Inwards Bound (The RIM CONFEDERACY Book 13)

by Jim Rudnick

  He sat back and sipped, eying the remaining raisin tart but instead reached for a Garnuthian lemon tart.

  She just stared at him. Moments later, she shook her head and leaned forward. “Never ever did I think I’d hear from your lips, Tanner, the desire to, the need to, grow. New to your realm you may be, but I think the duchy will be a powerful realm not only on the RIM but down the arm too,” she said as she reached for the last raisin tart. Nibbling at the edge, she asked the most important question. “I take it that as you’re asking me—well, the Barony, actually, you want us to be one of the three realms. The Barony and the Duchy d’Avigdor—and whom else?”

  He decided to face that with truth so he spoke plainly. “The Caliphate. I have not yet talked to the Caliph—but our recent foray over Ghayth was predicated by his willingness to offer up the Xithricite ships. He will be in, I think, no problem, but might I ask—could you accompany me to see him in person? Any partnership requires honest and personal touches and—”

  “And yes,” she said as she chomped down on the remainder of the tart, “so let’s go,” and she rose right in front of him.

  He was surprised by that, laughed right out loud, and waved her to sit back down.

  “I see … I see …” he said, and his laugh must have been contagious because now she was laughing too.

  She leaned forward to touch his hand as it sat on his knee, nodding at him as the laughter lessened. “Tanner. I believed you when you asked if I’d go, and I am so excited by this that I think now—today would be the day. The Caliphate, the Duchy d’Avigdor, and the Barony. Together with more planets than the whole Pentyaan Oligarchy, we can make some real headway. Add in the red ships and those power belts, and what we’re talking about is growth, real growth.

  That got his laughing stopped cold and he squeezed her hand back. “Krista … we’re not going on a war of conquest—but yes, those will be tools we’ll have at our disposal. Of course, I hope to never have to use them; instead, we would be talking the new planets into joining the RIM Confederacy for the other reasons—our longevity vaccine, our Barony Drive, and more …”

  She nodded and let go of his hand, her own now poised over the tray of pastries, and she looked up at him…

  “Next time, more of the raisin ones …,if you please, Tanner.”

  #####

  “It’s going to be a tough day,” he said to himself, but then no one ever told him being a duke was easy. He nodded to Cooper as the Sword took its landing port orders from the space station—the Ensign—that lay in orbit over Combat, and they began to descend. Helena had helped but the big thank you was going to be for his aide, Lieutenant Commander Kiraz. Her hard work on the research and back story had been most helpful in the late night talks with his wife over the future of the Duchy Naval Academy on Combat.

  While there were still several other academies on the RIM, the tide was turning toward the closing of the smaller partisan schools and the movement toward consolidating all navy training to Eons and the official RIM Navy Academy. He’d thought it quite apropos—after all, hadn’t he built the damn thing himself, Helena had questioned, her voice light, but he knew that, yes, he’d helped. Their breakup had been responsible for sending him to Eons to be the aide of the admiral charged with the oversight of the new academy towers. And the semester he’d spent there that had gotten them back together too.

  But his aide’s help, with all the records from the Duchy d’Avigdor archives, including from the treasury as well, spoke more to him than what other realms here on the RIM were doing.

  The duke—the late duke rather, had looked at same over the past five years. He had determined, and had even made his decision a written report to himself or to others that might follow, that he would not do as others had done. While he was—and said so in his report—a strong proponent of the teaching of naval skills as a core competency to all students all over the RIM Confederacy, he had a loyalty to Combat—the planet that was the home of the Duchy Naval Academy. A loyalty that had been born, he’d said over the past thousand years that the academy had been in existence, and that meant more to him than the treasury reports.

  As the academy was free to any citizen of the Duchy d’Avigdor, the costs were getting more prohibitive than ever. But he didn’t care. He wanted the school to survive, and for that loyalty, he’d pay whatever price.

  And the last few years, Tanner noted, it had cost even more per student than ever.

  And that made him think about what he’d come to Combat today to do—to give notice to the academy headmaster that the school would be closing in one year.

  He nodded to Cooper on the great landing, and he followed his aide out of the cockpit seating area, down the main corridor to the landing port and then left once more to the ramp to the ground.

  Awaiting him, Ayla had forewarned him, were planetary officials including the president of the Combat Republic. It was Tanner’s first visit and one that he knew would be long remembered, but he tried to soften the coming blow with other perks, as Helena had shown him.

  He nodded and greeted every single official he met with a big smile, wishing each one well. He nodded to the little girl who presented him with a photo from her elementary school class showing today’s festive reception. He nodded and smiled at the president, a youngish man of about thirty, who was eager to show off his planet. Ayla had already nixed about twenty side trips and forays out onto the Combat continents to see this natural wonder or that industrial complex. She had nicely explained that this trip was only to say hello officially, to make a date in person with the president for a full state visit, and then head over to the Duchy Naval Academy.

  So he nodded a lot and turned down the kind offers. “Just fitting in a quick trip to …” he said to another official. He was nice about it and waved them to his aide who took down the particulars.

  He smiled more in those first sixty minutes on Combat than he thought possible.

  The reception on the landing port pad seemed to go on forever. A couple of times, as the president led him to yet another minister, official, or ambassador of something or to somewhere, he rolled his eyes to Ayla who had to ignore him. But after a full two hours and twenty minutes, or so his PDA said, he was about out of new people to meet.

  Ayla stepped forward at his right shoulder. “Your Grace, we will need to leave soon to make our appointment time with the academy headmaster. Pardon for the intrusion, Your Grace.”

  The president nodded and said, “Yes, yes … we will make that appointment, not a problem.” He waved somewhere behind the large group of people around the grouping, and a small motorized bus came roaring up to sit just a dozen feet away.

  And, Tanner noticed with a hidden smile, Ayla took charge and wouldn’t let any of the group of Combat officials, who stood only feet away, get on that vehicle. She was so good at making them all understand there was no room at all for anyone else, as they had to pick up some academy cadets too, that he chuckled to himself.

  Smart choice for an aide … he thought. i

  On the bus, she smiled over at him and said, “Your Grace, we’ll make the time with a few minutes to spare. And there are no cadets to pick up on the way either—I made that up to get us out of there, Your Grace.” And she smiled even more widely at him.

  He grinned back and the ride was now winding along a city throughway at a good clip. He watched as the city went by. He saw parks and high-rise apartment buildings followed by a nest of single-family homes tucked up against a survey of what looked like low-cost housing. They went by a shopping mall that looked like it was from centuries earlier but in what had to be some kind of retro-chic, he thought. “That’s a nice touch,” he said to himself and asked Ayla to get him some information on that developer as that might be something he might like to steal and use the ideas for new buildings for Neen.

  The bus slowed on the exit and took a hard right-hand corner. Ahead of them was the academy. Situated on a large forty-acre plot, the grouping
of buildings offered up the full navy experience to all the students. There were buildings that held classrooms, gyms, labs, astronomy theaters, a chapel, stores, the quartermaster, administration, and more. The bus wound up the long driveway and stopped at a nice-looking building with ivy clinging to the walls. White-framed shutters clung to the windows all along the second floor of the building, and the copper roof had long ago gone green with age.

  “Your Grace, we’re being met here in the headmaster’s home here on the grounds. He thought, and I agreed with him, that this would give you more privacy for your talk. I will not be in the study with you two but just outside waiting. PDA me, Your Grace, and I’ll come right in,” she said.

  He nodded. Should make her a bloody admiral, he thought as he went up the few steps, and the door opened to allow him to enter. He followed the young cadet down a hallway. The cadet ushered him into the headmaster’s study, and the door was closed behind him.

  The headmaster rounded the corner of his desk, strode straight up to him, and gave a small smile as he bowed his head. He did not offer his hand, Tanner noticed, but that was normal—one didn’t presume to ever touch a Royal. So he smiled back, looked for a chair, and was guided to the one in front of the desk. The headmaster got him settled and then went back to sit behind his desk.

  “Your Grace—this is an honor. We have not had a sitting duke here on the academy grounds since, well, since the previous duke’s father, Duke Jonathan d’Avigdor more than, what, twenty years ago. So this is both an honor and a privilege, Duke. Can I offer you any refreshments or the like?” he said, one hand playing with a pen on his desk.

  The desk was pretty clean. There was a large desk pad with a scene of a graduating class of cadets. There were three picture frames, but he could not see what they held. The IN tray in the top corner to the headmaster’s right was interesting. It was jam-packed with sheets of paper. While he could not read the printing on same, he did note some of the papers had bright red boxes printed on them. In his experience, that was the way suppliers drew the reader’s attention to the fact that the invoice was unpaid or the payment was late—often months late. While he couldn’t ask about same, it was still good to know.

  “Headmaster, no thank you for the kind offer of refreshments due to the shortness of our time together today,” he said. He did not smile. There was no way to sugarcoat this news, and he got right to it.

  “I wanted you to know that there has been a decision made by the Duchy d’Avigdor as to the future of the naval academy here on Combat,” he said quietly.

  As Tanner caught a breath, he noted the stiffening in the headmaster’s back and posture. But he went on.

  “It has been decided that we will close this academy, effective at the end of this school year, with our last graduating class. We will move our own students over to attend the newly built RIM Naval Academy on Eons the following semester. I am sorry to have to bring you such news, but I know that you will be a great addition to the RIM Naval Academy. I was able to get every single academy academic position a similar job with the Eons Academy, and you have my word on that,” he said and paused for a reaction.

  The headmaster neither nodded nor smiled. He took that news in, and it seemed like he was mulling it over, but he said nothing.

  So Tanner continued.

  “Same deal for all of our students—free tuition, and yes, full room and board at the academy on Eons for free too. Not a dime to become a RIM Navy grad. Expensive, yes … but we feel that this is the least we can do,” he ended and sat waiting.

  He didn’t wait long.

  “Bullshit, Scott … what you bring is pure cost cutting by the bean counters, and you’re a part of that group—some duke you’ll be,” he snarled and slammed his hand into the desk in front of him, and one of the three pictures fell over. His face was red and he looked like he wanted to punch his duke.

  The headmaster’s face grew even redder. “More than a thousand years of heritage and history and dedication to the best navy education anyone would ever get anywhere on the RIM—and it’s being tossed away by an ex-drunk who thinks that credits count for more than legacy,” he said and he slammed his fist into the desk.

  Tanner leaned forward. This he knew how to handle. “If you ever refer to me like that again, I will have you in my brig for a hundred years. I make decisions that are life and death for my men—instead of worrying about a cadet’s B-minus grade. You are on notice. We close this place when I said, at the end of this school year. You still have a spot on the RIM Naval Academy academic staff—say one more word, and you’ll never work in education anywhere in the RIM Confederacy. We’re done,” he said, and he stood up so quickly that the chair under him tipped over, but he didn’t care.

  He walked over to the door, yanked it open, and strode out, surprising his aide who jumped up to try to get ahead of him to open the outer door but failed as he barged right on through. The bus still sat at the front door on the quad around the inner part of the campus, and they got on board.

  Tanner waved away any questions for the whole trip back to the landing port, and it was not until they were on board the Sword once again as she lifted off under his pilot’s skills that he shook his head. He told her what had happened. a

  She blanched. “Your Grace … calling you what he called you, I can’t even say it—that’s grounds for action—criminal action, as I see it,” she said, her voice rife with vengeance.

  He nodded but said nothing.

  So she waited, and on the trip back to Neen, the Sword was quiet.

  Tanner had nothing to say. He did know that, yes, he’d just ended the academy, but in his mind, while legacy and history and tradition were all nice, if the Duchy d’Avigdor students were moved over to Eons, they’d get a better education. To compete would cost the Duchy d’Avigdor more than might be gained to update and upgrade everything from labs to equipment, and then there were the huge costs of the academy fleet of ships too that were all past their best too.

  “Still, the headmaster had gone way past the pale when he’d attacked me personally,” he said to himself. And he’d not been wrong either. He was an ex-drunk. But to say that to a Royal—to your own duke—was something he never thought he’d ever face.

  He sat with Ayla on the carrier ride over to the administration building at the Neen naval base, and he still said nothing,

  There didn’t appear to be anything to say. The decision to close the academy had been made …

  #####

  The Master Adept turned and looked at the doorway before her guest even reached the top floor of the tower. She, like all Issians, and better than all too, knew who was coming and why—and more importantly, she knew the results of the conversation too. Being a mind reader was one thing an Issian got used to, but seeing into the future, the immediate future more importantly, was a skill only the best of Issians acquired. “And nurtured,” she said to herself, as the acolyte came in to introduce her guest, Bram Sander.

  He bowed his head as he walked toward her, and as he drew close enough to almost touch her, he stopped. “Master, I am sorry for the intrusion, and I am sorry for this unexpected interview with you,” he said nicely.

  She nodded and pointed to the side for him to sit as she did too. The aide had already put a large pot of tea on the table to her left, and she busied herself with pouring tea for him. Being Issian meant she did not have to ask how he’d like it, so he was soon served a new cup of tea with lemon only. As she sat back and sipped on her own, he did as well, and they just looked at each other.

  “Bram, you wanted to talk to me—and you will never be intruding ever. If you’d not ‘pulled the pin’ as the youngsters say, you would have your place in our Issian inner circle, helping govern the future of our race. But yes, I would like to know why you’ve come today,” she said, sipping her hot tea.

  He put down his cup, stood suddenly, and walked over to the large windows that looked out over the wall of the city and the farms below. He
swept a hand over all that could be seen and then turned back to face her.

  “Master, things here on Eons are changing. Those farms below—I do not know if you’ve noticed, but some are for sale, and some have actually sold as farmers are coming back to the land. Climate change is with us, Master, and that is a sign of more than new farms. What I mean is, that Eons and in fact the whole RIM Confederacy is now in change. And it’s that that I want to discuss with you,” he said. He walked back to sit on the beige loveseat and once again picked up his tea.

  She nodded. Climate change reports she received monthly, and yes, as he’d noticed too, the blue star of Eons had softened its flow of radiation to the planet. That meant the droughts and climate with season after season of infertile growing was changing. New crops were being planted and harvested, and that was a boon that all Eons citizens were grateful for.

  “Your observations are correct, Bram—few others have noted, but yes, climate change is here on Eons.”

  He nodded. “Ma’am, but there is more. The Praix. Our ex-masters who came here to once again use our Issian skills to aid them in their conquest of yet another galaxy—our own Milky Way Galaxy—were defeated on Ghayth. We hold them now captive on the planet there, and yet that too is an unknown for us—for the RIM, I mean. We need to find the proper way to handle that, Master—we are not slave keepers so the means must be found to help us deal with them. Superior race, perhaps, but it’s their technology that is what we should investigate,” he said, leaning forward and pointing at her with his teacup.

  She nodded and smiled at him. “Exactly what the inner circle discussed just last night in our mind link session, Bram. More than that, we are also going to present a program to deal with the Praix at the next RIM Confederacy Council session as well. I think that your help with that might be a boon to all of us here on the RIM, due to your proximity to the new duke,” she said, trying to steer the conversation to an upcoming point.