded, accepting the correction. “We’ve all got a lot of adjusting to do. Having the two of you spend time among us, just as yourselves, would be incredibly valuable.”
“You want us to be a model family?” Adelina was shaking her head. “It’s… just the two of us…” She stopped, not wanting to denigrate her ex-husband in front of Gabriella. Jacques was still her father, after all, even if he’d run off back to Corsica.
“You still held it together,” Luna said quietly as if she didn't quite trust her voice. “And you’re clearly doing a great job as a mom.” She nodded at her embarrassed niece.
“You could really help our people,” Luna said, “and folks out here expect their nobles to set the example. That would include the two of you.”
Something occurred to Adelina. “Do Mom and Dad know about all this?”
“Not yet. We need to settle into all this before we start telling more people. For the moment, it’s just you two because we need you. We’re asking now because you’re still between gigs.”
“So, what happens? We just get up every morning and catch the shuttle up here?”
“We have a suite ready for the two of you,” Gleb said. “We’d like for you to come with us to the republic for a couple of months and mingle with the folks at our main base of operations.”
“Is that safe?” Adelina leaned back. “What if you’re attacked while we’re there?”
“We have been attacked,” Gleb ad
mitted. “And Luna demonstrated the concept of direct control of a combat platform by a single individual at that battle.”
“While I sat in their base cafeteria,” Maeve cut in dryly. “I was boringly safe while Luna was tearing the enemy a new one.”
“She’s right about being safe,” Gleb pointed out. “We operate out of an ancient station that was built around a white dwarf star. Imagine a structure whose radius is nearly the same as our current distance from the sun.
“Imagine the surface area you’d have to search, and that ignores the fact that she was sitting about two thousand kilometers beneath the surface. No outsider has found us yet and they wouldn’t be able to do much damage from orbit.”
“Around a white dwarf?” Adelina blurted. “Is that even possible? I mean, how do you keep it centered on the star? Wouldn’t the damn thing drift off position and collide with the star?”
“It uses the same kind of artificial gravity generation that we have in our ships,” Noa explained. “Frankly, I think the empire originally borrowed the tech from Babilim Station.”
“They didn’t build the station?”
Noa shook his head. “They have no idea who built it. It’s been sitting empty since long before the days of the old kingdom.”
“As far as safety goes,” Luna said, “it’s a lot less risk than being on Earth.” She waved her hands and a holographic image of the planet appeared in the middle of the group.
“These icons are our ships.” She pointed to the larger one. “That’s us and these smaller ones are all corvettes. We built them using enemy ships we captured in Earth orbit.”
She fixed her gaze on Adelina. “They came here to bombard our major cities with asteroids so we’d be more biddable when they landed ground-troops.”
Eth said something in a strange language but it sounded very much like a curse of surprise to Adelina.
“We still have that minor noble in our brig,” he said with a grimace. “The one who led the attack. You just handed him over to me at Babilim, so I’ve been keeping him close...”
“He’s the only one we kept alive,” Luna explained for her sister. “I think we might have to make an example of him. The Chironans are stupid enough to keep trying unless we give them a sharp lesson in humility.”
“You could strap him to an asteroid and sling it at one of their military facilities,” Maeve suggested.
Gleb leaned back, looking up at the high roof of the ‘cathedral’ where a huge, ornate chandelier floated of its own accord. “Yeah…” He nodded up at the fixture meditatively. “That should strike just the right note. We’ll have to transmit a writ of inherited grievance to Throne World first though.”
“Does the grievance count if we were never a recognized political entity in the empire?” Noa asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Gleb told him. “Those rules are really for one-system minor lords. They only apply if the emperor feels he can enforce them.” He held up a hand to forestall his friend’s response.
“Yes, I know. We only hold this system, we’ll soon hold a second once the colony is settled and then Babilim counts for half a system at best but we’re also a founding member of the republic. We also happen to be one of the most potent military forces in the known galaxy.”
“Sending the writ to Throne World may be of questionable legal value,” Eth observed, “but it will give Emperor Mishak the pretext he needs to ignore what we’re about to do to the Chironans. And remember he hates those guys anyway.”
“And he probably still feels guilty about betraying us,” Gleb added. “If it had been up to him, we’d still be his pals, even if it would have cost him the throne.”
“Oh, sorry,” he said, looking to Adelina. “Our former lord, and occasional drinking buddy, is now the emperor. If you agree to join us for a few months, we’ll get you set up with the background info and languages you’ll need to understand everything.”
“So, what do you say, Addie?” Luna asked. “You feel up for it?”
Adelina placed her hands on her thighs and turned to the right. “What do you think, Lady Gabriella?” I’ll never be able to take that seriously.
“I don’t know,” Gabriella said, exaggerating her dubious tone. “Do I have to wear a tiara or anything?”
Common Grounds
The Kuphar, In Path
“Why did you decide to leave your farm in America?”
“Hmm?” Frank turned his head slightly toward Trisha but he kept watching Terry and Vikram play something that looked like a cricket match had crash-landed in a basketball court.
“Rules,” he muttered. His focus slid away from the game in front of them, settling somewhere in the middle distance. “I was stuck trying to work within the sticky mess of laws and regulations at three levels of government and I just couldn’t compete with the big operators.
“At their scale, it’s just cheaper to ignore the rules and pay lawyers to trip up any repercussions.”
“I thought your country was all about freedom?”
“Freedom always comes with a cost,” he told her. “And the price is usually too high for the little guy.” He leaned back on the cargo pallet they were both sitting on, looking up at her.
“Why did you decide to come?”
She pushed a package of green coffee beans back under the netting on top of the large pallet. “We had a decent-sized farm,” she said. “Just under fifty acres, which is larger than ninety-nine percent of coffee growers in India.
“It was good coffee too,” she added, nodding at the mug cradled on Frank’s lap. “Arabica inter-cropped with cardamom.”
“That’s what I’m tasting!” Frank took another sip. “Your stuff is so much better than the ship’s coffee they serve in the cafeteria.”
She nodded. “I’m thinking the Chironans must have taken Robusta beans so they could grow them on more planets. The crewman I talked to didn’t think there were any varieties, aside from where it was grown.”
A shout from Terry drew their attention. He’d tangled his feet on the cricket bat and tumbled to the deck. He was holding his knee but waving off Vikram’s concern. The teen hit the top of the basketball to get it bouncing and tried, without success, to hit it at the hanging basket.
“We did well,” she said, still watching the odd game. “After twelve years of hard work, we had a good reputation with the buyers. Then…” She sighed. “Then a hill gave way beneath the tractor and my husband was killed.
“His brother pushed me out and took the farm.” She shrugged.
“You don’t sound all that angry about it,” Frank observed.
She smiled, still watching the game. “My mother warned me not to leave our finances in my husband’s name. It was easy enough for my brother-in-law to get his hands on the land – that was always a possession of their family – but it would have taken a lot of lawyers to get at our personal account, if at all.
“He did get to take over the loans, though. Really big ones that we used to put another ten acres into production. We were planning to clear the loans early, using our savings so we could get ahead of the interest.”
“Money he doesn’t have access to?” Frank asked.
She nodded. “He quit a lucrative job, burning a few bridges in the process, in order to cheat me. He ended up selling his apartment in Mumbai and moving into the warehouse in Kerala to get the cash for loan payments.
“Last year, the bank evicted him when they took over the property.” She looked at Frank. “Karma makes no exceptions. We are not punished for our sins, but by them.”
“Is it strange that I feel good about what happened to him but still feel bad as well?”
“Not if you’re a good person,” she assured him, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder.
She had to take her hand away to avoid spilling the mug she had on her lap. “Anyway, I took Vikram back to my hometown and got a job. My mother wanted to arrange another marriage for me but it just seemed so risky. What if a new husb
and wanted control of my money?”
“They still arrange marriages in India?” Frank blurted in surprise.
“Why not?”
“It seems so…” He racked his brain for a word that wouldn’t be offensive. “… Old-fashioned.”
She gave him a look that seemed to say ‘I thought you were smarter than that’. “Nearly half of all weddings in your country come from online match-making websites. Do you really think a short questionnaire and a few algorithms can do a better job than your own family?”
“Well…” He realized he had no argument against that. He inclined his head as a bow of sorts. “Fair point. I suppose you run into fewer weirdos your way.”
“And without it, I’ve run into you,” she said mischievously.
“Wait.” He stopped in mid-nod. “Does that hint that I’m a weirdo?” he asked her lightly.
She giggled. “It’s hard to say without context. I’ve always heard that you westerners are brash and aggressive but you’ve made no… I think you’d call it a ‘move’…”
“…” Frank said, his brain’s speech-center going into emergency reset.
She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice. “A woman knows when she’s being checked out,” she told him. “When it’s just a single glance, we ignore it, but when it keeps happening...”
Frank barely managed to keep the grimace from his face. He had been checking her out – on a nearly continuous basis. He thought he’d managed to get his eyes back up to meet hers in time while they were walking down here and she’d turned unexpectedly.
Probably a bit too slow, he told himself. He knew he was acting like a hormone-addled teenager but he couldn’t seem to stop.
Those jeans fit her perfectly. The light shade of denim showed every sublime curve in gently shadowed detail…
He remembered with a start that she was watching him, leaning close.
Very close.
Some part of his brain, a part with far more sense than the conscious part, took over. He watched with a thrill of excitement as he leaned in and kissed her.
After a long, languorous moment, they withdrew to allow for breath. “I was starting to wonder whether you’d get around to that,” she whispered.
Ragnarok: Colonization, intrigue and betrayal. Page 6
