Zero Star

by Chad Huskins

  Presently, Lyokh placed his toe underneath Artemis’s practice sword, and kicked it up off the floor and into his hands. Then he tossed it over to Artemis. “Again?”

  Artemis was about to say something, when a stutter of muted gunfire came from the corridor behind them. It was twenty of his Gold Wingers, firing sim rounds. Takirovanen was putting them through their paces. During the siege of Vastill, some of the Ascendancy’s jammers had affected the auto-targeting of their Fell rifles, and Lyokh wanted to make sure his people weren’t so reliant on their tech that they forgot their basic skill sets.

  “I think I’m done for the day,” Artemis panted.

  “You giving up before me? That’s a first,” Lyokh said.

  “It doesn’t matter. I always lie to everyone later and tell them I kicked your arse.”

  Lyokh chuckled, then hove a sigh. “It’s for the best, I supposed. I have lots to work on, anyways. I’m sure you do, too.” He looked at the Tamer. “Speaking of which, how is Thrallyin?”

  Artemis shrugged, “He’ll be all right. Fab room says there’s a hold on replacing his armor, and regens would help patch his ancillary wings pretty good, but they say they’re short on them.” He shrugged again, but Lyokh could tell there was a twinge of sadness there. Tamers often became close to their MWMs, or military working wyrms. Just like canine handlers and cavalry of Earth Cradle got close to their dogs and horses.

  Thrallyin was a senior among the hatchlings, and had done a lot of the heavy lifting during the aerial assaults in Vastill.

  Lyokh clapped him on the arm. “I’ll put in a word with the fab room, tell them to make him a priority.”

  Artemis looked at him. A cloud fell over his face. He looked troubled. “You shouldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “If you make Thrallyin a priority, someone else gets shuffled to the back. And that’s not fair.”

  Lyokh was impressed. And also surprised at himself, at how quickly he had offered the favor without thinking. Artemis was right, it wasn’t the correct way to go about things, but it had been instinctive. It had felt right to help a friend who was so obviously in need, especially after they had just suffered so much loss. To give Artemis this…It might also come back on him later, make him look like he had kissed someone’s arse to save his wyrm.

  It was one of a thousand things he would need to remember moving forward. He was coming to realize that leadership did not just pertain to the battlefield and in the preparation of that battle, but in the way people were managed away from the battlefield. And not just in their downtime at places like The Place To Be. It was about how you listened, how you judged, and how you communicated on a day-to-day basis.

  The day before, Lyokh had been approached by Captain Tsuyoshi, who wanted to know what role he would serve in the future, seeing as how he and Devastator Wing were being folded into the Knights of Sol with him. It hadn’t seemed like a major deal at first, but then Lyokh realized why he was being asked the question. Once all the other wings were dissolved, and transformed into the Knights of Sol, Tsuyoshi’s captaincy would be over. He might be satisfied with second-in-command to Lyokh, but both Meiks and Takirovanen already enjoyed that position, and they weren’t nearly as senior or as decorated as Tsuyoshi.

  And that brought up more questions, because Tsuyoshi wasn’t alone in being a senior man taken into the fold. Almost all of Fire Wing and Ares Wing were coming, too, which meant Ahlander and Josep would likely be wrestling with the same concern, despite the fact they hadn’t said anything yet.

  That meant a complete overhaul of the entire 8,000-man task force. Which reminds me, I have to get back to it.

  “You’re right, Artemis of Artemis,” he finally said, clapping him on the back. “Thanks for keeping me honest.”

  “You bet, doyen. But just let me say, I appreciate the sentiment. And next time we meet, you’re hitting the floor. Ears ringing and all.”

  Lyokh walked away smiling.

  After a quick shower and a change, he found himself inside the new office he’d been allotted for running the Knights of Sol. With a wave, he pulled up all the screens, and then looked over at the stacks of slinkplast awaiting his attention. Kalder had said something the other night before Lyokh left the Voice of Reason, something about how Lyokh would never be able to make the piles of paperwork completely vanish. “The only thing for it,” Kalder had offered as advice, “is to not let it get ahead of you. Stay on top of it. Always, stay on top of it.”

  It began with one, and then continued on until he didn’t have much energy left. Durzor was helping with the organization of it all, thankful for something to do since he couldn’t walk and could barely use his arms. Durzor had developed a tray system, with the most important stuff on top.

  The first thing was a request from three soldiers for immediate transfer. One of them simply did not want to be part of the Crusade, and saw options for himself elsewhere. The other two cited conflicts with the leadership, namely Kalder, since the two of them had had intimate relationships with Isoshi females in the past and hinted that they believed his xenophobia was anathema to the fight for a unified galaxy, which was part of the mission stated in the Oath they had taken.

  Denied.

  The next thing was a cluster of psych evaluations from a couple of Jupiter Wingers, soon to be Knights. A clinician and a med bot had concluded that there were hormonal problems, possibly due to trauma both physical and psychological, that kept the Jupiter boys from being at their peak. The clinician had doubled the mandatory visits. The clinician’s decision was final, and out of Lyokh’s hands, but he did recommend that if that didn’t work, there was nothing left but dismissal.

  Approved.

  Lyokh went through a dozen more files, both large and small, mostly small. Senator Kalder had also warned him that, counter to intuition, the least important things tended to be the most important things. In the long run, of course.

  After an hour, he looked at all the paperwork left, and then at the dozens of messages waiting on his private terminals. Some mornings he woke up and wasn’t able to comprehend how he had gotten here. He remembered General Quoden’s words again, about how now, at the Fall of Man, they were all getting promoted prematurely.

  I’m here because better men keep dying.

  Lyokh shook his head. It did no one any good to think like that. To be a leader, you had to think like one, even when you were alone. Especially then, he was coming to believe.

  He started reading a summary of the day’s meeting between Kalder, Desh, and the three senior captains of the Crusade Fleet. The summary was written by Kalder’s assistant, Julian, and there was a vid to accompany it, along with bulletin points that Julian had decided were most important. However, there were certain omissions, missing words in the report. When Lyokh reviewed the vid, he saw that whole sections were bleeped out—the recordings of Kalder and the others showed their lips moving, but no sound coming out besides the chime.

  Reading what was readable, Lyokh sussed out that there was something in a recent intelligence billet from PI that had upset them all. All, of course, but Kalder, who sat upright in his chair and staired at the captains with supreme equanimity, no matter how animated the others became.

  Lyokh was just getting deep into his restructuring of the units into the soon-to-be-christened Knights of Sol, when the door opened, and in rolled Durzor. The fab room had offered to make him a maglift, but he was determined to go with wheels, since pushing them around gave him a workout.

  “There’s that ugly face,” he said, tossing a folder full of fresh paperwork on the desk. “You know, it warms me to see it, makes me feel better about my station in life.”

  Lyokh smiled, leaned back in his seat, and rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to be sorry I brought you along, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Durzor, rolling around to the front of the desk to face him. “How is the headache?” he asked, pointing to all the piles of slinkplast.

>   “I’m in the middle of structuring the Knights. It was one of the last things the Visquain tossed at me before we left.”

  “Mm, good of them to give you a parting gift. So, what’ve you figured out?”

  Lyokh puffed up his cheeks and sighed. “Well, if we go by the way it was structured, I’m still Captain Lyokh, more formally Sir Captain Aejon Lyokh of the Knights of Sol, Commander of the Crusade Ground Forces. Kalder says they’re thinking of adding Master Adept of the Sword, on account of the doyen thing.”

  “I’ll ask the fab room to try and squeeze all that on your new armor.”

  Lyokh snorted out a laugh. “I’ll keep the battalion leaders I have. Don’t see why the teams that are used to sticking together can’t still be together. We’ll have to rename them, though. Traditionally, the Knights of Sol named their hundred-man battalions after moons of the Sol System. I guess we’ll do that.”

  “What about Meiks and the others?”

  “I was thinking he and Takirovanen will get promotions to batallion leaders, probably Paupau and O’Tulley, as well. Tsuyoshi, Ahlander, and Josep will be my Knight Companions—”

  “Sounds kinky,” Durzor put in.

  “—and I’ll need someone to be Captain’s Hand, take care of all my business and appointments. Artemis will be in charge of our flocks. Since Reyes stayed behind with Second, I asked him to recommend someone. We both agreed Artemis is the one with the most experience. He’ll be Knight Tamer Master. Heeten’s Heroes…that one’s been tough. I’m caught between Rethar and Ptolem.”

  “I’d go with Ptolem,” Durzor said, wincing as he reached forward to massage his busted legs. The nerves still sang at him, he claimed.

  “Why Ptolem?”

  “Because Rethar’s not too enthused about going on the Crusade.”

  “How do you know?” asked Lyokh.

  “I heard him say it. Down in The Place To Be. He had a few drinks in him, and spoke liberally while we played some porhl.” He smiled. “I’ve noticed that. People speaking a little more openly around me about shit around here. Ever since this happened to me.” He massaged his leg some more. “Reckon they figure, since I’m out of the game, it doesn’t matter what they say to me. I don’t think a lot of them understand I’m your secretary now.”

  Lyokh sighed again. “All right, well, we want someone who’s at least somewhat enthused about the mission we’re on. Ptolem it is, then.”

  “Ptolem it is,” Durzor said.

  Lyokh slapped his knees, and stood up. “Glad that’s all settled. I can write it all up tomorrow, then hand it to you to make it sound nice. What’s say we go get a drink?”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “Shit. I was really hoping you weren’t going to—”

  “You can’t put it off forever, Sir Captain Aejon Lyokh, Master Adept of the Sword. You’ve put the appointment with the media liaison off too many times. I warned her about your ugly fucking face, but that didn’t seem to dissuade her.” He smiled. “Come on, doyen. Time to man up and face this thing.”

  Lyokh put his hands in his pockets and paced for a moment.

  “Look, I know how you feel, but it’s just a preliminary thing,” said Durzor. “They’re not even going to distribute the interview if you come out looking like shit. The liaison just wants to prime you for future talks, help make you the face of this thing.”

  “You know what happens to celebrity soldiers, don’t you?” said Lyokh. “They get sidelined, because propaganda takes a hit if the ‘invincible soldier’ dies in combat. Bad for morale.”

  “You’ve already made your peace with this, so why are you fighting it?”

  It was a good question. Advice from Herodinsk, Takirovanen, Durzor, and even Kalder came rushing back to him. All of their talks had helped prime him for leadership. He wouldn’t even be here, or doing half as well, if not for their guidance. Heeten had a part in it, too, of course. That first real meeting where she had told him about her viewpoint, having a sense of humor about things.

  “All right,” he told Durzor. “Lead the way.”

  THE SPECIALIST DRESSED the part for a media liaison, Lyokh gave her that. Her whole uniform was black, tight, and flawless. Her black hair was pulled back flat against her head like she expected arti-grav to fail at any second, and there were three spherical buns at the back of her head.

  She extended her hand. “Media Specialist Hera Dolstoy. How do you do, sir?”

  Lyokh took her hand. It was firm, but the flesh of her palms was soft. “I’m all right. Where do I sit?”

  “Anywhere you feel comfortable.”

  Lyokh looked around her office, and selected one of the three chairs against the wall. He unbuttoned his jacket and tried to relax.

  Dolstoy stepped behind her desk, but watched him carefully. “Well, we don’t have to work on your posture, but there’s no surprise there.” She smiled pleasantly, revealing rows of perfect teeth, and eyes that smiled in a genuine way. All signs that she was used to charming others. She pulled up some notes on a holopane and swiped it towards a wall, where it enlarged. Lyokh looked at it, and saw that it was all power point.

  “Now,” she said, walking around to the front of the desk and leaning against it. “The senator said he wanted to go over the basic behaviors, the dos and don’ts of an interview.”

  Lyokh essayed a smile. “I thought the man was against artifice.”

  “For himself, sure.”

  “Kalder’s never undergone your kind of training?”

  “No. Kalder’s different,” she said. “No one expects etiquette or artifice from him, it’s part of his appeal. The rest of us mortals? We need to be trained like good little doggies. And yet we still need to seem ‘real’ when we’re on camera. A lot of it’s staged, as you will see, but it’s got to have that not-staged feeling.”

  “Sounds like a tightrope walk.”

  “It can be.” Then, after some thought, she corrected herself. “It is.”

  “At least you’re honest.”

  “That’s the first lesson. The only person you’re allowed to be one hundred percent honest with is me. This is a team effort. You and I do this together. I have a couple of assistants that may get in touch with you from time to time, but if you ever need one-on-one coaching from me, or if you just need to vent to someone, you do it to me. You don’t do it with the media. Is that understood?”

  Dolstoy spoke like she had higher rank than him, which she didn’t. But she had also clearly been at this game for a long time, and soldiers like Lyokh had been encouraged to always listen to and respect outsiders who specialized in a field that the soldier was unfamiliar with. Try to keep an open mind, he thought. She’s the doyen in this arena.

  “Yes, I understand.”

  Dolstoy flashed one of her genuine (rehearsed to look genuine?) smiles. She clapped hands together and perched her chin on top of her fingertips. “So, first things first. When speaking with the media, you want to approach it like any other conversation where you’re trying to be persuasive. It’s a conversation, but one that others are listening in on, so remember that. You have to get your point of view across—”

  “Sorry, you said persuasive. Who am I persuading, and what am I persuading them to do?”

  “You’ll speak to a journalist, but you’re not really speaking to them. You’ll have to control the journalist so that you can speak through them to get to your real audience: the people watching. As for what you’re persuading them of, that’ll be whatever agenda you and I and Senator Kalder have agreed upon beforehand. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

  “Okay, so, what to do when asked by a journalist for an interview. First, you want to get some information. Who is the interviewer? What is the interview about? When and where will the interview take place? How long will it be? Is there anyone else being interviewed with you, like someone trying to give a counter-argument to all your arguments? Now, my department will handle a lot of this advance scouting
work, getting a lay of the land and everything, but you’ll want to keep yourself apprised, too.”

  “All right,” Lyokh said.

  “Next comes preparation, which will be coaching sessions, sort of like what we’re doing now, only more focused on the single target—”

  “Sorry, target?” Lyokh said. “I’m supposed to talk about our targets in the battlefield?”

  “Target audience,” Dolstoy clarified, giving a patient smile. “You’ll want to go over the big six questions: the who, what, when, where, why, and how. This will help you get your message across in clear, concise points. You and I will prepare together, and you will rehearse these matters as I play your sparring partner.”

  “Sparring partner?”

  “Someone to argue against you. A debate opponent. I understand you’re a great fencer, so you’ll understand the analogy that this can be kind of a fight. Journalists have always had an adversarial approach to government and military, and if we can handle them, we can get a message across to the people, who help shape policy based on which way they’re swaying, Faith 6A, polling, all that. So, you’ll need to learn how to think on your feet, pivot, parry, like that.”

  Lyokh nodded. “I see.” This was way more involved than he would have ever thought.

  “Aim to get your message across in fifteen seconds or less.”

  “How can anyone convey the complexities of the battlefield and the fluid situations of combat in fifteen seconds?”

  “You and I will work that out,” she said. “Journalists are always looking for sound bites and good quotes, they play well on social media posts, which can only boost our Faith 6A score.”

  “Our score?”

  Dolstoy smiled, and the more she did, the more Lyokh fancied he could see through it. “This is my Crusade, too. It is now, anyway. I was brought on board by Julian for my work with the Interstellar Bureau of Economic Research, as well as the Wesley-Zhanglong Indices, both of whom feed their info into the Faith 6A index. Everything I’m telling you can help sway public opinion one way or another. My job for the Army is to make sure its operations come across as palatable to the masses.”