Amusement tugged at her lips. “You’re saying that Vonderheydte lacks seasoning, then?” She laughed. “How many times has he been divorced?”
“I’m saying that you’re probably too highly seasoned for him.” Martinez recalled his own time with Chandra, when they were both junior lieutenants, a mad time of mutual passion, mutual accusation, and mutual betrayal. “Of course he’s very happy,” Martinez added. “I hope you are as well.”
Chandra offered a catlike smile. “I’m not so much happy as satisfied.”
“Well,” Martinez said, “satisfaction suits you.”
The last of his guests trickled away. Martinez went to his office and sent Sula a message in text: I’m drunk.
The response almost immediately. Shower. Shave. Put on fresh clothes. Then come. You can sober up later.
He was happy to obey.
Showered and groomed, he was just putting on a clean tunic when his sleeve comm chimed with a message just arrived. From Lord Martinez, Rio Hondo, Laredo.
Sent through the regular communication relays. Apparently their crews had all decided that the Restoration was going to win the war, or maybe that their job was to deliver messages no matter who was sending them. Martinez used his own key to decipher the dispatch.
One of the advantages, Martinez thought, of belonging to a family where nearly everyone shared a certain body type and cast of features is that you knew what you were going to look like when you were older. Lord Martinez resembled most of his children in his olive skin, mesomorphic upper body, long arms, and strong jaw. His hair was a halo of white above his dark jacket and white linen, and the lines in his face seemed less accidents of gravity than the imposition of character. Martinez could see that he’d finally adopted the white kilt, which he’d probably been entitled to for a decade or two.
“Hello,” said Lord Martinez. “I take it that I’m addressing my son Gareth.” He paused, as if to give any other observers a chance to stop watching, then continued. “I want to say that Yaling, Girasole, and the rest of the family are well, and that I hope you’ll pass on this information to Terza, Roland, and anyone else who might be interested. Yaling will be sending her own message separately, but for right now I’d like to confine this message to matters pertaining to the war.”
Lord Martinez shifted in his chair and glanced off-camera, presumably at his notes. “First of all, we’ve been sending out shuttles with Terran crews to replace non-Terrans in the wormhole relay stations. We’ve extended three systems out from Laredo and will go farther if we can.” His expression turned grave. “If the Zanshaa government should win the war, or if we see an enemy fleet coming this way, our crews will destabilize one of the wormholes connecting us to the rest of the empire, the wormhole will evaporate, and we’ll be cut off—but we’ll be beyond the reach of our enemies. I trust that things will go well with you, but if they do not, there is a refuge here in Laredo if you can reach it.”
A cold smile touched Lord Martinez’s lips. “We are also building warships. Six Celestial-class light cruisers, the same pattern we built in the last war. Five of them are nearly ready for launch and shakedown, but while we can find crews of merchants who can take the ships from one place to another, we can’t properly crew them. We have no military academies, only a handful of Terran Fleet personnel, and no instructors or training facilities. And though we can generate plenty of antimatter, we have no current ability to make missiles. So if there is any way to send trained crews in our direction, please do so. Along with ships full of missiles, if you have them.”
The cold smile grew warmer. “Other than that, I’m pleased to report that things are very peaceful here on Laredo, and the economy is doing well once the banks were able to rid themselves of the high reserves required by the Imperial Bank in Zanshaa. The settlements on Chee and Parkhurst are expanding nicely, and last night we had the first frost of the year. More in our second transmission.”
The orange end-stamp filled the screen. Martinez took a few moments to mull on the message and to bask in the first contact with his father in many months, then forwarded the message to Sula, Terza, and Roland. The second message had arrived, and he deciphered it.
This time it was the entire family saying hello: his father; his mother; his sister Walpurga; his daughter, Yaling; and Roland’s daughter, Girasole. He recognized the paneled rooms, rustic furniture, and fur rugs of the Martinez country house at Rio Hondo. The contents of the video were trivial and wonderful at the same time, greetings and blather about the family that wrapped Martinez in a soft, warm comfort of nostalgia.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off Yaling. It had been nearly a year since he’d seen her, and here she was taller and bright-eyed, with longer hair. She was restless in her grandmother’s lap and squirmed a little. She was far more articulate than he remembered her, with an improved vocabulary, and she held something made of wire and wooden spools in her hand, which Martinez eventually recognized as a puzzle. Her hands were slim now, whereas he remembered them chubby.
He felt a cool hand of sadness close around his throat. Yaling was six now, and that meant that there was a sixth of her young life that he had lost forever.
He’d missed nearly as much time with Gareth the Younger, but then he’d had a video from Chai-chai nearly every day, and so his son’s change hadn’t been so shocking.
When the video ended he watched it again, and then he forwarded the video to Terza and Roland. He finished buttoning his tunic and made his way to Sula’s door.
Sula was reclined on the sofa, wearing a blouse that buttoned up to her right shoulder and loose trousers with a drawstring waist. Sandama Twilight floated on the air, and her sidearm in its holster rested on a cushion nearby, just in case some enemy kicked in the door and came in shooting. Martinez showed her the video from Lord Martinez.
“Why is your father wearing a skirt?” she asked.
“It’s a kilt,” Martinez said. “A kilt made of white deerhide.”
“I see,” she said. “So why is your father wearing a deerhide kilt?”
He sat beside her on the sofa. “It’s a thing some of the men on Laredo do. When they feel they’ve reached the age of wisdom, they put on a kilt.”
“So if I’m on Laredo, and I have a question, I go to a man in a kilt?”
He shrugged. “It seems to work as well as anything.”
“Do women wear kilts?”
Martinez smiled. “Women don’t need to advertise their wisdom.”
She laughed. “Good answer!” Then she shrugged. “That system can’t help but be better than the Convocation.”
“You’d know better than I.” He looked at her. “You’re already working out how to get those crew to Laredo, aren’t you?”
“The problem is occupying a certain percentage of my brain cells, yes.”
He leaned closer to her. Sandama Twilight swirled in his senses. “I was hoping you could focus your brain cells on me for the next several hours.”
She held out her arms. “You’re at liberty to try to engage my attention.”
“So now I’m competing with a problem in logistics?”
“I have every confidence that you’ll succeed.”
He put his arms around her and kissed her, and he felt a twinge of vanity at the thought that he seemed to have focused her attention admirably.
Martinez stood with Sula at the airlock door, waiting for airlock operators to signal that the docking tube had been pressurized and that Roland Martinez could leave the shuttle that had brought him from Harzapid. A pair of armed guards stood casually nearby, just in case the shuttle proved to be full of armed terrorists or something. Martinez supposed he could have sent the constables away, but they were part of the only reception committee Roland would get, and so he let them remain as a bulwark to Roland’s dignity.
There was no room for the shuttle at the Fleet dockyard, so Roland was landing in a civilian yard that had been requisitioned by the Fourth Fleet. The place was relentles
sly functional and smelled of stale air and machine lubricant. It was painted in dull, rather grimy colors, and the occasional bright banners plastered with slogans—Work Harmoniously! Strive for Increased Efficiency! Carelessness Leads to Accidents!—seemed out of place. The Fleet yard, covered with murals showing Fleet personnel striving for peace under the Praxis, was a hall of wonders by comparison.
There was a lot of bustle. The ships of the Fleet Train, with supplies from Harzapid, had finally caught up to the warships of the Fourth Fleet. There were now more supplies than the Fourth Fleet could consume, with only a few exceptions. The Shankaracharya sensor suites, in Fleet Train holds for months, were now being installed in the warships, and there weren’t enough of them. More had been shipped up from the planet below, and now at least half the Fourth Fleet would be equipped with the new sensors.
The airlock lights flashed, and one of the civilian airlock operators turned to Martinez, gave a wave, and trudged away, followed by her partner. Martinez, used to salutes, felt a little bit disrespected.
Roland, when he appeared, showed little sign of the bruising gravities he’d undergone on his trip from Harzapid. He wore his wine-red convocate’s jacket, his hair shone, and his big jaw was pushed forward as if it were the prow of a ship breasting the waves. He carried a case in one hand. Behind him walked Hector Braga, the fixer Sula called Lamey, whose brightness of dress was a contrast to his haggard appearance. He slouched as he walked, and his face looked raw, as if someone had repeatedly punched him. High gravities clearly hadn’t done him any favors, but his blue eyes were bright and alert and suspicious.
Roland looked around, as if he were expecting a larger reception committee, but if he were dismayed by the small welcoming party and the bleak surroundings, he took it in stride. He approached Martinez and Sula, waited for a salute, didn’t get one, and then spoke.
“Does my quarters have a good communications system?” he asked. “I’m going to need to send a lot of messages.”
“We’ve put you in a very nice hotel near the Fleet dockyard,” Martinez said. “We’re assigning you a communications tech, and you’ll have a secure line to Fleet Administration and our ciphering facilities.”
Roland gave him a skeptical look. “I suppose you’ll be listening in on my messages to Zanshaa.”
“Of course,” Martinez said. “I’ll also be giving you all sorts of unsolicited advice.”
“Well,” Roland shrugged. “I guess I’m used to that.” He turned to Sula and offered his case. “Michi told me to bring this to you. I’m told it’s important.”
Sula offered a skeptical look and took the case. She opened it, and Martinez saw the gold reflected in her eyes and took a breath because he knew what the case contained. When she reached into the case and drew out the gold baton, Martinez braced to attention with a click of his heels. Roland, less prompt, drew to attention as well.
Hector Braga just blinked.
“Ah. Hah,” Sula said.
The baton was gold, with a transparent spherical head that contained liquids in different shades of gold that swirled in layers like clouds on a gas giant. Sula held the empire’s highest decoration up to the light and watched the glittering liquid eddy within its globe. Then she returned the baton to its case.
“As you were,” she said.
Martinez relaxed. “We’re going to have to coordinate when we’ll be carrying our Orbs,” he said, “otherwise we’ll spend our days saluting each other and failing to accomplish anything.”
“I’ll send you a memo,” Sula said.
Roland turned to Sula. “Since my brother intends to offer me advice,” he said, “I suppose you’ll have tips for me as well.”
“Yes,” Sula said. “Beginning with this nonsense of how difficult it’s going to be to recall the Convocation. If they can’t get a quorum with just the convocates loitering around the cocktail bars of the High City, I’d be amazed.”
“Oh, I agree with you,” Roland said. “They’re trying to delay in hopes something’s going to save them. But that something will never arrive, and in the meantime we can work out a settlement that will encourage the majority of the Convocation to throw the guilty to the executioners in order to save their own skins.”
Sula gave him a skeptical look. “Just because we can’t figure out what something will save our enemies doesn’t mean they won’t figure it out if we keep giving them time.”
“Whatever it is they come up with,” Roland said, “I have utter confidence that you and Gareth will leave it scattered wreckage and ash floating in the empty space between planets.”
Martinez wished he had as much confidence as Roland. That morning had been the first new exercise of the Fourth Fleet, with each ship wired into a virtual environment. The scenario envisioned the enemy sending the two squadrons known to be at Zanshaa into the Zarafan system at near-relativistic speeds in hopes of annihilating everything before them.
The scenario had been devised by Chandra Prasad, who in the last war had specialized in creating scenarios of annihilation.
Sula had commanded the Fourth Fleet while Martinez had remained above the action, watching on a link as alarms flashed from one ship to another, as virtual warships decoupled from the virtual ring in an attempt to maneuver, their point-defense beams flashing out at the oncoming wave of enemy missiles . . . Even though Martinez was participating as an umpire, the horror of the defenders’ situation had clutched unbidden at his nerves as he watched the scenario play out.
The end result was the Zarafan ring blown to bits, with most of it raining down on the planet below to shroud it for years in a cloud of debris. Half the Fourth Fleet was destroyed, along with the entire attacking force. The scenario showed that it was past time, Martinez thought, for the Fourth Fleet, along with its commander, to wake from the pleasant collective dream of victory and remember that the war was far from over.
It was also time for more of the Fleet to launch from Zarafan’s ring and get into space where they could maneuver. He would send away squadrons as soon as repairs were completed on their ships, and there were a number of squadrons that could go immediately. He would put them on notice later that day.
Los Angeles would be one of the last to depart, because the extensive damage to missile battery one was taking a great deal of time to repair. Which was gratifying in its way, because it would allow him to continue his idyll with Sula.
Roland’s aides and servants began to emerge from the airlock, carrying baggage. Martinez directed them to a waiting vehicle, then took Roland to his car. Roland looked over his shoulder at Sula.
“You aren’t joining us, Lady Sula?”
Sula nodded toward the shuttle. “I’ll be meeting your passenger,” she said.
“All right then. Congratulations on your decoration.”
Sula waved a hand. “I’ll look forward to you saluting me again.”
They really were going to have to develop some kind of protocol for carrying the Orb in each other’s presence.
Martinez swung himself into the glossy madder-red Hunhao limousine. “Violet Harmony Hotel,” he told the driver.
Roland seated himself opposite Martinez. “The hotel has an auspicious name, don’t you think?”
Martinez was unwilling to commit himself. “We’ll see,” he said.
“We’re going to have to talk,” Lamey said. He had hung back as Martinez and Roland headed for their car, and would have to go to the hotel in the other van, along with the servants and the baggage.
“What about?” Sula said. “Something new, I hope.”
Lamey’s blue eyes narrowed. “You know what we need to talk about.”
Sula had recovered from the shock of seeing him. She had assumed he was in Lady Koridun’s custody back on Harzapid, but apparently he’d eluded her. She tapped a message into her hand comm. “Who appointed me your savior?” she asked.
“We can save each other.”
She blinked at him. “I don’t even know what t
hat means,” she said. Her hand comm chimed. She looked at the display, then back at Lamey. “Sorry,” she said. “I have an appointment.”
She left him glaring and walked toward the airlock. She followed the boarding tube into the launch that had brought Roland from Harzapid. The air was sour here—the filters hadn’t been cleaned lately, and fresh air from the ring hadn’t yet been pumped into the ship.
Lord Nishkad waited in the ship’s lounge, his worn graying scales blending into the neutral background of his seat. His black-on-red eyes were dull—he shouldn’t have undergone heavy gravities at his age.
“Lady Sula,” said Nishkad. “Congratulations on your decoration.”
“Thank you, Lord Squadcom,” Sula said. “I hope the journey wasn’t too exhausting.”
“It was, of course,” said Nishkad, “but that’s all right. We have a lot to accomplish.”
Drowsing, Sula smelled the coffee that Martinez was making in the kitchen and realized with some surprise that it had been months since a nightmare had torn her awake. Not since before Second Shulduc, and she would imagine that the horrific losses of that battle would have brought on the nightmares, not quelled them.
But then that was when she’d begun with Martinez.
Apparently Martinez kept nightmares away. Sula hadn’t been aware that this was within his power.
She surrendered the pillow she’d been hugging, rolled onto her back, and opened her eyes. The room came slowly into focus, the murky corners, the shadow pattern of the cove molding, the overhead lamp with its LEDs in baroque balloon glass. She raised her hands and scrubbed her face to bring feeling to her skin, then caught a whiff of her own armpit and decided to take a shower.
Afterward, damp hair in a towel, teeth brushed, Sula put on a dressing gown and walked into the dining room, where Martinez was answering correspondence and drinking coffee. He looked up at her.
Fleet Elements Page 38
