The two girls left Melin to contemplate her new surroundings. So much for making friends. She was off to a fantastic start.
Sighing, she retreated to her room and stared at her carisak. It wasn’t huge, but she had stuffed her uniform—sealed and folded—into the bottom in the hopes she wouldn’t be forced to wear it. She pulled out the garment bag and stared at it with distaste.
Once upon a time she had been ecstatic and inordinately proud to wear the sleek, black uniform with the gold-and-red sable belt of the Light Dragoons and the gold-and-blue shoulder braids designating her of the 2/231. She wondered when her disillusionment began. Not the first drop, nor the second. Maybe by the sixth?
See the galaxy and all that crap.
It was complete spaceshit.
She shook out the uniform to release the wrinkles and pulled it on, smiling sourly that the damn thing still fit—loosely, but a good fit. She had lost a lot of muscle mass, even before the cryo. She’d worn her uniform a few times since being released from medical but had avoided getting it tailored in the vain hope she’d get back to pre-everything-is-fucked physical shape.
Her smile faded as she tweaked the two Silver Galaxies about her neck, nudging the blood red ribbons into a twistless line. Other medals were pinned above her left breast, including the platinum cross of the Order of the Lion with silver star for the second award. Several other medals for bravery in battle and wounded in action were there, but far more significant, in her mind at least, were the campaign medals showing the roadmap of her career. Those brought painfully fond memories of old friends, long lost by time and war, but they were real.
She avoided glancing at her uniform again as she adjusted her blonde hair into a neat bun. The overall effect—black uniform, sash, and all that damn bling—was rather gaudy. If she had it her way, she would have dumped the burned remains of this uniform into a refuse pile and never looked back. Unfortunately, as a medically retired member of the IASS Fleet still in the service of the IASS, etiquette required her to maintain her old uniform.
Her new roommates were heading down the hall, finishing up and readying to leave the house when someone rapped on the door. Low murmurs of greeting followed.
“Melin, are you ready?” Accalia called. “Temir is going to escort us to the party.”
“I’ll be right there.” Melin gave a final tug to the hem of her jacket and snatched her black beret. Only the Light Dragoons wore berets.
“Oh, surely you don’t have to wear a uniform!” Accalia paused, seeming to take in the amount of metal on Melin’s jacket. “Space, what does all this mean?”
“Just that I was in a long time,” Melin replied. Her companions were wearing conservative yet expensive jumpsuits while Temir wore a well-tailored suit—this time in black. Apparently, the ambassador’s parties were no time to let loose. She glanced at Temir, who appeared to be staring at the Silver Galaxies at her throat. “Ready?”
“Tech is still down, so we’ll have to walk.” Temir grimaced. “Cocktail hour began five minutes ago, but luckily, everyone else will be fashionably late.”
“I could have sworn tech would be back up by now,” Izzie growled, clutching Temir’s elbow so they wobbled like drunkards together on heels too impractical for the gravel walkway.
The ambassador’s residence hadn’t been pointed out to her earlier, but the destination was obvious—the biggest house, and the only one cheerily lit with lanterns. Groups of people clustered on the porch and into the front lawn, taking advantage of the clear night air.
As she walked, Melin enjoyed the fresh sea breeze with its hint of salt and alien fish. It was a wonderful relief after being cooped up on a ship for several months. Wind swept about her, delicious on her space-bound skin, playing with her hair and gently teasing it out of its stark bun. Longer hair was another way to hide both her scars and herself in plain sight—all her official military photos had her familiar buzz cut. She hadn’t cut it since the last brain scan.
She carefully patted her hair into place. The wind died down, leaving only the crunch of her footsteps and the clanking of medals demanding remembrance. She stared up at the sky, admiring the deep purple and indigo with its many, many stars. New constellations formed in her mind’s eye as she connected the twinkling points. Two moons were high overhead, one bright, brilliant, and full, the other a smiling crescent. A third moon lurked on the horizon, too low to determine its shape. Half-formed memories stirred. It was at once new and old at the same time. “Dhokir, Celixine, Yma,” she whispered, giving them the names from her dreams.
Sudden laughter drew her attention toward the ambassador’s house once more. It was a one-story, frontier style house with wide, sweeping porches. Closer, lanterns and candles perched in the lawn and in the windows, flickering in the breeze. Melin wondered if the archaic lighting was for ambiance or if the tech remained down there as well.
There were no steps to the porch, just a gently sloping ramp. There had been no stairs to the Yellow House either.
The nearest gaggle of people in the lawn noted the approach of her party, and the conversation died down. She saw a glitter of medals on chests and the stiff uniforms of the IASS Fleet and noted the now-apprehensive postures.
“There you are, Sera Grezzij!” the ambassador boomed from behind the staring uniforms, catching her before she could decide to plow ahead or retreat. “I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost.” An assistant pushed his hoverchair from the porch and down the ramp, moving him from a darkened outline to fully formed. Temir and her roommates caught up to her, breathless after speed walking to arrive at the same time.
“Temir led the way most graciously.” She hoped she was diplomatic enough. This was the only house lit like a beacon on the entire island. She couldn’t have missed it if she’d tried.
The group in IASS uniforms was still silent, barely out of earshot, watching her carefully. As a civilian she hadn’t had to check into the embassy garrison upon arrival, and her newness meant they would immediately pick out the inconsistencies of her uniform—the overabundance of medals, the sergeant’s chevrons with five five-year hashmarks, multiple recipients of the IASS’s two highest awards. She steeled herself for the unpleasantness to come.
“Ah, good,” the ambassador said. “Please, please, do come inside. We’ll be having dinner shortly, but you’ll have enough time to meet Major Dar’Tan, who has been aching to meet you and get your opinion on the situation out here.” She caught the forced joviality in his voice and kept her face as bland as possible. Doubtless this Major Dar’Tan was overjoyed at the presence of a sergeant with operational knowledge twenty years out of date.
They passed a couple other clusters of people on their way inside, the ambassador stopping to introduce her to each and every person until names, titles, and occupations bounced and churned into a confused swirl. Not for the first time, she yearned for her implant. She didn’t miss the ambassador’s assistants occasionally leaning in and whispering the names of one or two individuals before he greeted them. She quirked her lips into a smirk despite her tensed shoulders. This planet had pulled the others down to her implantless level. Maybe the tech issues were to her advantage although it was disconcerting that the tech issues extended to implants. No one else was panicking, so it was just her mind running away with her and not an advanced EMP. Again.
Too many people were crammed into the renovated house with many of those people riding in hoverchairs, pushed by attendants dressed in brown uniforms. Melin couldn’t tell who was Saturan and who wasn’t, and she did not see the man from earlier in this crowd. Perhaps hoverchair pushing would be her new assignment. At least it wasn’t cleaning toilets.
The rest of the gathering was dressed in their conservative best—with a solid minority wearing uniforms or medals carefully pinned to their lapels. She wondered if that was for her or if they liked to trot out their glory days whenever possible, particularly when a new batch arrived from offworld. She betted on the latter.
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A ripple in the crowd caught her eye. Melin bit back a groan, spotting several older men wearing medals from the Redelki Wars moving toward her with grim determination. It was to be expected, but fuck. She hated this part.
“Excuse me, sera,” one said. “I don’t believe you have the right to wear this uniform.”
Melin turned toward him, willing the man to lay a hand on her so she had justification to deck him, and came face to face with a Sergeant Major of Heavy Cav. Crusty, lots of ribbons, retired, and actually one of the few who had legitimately served in the infantry. Odd how more and more pogues mythologized their service, particularly when there was no shame in being support. She quirked an eyebrow and returned her attention to the ambassador.
The sergeant major gripped her right forearm, turning her to face him. “I said, you don’t have the right to wear this uniform,” he snarled. Dots of red appeared on his pale cheekbones. “You have no right to wear those medals. Good people died to earn what you so casually flaunt.”
Melin opened her mouth for a retort, but the ambassador cut in, “Ah, Ser Elihu.”
The sergeant major didn’t remove his eyes from Melin. She matched his gaze. Fuck this man and fuck his preconceptions. She flipped her hand toward his thumb, breaking his grip in a smooth motion and taking a casual step backward. The sergeant major blinked, hand still outstretched, and she smiled blandly at him. Her body was tingling with the urge to do something and do it now. It was a familiar sensation. Pleasant.
“Ser Elihu, this is our new general assistant, Melin Grezzij,” the ambassador said, missing the transaction entirely. “Sera Grezzij was a sergeant and fought in the— “
“Tantatoor and Yuluk campaigns in addition to the War Witch.” The sergeant major’s anger transformed into surprise. “I have heard of your—situation. Please accept my apologies for doubting, but there is a trend—”
“And I look nothing like that picture,” Melin interrupted, accepting his handshake. In the past several years, it was popular for younger civilians to prance about in fleet uniforms at parties, dripping with a gaudy amount of misworn bling. A rather dishonest way of getting laid and scoring free drinks, but whatever worked. Since it tended to attract punches instead of punch, she wasn’t too bothered by it. Except where her still youthful face and her own gaudy amount of bling made people think the same of her. An interaction similar to this ended fresh start three—or was it four? They all blurred together.
“Sera Grezzij, there are several people who would appreciate your company,” the ambassador began, but the sergeant major cut in smoothly, “Ambassador, I hoped to draw the sergeant away from you. I’m sure she’d like to converse with some other crusty old war dogs. There’ll be time aplenty for other introductions.” The ambassador opened his mouth, but Elihu took her elbow and escorted her away.
“We should clear the air first before others get ideas,” he muttered to her as they left the house.
“I imagine it is confusing, Sergeant Major,” Melin told him, gently shaking his hand off her elbow. She didn’t appreciate being touched in the best of circumstances. Quite a few of the celebrants stared, and a couple gave her some vid-worthy double takes at the stack of medals and her relative youth. Her discomfort grew into a burning desire to sprint over the wall and off into the sea. “You did the Inga Bora route?”
He grinned. “Well, you passed that test.” The grin fell. “Yes, I did do the IB. Lost some good soldiers out there.”
“We all did.” Before her mind delved into those darker times and swamped her in a morass of memories, she asked, “Do they have things like this often?”
“More than I’d like,” Elihu told her gruffly. “You’d think we weren’t at war with these people the way the diplomatic folk carry on.”
“At war? I heard the Saturans were unhappy, but not…warring,” she hazarded.
“We’ve mostly defeated the worst of the rebellious elements in Veskie, but there are quite a few of the provinces that are not welcome to the IASS. They don’t actively oppose us, but they don’t stop the rebellious forces swarming their cities either.”
They had made it to the far group she had first come across, the one heavy in uniforms and light on hoverchairs. Elihu had snagged two glasses of something fizzy from a servant and handed her one. She took a sip to calm her nerves before greeting this new group.
“Sergeant Grezzij,” Elihu introduced. “The Sergeant Grezzij.”
There were a couple of murmurs as everyone sized her up. More than a few were active duty with the blue patches on their right breast signifying embassy duty, but there were also a handful of others in their middle years—her contemporaries. She stared at them enviously, wishing she also had the excuse of time to create a rosy picture of the strife and hardship of the wars.
A light-brown-skinned man wearing a plain gray suit—similar to Temir’s in style but drastically less expensive—snapped his hand toward her. “Major Ted Dar’Tan, embassy security.” His grip was firm and polite. His brown hair was just a tad longer than regulation, parted sharply to the left to cover the bulge of his implant. Everything about him was inconspicuous, and it made him stand out more. “Where in Tantatoor were you?”
Grateful it wasn’t another question of the War Witch, she replied, “How familiar are you with the planet?”
He grinned. Testing her. “Around Cappa and Erindune. Fifth Infantry.”
She smiled back. “I was more centrally located around the jungles. Rentari mostly, but we had a resting place in some of the hills outside Hunna.”
Dar’Tan’s grin broadened. “Like the locals?”
“For the most part,” she replied. The others had gone silent, listening. “Embedded with the Hskhsk for seven months.”
“I did hear 2/231 did things differently,” one of the others said. “Wooing the natives to their side and all.” Like Elihu, they wore a uniform. The collar tabs marked them as a captain, their bearded face marked them as retired. “Captain Ravi Guptraja, retired. Formerly supply, now xenobotanist.” Their lips twitched. “Not that there’s much to study since you put a halt to all passes to leave the island. Think you can help with that, Major?” They directed this question to Major Dar’Tan, who shook his head wryly.
“Not unless you want to end up dangling from the pier,” the major answered. “Or vanish—”
“Never to be seen again,” Ravi intoned solemnly although their eyes danced with mock amusement. “Honestly, Ted, we’ve been cooped up here for months. My team hasn’t been able to make any progress on our research, and the samples we discovered were vandalized three weeks ago. Come on, help a friend out.”
“I can’t risk sending out an entire combat shuttle for one scientific team,” Dar’Tan explained. Both people had the stances and tones of a battle long in duration and only half-serious.
“What’s wrong with going outside the walls?” Melin asked. “I was out there this afternoon. I saw no one on the streets. The emptiness was eerie.”
Major Dar’Tan grimaced. “That’s because my team dropped flyers on them this morning, written in the best approximation of their language we could manage without a language specialist. We threatened to bomb the entire city if the rebels made a move on this shuttle drop. Even so, I had to send half my guard to the airfield. I don’t doubt the rebels wouldn’t have attacked even then, save that the other half of the garrison was more than prepared to bomb that damned rat’s nest to the seven hells.”
Elihu leaned forward, looking at her. “You said you embedded with the natives on Tantatoor. Did that work?”
Melin tilted a hand back and forth. “It did, save for those villages where the Mordevians—sorry, Blood Sun Imperials—had their claws in too deep. But we usually turned all but the most dedicated to our side after talking to them and training up members of their own as security.”
“Think that would work in this case?” Elihu asked.
Ravi snorted. “We’ve invaded these people’s homes, Elihu,
” they said. “Our forefathers burned and destroyed their royal family, and now we’re squatting on the very symbol of the old regime’s power.”
“What do you know, Ravi?” Major Dar’Tan teased. “You’re studying the botany, not the culture. Some of the natives know better and are cooperating. Those two warlords—”
“Dukes,” Elihu corrected. “They call themselves dukes.”
“Whatever.” Dar’Tan flicked his fingers. “Of Apha-something and Zacusia— “
Something sparked deep in her memory. “The provinces of Apharom and Zakuska?” Melin asked.
The group turned and stared at her. “You’ve studied Satura?” Elihu asked with some interest.
“My great-grandmother was born here.” She shrugged. “Growing up, she told me stories of this place.”
“Interesting,” Elihu murmured. “Perhaps we can talk later, pick your brain a bit.” He glanced at Major Dar’Tan. “Sorem will want to talk with her.”
“I doubt that would help you with anything,” Melin said. “She was a child when her family left the planet. Most of her stories were flights of fancy.” She did not mention her dreams. Or dragons. Or magic.
“But you said you can speak the language.”
“Not well,” Melin replied truthfully. She had thought she spoke it rather well, no matter what the experts said to the contrary. She and her great-grandmother had spoken nothing but Saturan until she was six and her great-grandmother passed away, but she clearly hadn’t retained much. “The dialect has changed.”
“Very well,” Elihu said. “You don’t know the people. But you didn’t answer my original question—do you think embedding with them would solve our problem?”
“I don’t know the full situation,” Melin said cautiously.
“It’s been two hundred years,” Ravi told Elihu. “Surely they’ll grow tired of being outnumbered in every imaginable way.”
One of Anikki’s stories came to mind. “They once fought a planetary civil war for six hundred years to install a lost heir of a dead royal family onto the throne,” Melin said. “These people don’t play the short game.”
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