by Blaze Ward
“You placed me in command on this planet,” he rumbled. “That means I make those decisions.”
“I’m still the Emperor,” Casey growled.
How dare he?
“You have exactly three options, Your Majesty,” Vo growled back. “You can relieve me of command. You can court martial me and remove the zu. Or you can ignore the entire situation. I will not accept an order to do anything else with Trooper Ames. No, that’s not true. In a couple of years, she’ll be ready for either Officer Candidate school, or whatever we do to rebuild the Ground Forces Institute. At that point, it will be time for higher education and I will order her to report, if it is still in my power to do so.”
“As a soldier?” Casey was aghast.
Inside, she was as angry with herself as she was with Vo. This was that suffocating corset known as Imperial Responsibility. Things she would like to do, balanced finely against things she must prevent in the name of stability.
“As a soldier,” Vo agreed. “She’s already as good in the field as my Cutlass team. Danville is a better scout, but Ames is a better forager. And she shoots as well as ten-year veterans. I’m keeping her in place until she changes her mind. Any orders to the contrary be damned.”
Casey saw the mountain of doom known as Arlo at that moment. The terrible ogre that Moirrey had described as they stalked a would-be Emperor and thwarted a coup attempt. The quiet, deadly killer inside him used to be much farther from the surface than he was today.
This was the being that had caused Arald Rohm to bend the neck.
“Can Army discipline handle a woman in ranks?” Casey tried another track.
Aquitaine handled it just fine, but that was a culture built on such a bedrock. Fribourg was still reeling that a woman held the crown.
“She’s not a woman, as far as my men are concerned,” Vo said. “She’s a rookie trooper who has to get up every morning and prove herself worthy to wear the uniform, same as them. More so, when that uniform has the 189th Legion patch on the shoulder. We stood. They consider themselves the best, toughest unit in your entire Army, so nobody is allowed to slack the rope. Personally, I’m more concerned for the first poor bastard who comes along and catches her eye as a prospective boyfriend. He’ll have to deal with Cutlass Ten, Reese Borel and Iakov Street as protective uncles.”
“She’s sixteen years old,” Casey observed. Perhaps pled. She wasn’t sure how to move this man. “Do you think she can handle all this?”
The way both Vo and Katche laughed, a harsh bark in unison was even more unnerving.
“Let me tell you a story, Your Majesty,” Vo began slowly, leaning forward to place those enormous hands on either side of his nearly-empty coffee mug. “I’ve only gotten part of it, and do not intend to pursue the topic any deeper. But it should assuage your concerns about Victoria Ames.”
He stared at her, waiting for her to nod. Casey felt like the entire room had fallen so quiet she could hear the planet itself breathe. Her nod was just enough to convince this hard, hard man to speak.
One did not compel Vo zu Arlo to do anything he didn’t want to.
“Ames had been living in that hole in the ground for fourteen months when we found her three weeks ago,” he began in a quiet, intense voice that caused her to lean towards him. “At some point in that stretch, a man decided she would be easy prey. A teenage girl, living rough in the middle of a forest. She described him to us as an older man, but at her age that might have been thirty as easily as sixty.”
Vo paused now, just long enough to empty his mug. And insert metaphorical pins under Casey’s fingernails. On top of everything else, Vo zu Arlo was a gifted storyteller. Who knew?
“He stalked her, Your Majesty,” Vo continued. “I didn’t ask. None of us did. But it wouldn’t be too hard to guess why he knocked her down instead of killing her outright.”
Casey flushed. At first, she thought it was embarrassment, but then she understood that the feeling was rage. Ames was tall and lanky for a girl, but nothing against a full-grown man. Casey barely suppressed the growl that wanted to escape her lips.
“But that was his mistake, you see, Your Majesty,” Vo rumbled, slicing her with his words, like a bird ripping pieces off its prey. “Victoria Ames had a knife hidden in her boot. She killed him with it. Buried his body because the authorities would never believe her story. I’ve never inquired about her background, but I would suspect that Ames was just a commoner, like I used to be, and the man she killed was probably somebody important. Important enough, anyway.”
Vo stared at Casey for a hard moment before he spoke again.
“We interviewed her for induction, same as we do with all new recruits,” he said in a cold, stone voice. “In the world before, we would have had to bring in the authorities and investigate deeper. Perhaps uncover something ugly when she took us to the place where she dug his grave, as she offered to do. But that was before. Today, we’re short on bodies and she wants to serve. She gets up every morning and has to prove to the soldiers of Cutlass Force that she deserves to be here with them. And those are hard, unforgiving men, Your Majesty. She’s safer than you are, Kasimira zu Wiegand, because you are just their Emperor, and you know how much that means to the 189th Legion. Victoria Ames is their daughter. Their sister. Their niece. One of these days, Good Lord willing, their commander. I will not budge on that.”
The eyes looked like one of the angry gods, now. The sort of thing Casey might paint for a summoned demon, the kind about to fly out of a picture and claim your soul. Interestingly, Alan Katche was a close second for power, right now. Yes, Arald Rohm would bend the knee. It had been the only way he was going to survive an encounter with the 189th.
Casey nodded. There were no words to inject into the conversation, at this point. Vo zu Arlo was a man known for his strength of will and was willing to go head-to-head with his own Emperor on the topic. He was the right man for the job. It didn’t even really matter what the job was. No, there was only one thing she could say.
“Thank you,” Casey said in a subdued tone.
Vo would always be there when she needed him.
Chapter XXXVIII
Imperial Founding: 180/01/21. Fleet Headquarters, Above St. Legier
Hendrik Baumgärtner had served his Empire and its Fleet for thirty-nine years. He was an Admiral of the White today because Karl VII had needed him to be the face and voice of the Imperial Fleet when the Grand Admiral was away. Flag Captain would not do when Hendrik needed to speak with the voice of Emmerich Wachturm or Johannes Wiegand. He was the Chief of Staff because Emmerich had precious few people he could trust, even after thirty years’ service himself. Too many worms still hiding in the apple.
Hendrik had first met the current Emperor when he was allowed to hold a three-week-old baby, twenty-three years ago. Hendrik had served three Emperors in his time, and God willing, he would die of old age before he ever saw his fourth.
Regardless of the number of men he had to kill to do that.
Hendrik looked up from the report he was reading and studied the man seated at attention on the other side of his desk. The man who had written it. Commander Gunter Tifft had emerged from the craziness of the last few years with a gold star next to his name, having impressed Tom Provst and the Grand Admiral with his competence and diplomacy.
“How did a logistics officer get so good at intelligence and espionage, Gunter?” Hendrik asked pointedly.
For the umpteenth time, it felt.
“There’s really little difference between the two, Admiral,” Tifft replied in a tight, angry voice, unbending that tiny amount from the rigidity he had held as he waited. The contents of the report were unsettling reading for any honest and loyal officer. “Other than a logistics officer is more likely to carry a gun, and more likely to use it in his career.”
Hendrik nodded and looked back down to reread the executive summary on page one. He felt a terrible fury form. It was something that might have impressed one of
Lady Moirrey of Ramsey’s favorite writers. That Hellenic fellow from the early Iron Age on Earth.
Homer had understood that kind of anger when he asked that Muse for a song about the Rage of Achilles.
“You have reported your projections to the correct place, Commander,” Hendrik said as he held back his wrath. “This does not need to be communicated to the Grand Admiral, or the Crown, at present. It is purely a naval affair, and we will handle it as such. The gentleman in question was a naval officer at one point and that commission only becomes inactive. It does not lapse. It can only be revoked. That makes him one of ours, regardless of his opinion on the topic.”
“Understood, sir,” Tifft said quietly, expecting to be dismissed, his job completed.
“I will need you in the field on this one, Gunter,” Hendrik continued.
“Sir?”
“You will report to Tom Provst aboard Firehawk, Commander Tifft,” Hendrik ordered the young man who was fast becoming the Chief of Staff’s own sharp blade, just as Hendrik had done for Emmerich over the decades. “He remains in command of the fleet at the Grand Admiral’s order. You will provide him a copy of this report, answer his questions, and assist him in dealing with the gentleman in question.”
“Firehawk, sir?” Tifft clarified. It hadn’t been a challenge, but confirmation that Tifft sought.
“This sort of situation needs to be handled with a sledgehammer, Gunter,” Hendrik said. “We have gone beyond politeness. It has gotten to the point that we must make an example of someone. He’ll do as well as anyone.”
Chapter XXXIX
Imperial Founding: 180/01/22. IFV Firehawk, Above St. Legier
Given his choice, Tom Provst would have gladly been the one who died that day aboard Firehawk rather than the Crown Prince and Al Kistler. It hadn’t helped his state of mind that Firehawk hadn’t really suffered any significantly permanent damage from the battle. Her own crews had been able to do most of the work in the field, with barely any downtime.
That just meant that he had been able to control the Imperial defenses from his damaged ship rather than having to go aboard the orbital station.
Staying at the scene of the crime, on the Pequod, as it were.
As guilt went, Tom Provst knew his was going to drive him mad eventually, but he had only promised Emmerich a year. Tom knew he could hold it together for twelve, angry months, as long as he stayed on this flag bridge deck, forever looking for a white whale he wouldn’t find on this side of hell.
Even as he looked.
The chamber was quiet. Tom couldn’t get past the rage in his head and sounds of that day to remember if this was quieter than it used to be, back in the world before. It probably was, but he was close enough to the grave these days that those sorts of things didn’t bother him as much as they once would have.
A side hatch opened and Commander d’Noir escorted the Grand Admiral’s new errand boy into the room. Commander Tifft had been one of Tom’s, once upon a time. A damned good quartermaster down on the flight deck, keeping the old battleship stocked and organized far better than the man who had replaced him. But the new fellow was merely exceptional. Gunter Tifft had been so much better than that. The old Tom Provst would have missed the young officer, so the new one tried.
The room fell the rest of the way silent. Only the blowers putting out air and the occasional chirp from somebody’s control board intruded. Tom knew that the men wanted to turn around and see their old comrade, but professionalism kept their faces turned away. On one of the newer designs, like the battleship Valiant that they were all due to launch from her drydock soon, the men faced in on both the bridge and flag bridge, so that they could see their commanders at work.
Tifft came to attention at exactly two meters and snapped a salute off his forehead.
“Admiral Baumgärtner’s best regards, Admiral Provst,” Tifft said formally.
Up close, the last few years had done wonders for the young man. He was still a tall, blond recruiting poster, but the last bit of boyishness had been sanded off, leaving only mature and serious. The uniform was as good a fit as the logistics officers always managed, and Tifft carried an imposing-looking leather satchel in one hand.
“You have orders for us, Commander?” Tom asked in voice loud enough for everyone to partake.
It was interesting, watching Tifft hesitate, not at the circumstance, but at the orders themselves. All Hendrik had been willing to say was that he was sending a messenger.
Must be good, then.
“Perhaps a suggested course of action for you to pursue, Admiral Provst,” Tifft prevaricated carefully with a vague nod. “I had prepared an intelligence report for the Chief of Staff. He ordered me to put it and myself at your disposal to answer questions and deal with the situation as you felt best.”
Tom stared at the man for several seconds, trying to read his soul, but Tifft had grown hard and still in the last year, especially from the young man who used to be so easy to embarrass.
And Tom no longer felt human enough to judge well.
“Join me in my office, then,” Tom ordered.
Hendrik hadn’t wanted the Grand Admiral involved. And had sent his personal spook with a packet of papers because he wasn’t going to say it, even over an encrypted line.
Tom wondered who needed to be killed.
An hour had passed. Tom Provst emerged from his day office and stepped back onto the Firehawk’s flag bridge, Gunter Tifft trailing in his wake silently. Tom would have said his rage joined them to fill the room, but that was a constant these days and nothing would quell that. Fade it perhaps. Or focus it.
The noise around him was greater than it had been. Perhaps what it should be, with a proper commander in charge, and not this hopeless soul. He pulled a cleansing breath to the bottom of his being.
“Flag bridge,” Tom called in a heavy voice. “Bring the entire squadron to alert status and prepare them for maneuver orders.”
Tom walked to his station and nodded as Commander d’Noir moved to stand across the table from him.
“Tifft, you join d’Noir,” Tom continued.
He unlocked his keyboard and typed in a series of alpha-numerics.
“Sensors, I have just identified a target for you,” Tom said loudly. “Work with System Control and find me that ship. If it hasn’t arrived, place a quarantine under my authority and hold it in place as soon as it emerges from jump. If it is here, freeze it where it is.”
Charles d’Noir glanced sidelong at Tifft as the man stood close by.
“How bad?” d’Noir asked.
He had been Tom’s Flag Officer for several years, another paperwork junky like Tifft, the kind that made the galaxy spin.
“I want boarding teams on a fifteen minute standby, Charlie,” Tom said. “Guns and missiles will be unlocked as soon as we have a target.”
Rather than answer, the man looked down at his own screen and studied it.
“Tom, this is some Duke’s personal transport,” Charlie replied. “Maximum crew probably twenty, including his mistress and her maid and cook. What gives?”
Tom considered the implications of that dossier for a moment. How angry it made him. And probably Hendrik. How badly some of these men around them would react.
“Tifft,” Tom decided finally. “Show Commander d’Noir the executive summary only. That will be sufficient for our purposes, and not put him in a hole later if something goes sideways and the rest of us are executed by the Emperor.”
Charlie blanched, but held his peace.
Tifft nodded and flipped open the satchel. He removed one page from inside, placed it flat against the side of the briefcase, and held it so that only Charlie could read it, and only then by leaning against Tifft’s shoulder.
Tom knew when Charlie hit the right sentence by the unconscious recoil and the profanity that burst out of the man’s mouth. Charlie started to say something, then thought better of it. Finally, he spoke.
“Should we hav
e a team in heavy EVA armor, just in case you want to order their hull manually breached?” he snarled quietly.
“Charlie, it would be faster to just kill them with beams at that point,” Tom retorted.
“I’m aware of that, Tom,” Charlie growled.
Tom considered it, and nodded.
“One team only, Charlie,” he ordered. “As you said, that’s a personal transport of a Duke, not a warship. One EVA marine could probably rip it in half by himself if I ordered it.”
“Admiral, I have a target,” one of the men called from the outer ring. “Confirmed: YPL-10006241BRX. Common name: Aramis. Holding at the second boundary for inner system clearance. Zone lock initiated.”
Tom smiled. It felt like a smile to him. Others might mistake it for a predator preparing to rip out its victim’s throat. Not that there was a lot of difference right now.
YPL. Yacht, Personnel, Light.
As Charlie had said, some Duke’s private boat. Specifically, Kiril Hahl, Duke of Blue Essex, a lovely world Tom had heard compared favorably to both the lost Homeworld and St. Legier.
One of his frigates was more than enough to take charge of a YPL, all the more so because it had no guns.
Sending all five frigates perhaps qualified as overkill. Adding three cruisers and a battleship was just icing on an already vicious cake.
“Maneuver orders,” Tom said to Charlie and Gunter. “I want the escorts bracketing him when we emerge. Put the cruisers on his flanks. Drop Firehawk right on his nose, dead stop relative, close enough that the Primaries can’t focus. Then put all of our marines on his hull. After that, Tifft and I will board his vessel and we will have a conversation with the man.”
“On it,” Charlie began typing buttons.
Tifft nodded. Tom smiled. He just might get to add another ghost to the ones that haunted him at night. Perhaps he had found his purpose.
Tom made a note to himself, to thank Hendrik for sending him this before he died.
