by Blaze Ward
Em looked over at the countdown clock on a nearby screen. He drew a breath as it approached zero and prepared to begin giving orders, but Casey silenced him with a hard look.
He held his peace. Casey was one of the few people left who could give him orders, if she felt the need. Apparently, she had.
“Indianapolis, this is Centurion zu Wiegand. I have the flag,” she said into the monstrous silence that had fallen. “All hands to battle stations.”
Many of the men looked up in surprise at her voice, but shocked mouths emitted no sound. A siren whooped quietly, but everyone was already prepared. Poised.
Living in an unknown future.
Emergence.
“Captain Kingston,” Casey ordered in a distant, firm voice. “You will raise the Imperial Standard.”
“Aye, sir,” the man replied from speakers after a beat.
Like the rest of them, Reif Kingston was adjusting as he went. It helped that Casey acted and sounded like Joh would have, had he been standing on this deck. That same, solid conviction. A leader that had seen first-line combat. A warrior who had even outdone her father and been wounded in action, however slight the injury had been at Trusski. It was still one ribbon Joh had never earned.
One many sailors never earned. But it had already endeared her all the more to these men.
Em watched Casey expand herself to fill the room. He had no other way to describe it as she breathed out and turned to study every man in sight.
“The flag has been raised, Your Majesty,” Kingston came back a second later.
Em approved of the way Casey nodded. More legend. Her chin came up and she drew and released a heavy, loud breath, as if she could feel the entire weight of an empire on her shoulders.
She did.
“All ahead full,” she ordered.
They had spoken in private, but Em had no doubts that this woman would prevail. He had seen it aboard Auberon, when he had first arrived to find Lady Casey wearing the uniform of the woman who had formerly been his greatest foe. Seen it again and again on the flight home, where she spent half of every day with Em’s naval staff, and half with Wald, planning for how to create an entire new government after the last one had died.
Fribourg was a culture of paper. Physical objects that could be retained and preserved for centuries. Destroyed in fire. Oh, certainly there were copies stored in secured facilities, frequently the kind bored into old mountains, but paper.
More important than the papers were the bureaucrats who moved that paper around. Who gave form and purpose to need, communicating the wishes of the Crown and the House of Dukes, and to a lesser extent the House of the People, and forming those commands into policies and interpretations.
All that was gone. If twenty million people had died, more than two million of them had served the government in some direct way. That loss would be the most grievous. Epochs of experience lost in an afternoon.
Casey and Wald would have to rebuild it from nothing except her will and his experience. Em did not envy them the task, but he also couldn’t think of two people better suited to pull it off. Especially with the help of the military, in the form of himself, Tom Provst, and zu Arlo.
And Jessica, out there holding the wall against all comers, as Nils Kasum had once said.
A moment of heavy silence had passed.
“Contact IFV Firehawk, Captain Kingston,” Casey ordered. “I will go aboard her with the Grand Admiral for an update. After that, I will return here and then descend to the surface with my Household and Indianapolis’s color guard.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he replied.
She turned and Em could see the pain in her eyes. Nobody else was close enough to see the muscles in her jaw bunch as she clenched her teeth and tried not to grind them.
Em smiled softly at her and nodded. They both understood that this was all for show. For her legend, and how it would be communicated to the entire Fribourg Empire tomorrow.
There would be a coronation ceremony, one of these days, but that would be a formal event, filled with pomp and ceremony. They would probably require at least a year, if not three, just to figure out how to do it, given all the history destroyed below them.
But the woman he thought of as his niece would take command of the Empire today.
Chapter XXXI
Imperial Founding: 179/12/28. Mejico, St. Legier
Vo walked towards the mess hall with a sour grimace that was more than just the fresh, morning piles of snow everywhere.
In his hand, he held a slab with a message from Borel appraising him of a Surprise Inspection that would take place in about two hours, the shuttle already having begun the descent from orbit. It was a stupid way to code a message. Anyone with half a brain would know that there were only two people who could give him orders on this planet.
One of them had gone off to get the other.
So she was home. And coming here. Shortly.
Around him, the quad was alive with men moving rapidly every direction. Getting ready. The landing pad was all of ten minutes away by skiff, so Reese had apparently let him sleep to his normal time rather than waking him up.
Vo stomped through the last of the snow to the door, kicked his boots a few times to get the sticky white off, and pulled the heavy wooden panel open.
It had been a restaurant specializing in Hispanic food in the time before. A family-owned joint that had been working a regular day at the moment when their home across town was destroyed and they were fated to survive. The family had moved in here.
And volunteered to serve the 189th food when Vo arrived.
Borel had assigned a team to help, but Melina still ran her restaurant with an iron fist. The only change for her had been to expand operations to run twenty-four hours, the Army never sleeping at this point. She had six new assistant managers now, Army food and catering experts, but Melina was absolutely in charge.
She greeted him with a warm smile as he walked in. A table was always reserved for Vo and his staff in the corner closest to the kitchen. The rest of the main room was tapering off from a mad rush, so presumably the inspection warning had come in hours ago and the men still here were going to be off, as soon as they shoveled home the excellent breakfast burritos that Melina’s husband Thurman specialized in.
Vo waded through the close-packed tables as Melina filled a mug with coffee and sat it on his table. Cohort Centurion Alan Katche, the Primus Pilus of the 189th, was already there, reading something on his own slab. He was a wiry man, with curly dark hair and eyes that seemed black at times. He was average height that always seemed taller until Vo got close enough that he was suddenly looking downwards at the man. Seated, he still looked physically bigger than he was.
Vo rested his slab on the side of the table and pulled out the chair.
“You heard?” Vo asked as he sat.
“Two hours ago,” Katche replied with a grin. “Got everyone in motion. Figured you would be up all night with them, so you needed your beauty sleep.”
It had turned into a running joke between them. Katche always explained the reaction of women around Vo as strength and ruggedness. Which sounded way better than tough and ugly. At least on paper.
Beauty sleep was obviously critically important.
“Anything I need to sign off on?” Vo queried.
“Only my execution papers,” Katche laughed.
Vo joined him. In an emergency, all rules went out the window. The men were forced to make their best guesses as to what would be judged right, at least in the view of the lawyers who would come along later and second-guess everything in the calm leisure of hindsight.
Vo had long-since lost count of the number of things he had done or ordered in the last month that the new Emperor might find questionable. Still, she wasn’t squeamish. He knew that much from the little time he had spent around her aboard Auberon.
But this was a much bigger arena. And Vo really hadn’t spent that much time around the woman before.
“Hell, you were just following orders, Alan,” Vo countered. “I’ll demand that they execute me first, so that you have to take over.”
“I should probably put in my retirement papers, then,” the Primus Pilus chuckled. “Fishing sounds good about now.”
“Take me with you?” Vo asked.
“I’m pretty sure that would make me an accomplice, Vo,” Katche said.
Vo started to say something, but Nicola, Melina and Thurman’s middle daughter, arrived at that moment with a plate. Thirty centimeter tortillas, homemade, stuffed with eggs, cheese, peppers, and meat. Vo would never go hungry with this place intact.
“Thank you,” Vo said as the girl smiled with a blush and fled.
For the briefest moment, he wondered how hard it would be to configure a set of mobile kitchen vehicles to Melina’s standards, so he could hire her to accompany the 189th into the field.
“Details I need?” Vo asked as he grabbed the burrito and took a bite.
“You’ve got time to eat, shower, and dress,” Katche said. “Grand Admiral specified field uniforms, rather than pretty. We have the new palace in Strasbourg being prepared for her, but the note says she’s going to stay with us here in Mejico for a bit.”
Vo let a raised eyebrow suffice as he chewed. Katche shrugged.
“Maybe we’ve screwed up enough that we’re about to be relieved,” Alan said. “Dunno. If she’s mad enough, they’ve got Rohm right here to take over.”
Vo shrugged in turn. Too many unknowns. This hadn’t been rolling logs in a river. It had been running across the backs of angry alligators in a swamp. This was the first time he and Alan Katche had actually been in the same room in more than a week, with every Ala assigned a different slice of the Death Zone to supervise and too little beauty sleep for any of them.
In two hours, he would know his fate. The Grand Admiral was coming. Lady Casey as Emperor Karl VIII would be with him.
What was the worst she could do to him at this point?
The room falling utterly quiet nearly caused Vo to reach for his pistol, even in the middle of his own base. Alan Katche’s eye grew huge, staring over Vo’s shoulder, before coming back to meet Vo’s gaze, but it was surprise, and not aggression.
Vo glanced back and saw the cause of the commotion. He nearly laughed, but that would be inappropriate. This wasn’t Aquitaine.
Dash still should have been here to see it.
Iakov Street was walking closer. In his wake, Trooper Ames followed. She was a skinny girl, as he had guessed, and tall, like Nada Zupan, but she still had hips and a chest. Someone had found a uniform for her, but it just emphasized her shape by being too tight across the torso and hips, in order to fit her shoulders and waist.
The men of the Headquarters Ala dropped into shocked silence as they registered the intruder, and processed that she was wearing the same uniform that they were. Vo just grinned at Katche and swallowed the bite in his mouth.
Dead silence.
Street was milking it for all he could, walking like a ghost to stand next to the table and fall into parade rest next to Katche. Ames did the same, probably about as well as most of the veterans in the room.
The Primus Pilus looked both directions, but remained silent. He did cock his head, while looking at Vo expectantly.
Vo looked up.
“Decanus,” Vo said solemnly.
He sipped some coffee and reveled in the situation. Little had brought him joy in the last two months. He probably shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as he was.
“zu Arlo,” Street said in a voice louder than necessary, considering the distance between them, and all the listening ears in the room. “Considering the mission today, what special orders do you have for my team?”
Vo swore that he could see men leaning closer, all around the room, afraid that they might miss something. Not every face was turned this way, but enough ears were cocked to follow.
Casey is going to do it to Wachturm. I can do it to you men. Welcome to the future.
Vo fixed Ames with a sharp stare. She returned it in spades, challenging him as hard as any bantam ever had. A pin might have fallen, several tables over.
“None, Decanus,” Vo said simply. “Cutlass Force will turn out for inspection by the Grand Admiral when he arrives.”
“I see,” Street replied after a moment. “Very good, sir.”
Vo caught the faintest hint of a grin on his face as Street turned to Ames.
“You heard the general, Trooper Ames,” he said, again louder than necessary, but not harsh. “Fall in.”
Street walked past her and began to wend his way through the seated mob, Ames in his wake and all heads following, like the Pied Piper.
Alan Katche watched them exit, and then turned back to Vo as a roar of voices erupted.
“You planning to put her in First Ala?” the Primus Pilus said over the din.
Vo shook his head, letting the grin out, just a little.
“Then I don’t really care, sir,” Katche said.
He rose and departed, mug in hand, leaving Vo alone with half a burrito and a few sips of coffee.
Already, Vo was in better humor. He wondered what the Emperor would say, because Cutlass Ten would be the team closest to her when she stepped off that shuttle.
And what was the worst she could do to him?
Chapter XXXII
Imperial Founding: 179/12/28. Mejico, St. Legier
Casey had steeled herself with the sort of stubbornness that had served to ward off a coup. Both the Wiegand and Alkaev families were known for that. Still, she nearly lost control.
From the air, the only things recognizable on the screen of the shuttle were the contours of the land they were flying over. Lake Zurich. Strasbourg. Rivers and mountain ranges that had been too tenacious to fail.
Cities closer in were gone. Not damaged like a groundquake had struck.
Gone.
Knocked to kindling by the blast, and then covered over with nearly a meter of snow in places.
No. Her home was gone. Erased.
The pilot had added a navigational overlay to the screen, mapping what was with what had been.
That only made it worse, as she realized that they were about to fly over the place that been the Imperial Palace. A lake appeared to be forming now, as the ground itself had been compressed into a shallow bowl by the bomb.
Casey sucked a hard breath and fought to keep the tears at bay.
Moirrey noticed, from her spot across the aisle. Everyone else was a safe distance away from them, including Em, talking to the pilot on a headset.
Moirrey reached a hand out. Casey took it and squeezed, aware that the tiny woman would offer all the strength she had. Whatever Casey needed. It would keep her going.
There was a world to rebuild, and nothing in the history books about how to go about doing something like this. But none of those books covered a woman seated on that throne, either. And she wasn’t about to give up that.
Karl VIII. She had faced down a coup and a revolution. Fought off an assassin in the shape of a Sentient warship. Become a warrior.
She could do this.
Em removed his headset and fixed her with his gaze for a moment, framing the words in his mind before he spoke.
“We’ll be on the ground in sixty seconds,” he finally announced simply. “Arlo and parts of the 189th will be meeting us. Are you positive that you don’t want to move to Strasbourg and set up your Household there?”
“Em, the entire Household, if you want to call it that, consists of me, Moirrey, and Vibol,” she retorted. “Plus whatever guards you or Vo add. How much harder will it be for them to recruit all the civilian people some folks will expect me to maintain? How much safer would I be in the middle of a Legion, as opposed to a town overflowing with refugees and citizens who might be terminally offended that a woman has the audacity to wear a crown?”
“I had to ask, Your Majesty,” he said. “zu Arlo h
as been running things for six weeks in my absence. The usual troublemakers have filed the expected complaints about his behaviors and decisions, which I am largely ignoring for now. But things we’ll have to deal with eventually. Once you get settled.”
“I’ll be settled by being with those men,” Casey said as she pointed at the invisible ground. She could feel the edges of fire start to burn inside her. Up until this moment, the last two days had left her numb. Flying over what her mind was already calling Lake Werder had broken something loose inside her. “Living with them. Being protected by them. I’ve watched the transmission that Vo broadcast planet-wide after you’d left, and I can only imagine the impact it had on the populace. I need to be here now, next to him. Vo zu Arlo is the foundation of my crown, my standing with the people of St. Legier, just as you and Provst will anchor the fleet for me. Do you understand?”
Casey was concerned by the way Em’s face clouded for a second. Then she realized.
Emmerich zu Wachturm, Grand Admiral and Duke, was thinking about this from a military standpoint. As he should. That was his job.
But this was a larger problem. It had a military aspect, she recognized, but it was also a civilian thing. And a human issue.
Werder had died. St. Legier had suffered a grievous blow. The Eldest was perhaps expecting it to be a mortal one.
Perhaps that was the creature’s intent. She could not, would not let it succeed.
Over my dead body.
“I think so, Your Majesty,” Em finally admitted after a long beat.
Maybe he understood. Maybe not. That didn’t matter. Em would support her, if she could convince him that she knew what she was doing.
It was on her shoulders. And Vo’s. Two accidental heroes.
She would live down in the mud and ugliness of the place that the locals were calling The Death Zone, because she needed these people to support her. Uphold her. Not just today, but a year from now. A decade from now. A generation from now.
