St. Legier

by Blaze Ward

  “I am a foreigner welcomed into your lands,” he growled. “But I swore an oath. The same oath the many men around me did. To uphold the crown again all threats. All threats. And they have killed my Emperor. Our Emperor. But they also killed a great many of your friends, your relatives, your countrymen. There was a young woman, Annette Fuchs, who was like a daughter to me, after her father, Walter, helped me save the Empire the first time. She was sixteen years old and filled with joy and love. I will never dance at her wedding. And for that, I will visit unto Buran a most terrible wrath.”

  Vo let the tears run down his face now. Stopping them, denying them, would hurt more than letting these people know his loss. He felt like one of the ancient gods of destruction, come to earth and given an avenging incarnation. And he was.

  “But that is a task for tomorrow,” Vo continued, breathing slowly enough that his voice didn’t crack and fail. “Today, I need your love. All of it. Scientists estimate that more than twenty million people were killed in the initial attack. Another two hundred million are at risk now, because their entire lives, their entire world, has been shattered. In many cases, they have literally nothing but the clothes on their backs. They have watched death claim their families, their friends, and total strangers in the aftermath.”

  More breathing. More tears as well, but that wasn’t stopping anytime soon.

  “I need you,” Vo implored. “I need your love. I need you to open your churches, your schools, and your homes to total strangers who have nothing at all left except life. The devastation around Werder will be generations healing, and I need to save as many people as I can. But I cannot coordinate something so large. Nobody can. I need you to come together, in your kirks, your fraternal organizations, your towns, and figure out how you can help. How many of the lost you can feed, can shelter, can rebuild, while I try to simply find them all and get them to you, to safety. There will be retribution. I will bear the sword that destroys Buran, if it is the last thing I do. I cannot make good your loss, but I will never allow it to occur again. That much I promise.”

  Vo stopped there. He had nothing left. Nothing at all.

  Reese saw that. Understood.

  The little red light went out and the lights in the studio came up to daylight.

  Vo’s hands hurt.

  He looked down and realized that he had unconsciously gripped the metal of the lectern hard enough to torque fingermarks into the thin steel.

  And he was crying.

  But Reese was crying as well. So were all the other men visible.

  Tears were necessary. To mourn a good man. And the millions of innocents lost.

  Before the 189th would be allowed to come for Buran’s soul.

  Part 3

  Emperess

  Chapter XIX

  Date of the Republic Nov 19, 401 DH Vanguard, Forward Base Delta

  Jessica smiled at the man, perhaps taking a bit too much advantage at his discomfort. She liked the way he kept tugging at those perfectly-tailored, white sleeves, as though the fit was wrong. But then, she didn’t suppose Torsten Wald had ever spent the florins necessary to have a uniform like that. Nor had someone like Vibol Harmaajärvi do the work.

  Jessica might have sent Amala Bhattacharya to St. Legier with the Khan, but she had kept The Tailor, once she had come to understand the man’s genius for draping cloth.

  She supposed that Torsten just wasn’t prepared to live his life in white. As an Imperial Captain, the man had worn a blue jacket for a decade.

  But Em had insisted.

  If Forward Base Delta was going to officially remain part of the Imperial war effort, it needed an Imperial officer in command, even if only technically. On paper, as it were, while Arott Whughy did the work. He would act as Chairman of the Board, while Whughy continued as Chief Executive.

  And so, Torsten Wald, Imperial Admiral of the White.

  They were alone in his cabin, preparing to join the others for dinner. She leaned close enough to kiss him. Because she could. And because she liked the idea of kissing him. Torsten treated every kiss like it might be the last.

  Jessica had never been cherished.

  She grinned as she leaned back, matching his smile. He shifted just enough to present an elbow, always the Imperial gentleman.

  “Shall we, Fleet Centurion?” he asked with a humorous lilt, referring to her own white tunic.

  “Certainly, Admiral,” she fired back across his bow, watching the impact the words had on him, even now. The way his eyes grew both serious and proud at the same time.

  Jessica supposed she and Torsten looked as bad as Yan and da Vinci some days, but she wouldn’t trade.

  No, not da Vinci. Ainsley. The woman had made good her threat to retire at the Brevet Command Centurion rank, plus an honorarium awarded by the Senate, and gone into business with Jessica’s second-favorite pirate/design genius.

  One of these days, Jessica had to introduce Pops Nakamura to Imperial society. Make good the threat of an open design competition for naval architecture. Set a budget and revel in the outcome. Suck in all the talent in the near galaxy, perhaps as far as the Spinward Reaches, for new design aesthetic.

  Tomorrow.

  Tonight, a celebration.

  She took Torsten’s arm and pressed it against her side as they walked.

  The wardroom had been cleared and cleaned. Dinner by invitation only. There would be a larger party tomorrow on the actual date, but tonight, something smaller and special: a birthday dinner for Denis Jež.

  Birthdays weren’t a thing that was generally marked in Aquitaine with a celebration. Certainly not very formally. They had welcomed him to forty a year ago with a petít occasion, but they had been in route to Trusski and a final battle at the time.

  This year, Casey had insisted. Fribourg put more weight on birthday events, and Denis had turned into something like her second favorite uncle, after Emmerich Wachturm. She had declared that there would be an Occasion.

  Robbie Aeliaes was already there supervising things when she and Torsten arrived. Alber’ d’Maine was apparently in the middle of a hilarious story with Tamara Strnad and Arott Whughy, based on the gales of laughter. Kigali and Nina Vanek were talking off to one side, heads leaned in like conspirators planning an assassination, while Vilis Ozolinsh and Navin the Black were already seated and enjoying themselves immensely, each with a glass of wine, sharing a cheese plate.

  People who had been with her for a long time, since she first took command of the Strike Carrier Auberon. But more importantly, people who had generally known Denis longer. Everyone was here except Tamara.

  Torsten grabbed two glasses of wine from a roving steward and handed her one with a grin. She breathed in the calm, festive air of her senior commanders and smiled. Her Merry Men, as Nils Kasum had christened the group privately, back when he was still First Lord of the Fleet.

  The force had taken a small break from the high operational tempo of the last several months. Trading the badly-damaged Star Controller for a brand new Heavy Dreadnaught had let Jessica make devastating attack runs on less well-defended systems: blowing up empty stations, looming suddenly overhead, chasing off badly-outclassed patrol forces, all across Buran’s invasion front.

  It would be even more interesting in another few months, when Yan Bedrov’s new fast strike bomber design would finish testing and enter service. Turning II Augusta into a true Strike Carrier would let Jessica plan even more audacious campaigns.

  So tonight, they could relax.

  The main hatch opened and Casey escorted Denis into the room. She might be on his arm, like Jessica was Torsten’s, but he was obviously just along for the ride. Casey practically glowed with excitement.

  “My friends, the guest of honor,” Casey announced, beaming.

  Denis accepted their congratulations and ribbing with equal aplomb. Like Torsten, he wore white tonight, marking this as an Imperial thing.

  It was odd to Jessica, watching the two cultures, blood enem
ies for so long, slowly transform into a genial, if fractious, family. She hoped that Yuur Ul might be able to work some of his own merry magic on the Imperials, opening a path for relations that didn’t involve guns. War was unnecessary, but while Fribourg had learned that there were other options, the deathless Sentience in control of The Holding still carried on with his implacable mission measured in centuries.

  Jessica banished those thoughts as stewards got everyone seated around the single table in the center of the room. Wine and anti-pasti, and good conversation, were the order of the day. Soon enough, they would ramp things back up.

  Torsten was on her right. Kigali had ended up on her left.

  “How soon until we make a pass at Samara?” he open the conversation innocently.

  You had to know the man to see the fire in his eyes. Alber’ was on the end next to Kigali, facing Casey down the length of the table. He always had that fire.

  Jessica wasn’t fooled. Neither were any of the others. They heaped good-natured scorn on the idea.

  “You could just starve them out, Tom,” Arott teased. “Without the Pochtovyi Trakt, the postal road of beacons that we’ve been steadily blowing up, they might get lost.”

  Kigali snorted with derision.

  “You can’t starve a planet, Arott,” Robbie joined in. “At least not for food. Parts, maybe, since they don’t have a big drydock yard close, and would have to run a gauntlet, but this Buran. There’s nothing they do better than that.”

  “How soon until they start to abandon some of their newer colonies?” Nina spoke up.

  She was still a tiny woman, an almost-ethereal redhead just over the minimum height and weight requirements to remain in the fleet. But there was nothing small about the woman’s mind or personality. She was Denis’s First Officer because she wanted to be here, on the front line, rather than off commanding her own cruiser on a quieter frontier, or teaching tactics somewhere.

  All of them were like that. Serving in First Expeditionary Fleet because it was where the action was. They wouldn’t have come if they weren’t all warriors.

  Even Arott had learned to relax, given enough time.

  “Understand that they work on decadal or generational scales, Nina,” Jessica began.

  The woman nodded, but her question hadn’t been born of ignorance. Rather, insatiable curiosity. What she needed to prepare for over the next year.

  In battle, Nina commanded Vanguard. And could give Kigali or Alber’ a run for ferocity.

  She was still one of the best Tactical Officers Jessica knew.

  “We’ve been at this barely a year, and before that, Buran had been slowly, inexorably, pushing Fribourg back for perhaps as long as fifty years,” Jessica continued. “By now, we have their attention, and we’re starting to force The Eldest to dance to our tune. But he has been in command over there for millennia. They won’t give up any ground easily. That’s in their nature. Push into any opening, and then hold against all pressure.”

  “So we need a bigger lever?” Arott asked. “Who’s mind do we have to change?”

  He and Nina were the two that went strategic, when the others were generally experts on the tactical.

  “According to Yuur Ul, our renegade Minister of the Eighth Rank, the decision comes from the very top,” Jessica said. “But it must be interpreted and enacted at the layers below that.”

  “The Mandarins?” Vilis inquired.

  Oz represented the bluest of blue-blood in Aquitaine. Direct descent from several of the Fifty Families, the group that had helped Henri Baudin found the Republic, four centuries ago. But for a love of engineering and tinkering, he would have never stayed long in the fleet.

  His accent was the crispest of elite, the wealthiest of the very rich. Even if he was still a practical joker on a scale with Moirrey, some days.

  “Those four, and the Ministers of the First Rank,” Jessica agreed.

  The Holding was a function of Scholars, not Warriors, as Ul had told them. The Eldest spoke, having access to vast databanks of historical and current information input from all directions. Four Mandarins interpreted and directed: The Minister of the Left Interior, The Minister of the Right Interior, The Minister of the Left Facet, the Minister of the Right Facet.

  Below them, a few hundred Ministers of the First Rank listened and commanded. A few thousand Ministers of the Second Rank executed, the scale growing decimally, all the way down to Ministers of the Eighth Rank, as Yuur Ul had been, as Khan of Trusski.

  A conservative society, conditioned by a lifetime of service to the deathless god in charge. Stubborn. Ruthless. But also efficient.

  Jessica knew she would only beat them by destroying that efficiency, that harmony that the ancients called Wa. Introducing chaos into their careful plans.

  Look what she had achieved on Trusski.

  Not all planets would react as well, but Jessica understood that.

  “Trusski,” Casey said aloud, as if reading her mind. “And all the raids along this frontier. It’s Cahllepp, all over again, but I’m missing something.”

  “You can drive a rat crazy faster with a random selection of punishments and rewards than you can a diet of steady punishment,” Denis, of all people, spoke up. “As Jessica reminds us. Not every station gets destroyed. We even decided to steal that one. And sometimes, we just drop small radio satellites into orbit that play music at them. At least until someone destroys them after we leave.”

  “What will the Red Admiral, that crazy bitch, do next?” Robbie grinned as he spoke.

  The rest laughed. It felt good to laugh with these people. And drink wine. And belong.

  Torsten squeezed her hand and everything was good with the universe.

  Not all of Moirrey’s Mischief involved blowing things up, although she had never slacked on that frontier. Music station satellites. Orbital fireworks that made pretty designs in somebody’s night sky, especially if fired inward from the edge of a solar system on the tip of an invisible, ballistic missile, to arrive silently, weeks later.

  And, on two occasions, javelins dropped into somebody’s back yard, as a reminder that Keller Marie Jessica was a Warrior, and would be coming for them, eventually.

  Never forget that part.

  Keller was coming for you, one of these days.

  With Torsten by her side, she could do anything.

  Chapter XX

  Imperial Founding: 179/12/07. IFV Indianapolis, Forward Base Delta

  “Sir, we’re being challenged,” a voice broke into Em’s reverie. “RAN VI Ferrata and escorts.”

  “Put them on the main screen,” he ordered, glancing around at the faces he could see on the ship’s flag bridge.

  Bedrov had been right. Being able to look these men in the eyes had made it much easier to work. Em silently cursed all the conservative ideas he had clung to for much of his naval career, unwilling to adapt to things until forced. In that, Bedrov & Keller had done him an immense favor.

  Em glanced over at Bedrov and Barret, seated off to one side as… He supposed Witnesses was as good a term as any. There would need to be many.

  Today, he would repay the rest of the men around him for the duty they had embraced so willingly, so unquestioningly on the flight here, dropping into the middle of empty space at nothing more than a set of coordinates when they had wanted to be home at St. Legier, helping. He could have retreated to an office to talk to Robbie Aeliaes, but these men deserved to know the whole truth. It had only been rumors up until now.

  Operational Security at the highest level possible.

  A face filled the main screen. It wasn’t the man Em had been expecting.

  Then his brain registered that Indianapolis would look like a threat, arriving off-schedule and without prior clearance. Even an Imperial warship. Command Centurion Aeliaes would have put his Tactical Officer in charge. Guns armed and sailors ready to kill.

  Senior Centurion Harden Glenraven. Hardie. She was close enough to her commander in looks tha
t many people had expected them to be siblings. Em had made that mistake, the first time.

  “This is a secured zone, Indianapolis,” she announced in a flat, challenging voice.

  She reminded Em of Alber’ d’Maine that way. Cold, ruthless, unforgiving. Another of the warriors drawn into Jessica’s gravity well. The toughest, meanest force in the galaxy, as far as he could tell. Certainly, the best.

  First Expeditionary Fleet.

  “I’m aware of that, Glenraven,” Em answered simply. “I need you to round up the key players and get them aboard the station as soon as feasible. I have news that I am unwilling to transmit, even encrypted.”

  A moment of silence after the signal arrived over there five seconds later. Further yet to the bigger dots of light representing Vanguard and the station itself.

  Em watched her eyes grow shrewd. She glanced off to one side with a flicker, returned her attention to him like a mongoose hunting.

  “Acknowledged, Grand Admiral,” she replied after a beat.

  The screen went dark. Em took a breath.

  “Captain Kingston,” Em spoke in a loud, commanding voice. “Prepare a shuttle with yourself, your senior officers, and an escort detail with your color guard to accompany me. We’ll be raising the Imperial Standard on my return.”

  There was no cheering. Normally, men would applaud to be aboard a vessel transporting the Emperor. Today, they just sat a little straighter, shoulders back and heads up.

  There was honor in duty, but every one of these men would have gladly not had to be here, Em included.

  Tomorrow would be worse.

  Chapter XXI

  Date of the Republic Dec 7, 401 Forward Base Delta

  In the four hours it had taken to arrange everything, Jessica had snuck off and had a quick nap, a shower, and a snack. It wasn’t her station being subject to a surprise inspection from the Grand Admiral, nor one of her ships. And Denis and Arott would be happier not having her underfoot.