"I never had the chance to be the girl I want to be. Never spent more than a few hours letting my female side free. I never claimed to understand it all, but I am not ever going to marry anyone. I don't know what I am, so how could I expect anyone else to know?" I pointed upward. "When I am out there it does not matter, I sat in that chair, Uncle Egill. There, I know beyond any doubts who and what I am. I will command a ship one day, a ship of my own and this was and will be my goal. I will tell her that, but I am not going to lie."
"Yes Eric, maybe you are right. The truth is best after all and before you do that, let me say I am proud of you, very much so."
He turned his head and I knew he used Psionics to call Sif and she got up from her seat and came over.
Elfi was unquestionably beautiful and looked very regal in her Saran gown, but Sif was just as regal, just as beautiful and she looked every inch like a Valkyrie, a Norse goddess. The black leather suit made by a master fitter of the trade, fit her like a second skin, the silver snapper fur collar of her cape encased her shoulders in a very attractive way. She wore it wide open giving anyone a look at a deep neckline and an eye-catching cleavage. Her straw-blonde, long hair hung in thick triple-waved braids, hinting at the gorgeous length her hair would have when unfurled. Her face carried the clean crisp lines of her old clan. She didn't even notice the looks she received from men all around us. Her hand was resting on the hilt of a broadsword, adding a hint of danger and readiness, adding to her commanding appearance.
She had become an adult; there was no doubt about it. I gestured to a set of double doors that led to a balcony outside so we could talk undisturbed.
The two bright moons of Pluribus painted long streaks of light over the shimmering waves of the now dark ocean. As always, the sight of water and the fresh air made me want to simply jump and take a long swim.
She looked at me and I turned to return her gaze. After a few moments, I tried to keep my voice steady. I said, "I am not sure how to say this, Sif. I was not prepared to say anything until Egill asked me to."
She nodded and her eyes glittered and it was more than just the reflection of the Crystal Palace. "It is quite a while since we talked. I did some very bad things when I came here to Pluribus… I am sorry."
"You are not the only one who gets into trouble. I seem to have a special talent for that."
"I am so confused Eric. I still don't like men, but with you, I can't make up my mind… with you, I remember there is Freya too! And now you are in love with a real Princess and we all witnessed some sort of engagement tonight, right?"
"No Sif, I am not engaged with Elfi. She is a good friend and nothing more or less. I am not the marrying kind. I would reject her if she had such plans. I am married to the Fleet, Sif. I am already in love with the starship I will hopefully one day command. This is my goal and my only desire and any other ties would only get in the way, Sif."
She sighed deeply and a tear streaked down her cheek. "I am sure Egill told you to say that, but I know it is the truth. You are many things, but you are as honest as a Norse can be and I know I needed to hear that Eric. I will cry over this but I'll be all right tomorrow. Seeing you tonight also reminded me of my promise I made to Astrid on the day of her funeral. I had forgotten it, but no longer."
"I am sure you will find your way, Sif, and I know the person that deserves your love is already out there somewhere, all you have to do is meet him or her."
She kissed me and then said, "Wait here!"
It took only moments and she came back with Elena and my lovely sister carried a basket and said, "We were not sure you would be here, but Exa insisted we come prepared." She handed me the basket. "With greetings from home, there is a hot keeper jar with fin stew made by Midrill and fresh Nilfeheim bread."
I swallowed and hugged them both. "Where is Exa anyway?"
"She left with the Schwartz family, the evil tycoon turned out to be a nice man after all. She somehow managed to get him to take her to the premiere of the Unicorn Experience. It's some new attraction every teen girl has dreamed about for months now."
Egill joined us on the balcony. "It is also time for us to leave, we must rise early to make sure the Nilfeheim Delegation finds their way safely off planet. Some of them are here for the first time and are a little overwhelmed by the entire Pluribus experience."
While he spoke, a black Volo-flyer had approached silently, most likely responding to a signal of Egill and they boarded it after another round of hugs.
I watched until the flyer was very small against the horizon.
"Your sisters are very beautiful!" I turned and saw Har-Hi coming from the entrance.
"Yes, I think so too!" Then I turned. "I didn't know you were here! Come, I must introduce you to Narth!"
"We arrived just ahead of you and that dragon beast riding stunt of yours. If anyone knows how to make an entrance, it's you!"
"It wasn't my idea. Elfi's mother has strange ideas but she is a queen and all that!"
He chuckled. "I know what happened, Elfi told me just a few moments ago. You almost knocked the thing out and screamed at it like a misaligned plasma vent."
"I didn't knock it out, I tapped it with the flat side of the sword."
Har-Hi chuckled even more. "That poor Ammutherathi probably needs counseling now. Come, Eric, before I meet your friend, let me introduce you to my father and my mother is here also, but don't talk to her first!"
INTERLUDE: STAHL
Stahl got up and Alycia said, "Are you leaving?"
He smiled at her. "Not just yet, I thought now that most of the bigwigs are gone and the band is playing nice old Earth tunes, I'll get up and ask you for a dance."
She got up just a little too fast to appear dignified and with a deep smile, said, "You truly are a master tactician, old man. A simple offer and all my defenses are obliterated."
They joined a few other couples already dancing, almost all of them humans knowing the old music.
"I think it is you who is the master of tactics here!" he said to the woman. "Only you know I like this type of music. I bet the orchestra leader had specific orders."
"A girl has to do what a girl has to do!"
"Will you come along when we leave in three days?" he asked her.
"No, I need to be here for a while. The Diamond Ball draws them near like moths to the light, the assassins and terrorists and the insane. We caught more this year than ever before."
"I thought the Union was stable and the general public is as content as can be?"
"Of course and they are, you know better than anyone how big our Union has become. There is no way we can please everyone. For a political system with so many different cultures, keeping a government approval rating of over 95% without being a police state or a dictatorship is an achievement unprecedented in any history we know of and the numbers haven't changed much in over 500 years."
He swirled her around and showed he was a good dancer. "Yes I know all this of course, I was just wondering because you said there were more this year."
"Not only did we add 1500 more talents to the Psi Corps this year, we have eight Narth, now as fully integrated agents. Our best agents can scan a crowd for so called trigger thoughts, the Narth agents scanned all Pluribus before I could even finish my explanation. The reason I am so busy is that we followed more leads than ever. You know of course, that your Midshipmen have foiled a big problem right here."
Stahl gasped. "I have seen Eric the entire time, what did he do?"
"Your wonder boy did nothing tonight. He behaved very nicely. It was Midshipman Wetmouth who caught a group of Sin 4 assassins with Shaill pheromone gas and knocked the living daylights out of six of them before they even knew what hit them, and Midshipman Mao Vouza caught the one that almost got away, complete with a real and active spore bomb in the basement. It's not just Eric, it looks like other Midshipmen of your big ship are just as amazing. Maybe you should introduce them to your protégé, they could be a great team.
"
The old Admiral swirled her around once more with a deep smile. "You are supposed to know things, my beautiful witch. Look over there. Right next to Eric, that is Hans Neugruber, a Saturnian, the Dai Har-Hi is the son of the Dai Lord, there is Krabbel, Cirruit, Mao Vouza, Elfirata the princess. The black guy introducing the Zulu King to the Dai Lord is Shaka, his son. The only one missing is Wetmouth but that is the Olafson Gang and the Narth that stands on Eric's other side is no official member yet, but belongs to that group as well. Each one of them is quite remarkable, together they manage to amaze me every day and that isn't as easy as it sounds."
She stared over there and then into his rugged, heroic face. "And you have put them together!"
"I had a hand in it yes, but I had no idea they would work out together, they went beyond anything I expected. I had some luck to find one or the other, but not 10 at the same time."
"What are you going to do with them once they graduate?"
"The other old man had an idea and I think it is the best he had in decades."
Chapter 14: Thauran Politics
Encyclopedia Galactica:
During the early history of the United Stars of the galaxy, colonization was greatly encouraged and heavily sponsored by the government. A large group of human colonists, consisting of Terran and Pan Sarans, left for a newly surveyed garden world in the Upward Sector and not too distant from the then still very small Union Territory.
Upon arrival to that world, conditions were not as the survey reports promised and the colonists decided to go on and find another more suitable world on their own. After a long odyssey, that led the 14 colonist ships far into the then completely unexplored Spinward Sector and much further away from the Union as they originally had planned, their ships had almost completely exhausted their energy supplies and were too far for Union communication channels. The colonists found a suitable world and called it Thauran, named after Rene Thauran, the colonists' elected leader.
The colony thrived without any contact with the Union and eventually spread over 11 star systems and 17 planets. The Thauran colonists developed their own culture, technology and adopted their own brand of a hereditary noble system. A king rules each of the Thauran planets and they are in turn answerable to the Emperor.
Contact with the United Stars of the galaxy was reestablished only 600 years ago and the Thauran Empire opted to stay independent until the Y'All Invasion. Facing the seemingly unstoppable invaders from another galaxy, the Thauran Empire joined the United Stars.
The local laws and government stayed as it was and little has changed for the average Thauran citizen.
Thauran lore took the notion of being of blue blood quite literally and used genetic manipulation from early on to create blue skin, today almost all Thauran feature blue skin in various shades.
The Thauran representative is not elected but appointed by the Emperor.
Intricate and complicated internal politics among the noble houses is still at the core of everything Thauran.
Midshipman Suppor, or actually Namamir of the Suppor Clan, was not at all pleased with the development so far. All the things he had done and all the preparations made that allowed him to be here at this event had not led to the result he had hoped for.
The famous Diamond Ball was nearly over and many of the VIPs had left.
Emperor Soron the Fifth was still here and so were other important members of the ruling noble clans, but he had no idea how much longer they would remain.
He could not simply go over to the table of the Emperor, especially since he was still on duty as a Midshipman and had to be present at the Captain's table. Captain Harris had not dismissed him and due to his low rank, he could not request to leave.
Just now Captain Harris was making motions that he wanted to return to the ship and that meant all chances to be seen by the nobles of his world were gone.
That cursed primate from that backwater world Nilfeheim; that cursed upstart Olafson had been at the table of the queens!
Eric had arrived in a sickening show display, escorting a Saran princess no less. That the princess was Elfi, Eric's friend and his shipmate did not come to his mind; a princess living through the rigors and humiliations of Academy training was unthinkable to him, but he suspected the Saran member of the Olafson Gang had something to do with Eric meeting the Princess.
He whispered with an angry hiss in his voice to Lt. Clusen. "Ademan, do something! By the Blessed Blue Virgin, I promise your mother will be executed and not reinstated. Must I remind you, that your family must obey the House of Suppor?"
"There is not much I can do at the moment." The Lieutenant responded, keeping his voice down as well. Ademan Clusen tried to ignore the burning, demanding stare of the Thauran Midshipman and while he pretended to listen to the boring monolog one of the guests at the Captain's table gave, he thought about the history of his home world and how he ended up in this situation.
He came from a world called Hardwock, one of 17 planets belonging to the Thauran Empire. Hardwock was on the fringes of the old Thauran Empire and most of its inhabitants had no or very little of the blue skin shade that was so important to their culture.
Even though the House Suppor had fallen in terms of importance and influence, it was still one of the Old Lines and while Namamir Suppor and his family had lost much, the name and the house still had much influence and power on Hardwock.
During the succession war of 4619, local nobles fought bitterly among each other as to who would ascend to the Azure Throne and be the next king of Hardwock.
The Hardwock family Uhrim was supported by the back-then powerful Thauran House of Suppor and prevailed against the others. Uhrim kings had occupied the Azure Throne ever since. The Uhrim in turn, granted lands and fiefdoms on Hardwock to the Suppors.
His family, the House of Clusen, did not openly participate in the succession wars, but were accused later on nevertheless, and the new king gave the Suppors the right of exploitation of half of all products mined, farmed and manufactured on the lands owned by the Clusens and they gained the right to appoint judges to the courts of Hardwock.
Union law meant little when it came to local decisions, even though there now was a Union police station on Hardwock and they did investigate murders and capital crimes, but a local death penalty issued by a local judge against a local criminal was neither murder nor their business.
Oh, why did his mother have to bed a commoner, a stablehand of all things? True, his mother was known for her sexual appetites, but a stablehand? Clusen hated his father even more than he hated his mother and he wasn't sorry that his mother had sent his father to the block, for stealing hams.
Mother did raise him in luxury and soon married an influential count, his new stepfather. However, the Count did not like the teenage son of a thief and banned him from the family house.
Clusen left Hardwock as soon as he could and joined the Fleet.
His mother again managed to become a widow, as the Count had a fatal hunting accident. Again she tried to hide Ademan's true heritage and declared him heir, but then mother fell out of favor at court and was incarcerated in her own palace for suspicion of committing murder and killing her own husband.
All it took was the word of Namamir Suppor and his mother would be freed, reinstated and he then would be the next Baron of Clusen.
It was pure chance that Suppor came aboard the Devi.
Of course the two knew of each other and Suppor sent favorable reports to his family in return for little favors. Clusen was well aware that he had given this blue-skinned bastard full control after he accepted to do those little favors. This was the reason why a Midshipman could demand anything he wanted from a Union Fleet Lieutenant.
Clusen was interrupted in his brooding as Captain Harris finally got up and said his farewells to the guests at his table. He then turned to his officers and said, "It is time for us to return to the Devastator." He then looked directly at Suppor. "I was reminded that there
is a delegation of Thauran nobles still attending and perhaps you would like to exchange a few words with them. Therefore, I am giving you extended shore leave until tomorrow night."
Captain Harris gave the round a last nod and left without further conversation.
Suppor could not believe his luck and hastily attached his family crest to his sleeves and then said to Clusen, "Let us try to salvage the situation. It seems we didn't kill and cheat to get here for nothing after all."
Ademan followed the Suppor noble at a respectful distance. At this moment he was no longer Namamir's commanding officer, but simply a lowly lackey.
Suppor paid little attention to Ademan and while he tried to come up with a reason to get closer to the table where the Emperor and his entourage were sitting he was thinking about his own situation. He had not joined the Union Academy on his own wishes.
Namamir had two brothers and two sisters.
His oldest brother Haromir, was unfit to be the next ruler of the House. He was a compulsive gambler with not much skill to boot.
He had lost many times betting and wagering with other noble sons, and father had been forced to sell the zirconium mines on Pinnacle Planet, their most valuable possession, to cover the gambling debts. He had no choice but to cover his oldest son's debts, otherwise Haromir would have been imprisoned and most likely executed.
Not that it would have been a bad thing, but it would have damaged the name of Suppor beyond any chance of repair.
His other brother, Jaromir, had been sent as a young boy to the Monastery and was raised by the Monks of the Azura Order.
He was the youngest, and father decided to send him to the Union Academy. Father was good friends with Admiral Swybar, who also was a distant uncle to him.
Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 6 (The Galactic Chronicles Series) Page 36