by Ken Wolfson
"I've been cramped in the transport for three hours. I'll be glad to go adventuring with my wonderful dad."
Adrian offered his arm. They linked elbows and her moccasin-clad feet fell in step with his leather boots.
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Chapter Four: Tour the Admiralty
Adrian found two seats at the back of the monorail and gave Alyssa the window. He checked his chronometer. 1800 local time, 4.5 hours until his speech. Thirty hours without sleep and counting. He slipped an arm around his daughter's heaving shoulders and yawned. Alyssa opened her mouth, and torrent of chatter poured out.
"How's Amelie? She didn't get hurt fighting the Wendago, did she? I couldn't bear it if the grim reapers hurt her. She promised to take me to a crunchball game next time we went to Volantis and I kind of love her."
"She's eager to see her little fashionista again," Adrian said and ruffled her hair.
"I'm not little, I'm fourteen in standard years," she grumbled, and comber her hair back with her fingers.
"You'll always be our little girl," Adrian said. Man, our—he liked the sound of that.
Alyssa beamed. "So, have you popped the question yet?" Adrian's thoughts screeched to a halt. She giggled. "Wow, Dad, your eyes just got wide."
"I can't marry Amelie," Adrian said. Alyssa gaped in horror, like the world was ending.
"But Dad, you're truly in love! It's so blatant, you both blush every time you see each other and it's been four years and you're happier than ever. Nothing can stop true love." Adrian restrained himself from chuckling at her belief. Teens were innocent in a way, even as they pretended to be adults. And hostile combatants treated them as adults.
"That's a severe violation of one of the cardinal rules in the fleet. Don't engage on a personal level with your comrades. It'd end my career." Assuming his career wasn't already done.
"I don't get it, you've been court-martialed before and survived. And the people love you!" Were those fresh tears in her eyes? Poor kid; for all her straight A grades, she couldn't help being a high-strung teenager.
"Aly, I was court-martialed on infractions of the rules of war," Adrian began. War crimes, padded in elaborate legal-speak. "Those charges are easy to beat with the right connections; war is chaos, after all. Charges on peacetime etiquette are far harder, especially when it's a commoner charged with committing a crime against a noble. Even if the noble truly loves him back."
Alyssa sighed, and nodded. "I understand, Dad. You still need to marry her soon, though. Ring and all, or whatever they do on Volantis. You'll probably need to shovel snow or something."
"Soon, love, we'll be a family."
Alyssa planted a wet kiss on his cheek. He wiped the silver residue away. She promptly kissed him again. Fine. He left it.
The monorail came to a stop at an intersection. A train loaded with troopers raced past. Judging by the bleary eyes and duffel bags, they'd been surprised in their homes and rushed up from shore leave. Ah, the old hangover duty. Adrian gave them a jaunty wave.
"Hey, Dad!" Alyssa suddenly perked up and grinned dimples at something over his shoulder.
"Yes?" Adrian followed her gaze. "Haha, I forgot about that endorsement deal." At the centerpiece of the monorail car was a billboard, floor to ceiling, divided into five segments. First there was a web blogger star who'd cleaned up at the drone awards last year for her yearlong documentary on poverty in the Anchorage. Then was Zheng Volya, the captain of the Tollyon Lady Paladins and the only Paladin, either team, to ever make the Systems national team. At the center, Lord Venko the Greater stood tall. The Lord Admiral had a heroic square jawline, and wild brown hair that wooed all the ladies well into his fifth decade. He was in full plate armor, painted green and scaled smooth like a dragon's hide. Then came a fireman who'd pulled a middle school class out of a burning transport. Then, at the end, standing at rigid attention with left hand in a fist over his chest, was Commander Adrian Huxton.
Seize your moment. Vector Energy Drinks.
"The school bus passed one of these on the way to school every day. I haven't told any of my friends, except Niva, of course," she said. Her head dropped back on his shoulder.
"I didn't know I was famous planetside."
"You're kinda famous. Everyone who matters at school has been whispering about you saving another planet from the Wendago. Professor Melnick did a two-period lesson on your personal history in the Tyrants' Crescent. I can't wait to tell everyone you're my dad," she said.
"Soon, love," Adrian said. He worried about exposing her to the fire he generated whenever he spoke in public. The self-righteous punished children the harshest for their fathers' sins. After all, they believed they had morality on their side.
"Can we stop at the glitter district before we go planetside?" Alyssa said. The glitter district was the center of high-class retailing on the station, where all the wealthy went shopping. It sat in the uppermost echelons, under a great transparent aluminum dome with a perfect view of the incoming traffic.
"What's there?"
"Well, there's this classy footwear brand called Lady Mallory's I like, and they're doing a pop-up in the glitter district," she said. She kicked up a leg to show Adrian the faint logo on her knee.
"Pop-up?" Adrian said. He rolled the term over his tongue a couple times.
"Pop-up shop. It's a temporary fashion store, it pops up with the merch, sells a bunch, then shuts down after a couple months." Fascination was in her eyes. He'd felt that, when he'd first walked in zero-g 30 years ago and realized his feet weren’t on the ground. The exhilaration of someone meeting their true calling.
"It's a FOB?" he suggested.
"A what?"
"Forward Operating Base. It's a pre-fab structure set up in space to stage ships and materials during extended deployment," Adrian said.
"Okay, a Fashion FOB," Alyssa said, and giggled. She squirmed in her seat to lean against him. Adrian grinned back. Thank goodness they had their connection. Too many military parents never knew their kids until they were grown up and had moved light years away, physically and emotionally.
"So you want me to buy you things," he said.
"Uhhh." Her jaw worked. Adrian first wrinkled his nose at spending more credits than he needed to. Then again, he’d come of age in prison. No one had given him a future.
Alyssa had someone, she didn’t have to be ground out by the universe. Why should he waste this chance to alter the cycle? And how could he live with crushing the hopes and dreams of the most beautiful young lady in Tollyon?
"Two items, and make sure they're good.” He kissed her cheek.
She rewarded him with a beaming smile and a delighted, "oh, thanks, Dad!"
She babbled on for a while, while Adrian listened. Eventually the stream ran dry and she dozed off on his shoulder. The monorail slithered down the main road, delivery drones flying overhead. They were basic intelligences, no smarter than knowing what directions to go. Same with Vindication’s computer core, which provided near limitless computing power but was lobotomized by AI restrictions.
Adrian let his daughter sleep until the train pulled into the packed core station, at the heart of Anchorage's original asteroid. He roused her and led her out, that heavy bag in tow. A panhandler grabbed at the hem of his jacket with his grimy fingers. Adrian yanked away. He left 10 credits in a battered helmet for another beggar wearing a ragged fleet uniform, with a sign before her saying 'lost my sight defending our dreams, need a few dreams of my own."
He checked his comp; he should be arriving at the office right now. He fired a quick message off to fleet command as they left the platform.
As he scrolled through his comp, he noticed the burgeoning notifications on his Zyt account. He’d made a profile on the Systems’ largest social media site just to track mentions of him. Someone had snapped a photo of him daydreaming, Alyssa napping on his shoulder. It was trending up, fast. Who could that have been? He hadn’t been watching for comp cameras, and hadn’t studied the f
aces of those sat near him. He was getting soft, when now more than ever he needed vigilance.
They emerged into the core enclave. The seat of House Verger's power was a sphere ten kilometers on a side. At the center the gravity core array was suspended in midair. It was a statement of power; House Venko had the engineering might and wealth to bring a planet's physics to their station. Gravity was equalized outwards. Alyssa’s eyes went up and up and up, her legs locked. Adrian grinned as he recalled the first time he'd frozen in awe while gazing into the bottomless void. Humans weren’t native to zero g, and the wonder would never get old.
"Close your eyes." He tugged her along so she wasn't sucked into the crowd's undertow. When she remained fixated on the ceiling, he slipped his free hand over her eyes and guided her head back to ground level. "It's called void sickness; you're used to a 2.5-dimensional world like on a planet's surface. In space, we live in true 3D. Keep your eyes on the ground and follow my lead for now. Keep repeating to yourself, 'my destination is straight ahead.' We'll sit down after and spend a few minutes marveling." He kissed her cheek again.
"Dad, I've seen the core enclave on video before, but in real life, it’s so...we're walking up the walls, oh my god." She swayed on the spot.
"You're walking straight ahead, to fleet HQ. Just repeat that to yourself. You are on the ground."
"My destination is straight ahead, I am on the ground," she said several times. Adrian removed his hand, and led her on.
They took the vacuum lift tube into the bowels of the citadel. The ziggurat was cosmetic; the real citadel extended several kilometers into the asteroid itself. Adrian's stomach plunged with him into the depths of the administrative capitol. This was where formality ruled over function and his arch-enemy, the paper-pusher, lived. He did some babbling of his own to distract himself, an old technique.
"You know, the enclave is three centuries old. It was the last part of the original rock to be carved. This is the safest place we could be, at the center of the Anchorage and buried under a hundred klicks of iron hematite."
"Unless the rock collapses and buries us," Alyssa muttered.
"The gravity core is behind us. Rock collapses outwards," Adrian said. Alyssa gaped in satisfying shock.
"Deck 255, Admiralty offices," an emotionless female voice announced over the speakers. The doors slid open, revealing a wide corridor painted green with a red carpet. Here, everyone was highborn or licking their boots.
Adrian's boots thumped hard on the thick carpet. Alyssa padded silently beside. He nodded at a few faces he recognized, and they replied. A few officers, either gender, threw sideways glances at her. One admiral made a joke to his aide and licked his lips. A tingle ran up Adrian's spine, and he reached for his sword. Anger wouldn't solve this problem either, he had to wrench it away, lest he offend someone it would be politically disadvantageous to do so.
They stopped before Lord Venko's office.
"Just one more meeting. I need you to stay here," he said, and pointed her at an overstuffed armchair and water cooler in the corridor. "If anyone bothers you, call me. I'll deal with them."
"I miss you too much, Dad. I can't let you out of my sight." She clung to him, trembling. Adrian suddenly had the urge to sign up for one more tour, and smuggle her with him. They'd go on adventures across the Tyrant's Crescent, and into Wild Space where between barbarian kingdoms and Wendago tribes lay the main ruins of golden-age humanity.
"Just a few minutes. I promise, my little love." He eased out of her grasp. She curled up in the chair, nylon clad knees hugged to her chest. At home, she always slept curled in a ball. Adrian would wake up in the middle of the night with tyke Alyssa snuggled on his chest, breathing softly.
He refocused on the present, and knocked at the door.
A scrawny boy, sixteen at most, answered. He wore a black jumpsuit and green cape. Squires wore jumpsuits colored after their noble house. Something about being a property of their sworn house and master. Drama that flew over his head. "Commander Huxton?" the squire said.
"Yes," Adrian said.
"Lord Venko's expecting you. Come inside, please, sir," he said. Adrian took the door from him. The boy held on anyways, and Adrian stepped through him, stumbling him away.
As the third-highest ranking official in Wicked Creek, Mathias Venko the Lesser had a spacious office. Adrian had to follow the squire through a veritable maze of imported palm forestry to find the Admiral growing into his hardwood desk, surrounded by blazing holographic screens. Venko the Lesser had been the smaller twin. Making that joke was asking for one's career to end, but it was true. He was Adrian's height, skinny, and had the gray skin of someone born and raised in artificial sunlight. He hunched over his desk, typing away at ludicrous speed. If there was one thing Venko the Lesser was skilled at, it was words per minute. And gardening.
"My Lord, apologies for being late" Adrian said, and saluted. Venko returned it, and grimaced. He played the administrator role, holding down the bureaucracy while Venko the Greater led the fleets, and their mother, Lady Eliana Venko, ruled.
"Commander, you do well for your breeding, you know that?" he said. Tardiness was forgiven.
Adrian barely kept from grimacing at the backhanded compliment. "Thank you, sir."
"I'd ask you to kneel, but it'd be a waste of breath."
"Fleet officers are not legally obligated to kneel to nobility, though it is considered traditional etiquette," Adrian said. He sat first, and gripped the leather armrests to stop his fingers trembling. "I kneel to one, and he vanished 35 years ago."
"Yes, I know."
"You're getting to know me," Adrian said with a grin.
"All too well. I hope you found your reception comfortable," Venko said. He seated himself and pulled down his computer screen, giving them a clear view. Above him hung a naked sword with a leaf blade blacker than the void, and a strangely twisted guard. The weapon drank in the light from the overhead lamps.
"It was sufficient," Adrian said. "And how are you?" That was a relic blade, dug up from the clutches of a lost battlefield and wasted on a desk jockey. Relic weapons were the most celebrated remnant of pre-dark age humanity. They were built from a superconductor alloy stronger than any modern nano-materials. The blade conducted heat from a measurably infinite power source in the hilt, heating to several thousand degrees Celsius and carving through any metal in a handful of cuts. Noble houses paid in qualities greater than credits for them, and finding one would grant any grave-robber fortune.
"Fine as ever, despite the issues you continue to give me," Venko said. "Admiral Lord Crozier and his majority shareholders at Coral News want your head again, but that's another matter." Crozier had gone after Adrian before; nothing new.
"Well, on to business, then?" Adrian said.
"Yes. Eric, please leave us," Venko said. As his squire slipped past, Venko ran a hand across his bottom. The boy shuddered and kept walking. Adrian had to look away. Some battles were worth fighting, and this wasn't one of them.
"Eric," Adrian said.
"Yes, sir?" Eric said.
"My daughter is outside. I'd appreciate it if you kept her company while I'm here."
Venko snorted. "You'd better go entertain her, or you'll be nailed to Vindication's bow."
"You're torturing the poor boy," Adrian said. Eric stammered something, and left without a word.
"Why do you drag your bastard around with you whenever you land?" Venko said. Adrian felt a tightness in his chest, one he dispelled without visual cue.
"I love her, and enjoy her company," he said. Venko shrugged. "I never took you for the mentoring type," Adrian added. It was the best jab he could throw.
Venko snarled, "I didn't want a brat following me around, watching me be the most glorified desk jockey in history. My mother insisted. He's from house Nevarine, one of the Great Burn houses, and we needed to cement a trade deal. Damn politics. I took the desk job to avoid them."
"Makes me glad I'm not a noble; I
don't have such strings on me" Adrian said. He was sarcastic. Oh, what he could do with the power at Mathias' fingertips.
"And sometimes I wish I could party without responsibility like you lowborn, without the damn cameras in my face. Go annoy my brother, he enjoys it," Venko said. Adrian's fists clenched. Mathias had never scrounged trash for food, or pulled 48-hour combat shifts where any moment could be his last. "Now, I've got to give you a debriefing. The fight on Vykhor cost us three capitol ship task groups and 125,000 human lives. . Fortunately, it also wiped out an entire tribe of Wendago and saved our face with the good folk Tyrant's Crescent and the barbarians of Wild Space. The news heads are praising the armada. What happened? And in your words, not the report you submitted. The admiralty has concluded it’s you couldn’t have survived the battle.”
“Did they?” Adrian said.
“This whole do the impossible thing of yours is getting old,” Venko said.
"Lady Admiral Hamilton’s plan was to intercept the Wendago at the system's edge and dispatched the fleet in convoy, with Vindication group as the rear guard. However, the Wendago came in twice the projected numbers. Lady Hamilton ordered a withdrawal to the safety Vykhor's PDF grid. This was what the Wendago wanted; they pursued and caught the Mahimi and Dieng battlegroups in open space and annihilated them with minimal losses," Adrian said. Thirty minutes, and the nightmares from beyond civilization had wiped a fleet.
"As the report went," Venko said, typing as he spoke. Adrian nodded along. "Vykhor command ordered you to retreat and you disobeyed. That's where my understanding ends. There were thirty dragoons; a fleet that size would've been an uphill fight for three battlegroups. I wouldn't have faulted you if you broke in terror and fled towards the jump shelf. Most sane COs would in that situation. What the hell happened?"
"I don't believe in fear; there's always a strategy to win." Adrian's voice hardened as he imitated battle-forged certainty. "I found it, and I stole victory."