“Oh, thank the gods!” she said. “We can all see you talking with Aunt Nell, by the way. Most of us are too close to passing out to care but…” She fell deathly silent.
“Hallie!” Viggo shouted, forgetting to subvocalize.
“You’ve mistaken me for my niece?” Nell asked, a hint of playful amusement on her features.
“I’m OK, Viggo,” Hallie told him. “We just got a blast of fresh air! I was too busy breathing, making it all about me…” She laughed.
“Thank the gods,” he subvocalized. “I thought I’d lost you!”
“I’m ok,” she assured him. Her warm tone of voice assured him even more. It was like a hug and not the lean-forward-to-limit-contact kind. “We’re all fine and now folks are paying more attention to the holo screens. I really don’t think she knows Martin was broadcasting your conversation. Keep her talking.”
He racked his brain for Nell’s last comment. “I’m sure that happens a lot,” he told her. “But what makes you think you can hold 3428? If my parents had really been arrested, then you might have had a decent chance, but they’re going to come back from whatever Alliance assignment they’re on sooner or later. You won’t be able to hold against their forces. Whatever deals you’ve made with traders will fall apart with my parents holding the orbitals, so I don’t see how you’ve got any sort of sensible long play here.”
“The Alliance will be reluctant to support a family that leaves a murderous psychotic in control while they’re away on duty,” Nell retorted.
“At least she’s admitted your parents aren’t in custody,” Hallie pointed out.
Viggo nodded. “I see you’re admitting my parents aren’t under charges, Nell. That’s a good start. Perhaps you could explain why you think I’m a murderer.”
“Thousands of innocent people dying on the main concourse because you’ve shut down the circulation?” Nell smirked.
“It wasn’t my doing…”
“No,” she agreed, “but we’ll make sure everybody believes it was you,” she told him, “all in an attempt to blackmail us into restoring you to power that you don’t deserve. And then there’s the traders who disappeared looking for you at the shuttle…”
She looked a little thrown by her own words. Viggo had been wondering if she’d been drinking. Maybe she’s had a few and old wounds are coming open? “So you were the one who sent that Tauhentan kill-team after me in the jungle?”
He knew they were supposed to bring him in but he was in a fight for public opinion with an opponent who made up facts out of whole cloth. Fudging the truth a little was something he was willing to live with.
“So it’s true then,” he continued while she still appeared to be absorbing the implications of her statement. “What they say about you and my father must be true. That’s how you knew where to send those off-worlders.”
She reddened. “Listen, you little shit! You’re in way over your empty little head. I’m willing to offer you an escape but you’re talking your way out of it pretty damned fast!”
“From where I’m standing, it looks like you’re the one that needs a way out of this,” Viggo said mildly. “You’ve turned on your lord, attacked his heir and conspired at the deaths of thousands of my people but, please…” He spread his arms, palms facing up. “…Tell me what you see as the way forward, when you’ve failed to capture me for use as a pawn.”
“We join our families.” She tried to sound firm but there was a waver in her voice. She had to know her bargaining position was far weaker than she’d expected it to be. “You and I,” she added. “Together, we can heal the rift between the Fletchers and the Heywoods.”
“That creepy little bitch!” Hallie exclaimed. Viggo could hear the crowd that surrounded her and it sounded incredulous. “She threw away her chance with your dad and now she’s trying to get it back by going after you? Well, she can’t have you!”
“Give me a moment,” Viggo told Nell. He caught a technician’s eye and waved his fingers past his throat. “Cut the sound.”
“Transmission muted.”
“Viggo, tell me you’re not seriously thinking about agreeing,” Hallie demanded.
“She makes a good point about our families,” Viggo told her out loud, no longer needing to sub-vocalize. “It could take generations to bring a lasting peace between us, unless there’s some great unifying gesture.”
“But… Nell?” She sounded a little sad.
“Gods, no! But you have to admit, the idea of my betrothing a Fletcher girl makes good sense.”
“So, you’re going to make the ultimate sacrifice and marry a Fletcher for the good of the city, are you?” The sadness was replaced with a dangerous edge.
“For the good of the city? It makes a good sound-bite but it’s not what I have in mind. That’s just window-dressing for my real goal.” He was surprised his voice could remain steady at a moment like this.
“Your real goal?”
“I just want to marry the girl that turns my brain to mush and my blood into smoke. I’d probably have put a lot more time into it, if we weren’t in the middle of a coup attempt, but events have a way of laying our thoughts bare without our consent, sometimes.”
“Just for the record,” Hallie said, “turns my blood to smoke sounds far better to a girl than do it for the greater good! Sounds like a good plan to me. Tell my creepy aunt off and… Wait a minute! You’re talking about me, right? If you’re about to tell me you’ve got it bad for one of my cousins, I’m coming up there and laying a beating on you!”
“What?” Viggo laughed. “Who else could you possibly believe I’m talking about?”
“Good! Took you long enough to say anything,” she said, “and, when you do, it turns out to be a proposal. You sure do work fast, Viggo Rickson! Better give my aunt an answer, don’t you think?”
“I’m going to slap her down hard,” Viggo warned, “and your name will probably come into it.”
“Good! Hammer the murdering little twit!”
“Audio on.” He turned back to the image of Nell. “What about Ed?”
“Who?”
Viggo leaned forward. “Your husband?”
“He won’t be a problem.”
“Ah. Like Martin, yes?”
“Something like that.”
“Wow!” Viggo chuckled. “How could I possibly refuse becoming his replacement, right?”
She ignored his question and simply stared at him, waiting for his answer.
“Well, there’s wisdom in your gin-soaked words. For the good of the people, I believe I can see past your age and probable liver disease…”
A smirk of triumph stole its way across her face.
“…To your young niece, Hallie Fletcher!” He could hear a roar of laughter from the concourse, thanks to his connection through Hallie.
Nell’s triumph morphed quickly into turmoil. “Hallie?” she spluttered. “That little airhead? You’ll still have to explain all those deaths on the concourse and I won’t help you!”
“You’ve explained that already,” Viggo told her. “Martin wasn’t just talking to me when you blew his brains out. He was broadcasting city-wide. Everyone has been listening while you took responsibility for the crimes you’d planned to pin on me.
“And, as for my fiancée, to whom I proposed a few seconds ago…”
He heard cheers coming through Hallie’s channel. She was thanking some of her friends, who must have joined her for the diversionary protest.
“…She’s no airhead. If you’d bothered to consult her before launching this enterprise of yours, she would have warned you of the low probability of success. She also would have told you to stop, just on general principle, not to mention the question of honor.”
“It’s easy to speak of honor when you’re the one in control,” Nell sneered.
“You think it’s so easy?” Viggo demanded. “Your brother, Barry, has more than enough honor to make up for what you’ve been doing here over the last fe
w days. Do you think it’s easy for him? His sense of honor compels him to send good warriors to their deaths. Do you think that sits easy on his shoulders?”
It was clear he’d made her angry but she had no answer. That was fine by Viggo. He had one more point to drive home.
“As far as being in control goes, you had control when you decided to shut down the ventilation system and lock out the controls. What role did your honor play in that decision? What role does it play right now? You could still release the lockouts. We’ve managed to restore airflow, so it’s mostly a symbolic gesture, at this point, but why insist on being petty?”
The look on her face made him shudder. Kind of feel sorry for Eddard, he thought.
But it was finally over. She looked to the side, her shoulders betraying the movement of her arms.
A chime sounded in the control room. “We have access!” one of the techs shouted.
Un-Boxing
Schrödinger’s Planet Paradox
Just outside of Sensor Range – Planet 3428
Rick and Freya were wasting their time.
Trying so hard to look calm when their entire bridge crew was too keyed up to notice was an exercise in folly. At least a quarter of the crew had been recruited from this world and their home was embroiled in a rebellion.
Rick checked on the fleet’s weapon status. Everyone was standing to their posts but the weapons were secure. With so many on edge, a tragic mistake was a very real possibility.
“Fleet!” Rick jumped at the sudden voice. “This is Four-Two-Delta. Contact! Wait out!”
He leaned forward, then caught himself and stood straight. A glance at Freya told him his wife was also recovering from the same instinctual reaction. He reached out and took her hand.
Their advance scouts were pushing in to 3428, making sure the fleet knew exactly what they faced and where they would need to deploy. Will they put up a fight? he wondered. They can’t have much more than the orbital-control ships and a few allied traders…
“Fleet, Four-Two-Delta. It’s the ’Canal! She’s come home!”
The bridge crew erupted in cheers. Rick felt a squeeze from Freya’s hand.
They still didn’t know what they’d find when they landed. Was Viggo even alive? How many had been killed before Barry returned home with his contingent of Marines.
How many had Barry killed to restore order?
“Fleet, Four-Two-Delta. Relaying a coms feed from Solomon Control.”
Barry Fletcher shimmered into view in their midst, quieting the excited murmuring of the crew.
“Barry!” Rick stepped forward, Freya moving with him. “Thank the gods you came back!”
Barry raised his eyebrows in amusement, shaking his head slowly. “Don’t batter the gods’ ears on my account,” he said. “I just got here ahead of you. It was all over, except for the cleanup.”
“All over…” Freya said, voice cracking. “What of Viggo?”
Barry’s grin let her exhale before she would have passed out. He turned from them and aimed a light punch at something outside of the holo-cam’s pickup zone. “You should take this,” he told someone.
Rick felt the tension drain from his neck and shoulders as Viggo backed slowly into the scene, still talking to someone.
“… important than the other taskings. This absolutely needs to be handled as quickly and discretely as possible, which is why I’m depending on you to take care of it for me, Thom.” He nodded. “I’ll be checking in with you before nightfall. We want to find her before the chimera start their nightly hunt.”
He turned to his parents, who were standing in front of him as holograms. “It’s good to see you guys made it back in once piece!” He smiled. “You found your… objective?”
Rick let out a sharp breath, somewhere between an exhalation and an exclamation. He looked at Freya and the two shook their heads in wonder. They’d dropped everything, racing back to save their child from rebels and here he was asking after their mission as if it were the most interesting thing on his plate at the moment.
And he was even being circumspect, just in case they’d come back empty-handed and wanted to try again without the Republic getting wise.
“We found Commander Gabiola,” Freya told him. “What the hells happened here?”
“Here?” Viggo shrugged. “A small group managed to seize the city. Someone tried to kidnap me so they could use me as leverage. I got out of Solomon and went south, really far to the south.”
Rick frowned at this. Was Viggo looking a little too long at him at this point?
“I came back and retook the city but I had a lot of help…” He trailed off, looking around the controlroom. He stepped half out of the pickup zone and then moved back, almost dragging a reluctant young woman by the hand.
She was his age and she had dark hair and striking eyes.
Rick squinted at the holo. Her eyes looked so large because she appeared to be nervous. Talking to the lord and lady of her world must be stressful for her.
“This is Hallie Fletcher,” he told them.
She raised a hand. “Hello,” she said, taking a deep breath and glancing over at Viggo, who was smiling at her.
“Without Hallie, I couldn’t have stopped the rebellion.” He looked back to his parents. “I’d probably be dead by now.”
Rick noticed they were still holding hands. He smiled, giving Freya’s hand a squeeze. “It’s good to see the Heywoods and the Fletchers can… come together, when our people need them,” he said.
“Now that we’re here, we can bring down troops so Barry can pull out his Marines and get them back to 4856,” he added.
“No need,” Viggo said. “None of his troops are down here. The only thing he brought down is his personal security detail. I think…” He looked to the side. “Yeah, he’s leaving this evening. He just wants time for the locals on his crew to make sure their friends and relatives are fine.”
He shrugged. “Had to commandeer the bandwidth just to make this call. More than half the ’Canal’s crewmen and a quarter of her Marines are from here and they all want to see their loved ones on a live holo-feed. You should let your people know that the casualty list from this was tightly contained. Very few dead and most of them were conspirators.”
His expression grew dark, angry. “Most of them…”
Hallie hugged his arm.
He sighed. “You should both come down for a few hours, there’s something we need you for.” He glanced around the room. “There’s been a rift in our community from the very start. Bringing back the Alliance didn’t eliminate it, it just drove it underground where it continued to fester.”
“You don’t expect us to negotiate with rebels, do you?” Freya asked darkly.
“No.” Viggo shook his head. “This is a matter of statecraft but it’s also very much a family matter. I… we need you to talk to someone.”
Meeting the Family
Control Room – Solomon Arco
Hallie crossed her arms. She uncrossed her arms and tried letting them hang naturally but it felt anything but natural. A month ago, meeting Viggo’s parents as his fiancée probably would have been nerve-wracking but meeting them now, as a member of the same family who’d just tried to seize 3428…
She nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand grasped her shoulder. She turned to find Barry Fletcher smiling at her.
“They don’t judge a person for their name,” he told her. “If they did, I wouldn’t command the Guadalcanal task-force.”
She mulled that over, her eyes dropping to the family name on the chest of his armored EVA suit. “It’s easier to say that…” She lifted her gaze to meet his again. “…If you’re Rick’s childhood friend.”
His eyebrows did a sardonic little dance. “Easier than being the woman his son’s madly in love with?”
Hallie was sure her face was turning red. Her ears felt like they were on fire. She wanted to look away but she forced herself to keep looking at her famous rela
tive. Make him speak first, she thought.
He gave a little nod. “Anyone can see it after five minutes in the same room with the two of you.” He took a quick glance around the room, then stepped a little closer.
“That’s not the only reason they’ll welcome you into their family,” he said quietly. “You also played a major role in shutting this rebellion down and, more importantly, you are a Fletcher.”
She wasn’t so sure about that last point and her face must have showed it.
“I’m a perfect example,” he told her. “If Rick had handed the ’Canal over to some Heywood, he would have had a nightmare on his hands. Naming me to the post reassured everyone that there wasn’t going to be a witch-hunt to root out anyone the Heywoods might hold a grudge against.
“I’m also a great choice for the job, of course,” he added, trying to sound pompous but not quite pulling it off.
She snorted.
“Giving our planet an heir that’s from both families will go a long way to putting the past to rest.” He straightened his stance and made a show of tugging his armor into place. “I’m sure having me standing next to you when you meet them will help them remember that.”
She gave him a hug, no mean feat with an armored suit in the way. “Thank-you!” she whispered.
“It’s only right,” Barry said brusquely. “The nobility don’t meet with prospective in-laws without family present.” He grinned at her expression. “Like it or not, you’re about to join Viggo as a direct heir to this planet. Matter of fact…” Barry nodded at Viggo, who was busy directing clean-up operations. “…They’re likely to confirm his lordship of 3428, after the way he’s handled all this.”
“Hey!” she exclaimed. “He had a lot of help!”
“That’s more like it!” He jabbed a finger at her shoulder. “Never shirk from the credit that you’re due!”
An officer was beckoning. She frowned. “I’d better see what he wants. Rick and Freya are on their way down, so don’t move from this spot, okay?”
“Milady.” Barry bowed his head, grinning happily.
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