by Blaze Ward
Before Thuringwell.
“I said, you’re in my seat,” the man rasped, louder, in case Vo were hard of hearing.
Vo blinked owlishly at the man. No other movement. No emotion on his face.
Nothing to give a punk like this a handle.
The leader snapped his hand back and forward again, a circus trick that put a stiletto shiv in his palm. It was a polished move, theatrical.
Probably impressive to most people. At least the ones who had never studied kendo.
Vo considered his options.
The piano had fallen silent. In the vids, that was always the ominous sign. The dart tournament had ceased as well, though nobody had made any outward movement.
As a Ritter, Vo was within his rights to have the man thrown out. And arrested just for threatening him.
This punk looked like a man who already knew what the inside of a jail cell smelled like.
Vo could order his men to fall on the strangers, twenty-four to eight with surprise and position.
But he was an officer now. Two officers, if he stopped to consider himself an Imperial Army Colonel and a Republic Centurion.
The year had been frustrating.
Not seeing Rebekah, to enjoy those sparks. Being called by the Fleet Centurion to be an example of an officer and a gentleman, when all he really wanted to do was be himself.
And now, this punk.
“You gonna move, pretty boy?” the leader growled. “Or do I have to get ugly?”
Vo nodded once to the man, slow and unthreatening.
He rested both palms flat on the table top and pushed down enough to free him from the stickiness of the pseudo-leather seat, slowly sliding sideways out of the booth and getting his feet firmly planted before he stood up.
The bantam might look the Fleet Centurion in the eyes. He didn’t come up to Vo’s shoulder.
The other seven began to murmur among themselves as Vo glared down at them, none any taller than average height, and either rail thin or dumpy and overweight.
Nobody here got up at dawn and ran several kilometers before chow. Not on that side of the room, anyway.
Ugliness sparked in the leader’s eyes, already crazy.
“You looking at me, soldier boy?” he snarled in a coyote’s low tone.
The tip of the stiletto came up to point at Vo’s face.
Again, a threat, if you didn’t know anything at all about knife-fighting.
Navin had taught all of them the importance of not telegraphing your movement, usually with a bamboo sword on the kendo floor. The kind that left stinging, painful welts for days afterwards.
Vo let everything bubble up. Just a little.
Enough to lash out with his left hand faster than the eye could track it.
His meaty paw engulfed the man’s fist and his wrist, trapping both before the ugly man could react. And that was before Vo started to squeeze hard enough to start to grind the bones, if not shatter them. At best, right now, the punk might manage to scratch Vo enough to cut the fabric on his jacket.
Moirrey would have the man’s head on a stake if he damaged that uniform. Probably Vo’s as well, for letting him.
Plus, you don’t negotiate with bullies. A great many people had taught him that, over the years.
Everything is a show to them. Their only power is fear.
Rather than try logic, Vo punched the man suddenly in the side of the head, as hard as he could.
Not the fragile bones at the temple. Those would have shattered to mush under the impact and simply killed him.
Vo aimed higher, the heavier part of the skull cap that could probably take the punch with nothing more than hairline fractures and a disabling concussion.
Not that he was above killing the man. Nor was he outside of his rights as an officer and a gentleman to do so, especially when threatened with a weapon.
The time spent studying Imperial law on the flight out here had covered those details.
No, let this stupid punk wake up in a hospital somewhere, chained to his bed, on the way to a prison cell.
Sometimes, bullies never learn. Those live in small boxes until they do.
Having a hold on the man, an anchor, meant the unconscious body couldn’t fall away from the punch. Vo held the man’s dead weight in the air with one hand overhead, dangling like a side of beef in an abattoir in front of the other seven as they fell deathly silent.
Vo made sure he had their attention before he dropped their leader like a frozen turkey and growled at the rest of the gang.
Before any of the strangers could move, twenty-four other men growled as well, suddenly arm’s reach away and apparently pointedly unhappy with the turn of events.
Vo pointed to the little insignia he wore on the left side of his chest, certainly something nobody else in the bar had probably ever seen, let alone recognized.
“I am Colonel Vo zu Arlo, Ritter of the Imperial Household,” he ground the words out like an angry landslide, gaining power and volume. “This is the 189th Division of the Imperial Army. If I ever see any of you again, I will have you arrested. If you threaten me or any of my men, I will have you put down in the street like mad dogs. Am I clear?”
Flies would be embarrassed to buzz in the sudden silence.
One of the men still retained the faintest hint of color to his otherwise white cheeks. He nodded. The rest stood in stony shock, mackerel suddenly discovering sharks around them.
“Your friend requires medical attention,” Vo continued. “You will pick him up and take him to the hospital. Now. I have ears in this city. I will know if you disobey me.”
Somewhere, in the dark, angry depths of Vo’s training and lizard brain, he heard Navin the Black chuckle mightily.
“Move,” Vo commanded in a sudden bellow that rang off the rafters.
The mackerel scurried to pick up their leader and flee like spooked sheep, wolves pacing them to the door.
Vo made his way to the publican, a short, fat man with terror and awe fighting for possession of his face in the silence.
“My lord,” the man stammered.
Vo pulled a five-florin silver coin from a pocket and placed on the scarred wood between them.
“My apologies for the disturbance, sir,” Vo said in the voice that more-closely approximated human than he had a moment ago. “If those men give you any more trouble, I will leave orders with the local gendarme to handle them as roughly as they deserve. And I will not be brooked.”
The man nodded, silent, nearly as white as the few other bar’s patrons, suddenly confronted with a school of sharks.
Vo smiled, and made his way back to the booth. The piano and the darts picked up again.
Hopefully, the Fleet Centurion would approve.
He had no doubts she would hear all the details from someone, no later than breakfast tomorrow.
CHAPTER XXXI
DATE OF THE REPUBLIC OCTOBER 17, 398 IMPERIAL STARPORT, WERDER, ST. LEGIER
Jessica still wasn’t sure if this was a good idea, or a terrible mistake in the making, this trip. She had at least left behind a note on paper, sealed, in Desianna’s hands, just in case, but there really wasn’t much more past that she could do.
She found herself this morning at Werder’s main starport in a small lounge, well-decorated and expensive, back around in the extremely secured, military parts of the facility, alone, but for Captain Baumgärtner, Marcelle, and Willow.
Waiting.
Time seemed to be running slow this morning, or she was just too keyed up, which was also possible, considering. She still didn’t trust what was going on with these people. There were pieces of the puzzle missing.
Before she could say anything, a side door opened and Emmerich Wachturm entered the room. She supposed he had a wider wardrobe, but she only ever saw him in his Red Admiral uniform these days.
At least today was semi-official business.
“My most profound apologies for being late,” he said, carrying an o
versized piece of folded-up paper in one hand that he proffered to Jessica as he got close. “I needed to make a few calls and understand the situation better before we departed.”
Jessica had stood as the man entered, so now everyone was on their feet. She took the paper and let it flop open to confirm what it was.
She had heard about such things, but never actually held an Imperial broadsheet before. It seemed such an amazing waste of paper, to actually print a variety of news, gossips, ads, and comics on physical paper and distribute it that way, instead of transmitting updated news regularly to electronic tablets.
But the Fribourg Empire was a paper culture. It made sense to them.
“Situation?” Jessica asked.
“Colonel Arlo made rather a scene last night,” Wachturm replied breezily.
Jessica felt her stomach go cold. Today’s trip had been planned in secrecy several days ahead, but was always subject to last-minute circumstances. Something happening with Vo might qualify.
“Bad?” Jessica inquired.
“Oh, no, Wildgraf,” Wachturm said with a wide smile. “Quite the contrary, from what I’m given to understand. Half a dozen hoodlums decided to start a ruckus in a bar where the 189th was drinking.”
“What happened?”
“Arlo knocked the leader into the hospital with one blow,” the Red Admiral replied with a grin. “Chased the rest into turning themselves in to the police. Your man is something of a hero on the streets of Werder, this morning. The story is at the bottom of the righthand column, on page two.”
Jessica felt her heart slow back down. But then, Vo was born to be a hero, if he could just get out of his own way.
“I see,” Jessica said up to the man. “So everything is good?”
“Very much so,” Emmerich said. “That was what I wanted to confirm with the local constabulary, since we’ll be out of touch for two days. Now, if you will come this way, our courier is fully prepped and the pilot ready.”
Jessica followed Wachturm through a door and into a medium-sized flight hangar, barely large enough for a giant Republic DropShip like Cayenne to fit.
There was a vessel waiting for them. While regular administrative shuttles or cargo haulers tended to be boxy affairs, this ship was sleek, a rapier poised to slice through sky and space.
Jessica followed the Red Admiral up a quick flight of steps and into the courier’s guts. She was familiar with the general design architecture. The Republic used something similar, but she had rarely ever needed to be transported somewhere outside the confines of a warship.
On her left as she entered, Jessica knew she would find a cockpit with a three-man flight crew. Immediately in front of her, a cabin with comfortable seats all the way around, facing each other across a series of round tables that could be telescoped up from the deck on need. Aft of that, a set of sleeping chambers and a head, for trips that might take several days. All the way back, just in front of the engines, were crew cabins, a wardroom, and kitchen; again, fully staffed, since a courier like this was usually the personal craft of an Admiral.
Everyone quickly took their seats and buckled in as the ship came live with a hum of barely-contained power. Little vessels like this were designed to cross interstellar space as fast as one could safely navigate risks and gravity wells.
Rather than turn on the gravplates, the pilot settled for making sure everyone was strapped in as he cleared the bay doors and stood the small ship on her ass end, trying to blast a hole in the atmosphere. The g-forces weren’t great, but more than enough to keep casual conversation down.
Gaucho would have approved.
Jessica took the time to read up on Arlo.
Her only surprise was that the fool who had started it was still alive.
They dropped out of JumpSpace in an unknown system four hours flight from the capital. Jessica supposed she could go calculate the coordinates later, if she really cared, but there was nothing of any military value here. If there had been, the Red Admiral wouldn’t have brought her.
The only thing of any interest was a brand-new Paladin-class Battleship named Amsel, the Blackbird, replacement for the older version that had been so horribly mauled at First Ballard four years ago. Like the old Auberon, she had eventually been stricken and a new vessel built in her place.
On the screens, as the little transport approached, the new Blackbird was a grown-up version of the courier. She was longer and sleeker than her older namesake, a higher length-to-beam ratio that conveyed speed and danger, where the older ship had been a battleaxe.
Jessica memorized as much as she could, knowing that this ship was only the second of her class, vessels that had not yet been seen on the Aquitaine frontier.
Where were they being deployed to, if not the Eternal War that was now at Peace, or at least truce? Was there another foe out there?
Jessica let her strategic and tactical mind explore the possibilities that the whispered rumors were true.
Another stellar empire, on the far side of vast Fribourg, suddenly turning aggressive. In that light, a great deal of Karl and the Red Admiral’s recent behavior made more sense. As did the requirement that she not bring along Moirrey, the evil engineering gnome capable of deducing obscene amounts of actionable information about the new ship, just from looking at her.
Moirrey would probably have been able to draw frighteningly accurate deck plans for the ship, just spending a day aboard her.
Well aft, just ahead of the engine clusters, a bay door in the gray beast’s hide opened invitingly. The pilot threaded a tiny needle with his craft, passing the lock seal and landing with a jar that wouldn’t have spilled tea.
Emmerich Wachturm had been uncharacteristically quiet for much of the flight. He spoke up now, in a quiet voice that conveyed grave seriousness.
“Fleet Centurion,” he intoned as he unbuckled and stood. “You would have found out eventually, but I brought you here to share two state secrets. Not because I want your help, but because I want you to understand the stakes involved.”
Had he offered to fight her to the death, right here on the flight deck, Jessica wouldn’t have been as surprised.
From Wachturm’s side, Hendrik Baumgärtner, her own minder and recent assistant, nodded intently.
“Okay,” Jessica said in a slightly-disbelieving tone as she rose in turn.
She watched Emmerich Wachturm transform before her eyes, into a primeval creature, a force of raw nature.
“I know you do not believe me, Jessica Keller,” he growled. “But the Peace between our nations will hold, as long as I have the power, the lifeblood, to enforce it.”
Jessica felt her chin come up at the challenge in his voice.
“Why?” she fired back defiantly.
They were past how he could promise that. And this was no longer a conversation between Fribourg and Aquitaine.
This had come down to The Fleet Centurion and The Red Admiral.
“Because Aquitaine is the lesser evil, Keller,” he stated flatly. “There is something, someone, far worse. Fribourg will not rest until that scourge is utterly destroyed. I expect that task to take my entire lifetime, and possibly my grandchildren’s as well, to complete.”
She could see the seriousness, the promise, in his eyes. Thoughts of second fronts danced menacingly in the back of her mind.
What could she do to convince the Senate to abrogate the treaty? They could help bring Fribourg down, whoever they were.
“Who?” she finally asked, after a moment of silent scheming.
“Buran,” Emmerich replied. “The Lord of Winter. A Sentience in command of a star empire.”
Jessica’s soul went cold.
There was no greater threat to humanity than one of the deathless AIs in control of starfleets again.
The Concordancy War had ended when robot battlefleets pummeled the Homeworld, the planet Earth itself, with enough asteroids to annihilate all trace of civilization from her surface. All human life on the pla
net had vanished with it.
In response, Earth’s fleets had destroyed their daughters, those colonies seeking to escape the Homeworld’s control. Whole worlds were crushed by orbital bombardment, Sentiences determining that to be the most efficient way to win the war.
Once out of the bottle, that genie could not be put back.
Worlds continued to fall on both sides. Scrubbed clean of human life.
Only after the factories had been destroyed, only after trade in specialized machine parts had been suddenly and irrevocably disrupted, did the humans and their Sentiences come to understand what they had done.
But by then, it was too late.
Trade failed. Colonies failed.
Galactic civilization failed.
Galactic humanity nearly went with it.
Barely one colony in fifty had even retained human survivors, with most of them fallen to Iron Age barbarism within two generations.
One thousand years of darkness had followed, broken only when Zanzibar rediscovered the ancient technology and began exploring, with their first stop at Ballard.
The Story Road.
Henri Baudin, the Founder of Aquitaine, had proscribed Sentiences, leaving only the one exception for Suvi, the Librarian of Ballard in her golden cage, Alexandria Station. Fribourg had gone even further, actively rooting them out and destroying them, along with anything that remotely smacked of electronic intelligence.
If one of the warriors from the Concordancy Era, the Destroyers, had survived, everything was at risk. If it controlled enough firepower to threaten Fribourg, it threatened the entire galaxy.
The entire species.
“You see,” he said simply.
The Red Admiral took a half-step back and gestured skyward, even as they were in deep space.
Jessica grunted something under her breath, unwilling to trust words yet.
“This vessel was never meant to fight Aquitaine,” he continued in a sepulchral tone. “If it is in my power, Amsel will never see that side of the Empire, except on diplomatic tours. I brought you here because I need you to understand that. Nobody else could. None that would matter.”
