“I understand,” Kyle told her. “I did my duty, my lady Seneschal.”
“If only our own officers and Elector caste did their duty as bravely and as completely, Captain,” Strobel told him with a smile. “I have made arrangements for you to meet with His Excellency tomorrow evening local time in Coral City. That will be ten hundred hours ESMDT,” she concluded, making sure of the distinction.
“We will be there,” he confirmed. There was no way he wasn’t going to be exactly where the Imperator asked him to be.
“I’ve also been asked to request that you reach out to Elector Reuter,” she continued. “He remembers your efforts on his behalf in the Huī Xing system and, I believe, will be inviting you to a private dinner tonight. He is in Lombard, which is more closely aligned with ESMDT than Coral City,” she concluded with a smile.
“Welcome to the Coraline System, Captain Roberts. If there is anything you or your ships require, I am forwarding a q-com code for my staff office here at the Palace. We will make certain any need of yourself or your task group is met in full.”
#
Pure implant conversations gave Kyle a headache now, an unwelcome souvenir of the injuries that had grounded him from being a fighter pilot. Shaking his head against it, he checked the status of his ship.
“Houshian, do we have the course from CTC laid in?” he asked.
“We do,” she replied instantly. “It’s a bit of a zigzag, but it’ll get us to orbit in about six hours. We’re being directed to the Coral-Reef Lagrange Three Point. It’s their main fleet anchorage; we’ll be sharing it with two carriers, three cruisers and a battleship.”
Six capital ships was a lot of mobile firepower, but Kyle couldn’t begrudge the Imperium the defense of their homeworld. Castle had just as many starships, and both systems had literally thousands of starfighters positioned throughout their space.
If the Commonwealth wanted to tangle with the core worlds of the Alliance, the Terrans would pay for the privilege—and if they truly wanted to bring the Alliance into their Unity, sooner or later, they’d have to.
The thought wasn’t as reassuring as it could have been.
“Forward the course to Alexander,” he ordered. “I’ll be in my office if needed. Commander Sterling has the watch.”
“Yes, sir,” Sterling replied with a crisp salute.
Kyle returned the salute and exited the bridge. His office was literally steps down the corridor, positioned so he could easily return to the bridge in an emergency. With the carrier’s systems, he could command the ship from anywhere aboard, but his crew needed to see him.
Closing the door behind him, he stopped at the minifridge slash automated bar and served himself a cup of coffee. He might have already been up for several hours, but it sounded like he was going to need to be up well into his own “evening” as well.
Settling into his chair, he brought the communication system up on his wallscreen and plugged into the number for Elector Wilhelm Reuter, a member of the Imperium’s caste of military nobility who he’d met as Vice Admiral Wilhelm Reuter, a Commonwealth prisoner of war.
The screen chirped and loaded a spinning “waiting” screen of Kodiak’s ursine-soldier commissioning seal for a minute or so, then the image of the old officer they’d pulled out of a Terran prison camp greeted him.
Time had been better to Reuter than it had to many. He remained a slim old man with pure white hair and an obvious cybernetic eye, but he was no longer gaunt with stress and hunger, and his eyes were brighter than they had been before.
He wore a prim civilian suit despite the early hour in his city and smiled brightly as he saw Kyle.
“Captain Roberts!” Reuter exclaimed, then paused. “It is Captain now, correct? Not Force Commander?”
“Force Commander is always a temporary title, Vice Admiral,” Kyle explained. “It is simply Captain now.”
“There is nothing simple about you, my dear Captain,” the old man said with a chuckle. Age still undermined his voice, but the quaver he’d spoken with in Huī Xing was gone. “You are in Coraline, yes?”
“I am,” Kyle confirmed. “Your Imperator summoned me here.”
“Good boy,” Reuter replied with another chuckle, clearly recognizing the incongruity of describing the ruler of twelve systems as a “boy.” “I’ve spoken to our good Seneschal as well; she told she’d pass my request on to you.”
“She said there was a dinner invitation?” Kyle asked carefully.
“Yes! The least of the tiniest of beginnings of repayments of the debt I owe you, for my life and the lives of my crew,” the Imperial noble told him. “Once I knew you were coming, I arranged a small private dinner at my estates. I would be honored if you and your senior officers would be able to join me.”
“How small are we talking, Elector?” Kodiak’s Captain asked. “My senior officers are easily half a dozen strong.”
“I will have a few guests of my own,” Reuter told him, his eyes dancing gleefully. “Individuals of some importance you should likely meet. Feel free to bring as many of your officers as you wish. Believe me, my estate has the space and my chef will enjoy the challenge.”
“As you wish, Elector,” Kyle replied, recognizing the sparkle in the old man’s eyes. “Transmit the coordinates and the time to my ship? I will make sure I and my staff are there on time.”
“Of course, Captain. Dress uniforms, if you please, though don’t feel obliged to wear your decorations. I certainly won’t be wearing mine, after all!”
“Thank you, Elector.”
#
Kyle had barely finished passing the invitation on to his CAG and XO; as well as Captain Sarka and her own senior officer; when the door to his office—technically secured, even during working hours—slid open without any warning and Karl Nebula entered.
“You know, advertising the fact that you can override the Captain’s locks is probably not the best idea in the galaxy,” Kyle said mildly, keeping his glare at slightly below lethal levels. “We are sensitive about the illusion that we are gods aboard our ships.”
“I recommend losing all illusions about gods, stars, voids or whatever spiritual nonsense you adhere to,” Nebula replied calmly. “I’ve been clinically dead twice. No light, no god, just…nothing.”
“You’ve lived an interesting life for a diplomat,” the Captain told him. “Why exactly are you barging into my office, Mr. Nebula?”
“This dinner tonight. You didn’t think it worth mentioning to the diplomat?” Nebula asked.
“Apparently, I didn’t need to,” Kyle pointed out. “I’ll confess, Mr. Nebula, you’re not top of my mind when someone asks me to bring my senior officers along to a private dinner.”
“Vice Admiral, retired, the Elector Marquis von Terrace Secundus Wilhelm Reuter is not just ‘someone,’ Captain Roberts,” Nebula replied, and Kyle suspected there was a great deal of effort involved in the diplomat not visibly rolling his eyes.
“Reuter is, more than any other person alive, responsible for the current Imperator getting his job,” the diplomat continued. “There were twenty-five men and women with sufficient connection to the Imperial Line to stand as candidates after Caleb von Coral died. Five did, including his son.
“Reuter was the one who begged, borrowed, bullied and bribed the rest of the Electors to vote for Caleb’s son instead of the other, uniformly older and more experienced, candidates. The triumph of hope and romanticism over practicality—though I suspect much of it was that Reuter simply knew John Erasmus von Coral and understood just what that young man was capable of.”
“He seems to have done all right,” Kyle noted. He didn’t study Imperial politics except where they impacted Alliance operations.
“‘All right,’ he says,” Nebula laughed. “The Imperium has done more to close the economic, industrial, and technological gap between them and the Federation in the ten years John has been Imperator than in his father’s entire rule. He’s a dangerous man, valuable on
our side but a risk for the future.”
“And your point?”
“My point, my dear naïve Captain Roberts, is that it is unlikely that Wilhelm Reuter is hosting a private party of people he feels are important without including the Imperator. If he is there, however, it is because the Imperator himself wishes to speak with you informally.
“Now, Captain, do we at least agree that is not a conversation you want to walk into unarmed and without your best ally at your side?”
Kyle sighed. He didn’t know enough about Imperial politics to argue Nebula’s conclusions, which gave a certain weight to the man’s point.
“This isn’t supposed to be political, Nebula,” he pointed out.
“When you’re Wilhelm Reuter, everything is political,” the diplomat replied. “And when you’re the Stellar fucking Fox, everything is political. I’d suggest getting used to it.”
“Fine. You’re invited,” Kyle snapped. “Now, can I have my office back? Shocking as it may seem, I actually do have work to do.”
#
Chapter 12
Coraline System
18:00 September 25, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Coral, Private Estate near Lombard City
As Kyle’s shuttle settled down onto the landing pad, it began to finally sink in just what kind of “somebody” Elector Wilhelm Reuter actually was.
There were, according to the latest files he’d seen, just over two million members of the Elector caste in the Imperium. Spread across twelve worlds, their main distinguishing privilege was the right to vote for the next Imperator. In exchange, they were expected to serve the Imperium in public service of some kind, usually government or military, despite generally being of well-above-average means.
Very few of them, he suspected, owned massive estates wrapped around a home that was as much built into a mountain as on it. Terrace Secundus was a sprawling complex wrapped around three mountains, with mining operations carefully concealed beneath sweeping valleys of farms and vineyards, all curving back up to the immense gothic monstrosity of the central manor itself.
Decorative as the artificially aged stone towers that flanked the landing pad were, however, his implant warned him that the shuttle was being painted by targeting scanners from them, presumably linked to either short-range railguns or even surface-to-space missile batteries higher up the mountain.
“Look there and there,” Nebula told him over his implant, dropping icons onto Kyle’s vision that highlighted soldiers manning carefully concealed weapons positions covering the entrance to the manor. “Those aren’t Reuter’s guards. Those are Praetorians.
“Von Coral is here.”
Kyle nodded, burying his trepidation under his trademark bright grin.
“Well, then,” he said aloud. “Let’s go meet our hosts.”
#
Reuter was waiting for them alone on the landing pad as the collection of Federation officers disembarked. He strode over and shook Kyle’s hand firmly, bestowing a warm smile on the rest of them.
“Welcome to Coral, officers,” he told them. “My estate air control informs me that the shuttle from Alexander with Captain Sarka and her officers is only a few minutes behind you. We should make our way to the safety zone.”
“Agreed.”
The aged aristocrat led them back behind a safety barrier, with a solid twenty seconds to spare before even the first warmth of the shuttle’s engines began to wash over the landing pad. For several minutes after that, even the safety barrier wouldn’t permit conversation as the shuttle dropped to the surface, switching to chemical thrusters for safety at the last moment.
Sarka’s pilot dropped the craft neatly beside the shuttle from Kodiak, the pair of Federation craft holding pride of place in the center of the landing pad. They were, in fact, the only craft on the landing pad at all.
“I take it your other guests didn’t arrive by shuttle?” Kyle asked.
“No,” Reuter confirmed. “We have a landing strip around the other side of the mountain for aircraft of all types; only the surface-to-orbit shuttles require the true ceramacrete pad. Come, I have transportation waiting to get us to the main house.”
Once Sarka and Altena, a bulkily built, attractive woman of Kyle’s own towering height, had exited the shuttle, along with a slim man of average height and faded black skin Kyle presumed to be Sarka’s XO, Reuter gestured for everyone to follow him.
A quartet of high-based electric utility vehicles waited at the edge of the pad, with drivers in plain black uniforms out and standing by the doors. Kyle didn’t need Nebula’s warning icons to identify them as bodyguards more than chauffeurs. Just the way the men stood told him that; the spy highlighting the concealed holsters wasn’t necessary.
“If you, Captain Sarka, and Mr. Nebula would like to join me?” Reuter said Kyle, gesturing toward the lead vehicle while calmly revealing he knew who the diplomat was.
“Of course,” Kyle agreed cheerfully, following the old ex-officer into the vehicle. Once the four of them were seated, the driver stepped back into the gray-painted SUV and immediately put it in gear.
“It’s only a few minutes to the house,” Reuter told them. “We’ll be scanned along the way for any unexpected surprises, weapons or explosives, for example.” His smile turned pained. “I wish I could pretend our concern was for Commonwealth infiltrators, but I won’t deny that our system has created certain…disadvantaged groups that would see value in damaging our alliance with Castle.”
“It would take a lot to damage that alliance,” Kyle pointed out. “We are, after all, at the point where we will hang separately if we don’t hang together.”
“Well said, Captain,” the Imperial replied. “The Commonwealth is determined to conquer us. We are determined to remain free. But…” He sighed. “There are those inside the Imperium who do not regard themselves as free.
“How right they are is a matter of debate,” he conceded, clearly realizing that none of the Federation officers could politely comment on the Imperium’s system of castes and classes of citizens. “What matters right now is that their grievances lead them to threaten the war effort, which we cannot afford.”
As he spoke, the vehicle came to a halt and a trio of soldiers in black power armor stepped out to surround them, arm-mounted sensor packs sweeping the vehicles.
“Those are Praetorians,” Nebula murmured, echoing his earlier comment to Kyle. “Is the Imperator here?”
Reuter chuckled.
“That answer is complicated and a matter of politics,” he explained. “For the Imperator to attend a dinner, it is a state affair, a matter of diplomats and courtiers—especially when officers of even an allied foreign military are involved.
“I did not wish that rigmarole, so I did not invite the Imperator. I did, however, invite my late best friend’s son, John von Coral.”
“Who comes with Praetorian Guards and might, perhaps, be the same person as the Imperator?” Kyle asked.
“Indeed,” Reuter confirmed. “But I did not invite the Imperator. Do you understand?”
“Nope,” Kyle replied cheerfully, “but I suspect the niceties are more relevant to the Imperium than to a gruff, straightforward Federation soldier like myself.”
Reuter coughed a chuckle.
“This is true, Captain,” he confessed. “But you must allow us our games. What kind of Byzantine imperial court would we be without them?!”
#
The outside of Reuter’s home might have looked like an old Earth castle transplanted onto a new world, but the interior was as modern as it could be. Hidden lights suffused the entire space, lighting both the immense foyer that the aristocrat led them through and the smaller but still intimidating dining room just off from it.
The walls had been cut from the native stone of the mountain, a pale gray granite, and done so well enough that it was impossible to tell where the part of the house built on the side of the mountain ended and the part dug into the
mountain began.
There weren’t many people waiting around the large dark-red wooden table Reuter led them to. Two were clear bodyguards, Praetorians in black suits instead of combat armor, but twitching with a contained energy that allowed Kyle to identify them as combat cyborgs.
Three others, two women and a man, were strangers to him, though Nebula threw IDs on them. The youngest of them was Lord Captain Meredith Reuter, their host’s granddaughter and the commander of one of the supercarriers orbiting above them. She shared her father’s height and slim build, but her golden blond hair had so far avoided the white that marked the old Admiral.
The other strangers were Xi van Coral, the enigmatically unreadable dark-skinned woman married to the Imperator, and Melech Herschel, the Imperium’s Chancellor of the Treasury, a hook-nosed man with greasy hair and oily skin.
The last two Kyle recognized. He’d only met them once, in a video conference where the fate of a world he’d liberated from the Commonwealth had been decided. Standing next to Captain Reuter was the solid and shaven-bald form of Sky Marshal Octavian von Stenger, the supreme uniformed commander of the Imperium’s military.
The only person sitting in the room occupied the head of the table, one leg lazily hooked over the arm of the chair in a relaxed pose that would have horrified two star nations’ worth of protocol experts. The dark-haired man was younger than Kyle, but the plain platinum circlet he wore around his head told the truth.
John Erasmus Michael Albrecht von Coral, Imperator of the Coraline Imperium, was not a man to be taken lightly, regardless of his age.
He sprang to his feet at the arrival of the Federation officers, however, approaching with a smile and extending his hand directly to Kyle.
“Captain Roberts, it is a pleasure to meet you in person,” he told Kyle. “Could you introduce me to your officers? The smell of William’s chef’s preparations is starting to drift in here and I just heard Octavian’s stomach growl, but we can make time to know our allies, can we not?”
Rimward Stars (Castle Federation Book 5) Page 9
