The Indiri were an odd-looking race to human eyes, resembling large, meter-and-a-half-tall frogs with wide mouths, bulging eyes, and red fur they preferred to keep damp. These wore wraparound garments pinned at the shoulder, each cut from a single piece of a patterned cloth that shone with moisture.
There were twelve of them, the leading eight each wearing a large gold pin with a symbol of some kind holding their wrap together. The four trailing behind wore similar, if less complex, patterns to some of the leaders, and their pins were utilitarian in design—though still gold.
Annette’s understanding was that eight of the Indiri Houses, family-run industrial cartels, had assembled a combined negotiation team to make sure they could meet the Duchy of Terra’s needs. They’d been warned of the timeline she was under, and she suspected they probably knew as much about the maneuvering behind it as she did.
This was the first time she’d ever seen more than one Indiri together—and been able to pay attention, at least. There’d probably been several around when she’d boarded Karaz Forel’s Subjugator, but she’d been distracted.
All fit the general description of “giant frog with red fur”, but they were all different as well. Slightly different eye shapes and colors. Different mouths. Different ears. Different fur colors and patterns.
Noticing those differences, however, she also spotted the fifth Indiri off the shuttle and almost went for a weapon as, for a moment, she thought she saw Karaz Forel again.
There was no way. She’d shot Karaz Forel and left him for dead on the deck of his own ship. She might not remember doing so particularly well, as she’d been in shock from losing an eye and a lot of blood at the time, but she’d watched the footage to be sure.
The lead member of the delegation stepped past her guards and bowed to her, forcing her to recover her poise and return the gesture.
“Duchess Dan!Annette Bond, I am Lorak Pozan, Speaker of the Deep House Pozan and the senior member of this delegation,” he greeted her.
“Speaker Pozan, welcome to the Duchy of Terra,” she replied. “These are my advisors, Elon Casimir and Li Chin Zhao, the commander of my Ducal Guard, Colonel James Wellesley, and the commander of our space Militia, Admiral Jean Villeneuve.” She gestured toward the men with her as she introduced them.
“Greetings.” Pozan bowed again to Annette’s Councilors. “With me are Sang Vaza, Korei Ikil, Onra Danar, Shaza Forel, Rula Ordus, Zav Tal and Dit Mak. All are the chosen representatives of their House, authorized to negotiate on their behalf.”
So, the one who looked like Karaz Forel was apparently related to him. That didn’t exactly give Annette warm feelings—they might have fixed her eye, but the scar from the injury remained.
“Shall we head inside?” she suggested. “We’ve set up diffusers to help keep you and your staff comfortable; I imagine you will find Earth’s air uncomfortably dry.”
“We are used to it,” Pozan admitted with a muted shake of his upper torso. “We appreciate the gesture, Dan!Annette Bond. Lead the way.”
#
The conference room occupied the northwest corner of the top floor of Wuxing Tower, with massive glass windows on two sides showcasing the view out over the entire island. Carefully designed coatings on the glass reduced the glare of the bright sunshine to something more tolerable, leaving the light to glow gently across the rest of the room.
The two interior walls had been redone with mosaics made from stone chips. They were mostly abstract, but one wall had the sword-holding tentacle symbol of the A!Tol Imperium, and the other the old many-starred United Nations seal.
They hadn’t decided on a particular symbol for the Duchy yet, so it appeared that Zhao had picked the UN seal as something the ex-leader of China thought was appropriate. Annette found herself nodding in approval, though. Linking the new government to the old ones was essential to buying Earth’s cooperation.
A massive table of some naturally black hardwood filled the center of the room, with imported Imperial chairs that could conform to just about any body type or need. Portable diffusers, designed to gently shower an individual with a slow but steady spray of water, were set up next to the chairs set aside for the Indiri.
The whole room was moist and warm right now, the climate control set to be comfortable for their amphibious guests, not the human hosts.
Thankfully, even pre-annexation Terran tech was mostly immune to ambient water at this point. Annette’s tailored black suit was not quite so lucky, and she was already feeling damp by the time she took her seat at the head of the table and gestured her guests to their chairs.
“I appreciate you all taking the time to come this far to meet with us,” she told the Indiri. “As I’m sure you understand, the Duchy of Terra is hardly in a position to spare the people needed to negotiate this kind of deal from their duties of governance.”
“We appreciate you approaching us,” Pozan replied. “While the Indiri Deep Houses combined muster one of the largest shipbuilding complexes in the Imperium, we are hardly the only entity capable of meeting your needs.”
“Our timeline is quite tight,” she admitted. “The Deep Houses appeared to be the most likely to be able to meet our needs inside our timeline and our budget.”
Pozan’s tongue flickered, a gesture that reminded her unpleasantly of Karaz Forel.
“I am uncertain of human norms in these negotiations, so this may be rude,” he said. “But what is your budget?”
“Limited but sufficient,” Annette replied calmly. “While we would like to keep the costs as low as possible, we have resources to cover whatever we will need.”
Zhao, to his credit, managed to not audibly choke over that. They’d gone over the Duchy’s funds several times in advance of this—unless they missed their estimate, they could afford maybe two battleships.
She’d received the final confirmation of her personal off-world resources in a starcom transmission that morning. Those changed the game.
“I also understand that our pre-existing orders arrived with you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Pozan agreed slowly. “Two A!Tol Imperial Class Four defense constellations, paid for by the Imperial Navy, and six courier ships, prepaid to our A!To office. The passage crews should be offloading from the couriers as we speak, and the defense-constellation setup should begin within a few twentieth-cycles.
“It will take three cycles to complete the deployment of the constellations and link them in to your defense platforms, but it will be complete before we leave.”
“Thank you, Speaker Pozan,” Annette replied. “Those satellites will provide some much-needed security. The more we learn about where we are in the galaxy, the more Terra feels exposed out here on the frontier and the Kanzi border.”
“Indeed,” he confirmed. “If you can afford it, Duchess, we would be more than willing to sell you additional cruisers or other warships to expand your militia.”
“My desire, Speaker, is to acquire a half-echelon of capital ships for the Ducal Militia in addition to the ships we are to provide the Imperial Navy,” Annette admitted to him. “A total of twelve battleships.”
“That is…a great deal of money,” Shaza Forel noted from down the table. Despite the Indiri’s resemblance to Karaz Forel, Annette had realized that Shaza was actually female, one of five females in the delegation.
“We can, of course, arrange partial financing for the purchase,” Forel continued, her smooth words reminding Annette of a used-car salesman…and of Karaz Forel.
“That won’t be necessary,” she told the Indiri, significantly more sharply than she’d meant. For a moment, she hoped the translator hadn’t picked up her tone, but the way Forel recoiled suggested otherwise.
“How are you planning on paying for these ships?” Forel asked after a moment, her tone suddenly much sharper.
“Cash,” Annette said flatly. “Upon delivery.”
Her advisors were trying, with various degrees of success, not to stare at her in sh
ock. Zhao was faking perfect calm. Villeneuve, on the other hand, was looking at her with a far more questioning look than anything else.
He was, after all, the only one who’d been fully briefed on what she’d done under the auspices of Operation Privateer.
“I see,” Forel allowed.
“Zav Tal, please clear the waters around our offer,” Pozan instructed after a moment, gesturing for the House Tal representative to speak.
“May I access your hologram system?” that Indiri asked. If Annette understood the gradations of fur color and so forth in the group, Zav Tal was the youngest of the eight actual representatives, and younger than two of the four staff members as well.
“Yes,” she agreed.
It was an A!Tol-built system, so Tal had no problems linking his communicator into it and bringing up the file he was transmitting.
The three-dimensional image of a standard A!Tol battleship appeared in the middle of the table, slowly rotating in mid-air as they all looked it over.
“This is an Empress A!Ana–class battleship,” Tal explained. “An older design, but still functional. Fourteen hundred meters long, six hundred and eight wide. Nine million tons.”
The design was simpler than most A!Tol capital ships Annette had seen, with only two sweeping wings instead of a dozen or more tentacle-like nacelles and protrusions. Almost ten percent smaller, too.
Armament specifications scrolled across the hologram, and she nodded slowly. The Empress A!Ana was even older than Zav Tal was implying, understrength in both beams and missiles to make up for requiring larger drive cores.
“Will the units be refitted to drive and shield standards?” she asked slowly.
“They wouldn’t meet the requirements of the Imperial Navy if not,” Tal told her. “These are older ships. They will undergo a full refit before we provide them to you.”
And then Nova Industries would refit them again. The compressed-matter armor would add another million tons, and stacking the Sword and Buckler systems on would give the old ship a decent chance against even a Kanzi super-battleship.
They weren’t perfect, but even with her private resources, she suspected twelve of them would be a strain for the Duchy of Terra to afford.
“We will need them delivered at least half a long-cycle in advance of their delivery to the Imperial Navy, as we have our own refit to complete on them,” she told them. “How quickly would you be able to deliver a first group of, say, three ships?”
Tal glanced back at Pozan, who shrugged his broad shoulders.
“These are ships we have on hand,” he told her, effectively admitting what everyone already knew: they were offering Terra refurbished warships someone else had already used. “While we will make yard space for the refits, delivering them in groups would be easiest. We could have the first three ships delivered within a few five-cycles of our returning to Indir.
“Perhaps…twenty-five cycles from today.”
That would give them nine months to make sure they got the refits right on at least the first units before they handed them over. It would also give Annette a month to actually get the money to Sol from other places.
“We can work with that,” she told him. “For the requested twelve, how much?”
She noted with interest that even Pozan glanced at Shaza Forel for that answer. In Terran terms, she suspected that while House Pozan was leading the way, House Forel was fronting much of the cash here.
Shaza Forel looked at Annette and flicked her tongue in an unpleasant-looking expression, then quoted a number.
“A minimum of ten percent deposit before we leave,” the Indiri noted as well.
Annette winced. For refurbished old ships, she was quite sure the price she’d just been quoted was highway robbery…but everyone in the conference room knew the Deep Houses had her over a barrel.
“We were led to understand,” Pozan noted after a few moments of silence, “that Terra had certain technologies that they would be able to sell us to help fund this transaction. Technologies the Imperial Navy very much wishes to see in their next generation of warships.”
She gently kicked Elon under the table before he could say a word.
“There are certain defensive technologies we are working on that the Imperial Navy does not currently have an equivalent to, yes,” she told them. “You are welcome to discuss with Nova Industries, the private company that owns those technologies, contracting to have those systems installed on Imperial ships.
“However, as Duchess of Terra, I have ruled that these technologies themselves are not permitted to be sold,” she said flatly. “All compressed-matter armor production will be performed here in Sol, as will installation of the other systems they have been working on.
“We can meet your price without sacrificing our future, Speaker Pozan,” she continued. “I would ask us to recess this meeting until tomorrow. Your delegation may want to rest after a long trip, and I need to speak with my staff as to how to arrange your deposit.”
“Of course,” Pozan said, managing a small bow despite his sitting position. “We are here until the installation of the defense constellations is complete, Duchess Bond. We will require your answer and deposit before we leave, but that gives you several cycles to find a current.”
“Thank you, Speaker.”
#
The Duchy of Terra’s Councilors had made their way out of the conference room when Shaza Forel rushed out after them.
“Duchess Bond,” the Indiri female called after Annette. “May I share your current for a few moments, please?”
It took her a moment to translate that to “may I have a few moments of your time?” and Annette was sorely tempted to decline. Shaza Forel looked far too much like Karaz for her to be comfortable with the other sentient.
But she’d also been quite rude to Forel in the meeting, and it seemed that the alien female had some degree of power and control over the Indiri delegation. She sighed.
“Zhao, I presume there are private meeting rooms here as well?” she asked.
“Down that hall,” her treasurer pointed instantly. “Any of the doors.”
“Very well, Representative Forel,” Annette told Shaza. “Colonel Wellesley will accompany us,” she added, waving the tall ex-SSS officer over to her.
Her guards would object if she met anyone alone, and she wasn’t going to let herself be alone with any Indiri, let alone an obvious relative of Karaz Forel!
Forel inclined her head and followed Annette down the hall into the smaller room. It was clear that Zhao’s renovation teams hadn’t made it here yet, as the chairs were older Terran models. Still capable of adjusting to the user, but not of accounting for all the myriad shapes of aliens in the Imperium.
The rest of the room was similar: luxurious but not to the same standard as the main room. The decorations were from the previous occupants, not yet updated for the planet’s government.
Shaza Forel took a seat, shifting to find a comfortable spot as the chair did its best to adapt to her body shape. For a device created without considering the possibility of giant intelligent frogs, it did surprisingly well.
Wellesley fell into “hold up the wall” position next to the door, keeping an eye on the Indiri as Annette took a seat across from her.
“How may I assist you?” she asked as politely as I could.
Forel paused, her tongue quickly flickering in and out in what Annette realized was probably a sign of discomfort.
“Your species is new to us,” she finally said. “Normally, a delegation such as this spends the trip researching culture and body language to avoid giving accidental offense.
“However, the databases for such for your race are still under construction, and I fear we missed something. I seem to have given unintentional offense, and I wanted to both apologize and ask you to clarify, so that future delegations can avoid the error.”
“Would intentional offense be acceptable then?” Annette asked.
“I
t is sometimes a necessary negotiating tactic,” Forel replied. “Not one we intended in this case, Duchess, so I would like to know how I can restore the currents for my offense.”
Annette sighed.
“You did nothing,” she said. That the Indiri had come across as a sleazy payday loan shark hadn’t helped, but it wouldn’t have been a problem on its own. “You reminded me of someone I did…not get along with, that is all. There was no offense.”
“An Indiri offended you in the past?” Forel asked. “Our A!To office will hear about this!”
“Not on A!To,” Annette told her with a sigh. “And not just another Indiri. Another Forel.”
Shaza Forel froze, her tongue snapping fully back into her mouth.
“Explain, please,” she said after a moment’s silence.
“Who is Karaz Forel to you, Representative?” Annette asked instead.
The Indiri was silent for at least ten seconds, her body still frozen.
“Karaz is a brood-cousin,” she said finally. “A smirch on the House’s honor.”
“A pirate, a slaver, a conspirator,” Annette concluded for her.
“I am aware of his crimes,” Forel snapped, the translator carrying her agitation more accurately than she probably wanted. “He flaunts them. Sends us recordings. Makes sure the entire Imperium knows that a scion of the Deepest Houses has betrayed our ideals and codes.
“He swims dark currents, but his path is his own. He is blood and brood, but he does not speak for House Forel!”
Alien body language didn’t translate well. The translators could pick up tone, though, and Forel’s was doing a brilliant job, but the rapid snapping of her tongue and tensing shoulders were left to Annette to interpret.
Fortunately, that kind of fight-or-flight response was among the easiest things to guess.
“He was family,” Annette corrected gently.
There was silence.
“I do not understand,” Shaza Forel finally admitted.
“Karaz Forel is dead. He gave me this”—Annette ran her finger along the scar that crossed her entire face—“and I shot him.”
Duchess of Terra (Duchy of Terra Book 2) Page 20