by M. D. Cooper
“Too true. Between a rock and a hard place. Even if we weren’t in a relationship, I wouldn’t want to besmirch the Transcend’s ambassador. I’ll have to say that you looked fabulous and I loved it.”
Conversation flowed into discussion of the fashion trends that had followed the Dance of the Seven Suns—which was the norm for the season—until their next course came.
Diana eyed her steak happily, while Petra splashed some glaze on her salmon before taking a bite, savoring the rich flavor that raced across her tongue.
“Mmmmmm…too long since I’ve had fresh salmon.”
“Why would you ever have anything else?” Diana asked as she cut into her steak and examined the color.
“Last time I had it was on a ship. It wasn’t fresh and it put me off fish for a bit, but I decided that there was no way the Atlior could steer me wrong. I’m glad I chanced it.”
“There’s a reason why this is one of my go-to off-world dining spots,” Diana replied. “Though I’m not really a picky eater. I just have to pretend to be discerning.”
“Is that why you bought the whole asteroid out for the night?”
The empress laughed. “A bit. Also…I’m supposed to do things like that. Be erratic and imperious.”
“Pfft.” Petra shook her head. “You like being the way you are. Don’t try to play it off as a part of the job.”
“Well, it is…but that doesn’t mean that I can’t like the job.”
“OK, I’ll buy that.”
Petra couldn’t help but smile at the empress as she took a bite of her steak. It was so rare to see the real woman behind the façade, the real Diana who was just a human like any other. She had hopes, dreams, fears, worries…being the empress’s confidant had meant a lot to Petra, and the fact that she could be again brought more joy to her than she’d expected.
Their conversation proceeded to meander through a dozen topics as they ate, and as the pair were cleaning their plates, Diana looked up at Petra, her eyes deadly serious.
“I have to ask you something, Petra. This is…this is at the heart of why I pushed you away.”
Oh shoot…what are we about to get into? She sipped her wine before responding. “Umm…sure. What is it?”
“Well…back when I thought you were just a representative of some small, faraway alliance, I thought that, if we wanted something more, I could convince you to stay with me here. But now…now I don’t believe that’s possible. Alexandria must seem like a backwater to you.”
Petra barked a laugh. “No, Diana. Stars, no. Alexandria is one of the most amazing cities in the cosmos. Yes, there are others that rival it, but most ecumenopoli aren’t sustainable. They destroy the planets they’re built on—at least so far as habitation is concerned. That Alexandria has thrived for thousands of years makes it stand out even against things as magnificent as Airtha.”
“Airtha? The other faction in the Transcend?”
“Well, Airtha is a place as well as a faction…and a person. But before recent events, the word only referred to a ring around a star.”
Diana’s eyes widened. “A stellar ring? I didn’t know it was possible. The stresses on a structure that large—”
“It’s just around a white dwarf,” Petra explained. “Only a few million kilometers in diameter.”
“Oh, just a few million,” the empress gave a mock laugh. “Psh.”
“It’s made of diamond. Finaeus extracted mass from the star to construct the ring. It’s really amazing. Half of the super-structures in the Transcend were either built by Finaeus, or based on his ideas. I’m glad that he’s back.”
“Wait…” Diana held up a hand. “Is this the Finaeus—as in Finaeus Tomlinson? The man who started the worldship program six thousand years ago?”
“Uh huh,” Petra nodded. “One and the same.”
“And he’s still alive?”
“The Tomlinsons are long-lived.”
The empress shook her head in mute wonder, then cut another piece of her steak and chewed it thoughtfully.
“I thought you knew that,” Petra said after giving the empress a moment. “What, with President Sera being Jeffrey Tomlinson’s daughter and all.”
The empress shook her head. “No, somewhere you all failed to mention that her father was the Jeffrey Tomlinson. I mean…who would just assume that?”
Petra considered that for a moment. “OK…I guess I should have seen that one. I’m just so used to our leader always having been the Jeffrey Tomlinson…well, until recently.”
“Just when I think I’ve wrapped my mind around everything, you go and tell me that, until a few months ago, the Transcend was governed by a man older than Scipio itself…by a lot.”
“It’s a mad, mad galaxy out there.”
“Can say that again.” The empress started to cut off a piece of her steak, but then set her knife down. “OK. Again I want to ask the thing that’s been on my mind…the thing I just can’t quite manage to steer the conversation to.”
Petra nodded, giving the woman across from her an encouraging smile. “Anything. I’m an open book.”
“If you weren’t here, with me, where would you be?”
A smile formed on Petra’s lips, and she leant back in her seat, careful not to overbalance, with the weight of her wings pulling at her. “I was born on one of the first worlds terraformed in the Sagittarius arm of the galaxy. A backwater’s backwater, hundreds of light years from any other major system. That was part of the reason why I learned to do a lot of things manually—my parents were very much salt-of-the-earth, away-from-civilization people.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Diana interrupted. “You’re such a metropolitan woman, Petra.”
“I won’t deny that I appreciate the pleasures that a place like Alexandria has to offer. But in my heart, I yearn for this plot of land on my homeworld. You see…rising out of the forest, there’s this perfect hill. It’s not too tall, but the land is flat thereabouts, so the view is spectacular. The slopes are gentle, dotted with waves of hillocks that cascade down to the trees like grassy waterfalls.
“For whatever reason, little foliage grows on the slopes, yet there’s a copse of cypress on the summit with just a perfect spot to build a house in their midst. I don’t know that I could live there forever, but I could certainly see myself spending a few decades there.”
The vision of that place had been burned in Petra’s mind for ages, though she’d not seen it in over a century. So clear was the memory that she did not immediately spot the crestfallen look on the empress’s face.
“That’s where you really want to be?” the other woman asked in a small voice. “Thousands of light years away, in some cabin in the woods?”
Oh shit.
“Well…someday, when I retire.”
Even as she uttered the words, Petra knew they were the wrong ones.
Diana’s brow lowered and her cheeks flushed. “I knew it! I knew I was just a job to you. When you’re done using Scipio, you’ll just leave me!”
The empress was half out of her chair, and Petra rose as well, nearly falling on the stupid wings she’d allowed herself to be stuck with.
“No, it’s not that—Diana, we’re going to live for ages. You just said that you wanted to have kids, someone to rule Scipio when you’re gone. But do you have to die to be gone? Lots of rulers move on before they die—stars, it’s the sane thing to do!”
“It’s not insane to want to protect my people,” Diana countered. "Right now, I'm the best they have, and I’m not going to leave them for the prelates to tear apart!”
Diana was standing now, fury writ large on her features, and Petra couldn’t quite understand how they’d gone from a peaceful and rather romantic dinner to a screaming match.
I should have expected it with her….
“Of course not, but does it always have to be you?” Petra asked. “You have a quadrillion subjects. Are none of them q
ualified to rule Scipio? Can none of them rise to the challenge?”
“If they could, they would have,” Diana shot back. “If they don’t have the strength to reach for the throne now, then they’re not worthy of it.”
“Diana, it doesn’t have to be a trial by fire like you had,” Petra implored the empress. “You could mentor someone, find the right candidate and train them. Just because your father—”
“I think we’re done here,” the empress said, all emotion suddenly absent from her voice.
At exactly that moment, Petra felt a dataspike hit her Link, and her connection cut out.
the AI replied.
“Well?” Diana asked. “This is where you leave. I want to finish my steak.”
Petra regarded the empress for a moment, wondering if she should tell her that she was under attack. A vision of Diana disbelieving her on the grounds that she was only seeking sympathy came to mind.
“Fine. I’ll see you at the briefing tomorrow.”
The empress didn’t respond, only sat back down and began cutting into the meat on her plate with far more vigor than Petra thought the act warranted.
Petra didn’t respond to the AI, a torrent of her own barely manageable emotions shredding her ability to think clearly. After a few more seconds of staring at the empress and wishing that the deliberately obstinate woman would see things from another perspective for once, she grabbed her glass of wine, topped it off, and strode away from the table.
With one eye on the surveillance feeds to see if Diana would turn to watch, she downed the wine in two gulps and slammed the glass down onto a nearby table.
Their waiter stood at the front of the restaurant next to the maître d, both their mouths hanging open as she swept by.
“Bring her chocolate ice cream,” she told the man. “A lot of it.”
Petra still didn’t respond to her AI, not because she was angry at him, but rather because she didn’t want to inadvertently misdirect her rage at him.
As she walked out of the restaurant and into the corridor, her Link reinitialized, but she didn’t reconnect, instead asking Kory for a status update through Alastar’s connection.
She passed through the restaurant’s vestibule to the concourse beyond where Kory stood waiting. She noticed a worker nearby tending to a malfunctioning servitor, and was relieved when she realized the woman was one of her agents.
“That would suck,” Petra said aloud. “Though I could see them being overprotective of the empress. I wish she wouldn’t put them through that conditioning.”
“They volunteer for it,” Kory replied. “They’re already a fanatically loyal bunch, and know what’s in store for them.”
Petra pressed her hands against her temples and sighed. “Great, just what we need, for me to be totally on the outs with Diana and to have her imperial guard trying to kill me for hurting their empress’s feelings.”
“You don’t really think that’s what this is about, do you?” Kory asked.
“Plus there was the threat that Chimellia made,” Petra added.
Kory’s head whipped around, his eyes wide as he stared at her. “Sorry, what?”
“Chimellia gave me the standard ‘if you hurt her, you’ll be sorry’ speech.” Petra shrugged. “She always likes to throw her weight around, but she wouldn’t actively try to off me. That would damage Scipio’s relationship with the Transcend, and she’s not dumb enough to do that.”
“You sure about that?” Kory asked. “A lot of people feel like Scipio is being used.”
“Sure, but what’s the alternative? Just sit back and let the Hegemony swallow more and more systems until it dwarfs Scipio? They have to know that’s not a winning scenario—Chimellia especially.”
“Maybe she thinks that Scipio can survive without the Transcend’s help.”
Petra rolled her eyes. “What are you doing, Kory, trying to make me have some sort of frustration-induced seizure? Yes, Scipio could do it on their own, but with us backing them, it will go a hell of a lot better.”
“Well, let’s just hope that Harold gets a good lead, then,” Petra said. “Otherwise we have to consider pretty much everyone to be a suspect.”
EXFIL
STELLAR DATE: 10.06.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Delorum
REGION: Alexandria, Bosporus System, Scipio Empire
Petra and Kory rode the rest of the way to the docks in silence. Both agents and the AI kept an eye peeled for any sign of attack, skipping through networks and keeping in constant contact with the Hand agents spread across the asteroid.
By the time they reached the dock concourse, Petra was all but itching with anticipation, wishing the attack would just come so they could get it over with.
They exited the car and began the walk down the long concourse, both watching the Impera Protego stationed at regular intervals, waiting for one of them to raise their weapon and kick things off. Petra couldn’t tell if it was her imagination or not, but she couldn’t help but feel that the imperial guards had a more menacing posture than when they’d arrived.
As they rounded a bend, she caught sight of their shuttle’s berth and saw two of the imperial guards standing on either side of the entrance.
No one spoke further as they closed the distance to the ship. When the two Hand agents were a few meters from the airlock, the guards stepped in front of the portal, blocking thei
r forward progress.
“Well?” Petra drew herself up, trying to look as intimidating as a person could while covered in white feathers. “Is there something I can help you with?”
Neither guard responded. Petra was considering shoving them aside when a voice spoke from behind them.
“You certainly can.”
Via the drones she’d deployed, Petra saw an Impera Protego captain step through a doorway across the concourse, and stride across the deck toward her and Kory.
Having no trouble adopting an annoyed expression, she turned and folded her arms across her chest. “You’d best make it quick, then, Captain. I have places to be.”
“You do,” the captain, a tall, raven-haired man, agreed. “But not anywhere you have our empress’s ear.”
“I serve at her pleasure,” Petra replied, her voice measured and calm. “And on the orders of my superiors.”
“Perhaps.” The man stopped three meters from Petra. “But we know that you’re really just a manipulative bitch. Between you and that thing in her head, the empress is little more than a puppet. We’ll take care of her, though. Once we clear the obstacles.”
Petra asked Kory.
Her head of security laughed.
“So what’s next?” Petra asked the guard captain, eyeing his hand, which was already centimeters from his sidearm.
They stared at one another for a long moment, breathing in and out in near unison.
The captain moved first, his finger twitching toward his pistol, and Petra didn’t wait for him to draw it before unfurling her wings and leaping into the air. As she soared over his head, she reached over her shoulders, drawing a pair of lightwands that were tucked inside her wings.