While a good chunk of her people were now from the Syntactic Cluster, none of the people on the conference call were. Zoric wasn’t even from the Rim—she was from a world only nine hundred light-years from Sol, which made her solidly from the Fringe.
“They’re sharks, but they want something from us, and at the worst, we can always say no.”
9
Blueward Station was the largest civilian orbital above Redward. It was attached to an orbital elevator that extended far past it, with the Azure Ward asteroid fortress at the far end acting as a counterweight.
Kira and Zoric were known by sight to most of the station’s population now. With everything that had gone down over the last two years, the senior officers of Memorial Force were held up as heroes in a way that she suspected was very unusual for mercenaries.
“I’m not familiar with this restaurant,” Kira murmured to Zoric as they followed the directions from their headware. “And I thought I knew everywhere of importance on Blueward.”
“I know the name,” Zoric said, eyeing the corridor ahead of them. “I’ve never been there, and I understand that Estanza only ever went there once.” She shook her head. “It’s not a restaurant as you’re thinking of it, boss.”
“What, it’s someone’s living room?” Kira asked drily. The name was simply Chef Concepta Pitt’s.
“Not quite, but it’s basically a kitchen and three attached dining rooms,” Zoric admitted. “I thought reservations were booked a year in advance, so I’m a bit thrown that the Cresters have one.”
Kira whistled silently. That was…different from what she thought of as a restaurant.
“Private and secure, I’m guessing,” she said.
“Yeah. Like… King Larry hosts ambassadors at this place kind of secure.”
“Well, it seems the Cresters think we deserve the best.”
Their destination was a small door at the end of a row of high-end restaurants. If they hadn’t had the directions, Kira would have thought they were looking at the entrance to the administrative offices of a restaurant.
But the name was right—CHEF CONCEPTA PITT’S was etched into the door.
Kira was about to knock, but the door swept open before she could touch it.
“Commodore Kira Demirci, Captain Kavitha Zoric,” an elderly woman in a plain black tunic greeted them. “You are expected. Come in, come in.”
Kira traded a glance with her subordinate and then obeyed.
This was going to be an interesting dinner—but she was suddenly confident that the food was going to be an experience all on its own.
Inside the door, the mercenaries were met by a pair of men that Kira instantly classified as “VIP Bodyguard, Standard Issue, Plain Clothes.” Unlike the rest of the Cresters she’d met, they’d adopted Redward styles of clothing, but the way they carried themselves left no question in her mind.
The weapon scanner one of them produced also helped, she had to admit.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to surrender your sidearms,” the one with the scanner told them. “I didn’t think those were allowed aboard Blueward, in any case.”
“We have special licensing,” Kira replied. The blaster pistol she wore concealed under her jacket wasn’t powerful enough to damage the station’s outer hull, but it could wreck an interior bulkhead at maximum power.
There was a reason they were restricted—and that she concealed the weapon. Now, however, she drew the weapon and offered it, grip-first, to the bodyguard.
Zoric followed suit a moment later, looking surprised at Kira’s quick agreement.
Kira shook her head at her subordinate minutely. Whatever happened there today, no one was going to try to assassinate King Larry’s favorite mercenaries on Blueward Station. They were safe enough there that she tended to forget there even was a death mark on her.
No one had tried to collect it since shortly after she’d arrived in the Syntactic Cluster.
“This way, please,” the guard instructed after tucking both the sidearms into a secured case.
The elderly woman who’d let them into the restaurant took over the guiding duties again with a sharp look at the bodyguard. It was pretty clear the Cresters had taken over the space, and the staff weren’t entirely enthused with that.
Kira gave a calm nod in greeting when their guide brought them around a corner, and they found Voski waiting for them outside a closed set of double doors. Presumably, that was the dining room they’d be eating in.
Her guess was that the narrow corridor they’d passed through was what took them behind the rest of the restaurants on the promenade they’d left. That would put Pitt’s restaurant in the cheaper-to-rent space on a secondary corridor—but with a single access to the main promenade.
An interesting combination for an intentionally concealed restaurant—and one that bodyguards like Voski had to adore. Today, Voski wore a Redward-style three-piece suit in black, with delicate purple blush and eyeshadow that blurred both their gender and their apparent sightlines.
“Captain Zoric, Commodore Demirci,” they greeted the mercenaries. They glanced at the other bodyguards. “They are unarmed?”
The first guard presented Voski the case with Kira and Zoric’s guns.
“They surrendered their sidearms on request, ser.”
“Your cooperation is appreciated,” Voski told them. “Come with me, please?”
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” Kira asked with a chuckle.
Jade was alone in the room when their bodyguard let the mercenaries in. The Crester was standing in front of a fake fireplace, a mix of holograms, brick and heaters that gave the impression of a roaring fire at one end of the room.
The fireplace fit with the décor of the room in general. Kira guessed that most of the brick and stone was real, laid over the original metal walls to create the impression of an outdoor covered patio—supported by one wall that was showing an image from what she guessed to be one of Redward’s many gorgeous parks.
Even the table, an intentionally rustic wooden affair, was designed to build into the illusion of being outside on a planetary surface while they were near the center of an orbital space station. It seemed to be working for Jade, at least, who was standing next to the “fire,” warming their hands.
In almost complete opposition to how they’d been dressed when Kira had first met them, Jade wore an ankle-length ruffled skirt paired with a tightly fitted men’s dress shirt. Given the curvature they’d displayed at Sonia’s barbecue, Kira presumed the Crester was wearing a binder under the shirt—but the tailoring of both under- and over-garment was such that she couldn’t tell.
“Commodore Demirci, Captain Zoric,” Jade greeted them. “Please, have a seat. Chef Pitt will be with us shortly to discuss the menu and any adjustments required for allergies or dietary restrictions I was unaware of.”
“Director,” Kira greeted the Crester, gesturing for Zoric to take a seat while she leaned on the back of a chair herself. “I’m led to understand this place is normally reserved well in advance.”
“It’s amazing what you can buy if you ask nicely and put a large-enough sum on the table,” Jade replied drily. “In this case, all three of tonight’s reservees proved amenable to selling their reservations—and Chef Pitt also proved amenable to my making up her lost revenue.”
“So, you took over the entirety of the most exclusive and expensive restaurant on the station to have this meeting?” Kira asked. “Doesn’t that seem like overkill?”
“There is no such thing as overkill,” the Crester replied. “Only success and insufficient effort. I can take no risks with this, Commodore. What we are to discuss must remain absolutely confidential, regardless of whether or not you accept my contract.
“Can you do that?”
“Negotiations are generally confidential, yes,” Kira noted. “Unless you want me to move against Redward or the Free Trade Zone, in which case we will be having a very different disc
ussion.”
“Your honor does you credit, Commodore,” Jade said. “I would have your name’s word.”
Kira glanced over at Zoric. There was a formal edge to Jade’s phrasing, one that didn’t mean much to Kira—Kira’s word was her bond, but there wasn’t any extra weight to her name’s word.
From her subordinate’s expression, however, the phrasing meant something specific to Kavitha Zoric. Kira was going to have to ask about that.
“Kavitha?” she said.
“You have it,” Deception’s Captain said roughly. “Except as required to carry out the contract if we accept it, I will not betray this meeting. On my name.”
“You have my word,” Kira added. “This is all very cloak-and-dagger, Em Jade. Perhaps you would like to start explaining what’s going on?”
“We will wait for Chef Pitt, I think,” Jade replied. “She should be here any moment now. First, however, I think I should properly introduce myself.”
They turned away from the fire and stepped over to the table with a quirky smile playing across their lips.
“I am Crown Zharang Jade Panosyan,” they said quietly. “The heir to the Crown of the Royal Crest.”
The last of the pieces fell into place for Kira as they discussed the menu with Chef Pitt. The white-uniformed woman listened carefully to each question and concern raised, and had an answer ready for each of them.
After five minutes, Pitt retreated from the room, telling them that the appetizers would be fifteen minutes, and Kira looked over at Jade Panosyan.
Zharang was an Armenian word, her headware told her. A legacy of the Panosyan dynasty’s origins on Earth, it meant simply “heir” without any gender attachments. Jade Panosyan was their father’s heir, which meant they were the heir to forty percent of the Bank of the Royal Crest and to the supreme command of the Navy of the Royal Crest.
The King of the Royal Crest had less direct control over the actual working government of the Royal Crest than many constitutional monarchs, but they were still the head of the military and the supreme justiciary.
It was an interesting balance, one Kira wasn’t sure she trusted—but then, she wasn’t a big fan of constitutional monarchies in general. King Larry had proven his worth to her, but the structure seemed inherently abusable to her.
Of course, she came from an explicit oligarchy where only people in the highest income tax bracket got to vote in planetary elections. She was aware of how limited her right to cast doubts on other planets’ governments was.
“I had guessed that all of this cloak-and-dagger and secrecy meant you were not merely one of the directors running the delegation,” Kira told Panosyan as they settled back down with glasses of water.
“I am also that,” the enby told her. “There are three directors on this expedition. I am neither the senior nor the junior of them.” They shrugged. “I will not pretend being my father’s child didn’t accelerate my path, but I was expected to earn my promotions. I have made the BRC a large amount of money, and I expect to do so again if the negotiations with the Syntactic Cluster pay off.”
“I assume that seems likely?” Zoric asked carefully.
“At the moment, yes,” Panosyan agreed. “There is no question that Ypres, Redward and Bengalissimo will be able to source whatever funds they need. The rest of the Cluster… Mmm. There is a suggestion that the main three powers act as guarantor to the others.
“If they all buy in to that, we can bundle the debt of the entire Cluster into a single subscription offering back home with an averaged risk. That will make it significantly easier for us to raise the funds and will work quite well.”
They smiled thinly.
“My trailing commission on that deal will more than justify my being out this far.”
Kira considered what Panosyan had said, then swallowed a grimace.
“But you want me to believe you came out here to talk to us?” she asked.
“Cobra Squadron were legends, Commodore Demirci,” the Crester Zharang told her. “Legends. Someone inherits that weight—is it the people who destroyed them or the people trained by the first generation?
“How about the people who are both? Because that’s Memorial Force, ladies. Each of you was the personal apprentice of a first-generation Cobra,” Panosyan said grimly. “Moranis and Estanza—then both of you were at Estanza’s right hand when he went to war with his old squadron.
“Cobra Squadron met Memorial Force…and Cobra Squadron is no more. If anyone is now a legend, it is you. So, yes, Commodore Demirci, Captain Zoric, I came here to meet you. To see what the leaders of John Estanza’s legacy looked like.”
“And?” Zoric asked bluntly.
“So far, I am reasonably impressed,” Jade Panosyan told them. “Without Conviction, you are not the force that broke Cobra Squadron…and yet I see the heart and skill that did it still. So, I am here, and we have a contract to discuss.”
“We only take payment in cash,” Zoric told the banker. Kira swallowed her own amusement, wearing a level face as her Flag Captain continued. “We’ve had some problems with promises and payment in trade recently.”
Kira wasn’t going to challenge Zoric on that. She didn’t think that a senior director of one of the largest banks in the Rim was planning on leaving them waiting for a promised carrier the way that Redward was doing.
“There are also limits on the missions we are prepared to take on,” she noted herself. “Some of them are obvious: Memorial Force is far from capable of taking on planetary defenses. We do not operate in systems with hostile planetary forces. We do not take on suicide missions. We do not do commerce raiding.”
She smiled thinly.
“We don’t operate against the Syntactic Cluster and we don’t do coups,” Kira concluded.
The problem in Ypres had been Crest mercenaries that had signed on for a coup. Bengalissimo’s coup had been carried out without mercenaries, but the same mercenaries had helped tip the balance in the Institute’s favor.
Panosyan chuckled and took a sip of their own water.
“That’s going to make this an interesting conversation, I think,” they told the mercenaries. “But I ask your patience with me, as it will be worth your while.
“But.” They raised a finger. “I will be asking you to operate in a star system with hostile planetary forces.” They raised a second finger. “I will be asking you to participate in a coup.” A third finger. “And I will be offering partial payment in trade.”
Before Kira or Zoric could say a word, Panosyan laid a disk holographic projector on the table. A silent command activated it and a hologram appeared above the rustic wooden surface.
It took Kira half a second to pick up the scale, and then she swallowed her initial response to Panosyan’s commentary as she studied the image of the starship. It was a squashed cylinder, two hundred meters long, twenty high and roughly fifty wide. There were clearly visible openings at the bow and stern, the accesses to a full-length flight deck. Even if the general shape hadn’t been clear, the flight deck would have been the giveaway.
The ship was a fleet carrier—a hundred-and-fifty-thousand-cubic-meter supercarrier, like even Kira’s home system of Apollo couldn’t build.
“That trade, in this case, would be the Navy of the Royal Crest fleet carrier Fortitude,” Panosyan told them. “The coup, to be clear, would be against the Sanctuary and Prosperity Party that has taken over my father’s government…and is, without question, a front operation for the Equilibrium Institute.”
The image of the fleet carrier vanished as there was a knock on the door.
“Our food has arrived, but I hope I have at least earned the chance to make my pitch?”
Kira glanced at Zoric, several silent messages flying back and forth.
“You have our attention,” she told the Crown Zharang. “But this is enough outside our comfort zone you’re going to have to talk very quickly.”
10
The arrival of the soup and
salad courses temporarily suspended the work discussion, leaving Kira to stew in her own mind as she ate the surprisingly bland food.
Her expectation of the food for the kind of specialty hole-in-the-wall restaurant they’d ended up at appeared to have been too high, but the food wasn’t really the focus of her thoughts.
A hundred-and-fifty-kilocubic carrier was a massive investment, even excluding the hundred and fifty nova fighters she’d normally carry. What the hell did Panosyan want them to do that would justify that as only a partial payment?
Plus, Jade Panosyan’s father—whose name Kira would freely admit she didn’t know—was the ruler of the Royal Crest. He wasn’t an absolute ruler, but he was still a powerful figure in the government of a powerful economic and military hegemon.
Unless Jade wanted a coup against their father, which sounded like all kinds of disasters, Kira couldn’t see the point. They’d mentioned a political party, but…
Kira’s mind was still swirling in circles when the soup course was cleared away and the server indicated it would be ten minutes to the entrée.
The door closed behind the server, and Kira leveled her flattest gaze on the banker and royal in the room with them.
“Talk,” she ordered. “Because right now, I don’t see what the hell you want, and that leaves me unlikely to take your contract.”
That Queen Sonia had clearly set all of this up was buying Panosyan more time than Kira might have given the enby on her own, too. But there were limits to all things, even Kira’s faith in the Queen of Redward.
Panosyan sighed and nodded. Glancing at the door, they shrugged.
“You are familiar with the Equilibrium Institute,” they said. It wasn’t a question. The whole point of their discussion with Kira at Sonia’s barbecue had been to confirm that. “More familiar, in fact, than most people in the Rim.
Fortitude (Scattered Stars: Conviction Book 4) Page 6
