by Blaze Ward
One more reason the Ministers of the Right and the Left had chosen him.
Around him, Dancer In Darkness purred quietly, a stealthy shark cutting through midnight seas, her triangular portrait designed to be reminiscent of the Caribbean Roughsharks of Winterhome. And the Homeworld that had betrayed her children in the ancient past.
Not this, a mission for Carcharias or Megalodon. Nor for the Threshers. Not even the Hammerheads.
Only the Roughsharks, the silent stalkers, could handle this task. Best that the premier Director be sent with the foremost vessel.
A knock at the shoji interrupted what little remained of Vrin’s meditations. The panel slid open a moment later to reveal his Aide, Otep.
Xi Putaz Laro Otep. A woman as petite to human scale as he was giant, each of them a head removed from average in their own direction. They shared the same straight, black hair, coarse and unruly at times, both of them beginning to fade to gray, although at fifty standard years, he had a decade and a half on the woman who was his left hand. Their eyes both came to the same folded edges.
“Director,” she said patiently, as if unsure his eyes were open in the dim light. “The Advocates await your pleasure.”
Vrin grunted as a placeholder.
There was little the three could say that he did not already know on a crew this small, but the ten-day meetings were both critical to the ongoing health of the crew, and for its morale.
Vrin unfolded his legs from the lotus and rose in a single motion, a monster from forgotten black lagoons appearing suddenly from the night. The lights remained their dimmest, more brightness unnecessary for now.
Something of his mood must have shown through the façade of cast bronze he maintained at all times. Or perhaps Otep knew him that well. She had been his Aide for many years now.
“It will be rapid,” she said. “I will have tea steeped, Director.”
Vrin grunted again and adjusted his outer robes, untying the obi at his waist long enough to draw the cloth tight again and then setting it just so.
If you act professional, it will infect your crew. Treat every day as if Armageddon awaits you. Face it with dignity and a fierce scowl.
The hallway was bright as Korsakov’s noonday sun after his barely-lit meditation chamber. Harsh steel walls, painted in a soft, industrial green intended to sooth the mind on long voyages, jarred him, as they always did, stepping from the silk-covered walls and sumi-e paintings of his inner, personal space.
But they also reset his mind, reminded him that introspection had its place, but that it could not be indulged. Only used, like any other weapon.
The shoji to the Council of Advocates slid open easily. Inside, the two men and one woman who represented Dancer In Darkness.
Ro Malar Arga Rues: War Advocate. A slight man for all his savage ferocity when it came time to transform into a death dealer. Black hair grown long and coiled in delicate, gold clasps between his shoulder blades.
Wa Veren Kulo Marz: Entity Advocate. A woman who was one of the most empathic technicians Vrin had ever encountered, capable of teasing out the slightest deviations and psychological issues in the Ship’s Systems, often before the Entity itself understood. She reminded Vrin of a fisherman’s wife from Korsakov, short, stout, and occasionally braying, but harder than any shark that had ever swum. At the same time, a mother figure for the Entity, a confessor, a disciplinarian.
Ko Serek Evet Khan: Crew Advocate. Kulo’s counterpart in dealing with the small cast of humans who made up the crew, rather than the intelligent systems. In many ways, Evet’s job was easier, since the crew was kept on a shorter leash of behavior, and better trained from birth to serve the Holding. Vrin could see the tall man commanding his own Entity-vessel in another few years, even as young as he was today.
Vrin reminded himself that he had been thirty-three standard years old when he was first promoted to a Directorship, nigh two decades ago.
So, three serious faces. Calm. Competent. Focused.
Determined.
We are all so many light centuries from home.
Vrin slid the shoji shut and took his place on the fourth mat on the floor, not at the point of a diamond, but the anchor of the entire room, with three lesser satellites orbiting his greater station. His legs folded automatically to lotus, bringing his mind with it.
“War Advocate,” Vrin asked bluntly. “What are the risks?”
“Remaining still,” Arga replied. Never aboard ship to use a given name with his Advocates, only the clan crèche. “Something may go wrong with a system and not be picked up until we introduce stress.”
“Solution?” Vrin fired back at the man.
“Retain stillness but engage early enough to work up to battle,” Arga said. “The risk is exposure while closing to the target, as opposed to missing the deadline due to a surprise failure.”
Vrin grunted. Nothing new from the man, but there were only so many ways to clean a mackerel.
“Crew Advocate,” Vrin continued. “What are the ratings?”
Evet drew a breath before speaking, as he normally did. Cogent thought, rather than emotional reaction. A good sign in a future Director.
“Edging towards boredom, Director,” he said. “This is a top crew, and they know it. They have time to relax from the peaks maintained in transit, and are doing so. I am confident they will come to the killing edge again quickly, at need.”
“Proposal?” Vrin asked.
“A slow-drive cruise would work the crew up faster than a hard drop, Director.”
Yes. Yes, it would. And they all knew that. No news.
“Entity Advocate,” Vrin moved to the woman directly before him. “What thinks Dancer In Darkness?”
“Pride, Director,” Kulo said quietly. “The excellence of the crew reflects and reinforces the excellence of the vessel. He was chosen first in his class for this mission and seeks to make you proud of him. At the same time, we are all veterans here, risking everything for the greatest mission in the history of the Holding. This tempers his exuberance, as does the extreme secrecy in which we operate.”
“Resolution?” Vrin growled.
“I am at harmony with the other Advocates, Director,” she said serenely. “A time to idle before the surge to toil will bring Dancer In Darkness to his peak when most needed.”
Vrin nodded individually at the three and rose silently. As Director, it was his decision. The Advocates only proposed within their expertise: a Warrior, a Technician, and a Scholar.
Dancer In Darkness was Vrin’s responsibility.
As was the greatest attack ever ordered by the Lord of Winter.
CHAPTER XXVII
IMPERIAL FOUNDING: 176/010/04. WACHTURM PALACE, OUTSIDE WERDER, ST. LEGIER
When he stopped to think about it, Emmerich supposed that he had accidentally outdone himself with this plan.
If Heike’s wedding were the social event of the entire season, then a small, private dinner for Jessica Keller, with the Imperial family in attendance, most certainly qualified as the most exclusive, most utterly impossible invitation to score available.
At the end of the day, there had been no safe way to expand the seating chart without starting a decade’s worth of ugly recriminations and retaliation from the Grand Dames of Werder. Especially if he left anyone out.
The only moment of panic had been assuaged by Desianna Indah-Rodriguez, still one of the most amazingly dangerous operators he had met across his long career and all the light years they had taken him.
And the spies were still fools, unable to admit to themselves that the woman truly was Keller’s right hand, her trusted confident, in ways that Hendrik Baumgärtner was his own.
Dare they invite Torsten Wald? Single him out? Risk?
No. Desianna had been right. Two families, and Keller’s party. Nobody else. Nothing that might expand the circle of repercussions.
Emmerich took a moment to address himself in the mirror.
Tall. Strong.
>
Present.
In better shape than he had been in two decades.
Back to the being the dreaded Red Admiral, after he had lost something.
He knew that now.
It had taken Keller rubbing his face in it to drive the point home hard enough to induce the necessary introspection. And then nearly three years of consideration to find that spark that he had lost.
Emmerich smiled to himself, remembering that moment it had returned. The fire it lit in Freya’s eyes, with nothing more than a kiss.
Emmerich tugged at his jacket, making sure everything was just so.
He could have worn mufti tonight. Freya had suggested it, to make the night a more relaxed affair. Certainly, everyone else would be dressed in their finest civilian attire.
But he wanted to say something to Jessica. Somehow thank her, through all the hatred that had once engulfed him, for bringing him back to himself.
Tonight, the Day Uniform of an Admiral of the Red.
But more than that.
The Red Admiral.
Conqueror. Scholar. Paladin.
And not the dress uniform, with all the silly fripperies that staff weenies had added over the ages.
No. Simple maroon. Double-breasted. Shoulder boards and two bands around the wrists done in gold. Nine brushed-chrome buttons from hip to shoulder on each side.
Brand new in the last six months as he had lost another five kilos of belly and added ten around the shoulders with a return to lifting weights in the morning after a long walk.
He wasn’t even sure Keller would appreciate the depth of changes that had resulted from her pushing him off of that cliff. But he needed to honor her.
Nothing less would do, especially if the war was truly over, at least for their lifetimes.
He had been lost.
Blind.
The door connecting his dressing room to Freya’s opened and the sun rose.
Like many Imperial Ladies, she was tall. Heels brought her nearly to eye-level with him.
If he was a near-mirror of Johannes, Freya was an obvious cousin of Kati, so much so that Casey and Heike looked like sisters.
Tonight, Freya wore an elegant gown in a silk so fine that it might be gold, or bronze, or cream, depending on the polarization of the light reflecting.
She walked close silently, wrapping one arm around his waist and leaning her entire self against him. A mermaid draped across the rocks.
He luxuriated in her warmth as his own arm slid around her back, lightly caressing the exposed skin he found there.
No words, just a quick kiss. Warm and promising.
He sighed and shifted backwards. Not much, but enough to break the intimacy before he lost track of the time and got lost in kissing this woman.
Most Imperial gentlemen were expected to escort a Lady on their elbow. Heike still rolled her eyes at these new-found teenagers, holding hands and giggling when they walked.
But the guests would be here soon. Joh, Kati, Ekke, Steffi, Casey.
zu Arlo. zu Kermode. Desianna.
Jessica Keller.
Fleet Centurion. Wildgraf. Queen.
The Red Admiral took a deep breath.
Dare he believe that he and Jessica Keller could be friends?
CHAPTER XXVIII
DATE OF THE REPUBLIC OCTOBER 4, 398 WACHTURM PALACE, OUTSIDE WERDER, ST. LEGIER
Jessica fought down the fidgets while riding in the back of the private car transporting her and her friends to the Wachturm palace, as the great, gray beast rolled to a stop in the large circular driveway. In the back of her mind, this evening’s affair felt like the entire reason she had been brought to St. Legier, regardless of whatever cover stories were spun about a fairy tale wedding.
Wachturm wanted something from her. She would make him pay dearly to get it.
She flashed back to that night aboard Baxter and Kali-ma when sleep had eluded her. Wheels within wheels. Was she the saber or the main-gauche? This was too big to be merely a dinner. The guest list alone guaranteed that.
Someone would be using her to get back at someone else.
Who?
A steward in a dark suit appeared at the rear door to the vehicle and opened it with a polite, friendly smile on his face. Willow was already standing next to him, having combat-dropped out of the front door even before movement stopped. Marcelle slid out first, in dark gray pants and tunic like Willow’s, designed to make both women disappear from conscious view when they stopped moving.
Desianna let the steward hand her down from the vehicle next, dressed to the nines in a lavender and black dress, with gold trim to show off her black hair and dark skin. Moirrey and Vo next in the choreography, until Jessica found herself alone in the back of the transport for the briefest second.
She took the moment to center herself, pushing everything down and inward, as she did just before bringing the fighting robot on-line. Draw on all that rage and compress it like a fire diamond. More than a year of her life functionally lost on this fool’s errand into possibly the heart of darkness itself.
And yet…
What if the Eternal War was really over? Did that mean she had won, at last?
Jessica knew her own efforts over the last five years had hurt them, at least as hard as First War Fleet, and millions of others in the Republic, but why now? What had changed after Thuringwell that Fribourg was suddenly willing to draw a line on a map and honor it?
Or had Emmerich come to understand what could happen after Thuringwell, if the war continued?
The implications had all been there, what she could do, written in the language of their own, personal war. Perhaps he had been able to convince Karl, and the Imperial structure, that she was finally enough of a threat that they needed to retreat behind their walls and hope Aquitaine could keep her on a short enough leash, for a long enough time, to rebuild all the damage she had done?
Certainly, Corynthe was too far away for her to actively threaten Fribourg from there. And far too poor, even as the economy had grown at a rate of over ten percent per standard year since she had ascended the throne and broken the Captains to her will.
Peace and trade were suddenly becoming things in Corynthe, but the taxes to support a major war fleet, even a junkyard version like she was slowly mothballing as Aquitaine built her new hulls, that was beyond her capability.
Today.
But tomorrow…
So much unknown. Unsaid. Unpredictable.
And she was about to have a personal dinner with the Red Admiral, his Duchess Freya, Emperor Karl VII, and two extended families.
Jessica took a breath, ran her hands down her tunic to straighten it, and slid sideways to starboard. She let the young man with the nice smile give her a hand out.
At least this transport was high enough that she didn’t have to climb up, or flash too much leg. She was wearing an outfit so far outside of her normal fashion sense that most of her team had blinked in surprise when she emerged from her suite. Everyone except Moirrey, her sister ever the instigator.
It was a pull-over top in white cloth, almost skin-tight in all the right places, with a navy blue cloth backing underneath that bled through when the light was bright enough. Nearly knee-length, with two centimeters of that backing blue fabric wrapped around every edge as color. It was slashed upward over the front of each thigh, with two hand-sized triangles of cloth cut out at the bottom, showing the gray leggings she wore. The only color on the dress other than the edging were a pair of blue stripes, each that same centimeter wide, that came up from the tops of the cutouts, ran along her hipbones and just outside her nipples before flaring back and coming to points underneath her arms, where the lines on each side matched lines coming up her back.
The cuffs ran high intentionally on her wrists, and open, with the same edge around the bottom as well as the opening, where she could button them if she wanted.
On her feet, knee-high boots, in a formless, blue-gray leather with zippered seams
on the inside, completed the outfit.
Jessica had generally kept her hair long, but not as long as it had been. Enough to braid occasionally, but mostly she kept it tied back.
Tonight, it was loose, brushed up and over her left ear and around the right side, almost the exact opposite of what Moirrey had done two nights ago. Large silver earrings dangled and complimented a matching silver necklace with a blue-stone pendant.
Moirrey had assured her that it would qualify as high fashion meets practical, while showing off her legs and her bum. The women who knew her had been shocked. The men assigned to her palace staff had been almost lustful. Even Vo Arlo had reacted for the briefest moment, before retreating behind the iron shell he maintained around himself at all times.
That had been the biggest surprise. But Jessica knew Moirrey was an expert at these things. If Vo twitched, they had managed something special.
Certainly, the reaction from the stewards on the porch was similar. The other two women had arrived lavish and beautiful. Jessica’s outfit had simply gone right past them.
As she had intended.
Jessica found Emmerich Wachturm at the top of the short stone staircase, just outside of the immense double door to his palace.
He was dressed in red.
The Crimson Hawk.
Fribourg’s most dangerous commander, in a clean, formal Day uniform that made him look twenty years younger. Not as toned and powerful as Vo Arlo, but scarcely any men were. And Wachturm had lost the middle-aged middle and added a good chunk of it back to the shoulders, looking like the Captain Wachturm who had been such a scourge two decades past.
Jessica smiled as his face lit up. She climbed to his level, her party in tow, and stood before this man who was a little taller than most, perhaps 185 or 187 centimeters tall. Nearly a head taller than her, even if her boots added a finger of sole underneath.
Wachturm bowed, formally, and stood relaxed before her.
Jessica could not remember Emmerich Wachturm ever being this relaxed in her presence.