by Blaze Ward
Casey supposed Santiago or Yuular would have been more comfortable. Strasbourg had suffered far less physical damage. But she needed to be here. Closer to the wound in her people’s heart.
Her soul needed to be able to talk to all the ghosts and help them find peace.
She laughed to herself at such fancy and knocked lightly.
“Come,” a muffled voice answered.
It wasn’t worth the argument this morning, so Casey let one of the bodyguards open the door and step in first, taking up his place in a corner with a good view and clear lanes of fire if necessary.
After a while, they will become invisible, if you work at it hard enough.
She remembered Jessica’s complaints that the only time she could be alone was in the bathroom with the door locked. Casey had perhaps a little more leeway, but only because the rest of her armed team was never farther away than the next room.
Vigilant.
She entered the hotel room that had been converted to an office and located a chair.
“You are not required to knock, Your Majesty,” Torsten said as he looked up from behind his desk.
At least he didn’t drop everything and stand, like most people. She was slowly working on beating that behavior out of people in these more informal circumstances. That was correct in public, but she wasn’t always on stage. They didn’t need to be there, either.
“That is correct, Torsten,” she said seriously. “I choose to.”
She gestured, and another of the men closed the door. With face shields down, identifying them was difficult. Someone, probably Tobias Inmon, had picked that team to be nearly identical, physically. It made a kind of sense. If you could never tell which trooper was which, suborning one, or knowing his weaknesses, was difficult. But she hadn’t learned their walks well enough yet to tell them apart, either.
It didn’t help that all six of her normal men were within two centimeters and three kilograms of each other.
“How may I be of service?” Torsten asked as she settled.
He set down his pen and ignored the stacks of papers at hand.
“I’m more concerned about the government,” she said. “Should you be here, or is there another location that would be better suited? It has been over four months, and the shock of the emergency is starting to wear off. You don’t have to remain at the center to do things.”
He grinned at her. Most of a grin, anyway. She could see the lines of exhaustion that hadn’t been there six months ago. His hair was starting to come in almost completely gray, making him even more the august professor than he had been, although he was too well-dressed for that.
Another of Vibol’s walking art exhibits, though much more professional-looking than what the tailor would put her in, if she gave the man his head.
“I am blessed to have been able to simply order people from Yuular and other places to attend me here,” he said with a deprecating shrug. He rarely ordered anything, preferring to sneak up on bureaucrats. “They refer to themselves alternatively as The Junior Varsity, or the Country Cousins, within the group themselves as an inside joke, and are used to working as a team. For the rest of the planet, I have, as you approved, taken the revolutionary expedient of promoting people to Acting Directors and Deputies from their current positions, with the understanding that Imperial Security and the Inspectorate Generalé will be watching carefully. And they will remain in that position for a year, unless they give me cause to remove them.”
“Is that wise?” she asked.
At the time, it had been a necessity. But to give some of these men free reign for a year?
“The other planets already generally self-govern, within the Imperial framework, Your Majesty, both through their Duke and their appointed Governor,” he said. “While many Dukes were present at Werder, few Governors were, so most places can run themselves for a time. I am exercising direct control of St. Legier in your name, until the military emergency subsides.”
“But the Imperial staff you have promoted?” she asked. “The civilian one? How many nobles make up the tier you have endorsed?”
“Very few,” he said, turning serious. “The civil service is frequently a middle-class career, from which a few outstanding examples are regularly ennobled, or perhaps encouraged to marry into noble families. In Werder, the senior ranks were almost completely made up of the noble class. A few survived by being on vacation or missions. They have been plugged in wherever I needed the most authority.”
“And the rest?” Casey pressed.
“You ordered a quiet revolution, Kasimira zu Wiegand,” he said in a hard, low voice. “But not necessarily a slow one. A place somewhere midway between the Magna Carta and the Charter of Man. The Empire must run. I will bind these people more closely to the throne than anyone imagines by giving them a greater stake in the thing itself. Already, hostile reaction stirs in the shadows, noble men not given over to rule by a woman. We will need the support of those commoners, men and women like myself.”
“That is why I am concerned that we move too fast, Wald,” she retorted.
Privately, she soared on morning breezes, but that was her soul. Her mind still performed the cold calculus of Imperial leadership, balancing factions against one another.
“It does not help your cause that I am betrothed to Jessica Keller,” he acknowledged flatly. “Many fear that she will eventually turn on them and rejoin her conquest of Empire, however fanciful that dream might have become. Others see me as an insurance policy that she will not. But there will always be a hard core of dissidents demanding a return to the ways of Karl V.”
Casey fought to keep the snarl off her face. Her great-grandfather had been a reactionary of the worst kind. The Charter of Man had been an organic demand to end the sorts of arbitrariness of that man’s rule, by embedding rights for commoners into a law he could not ignore on a whim.
“Do we have the people?” she asked pointedly.
He sighed.
“I think so,” Torsten said. “Sales of your books and music have exploded recently, and I have taken the liberty of borrowing all of that money into the Imperial Treasury with notes owed to your personal accounts. Emergencies are just that, but we have been able to finance many things out of your residuals that might have had to wait, otherwise. So I think we have enough of the populace. After a year, we’ll have more, God willing. The Fleet is as solid as Em and Hendrik can make it, with Tom Provst as their avenging angel. The Army is more questionable, but Arlo has made it clear that his next task after cleaning up St. Legier is to strike directly at Buran. As he effectively is Army High Command with the help of the Fleet, they are with him, but rebuilding will be a task to undertake soon. It helps that most Divisions and Armies are self-contained.”
“But he is another foreigner in our midst?” she asked.
“Oh, God no, Your Majesty,” Torsten laughed heartily. “He is St. Legier, right now. The complaints I hear whispered are more from the well-bred that a commoner holds their reins. And that he is a man they fear, having watched Rohm taken down.”
“Would Rohm be a good commander?” Casey leaned back into the chair and studied the art on the wall behind Torsten. More bad watercolors, but it had a certain flair. “Should he be the next Grand Marshal?”
“We would need to have a long conversation with Wachturm, first, Your Majesty,” he replied after a moment of thought.
Casey wondered what art Torsten Wald had hung on the wall behind her, where he would see it every day. She hadn’t thought to look when she came in, hotel rooms being, by definition, impersonal spaces.
Who was Torsten Wald, when he was alone?
“We will need to solve zu Arlo, at some point,” she half blurted.
Wald fixed her with a neutral stare and a raised eyebrow.
“As you have said, he is St. Legier,” Casey continued in a rush, trying to find the right words. “The people are invested in him to protect them, possibly more than they are me as Emperor. How
do we leverage that? How do we leverage Vo?”
“I don’t know,” Torsten admitted. “Have you asked him what he wants?”
Casey blinked. Shocked still by the question.
No. She had not.
Had anyone asked Vo what he wanted?
Ever?
She had heard rumors and stories. Tidbits and insights from Jessica, Moirrey, and others. Arrested at seventeen and given the option of naval service or jail. Highly intelligent. Loyal to a fault. Exceptional in all tasks he set his mind to, according to the spies responsible for knowing these things when her father had decided to make a grand example of the soldier.
A man committed to always doing what he thought was right, consequences and costs be damned.
But had anyone ever asked Vo what he actually wanted?
She doubted it. They assumed the man, like she had. Assumed his strength, his resilience. Accepted him as a force of nature that could be reasoned with, but not thwarted.
If Casey didn’t know who Torsten Wald really was, did anyone know Vo zu Arlo?
Chapter XLV
Date of the Republic Feb 19, 402 Fleet Headquarters, Ladaux
The sign on the wall outside of Petia’s office read First Lord of the Fleet.
Her office. Her favorite Impressionistic art on the walls. Thick, muted carpet she had picked out on the floor. Petia Veronika Naoumov had worked her ass off for a very long time to make it this far. The only thing she had kept in the suite had been the desk Nils originally installed. It fit her as well as him, they being of a height.
Petia could have retired any time in the last fifteen years and measured it a successful career. In any other century, she would have been ranked among the giants, but it had been her fate to serve in the same fleet as Nils Kasum and Jessica Keller. Those names would be immortal. Of that Petia had no doubt.
The man who had led the fleet to perhaps its greatest strategic victory: a lasting peace with Fribourg. The woman who might be the greatest commander Aquitaine ever produced.
But Petia was here. Now. And she was going to make damned sure that they didn’t lose everything in the aftermath, relaxing at the very moment when things got worse.
Buran. The Eldest. A death machine commanding more stars than Aquitaine and Fribourg combined.
Who had just declared war on the entire galaxy.
Petia felt her chin come up and a snarl form on her face as she reviewed the notes set down by none other than Emmerich Wachturm and communicated to her personally by one of the frigate captains that man trusted to make a regular, high-speed mail run between capitals.
It would be fascinating reading to a civilian, but Petia had just spent several days reviewing footage of the battle itself and reading reports assembled by her analysts. The tactics. The ships themselves.
There was nothing at all new technologically, other than that new warship/super-bomb that had cracked the shields protecting the Imperial capital with what Imperial scientists thought was a shaped anti-matter charge. Dangerous and unstable, but not all that innovative.
Nothing the beast did was new. It was as if he had frozen his technology and tactics at the moment when his kind had destroyed Earth two thousand years ago, and then coasted for better than two millennia since. If some of his tools were better than hers, Petia had no doubt that people like Yan Bedrov and Moirrey Kermode had dedicated themselves to beating that mark.
Petia made a note to send a team back to Ballard. The Librarian had been reborn in her golden cage. Perhaps it was time to dive deep into her records and see what other ancient technologies might be within reach of the ancient beast. Or coming and as yet unseen.
A chime let her know that the next appointment had arrived.
“Come,” she called, pressing a button to open the hatch.
Senior Centurion Roderick Stone entered first. When Kamil Miloslav had been promoted to Fleet Intelligence, Petia had hired a nephew, her sister’s son, someone that she had known since birth. Convinced him to remain in service rather than returning to civilian life and going into politics.
One of these days, the man would probably be a Senator, if he wished. He was that good at his job. It made her life easier.
Rod nodded and stepped to one side.
“Command Engineering Centurion Vlahovic, First Lord,” he said.
Iskra Vlahovic entered behind the man and came to attention. She hadn’t changed, a medium-sized blond, tiny compared to Petia’s great height. A former fighter pilot who had survived a dogfight that should have killed her. Who then used her time recuperating in a hospital bed to retrain herself as a flight deck engineer before eventually taking charge of the deck on the old Auberon. And the new one.
She was the quiet, stubborn woman who had commanded a badly-broken Star Controller Auberon on her final flight home to the wrecker yard, with a mostly Imperial crew aboard and all but one of the original, surviving pilots.
“First Lord,” Iskra said quietly.
Everything she did was quiet. Firm, though. Unbending.
“Please sit,” Petia offered. “We’re awaiting one other.”
Iskra had nothing to prove to anyone. One look at the woman’s record and Petia had known that. Had she been of a bent, Petia had no doubt that Vlahovic would have been commanding a dreadnaught these days. She did not fidget, but carefully scanned the entire room exactly once, perhaps seeking clues of her new First Lord.
They had known of each other for many years, but Petia couldn’t remember if she had ever actually spoken to the woman before now. Iskra Vlahovic would have made a big-enough impression, so she presumed not.
The chime rang again, and the door opened a moment later.
Stone did not enter, but waited in the outer office.
“The Premier arrives, First Lord,” he called softly.
Tadej Horvat entered and took the empty seat, placing himself on Vlahovic’s left without a word. The grin that flashed on the man’s face for a moment was enough to know his mind. Unlike Iskra, Petia had known Tad for better than forty years. The Fifty Families were a tightly-wound tapestry, if you looked close enough.
Vlahovic responded with a single, sardonic eyebrow as she glanced at the newcomer.
“Iskra, there are going to be a number of responses to the attack on St. Legier,” Petia began. “Both official and unofficial. Big news and little news.”
It was telling, the way the woman responded. Or the near lack of response. A single eye cast at Horvat, and then sternness. Not stubbornness, but a woman expecting to have to eat a badly-cooked meal and smile about it afterwards. Petia flashed back to the early days, before her husband Artur had learned to really cook.
“Part of the official response will be to promote Digger Wolanski to Legate and expand his normal Construction Ala to an entire Legion by pulling in other teams for the duration,” she continued. “We’ll load up two Assault Carriers to transport them to St. Legier, so they can help rebuild.”
“I see,” Vlahovic replied as a placeholder, using so little emotional loading that it might as well have been invisible.
“That’s the official bit,” Petia admitted with a grin. “Unofficially, we’re sending a few other ships along, who will continue on past St. Legier and join up with Jessica and First Expeditionary, out on the frontier.”
“Who?” Iskra asked bluntly.
“RAN Arad has passed her Induction Trials and come out of dry-dock ready to fly,” Petia said. “Plus a brace of corvettes.”
“Arad is a converted bulk freighter,” Vlahovic observed dryly.
“That happens to now carry fourteen, modified Kartikeya-class GunShips, Iskra,” Petia replied. “Designed to engage on the Buran frontier. It was actually Jessica’s idea originally, since that design has a short range JumpSail that could be used tactically, once the ship itself was carried to battle.”
“Yes,” Iskra said minimally. “We used the trick with Necromancer, back in the old days.”
“So, three carri
ers, and three escorts,” Petia said. “I know you are close to retirement, but I wanted to ask for one more big mission from you, Iskra.”
Again, the eyebrow, and nothing more. Fortunately, Jessica’s notes on the woman were extensive and accurate. Petia wondered if she should have conducted this entire interview via scrolling marque text on a screen, just to make Iskra more comfortable.
Petia nodded to Tad to finally join the conversation.
“That force needs a chief, Command Centurion Vlahovic,” Tad said warmly. “One familiar with Wolanski and his peculiarities. Plus one also familiar with exotic flight deck operations, and with Jessica Keller. It would mean delaying your retirement some, but the government is prepared to promote you to Fleet Centurion and place you in command of said Task Force.”
Telling, how Vlahovic’s entire head turned to stare at the man. Petia suppressed a grin. Jessica’s notes were extremely useful for predicting Iskra Vlahovic’s behavior. Which sticks, which carrots to use.
“Fleet Centurion,” she observed carefully. “Not Fleet Engineering Centurion?”
“That is correct,” Tad replied. “Fleet Centurion. The line commander over the Task Force.”
“You already have two Fleet Centurions in place,” Iskra said.
“You will be carrying orders with you,” he grinned even broader as he offered the bait. “Promoting Jessica Keller to First Centurion. Emmerich Wachturm has, by now, already given her field command of the war with Buran. The least we can do is match the man. That’s the unofficial bit, lest Buran come to understand just how much my government is committing to the war effort. At least until she reminds the creature.”
A moment of stillness passed, like a pond at dawn before the birds awoke.
“RAN Arad,” Iskra finally said. “Who else?”
“The Assault Carriers RAN Akatsuki and RAN Archangel,” Petia replied. “The corvettes are CA-410, CE-411, and CE-417. The Fleet Replenishment Freighters Leggett and Redding. California-class, like your old friend Mendocino.”
