Dinner With Family

by Hiroyuki Morioka

  Unfortunately, because they didn’t know the purpose behind the squadron going there, they didn’t know whether there was even time to talk, either. For all they knew, the squadron’s objective was to launch a space-raid on the planet. Maybe they were to burn down the hybrid-functionality buildings all Martinese lived in. If so, they had to prevent that at all costs.

  “Your soldier number-codes,” said Atosryua.

  “Huh?” Jint hadn’t expected that.

  “Pull yourself together. You’re not currently my subordinate. In other words, you’re an outsider to me. I can’t just chuck out military secrets like they’re nothing. I need to check your clearance.”

  “01.00.093768,” said Lafier.

  “21.17.839951,” said Jint.

  “It’d be pointless for me,” said Yestesh. “I’m a reserve officer, so I’m not privy to military secrets except in special circumstances.”

  “I’m sorry, Investigator Yestesh,” said Atosryua.

  “Please, don’t mind me. If I can’t enter the Countdom of Hyde and fulfill my work duties, then so be it. And it’s the job of Lonh-Dreur to speak to the Commandant at any rate.”

  “I’m afraid it seems I’m not allowed to tell Lonh-Dreur Haïder, either,” said Atosryua. “Quartermaster Rearguard Starpilot Lynn isn’t cleared to know. We can tell you after we’ve entered the Countdom, though.”

  “You can’t be serious,” said Jint, astonished.

  “I’m really sorry. But I know you realize there’s nothing to be done. You’re a soldier, too.”

  “What about me?” asked Lafier.

  “You’re an Imperial. You’re cleared to know, Vice Hecto-Commander Abliar. More so than me, even. If you were to ask after the old name of my punching bag, I’d be forced to spill.”

  “I see,” said Lafier, who faced Jint: “What do we do? Should I hear what she has to say, even though by all rights, you should be the one talking to her?”

  “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, Fïac Lartnér,” said Atosryua, “but just in case — you’re forbidden to tell Lonh-Dreur.”

  “I know that. I’m a soldier, too.”

  Jint hesitated. He trusted Lafier, but he couldn’t entrust everything to her. The lives and livelihoods of the people of his home were on the line. “Let me ask you one question.”

  “You’re free to ask.”

  “You’re not going to launch space strikes on the planet, are you?”

  “Is that why you’ve been glaring like that this whole time?” said Atosryua, a smile playing on her lips.

  “Am I not cleared to know the answer to that, either?” he remarked.

  “No,” she replied without hesitation, but not in a cold or cutting way. “Maybe Investigator Yestesh can ask me a question I’m allowed to answer?”

  “Yes,” said Yestesh. He cleared his throat. “The Empire holds to a handful of general principles. One of them is that unless there is some pressing urgency, the celestial bodies belonging to a star fief, especially a landworld, cannot be attacked without the approval of the system’s liege. To your knowledge, has that principle perhaps been revised?”

  “It hasn’t budged a micron,” she declared. “Does this assuage your concerns, Lonh-Dreur?”

  “Not quite yet,” he persisted. “Do you believe my territory to be in a pressing state of emergency?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “And further down the line?”

  Atosryua furrowed her brow. A moment later: “How nice it would be to see the future, Lonh-Dreur. But much to my chagrin, I can’t.”

  Jint stared hard at Atosryua’s face. She still looked as gorgeous as all Abhs, but he thought he saw a tinge of woe in her expression. He hoped it was nothing, but...

  “I beg you,” Jint whispered to the Royal Princess. “If there’s a chance of a space strike, you’ve got to put a stop to it, no matter what.”

  “I don’t have that authority,” Lafier whispered back. “But I’ll try.”

  “I’m begging you,” he reiterated.

  Jint understood full well that, royal princess or no, she didn’t have the power to block a military program. But he was out of options.

  He faced Atosryua again: “Before you leave, I have a favor to ask.”

  “What is it?”

  “Please drop us off at the Hyde Countdom,” he requested.

  At present, the only way to enter the star system of his home planet was to hitch a ride with Trample-Blitz Squadron 1. Alongside the raid ships, they might be able to cope with any unforeseen contingencies. It could be the case that he’d have his hands totally tied, but it sure beat stewing over the circumstances of Hyde from the next system over.

  “I don’t mind. But you won’t be allowed to touch down on the landworld, Lonh-Dreur.”

  “I know. I just need to get permission to communicate with the landworld from orbit.”

  “I can’t promise you’ll be allowed to.”

  “But it’s not impossible, right?”

  “All I can promise is that I’ll try my best to create an opportunity for you.”

  “That’s enough for me.”

  “But how will you return? There’s no guarantee we’ll come back here.”

  “When the order to unseal the Hyde Portal arrives, it’ll reach this place, too, won’t it? I’ll have them keep this ship on standby here. If you could have it come give us word when the time comes, I’d be fine with that. I’ll have you pick us up.”

  “We might not be able to wait until your ship comes,” said Atosryua. “You might end up having to spend two or three days in an escape pod. Is that okay with you?”

  Jint winced at the prospect, but immediately snapped to. “Well, if I could get you to drop me off at the Duchy of Estohto, I can catch a flight from there.

  Atosryua nodded. “Understood, Lonh-Dreur. I’m permitting you to hitch a ride. You can use the Flicaubh — there are acquaintances of yours aboard that ship who I’m sure you regard fondly. And there’s already someone who’s hitching a ride on it, too.”

  “Who, ma’am?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Is that confidential, too?”

  “Heavens no. I just don’t want to ruin the surprise. Just because I come from a noble house without a pedigree doesn’t mean I’d be so gauche.”

  “Oh, okay. Understood,” he replied tersely, not really in the mood to trade quips with the Commandant. “Now then, I’ll take my leave.”

  “See you some other time, Quartermaster Rearguard Lynn. I really regret that I can’t give you the details of this little trek at this stage.”

  “Me too.”

  A while later, and Lafier alone was left in the conference room, facing Atosryua’s hologram. “Now then, let’s hear it, Baroness of Febdash.” I’m fairly certain Trample-Blitz Squadron 1 just aims to do training exercises there, she thought. It would provide the finishing touches on their familiarization voyages. While the Hyde Countdom was a frontier territory-nation that couldn’t provide much in the way of support, this was a time of war. Perhaps the military brass wanted its ships to train in sectors more akin to actual warzones.

  “Our squadron’s objective is to conduct combat training exercises in the Countdom of Hyde,” said Atosryua, her tone stiff and formal. It appeared as though she’d decided, at this juncture, to place more importance on imperial court hierarchy than on military rank.

  Lafier felt a wave of relief. At the same time, she had to wonder whether this was worthy of confidentiality to begin with.

  “However, our squadron consists of twelve ships.”

  “What do you mean?” She tilted her head in puzzlement, but soon hit on what Atosryua was insinuating. There were only six ships in Vorlash.

  “You split the squadron in two?”

  Atosryua nodded wordlessly. “The purpose of the exercise is to bring the Hyde Portal under control and defend it from the other half.”

  “So the other six ships are the ‘enemy’ of t
he assignment, heading towards the Hyde Portal from the opposite direction.”

  “That is correct.”

  “There’s no contact between halves?”

  “We can’t exactly be in communication with the enemy, no.”

  “In that case...” The worst possible outcome came to Lafier’s mind. “The other ships, the ‘enemy,’ might reach the Hyde Portal before you.”

  “If they’re not doing everything in their power to do so, they would have to be charged for insubordination.”

  “But what happens if the ‘enemy’ enters the Portal first, and gets attacked by the landworld...”

  “I don’t know,” said Atosryua, shaking her head. “But a counterattack is very much in the realm of possibility. In fact, so long as their level of firepower is unclear, a counterattack would be the obvious course of action.”

  “According to Jint, the landworld can’t have enough firepower to be a threat.”

  “But there isn’t a way for us to make that judgment. Not for me or for my ‘enemy’ ships.”

  “Can you not afford to take more discretion than normal?”

  “I’ll have the Count of Hyde submit the relevant information to us. I don’t have the power to compel him to do so, but the circumstances being what they are, I’m sure he’ll be happy to oblige my request. Then I will make my judgment. Either way, we can’t inform the enemy unit about this.”

  “You can’t get in touch with them, whatsoever?” Contacting them would mean canceling the exercise, but the Commandant had that authority.

  “I cannot do that,” she told her, in no uncertain terms. “I believe this squadron can shift the tides of this war. And I’ve already sunk so much time into this exercise. Once you suspend it, you have to start all the way from the beginning. Given we’re at war, I’m afraid I must say that that’s just taking things too easy.”

  “But if an unexpected contingency were to happen, then—!!”

  “Delaying the deployment of this class of ship will have an impact on the war at large.”

  Atosryua’s tightly pursed lips were sign enough this subject was over.

  “Understood,” said Lafier, hanging her head. “I just want you to make sure to affect the landworld as little as possible.”

  “Of course. A landworld is an asset to the Empire, and the Star Forces aiming their cannons against landworld citizens is the most reprehensible of misdeeds. Every starpilot should know that much,” she said, a faint smile on her lips. “The enemy commander, Hecto-Commander Roiryua, knows that slaughtering land peoples would tarnish his name. His counterattack would be carried out so as to yield as few casualties as possible.”

  Jint eyed the flowers in the garden. They were bryanflowers.

  They really are lackluster, he mused again. They were a rather depressing dull purple.

  Then Lafier came along. “Don’t you need to prepare to transfer ships, Jint?”

  “I’m ready.” Jint kept staring at the flowers. “What about you?”

  “I’m ready, too. Do you want to bring these flowers with you?”

  “Didn’t cross my mind,” said Jint. He put a hand to his forehead. “Nah, let’s leave them here. There are tons in bloom on the other side. Probably too many for anyone’s liking, in fact.”

  “Do you plan to touch down onto the landworld?”

  “If possible.”

  “But...”

  “What sort of exercise is Trample-Blitz Squadron 1 going to do?”

  For a fleeting moment, a look of anguish flashed across her face. “I can’t say.”

  “Is my asking some kind of hindrance?”

  “Of course not,” said the Royal Princess, shaking her head.

  “Then why...”

  “You know why. Because it’s been made confidential.”

  “You know what my Delktunian friend told me?” he said bitterly. At the moment, he didn’t care if this sparked a fight between them. “He said the Abh can’t flout the established order on a genetic level. Guess he was right. Can’t you think about it with your own damned head?”

  “There is a tendency not to defy the established order, that is true,” she said, calmly intercepting Jint’s anger in a way that surprised him. “That is our lot in life.”

  “Doesn’t that get under your skin?”

  “Our fates are encoded in the four bases of our genes. That has never made me feel any lesser a human,” she asserted. “Is that not true for you, too?”

  “I don’t have genes that define my fate.”

  “So is your fate unrelated to your genes?”

  Jint struggled for words. “...I can’t say for sure.”

  A whistle resounded in the landing deck.

  “I’m honored to see you here, Fïac, Lonh.” Ship Commander Sobash and the line of Flicaubh starpilots standing by his side saluted simultaneously.

  “I thank you for giving us special permission to board, Ship Commander,” said Jint, with an air of solemnity.

  “I give you my thanks as well,” said Lafier.

  “I never dared to dream I would one day greet Your Highness or Your Excellency onto my own ship one day,” said Sobash.

  “Please, don’t call me ‘Lonh,’” said Jint. “I may be on leave, but I’m still a quartermaster rearguard.”

  “Then I suppose I should address you as Quartermaster Rearguard Lynn,” said Sobash, wasting no time reverting to his old way of speaking.

  “I would be grateful if you could.”

  Sobash turned to Lafier. “I can’t call you ‘Ship Commander,’ though. That’s my title!”

  “Then it can’t be helped,” said Lafier, looking unironically rueful.

  “Allow me to introduce you to the crew,” said Sobash.

  “Of course,” Jint nodded. Apart from Ecryua, he was meeting them all for the first time. After he heard their names, Jint noticed something: “There’s no clerk.”

  “That’s right. Unfortunately, the clerk, Quartermaster Vanguard Starpilot Direrh, is currently indisposed.”

  “Ah, that makes sense. They’re in the middle of handling the big resupply.”

  Trample-Blitz Squadron 1 was restocking all the more here in the Countdom of Vorlash, since they couldn’t exactly hope to resupply at their destination, the Countdom of Hyde.

  “Even so, things seem awfully hectic,” said Lafier. “Are you working the crewmembers without break?”

  “I’m afraid so. We simply don’t have a second to waste.”

  “In that case, we might be imposing on you,” said Jint.

  “Oh, not at all. You were a clerk yourself, so you probably aren’t aware, but non-clerk starpilots are actually rather free during resupply procedures. We’re just pretending to be busy with the NCCs. Although, we are busy compared to when we’re just cruising.” Sobash dismissed the rest of the crew besides Ecryua. “I’m sorry, but I must return to my work tasks for a moment. Let’s have ourselves a nice long chat after leaving port. Vanguard Ecryua, please show them around.”

  Ecryua just saluted — her silent “roger.” “This way,” she said.

  Jint and Lafier looked at each other, and ambled after her. Ecryua led them to the starpilot mess hall. Though raid ships were bigger than assault ships, it appeared they didn’t have the space for a lounge.

  The moment they opened the door: “Fïac Lartnér!”

  Immediately, a woman stepped forward and bowed deeply. Very deeply.

  She’s got good balance, thought Jint, impressed.

  She looked up, but Jint didn’t recognize her. Lafier, on the other hand...

  “You’re that imperial citizen, ‘Sehrnye,’” she said, tentatively.

  “I’m absolutely honored you remember me!” said Sehrnye, eyes tearing.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Lafier.

  “I heard Your Highness’s ship was attacked, so I couldn’t just stand there. There was a conveniently-timed flight, so I got aboard without a moment’s delay. Nothing could make me hap
pier than seeing Your Highness is safe and sound with my own eyes. I’m so happy!”

  Guess she hasn’t got any business with me, thought Jint, who took that as his cue to enter the mess hall. There were no starpilots to be seen, as they were still engaged in the work of resupplying, but there were two people, quietly sipping their drinks. “NCC Leader Paveryua!” he said, startled. He ended up asking the exact same question as Lafier: “What’re you doing here?”

  “Hey there, Quartermaster Starpilot. It’s been a while,” said Paveryua. “Why am I here? Well, if you have to ask, I guess I’m just an extra.”

  “What, you’re not gonna react to me being here?” complained Samson, who was seated beside him.

  “I mean, I half-expected you to be here,” said Jint, making to take a seat alongside. “Commandant Atosryua did tell us we’d bump into old acquaintances.”

  “No sitting,” muttered Ecryua.

  “Huh? How come?”

  “I’m taking you to your room.”

  “Oh, no, it’s fine. I can spot it using the map of the ship,” said Jint.

  “You can guide me, then,” said Lafier.

  “Allow me to serve Your Highness on your way there,” said Sehrnye, to no one’s surprise.

  Jint still couldn’t remember who she was. He tilted his head to the side as he watched the three ladies leave, before finally sitting down.

  “What happened to the flotilla?” asked Jint, leaving the woman’s identity for later.

  “I left it to the Senior Ship Commander,” said Samson. “Didn’t have a thing to do during cruise time anyway, so it worked out. It’s headed this way. It’s not as fast as this squadron, but it’s coming as fast as possible. I told everyone to park the ships here — as in, the Vorlash Countdom — unless ordered otherwise. Was that okay?”