by Blaze Ward
David sat on her left, in his official place as her senior-ranking Captain. The ancient term had been Commodore. She needed to make some changes to how things were organized, now that she was sure she would hold this throne.
She needed to do many things in a short time.
Desianna, First Minister, sat to her right, dressed for business, rather than distraction. In her sixth decade, she could still entice every man in any room, if she wanted, but today she was wearing a simple green tunic over white pants, with barely a quarter kilo of gold visible in the rings, earrings, necklaces, and butterfly-shaped hair pins she wore.
Next to Desianna was one of the smallest men Jessica knew on Corynthe, barely a hand span taller than Jessica herself. Still, he was one of the most respected Captains, in spite of only commanding a 1-ring Mothership, and that one largely dedicated to commerce, rather than combat.
But then, this man had never wanted more, and had nothing to prove to anyone on this planet, a feeling he had made known then, and now. After all, none of the rest of them could say that their blade had killed a king.
It was apparently one of the changes that had come about without her pushing, but David had appointed Uly Larionov, formerly Captain of the 1-ring Mothership Baba Yaga, to be Comptroller of the Court. Her personal banker, if you will. Another sign that Corynthe was growing up.
Arnulf Rodriguez had always hoped to found a dynasty, but more importantly, to refound Corynthe into a nation, and not just a random collection of planets. It had taken his death, but Jessica and her friends were making progress.
Uly Larionov was dressed simply today: slacks, shirt, and jacket in various blues of good material, and well-made, but nothing that screamed wealth or ego.
Again, nothing to prove to anybody but himself.
Next to David, in her position as his First Officer, but really Captain in everything but name, Wiley, quietly measuring everyone in the room.
Finally, at the far end of the table, looking relaxed and proper, if a tad out of place, Fleet Centurion Whughy, flanked by the two Flag Centurions, Enej and Cheng Yin Dominguez.
As councils of war went, unimpressive, but she would have brought Denis, Alber’, Robbie, and Tomas at a minimum, if it had been serious.
This was diplomacy.
“First off,” Jessica said. “Thank you. For being prepared to move, and ready to go. It is a tremendously long sail to St. Legier, and you’ve given me enough time to make a few stops along the way.”
She turned and smiled at Desianna.
“My only regret is that I can’t take you away from Petron for most of a year to join me.”
David cleared his throat diplomatically from her left.
Jessica glanced at him sidelong.
“A thought, Your Majesty,” he said in a smiling, almost sarcastic tone. “In the interests of diplomacy, we will, of necessity, be working closely with Whughy’s squadron for an extended period. If you would be amenable, I propose a trade, whereby Desianna accompanies you, and your Flag Centurion, Zivkovic, takes over as a senior advisor to the government here. I believe we will be able to survive in her absence.”
And where Enej and Furious wouldn’t be separated for ten months or longer. They hadn’t gotten married before now only because Cho wasn’t ready to settle down. They would, one of these days.
“I see,” Jessica said carefully.
She fixed her Flag Centurion with a look, and he nodded with a smile.
“It was my idea,” Larionov said simply, glancing right and left at any that would challenge him.
Not necessarily the most diplomatic man, but not an enemy anybody made willingly.
Jessica nodded and turned back to David.
“In that case, I need to make one important change,” she said. “David Rodriguez, you are hereafter appointed Vice Admiral of the Corynthe Fleet, second only to myself, and senior to all Free Captains in all things. This is in addition to your other titles and duties.”
Jessica turned her look to the woman next to David and locked serious eyes.
“Shiori Ness, Wiley, you will take command of the flagship, Kali-ma. Based on your uniform, I hereby appoint you to be the first Command Centurion in the history of the Corynthe Navy. You will exercise excellence and demand the same of your crew, that the whole reflect the greatest acclaim in serving the needs of the Nation and the will of your Queen.”
It wasn’t quite the orders she had received, taking over her first command, but it was close. And Aquitaine would provide an excellent model. Lincolnshire was already a close-treaty ally. In another generation, Corynthe might be the same.
Wiley’s eyes positively glowed. Looking around, most of the table was the same way, including that old curmudgeon, Uly Larionov. His smile was perhaps the warmest.
Jessica regretted that she wouldn’t have time to truly enjoy this visit, needing to change vessels and depart in less than a single, whirlwind week.
She still had to walk into that ninth circle of hell, the Imperial Palace at St. Legier.
And do so as a polite guest.
CHAPTER VII
IMPERIAL FOUNDING: 176/04/17. IMPERIAL PALACE, WERDER, ST. LEGIER
Emmerich couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Joh, His Sovereign Imperial Majesty, Johannes Arend Wiegand, Emperor Karl VII, so utterly pissed. The man was usually much calmer, more diplomatic, less given to displays of emotion in public.
Or at least as public as the room where this group routinely met.
Eight men, all kin, around a conference table. The big kind, cut and polished out of a single piece of blue granite, resting atop heavy wooden legs, themselves dark with age and polish. The walls around the men were rather plain, made from a dark, expensive jade covered with a few tapestries that represented particularly important moments in the founding and history of the Fribourg Empire.
It was a harsh room. These were harsh men.
One measure of the emotional starkness in the room was the way many of them jumped when Joh slammed his open, right palm onto the table top to make a point.
Emmerich had seen it coming. For about the last five minutes, which was still about three longer than he had initially expected.
“I said no,” Karl VII commanded in a heavy voice. “I have made my decision and you will abide by it. This is in the best interests of the Empire, your own petty piques and grumblings notwithstanding.”
Uncle Kunibert, Grand Admiral Marquering, Commander of the Imperial Fleet, scowled back. It was almost like seeing Joh’s father, Karl VI, seated there.
Eerie.
“I appreciate the diplomacy of inviting this woman to the biggest social event of the season,” Kunibert began slowly, barely taming the anger in his voice. “I do not believe that honoring her so publically is a wise choice. I care what the people will say.”
“If the Peace is to last, it must be honored,” the Emperor replied gruffly. Emmerich judged him as almost past diplomacy at this point. “As for the population, they will rest easier, knowing that neither of those women are coming for them. Let us not forget the impact that Kermode has had on this war, as well as Keller.”
Joh took a deep breath and fixed everyone at the table with a hard look. Emmerich noted that Joh almost smiled at him, but he hadn’t been arguing with his Emperor for the last half hour. The Emperor would make the policy. That was his job.
For the rest of them, it would their jobs to enforce it.
Being uncles and cousins just meant that this was a family intrigue, on top of everything else.
“We cannot continue to fight a war on two fronts,” Joh growled. “Not with as dangerous a foe as Buran has turned out to be. Aquitaine is already nearly too big to digest.”
He reached out and picked up the nearly-forgotten briefing packet that had accompanied them into the meeting this morning, quickly flipping it to a specific page with a pink tag sticking out.
“The cost of fighting Jessica Keller was spelled out for us in detailed
terms by a team of economists I assigned,” he said. “If you look on the bottom of page twenty-seven, you will see the absolute cost in men and materials. If you want the estimated additional costs as a factor of lost revenue, opportunity costs, and other factors, that is on page fifty-one.”
His glare was back. Staring daggers at the room didn’t do it justice.
Staring battleaxes, maybe.
“We cannot afford to fight Jessica Keller and Moirrey Kermode,” Joh concluded. “I’m not sure we can beat her, or Aquitaine, on her terms, as both Em and Kozlov have attempted. That is a task I would happily leave for Ekke, when he reigns in my place. After those two women are no longer on the front line. We are bigger than Aquitaine, gentleman. Time is on our side, presuming we can push the M’hanii Frontier back and hold those people as well.”
Normally, this would have been the point when Emmerich expected his cousin Sigmund to speak up, challenge Joh one last time, just to prove a point. Or perhaps Artur Marquering, Kunibert’s younger brother, would step into the fray. They were like that.
Instead Emmerich noted the rigid silence of both men. Perhaps Joh had finally gotten through to them about the precarious state of the Empire. Even Sigmund might grow up, one of these days.
Pigs had been known to fly.
“If there are no other questions?” Joh announced in a heavy, challenging voice. “Hearing none, this meeting is adjourned.”
The look in the Emperor’s eyes was an invitation for Em to lag behind the rest.
Emmerich took his time gathering his papers and let the others of the Imperial Fleet Council depart, until he was alone with Joh and a handful of bodyguards.
“Lunch plans?” Joh asked in an entirely different tone of voice than he had used two minutes earlier.
“I was supposed to be in a meeting with you for another hour,” Em replied with a grin. “My schedule seems to have an unexpected opening.”
“Walk with me,” Karl VII commanded lightly, rising and stepping around the table.
The years had been kinder to Joh than himself. The Emperor still had half a head of brown hair above the gray, despite being a year older. Em had given up and learned to live with everything coming in silver now. From behind, it was one of the only ways to tell the two men apart, physically.
Armed men fell in around them, maintaining a polite, paranoid distance as the two cousins exited the building and began to cross a large, overgrown courtyard to the personal part of the palace.
“Days like this, I miss Hans,” Joh ventured.
Em had to agree. Hans Huff, yet another uncle, had been an exceptional Grand Admiral of the Fleet. His retirement, although long-expected, had changed the balance of things in the family. And in the Council. Kunibert and his brother were more emotional, more excitable. Hans had been the practical one, spending his focus on how to make things run smoother.
Em decided that the other two men were just too much glory hounds. It wasn’t enough to be in the Inner Council that really made decisions. They wanted to be in charge.
There had been a great deal more butting of heads over the last year, as a result.
It was spring on St. Legier. The planet had originally been settled for the similarity to the lost Homeworld in that way. There was a calculation for adding a day to the local calendar every decade or so, just to keep sidereal time in harmony with the ancient calendar, but the rest of the time, the seasons balanced, unlike most habitable planets.
The breeze had finally lost that bitter, chilled edge, but they were down in a courtyard now, blocked on all sides by six- and seven-story buildings. Things were calmer.
“How go the Builder’s Trials?” Joh asked absently as they walked.
Em felt a smile for the first time all morning.
“Officially?” he replied. “Exactly on schedule.”
“Oh? And unofficially?” Joh glanced over.
“Captain Saar is confident that he’ll be ready for Induction to the Fleet in time for the wedding, minus only the final loadout of missiles and consumables for a long voyage we aren’t scheduled to take until spring anyway,” Em replied. “His hope is that Heike will be able to Sponsor her as a honeymoon gift.”
“I see,” Joh said. “And the reason to keep it so quiet?”
“He’s the best, but to get there, Saar has to push everyone,” Em continued. “And the schedule has to be perfect. If something goes wrong, as normal, they’ll miss the wedding itself, and have to do it early next year, like the formal schedule calls for. They would rather it be a surprise for my daughter.”
The two men approached the door to the Family Wing of the palace. Four guards came to attention and saluted as the party came in from the sunshine, surrounded suddenly by valets and attendants. They traversed hallways in silence until Joh led him into a smaller conference room, deep inside the building.
“Coffee immediately, please,” the Emperor said to one of the valets. “And then menus for lunch.”
The man nodded silently and disappeared quickly from the room, leaving them alone, however briefly.
“Thank you again,” Emmerich said abruptly.
“For?”
“Keller,” Em replied.
It was a shorthand, but they had known each other for fifty years.
“Em,” the Emperor smiled. “You ask so little of me normally. It was my pleasure to finally be able to do something for you for once. Hopefully, we can convince Aquitaine that we’re serious about the Peace. Their spies will find out about Buran soon enough, if they don’t already know. And I know how much you wanted to be back in the field. This is a good way to send you off to Osynth B’Udan.”
Emmerich nodded.
“Besides,” Joh continued. “I can’t think of anyone better suited to taking a new Paladin-class Battleship into the line, especially since we really don’t understand how Buran’s weapons systems or tactics are going to evolve, once we get serious. Nor why we have never been able to capture one of their warships intact enough to examine.”
“I presume fanatics, Joh,” Em replied. “Death before dishonor. It is something I see occasionally around us, even though we have tried to beat it out of these men. As for the other, their physics are wrong.”
“Wrong, Em?”
“They don’t use Primaries, Your Majesty,” the Red Admiral felt himself drop into lecture mode of habit. “And, as near as we can tell, they use something akin to the ancient jump drive of our ancestors. It’s like they never encountered any of our technological advancements over the last five centuries. Or they don’t care.”
“Interesting. I had not grasped that.”
“It’s not widely known, even in the fleet. At the same time, they can actually jump inside a gravity well in ways we don’t understand,” Em said. “Both accurately and fairly quickly. And their main weapon is some sort of magnetic shear beam, instead of an electromagnetic pulse as we originally thought. Short range, practically knife-fighting, but shields barely slow it down.”
“So how do we defeat them?”
The Emperor was back now, rather than Em’s best friend. A man focused on the well-being of over a thousand inhabited worlds, and several hundred billion Imperial citizens.
They faced a wolf come in from the darkness. A fox raiding the chickens, killing a few, and then vanishing back into the night.
A being known in whispers as Buran, the Lord of Winter.
“If I could,” Em opined softly. “I would recruit Kermode, show her everything, and let her work her wicked magic. If the Peace holds another five years, I might submit a formal request.”
“Em, if the raids continue like this, and the Peace is still there in five years, I might approve it. I already plan to Knight the woman, one of the few such women ever. If you tell me she is all that can save the Empire, we’ll talk.”
“She’s not all, Joh,” Em said in a low, tight voice.
“Oh?”
“We might need Jessica Keller.”
CHAPTE
R VIII
DATE OF THE REPUBLIC JUNE 9, 398 KALI-MA. ABOVE PETRON
Jessica expected more of a lurch on docking. A bang. Something visceral.
She looked over at Desianna and Wiley with a grin.
Jessica had gotten spoiled by flying with Gaucho. Or maybe jaded. Even Branca Rocha, the commander of her DropShip Petron, didn’t land so softly.
Instead, a light ping, almost a docking bell, save for the slightest bump as the Royal Transport Yacht, Baxter, docked with Jessica’s flagship. David had called the little shuttle a lorcha, an ancient term referring to a type of maritime sailing vessel that combined a Chinese sailing rig with a Portuguese hull, in order to get the best of both worlds. Jessica had spent much of a morning researching those terms, just to understand.
More cargo and a faster hull.
Or, in this case, a Salonnian administrative shuttle, manufactured by Ba Xìn Heavy Industries, with custom engines designed and built by Tomakomai Engineering Research, of Petron. Someone with a sardonic sense of humor had welded two halves of nameplates together and tacked it to the rear wall of the small bridge.
Ba XT.E.R.
It had stuck. Everyone called the ship Baxter.
And Jessica wouldn’t mind traveling a long journey aboard her.
She had been prepared for the cramped quarters she remembered from the last time she had been aboard Kali-ma. Instead, David had surprised her with luxury.
A so-called Royal Transport Yacht.
A fully self-contained environment, lacking only JumpSails to get anywhere, with a pair of ambassadorial cabins double the size that even Wiley had on the main hull as a commander, plus her own private shower, oversized kitchen with a small staff, and a hall for dining or entertaining. Stained, wood-paneled walls. Thick, handmade rugs tacked to the floors everywhere. Earth tones painted on every surface.
Jessica had been prepared to push hard on this sail, in a zig-zag, to call on friendly worlds, or at least neutral ones, so that everyone would have a chance to get away from each other for a day or so after she crammed her whole group in with the rest of the crew. Instead, she had nearly a quarter more useful living space aboard Kali-ma, and had a pleasant place to stay. She could work here without getting in Wiley’s way. Plus, the interior would impress visitors when they got to St. Legier.
