The Mechaneer

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 40: New Kyrillopolis

Rudy watched a huge, dark space station, even bigger than the battlecruiser hulk but apparently just as abandoned, drift past as the Errant Magpie glided toward the surface of the planet. He thought he recognized some of the devices protruding from the station. He'd seen ones like them on orbital factories under Algreil Aerospace's jurisdiction.

This one didn't seem to be turning raw material into military material, or anything else. It lay dormant either from lack of scrap and unrefined ore to put in one end, or lack of men to crew whatever came out the other.

Or to make me think they don't have one or both, he thought. He wasn't sure how much he could trust the Kyrilloses, still less how much they trusted him.

Of course, he wasn't sure how much they should trust him, either.

He glanced at Chloe. She hadn't woken him with any more screaming nightmares during their two-week trip, but she didn't look good. She hadn't eaten as much as usual, and dark circles ringed her dark eyes.

He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. She looked up, as if from a daze, and smiled weakly.

"Almost there," he said.

"Yeah."

'There' was the planet New Kyrillopolis, the estate-world Stephan Kyrillos's family had retreated to after the Battle of Etemenos. Rudy didn't even know it by reputation. The nobs didn't interact much with the rest of human space since their retreat to its fringes. From what he could see on the Magpie's instruments, it looked like a fairly temperate, low-gravity world, maybe on the cold and dry side but well within the habitable range. Oceans swept over most of its southern hemisphere, while their destination lay on a sprawling continent in the northern, green blending into the white of a large polar cap. He didn't see any lights glowing on the continent. Considering that it was evening down there, it couldn't be heavily populated.

Maybe 'estate-world' was literal and the whole planet was a nob's idea of a country manor.

He'd see soon enough. The Magpie began its descent through New Kyrillopolis's atmosphere. Maybe not soon enough, Rudy amended. He'd expected the sleek shuttle to burn downwards and pull up for a tight stop, the kind that would kill anyone without inertial dampeners to fight down the gee forces, but Tarkov instead guided it gently through the cloudless blue sky.

Rudy saw why as they got closer to the ground. The landing pad they were aiming for was ringed by huge conifers, the smallest easily fifty meters, the tallest twice that.

"Wow," Chloe whispered, pressing against a nearby screen to peer at the trees. "Those are huge!"

"The trees grow tall here," Slava said, "because there is not so much gravity."

"The pinecones must be hell," Rudy said.

Chloe put a hand to her lips to stifle a laugh. Mission accomplished.

They slowly drifted down through the sea of trees until the Errant Magpie settled onto a broad concrete circle beside two transports of the same model. Rudy could see people outside, but before he could check them out in more detail, Slava said, "We are expected. Quinn, Tarkov, prepare the Magpie for storage. Highness, Mr. Algreil, let us go, yes? "

Chloe followed the ursid. Rudy didn't see much point in sticking around the ship unless he planned to steal it, and he wasn't about to do that without her on board.

They descended through the bowels of the Magpie and emerged from its main landing ramp rather than one of its personnel hatches, apparently to make their descent grander. All it did for Rudy was make it longer, and he'd had enough of long trips for a while.

At the end of the ramp stood their welcoming committee: twenty men-at-arms in sharp black-with-white-highlights dress uniforms, two other ursids, three canids and three felids among them. They raised dress sabers in a crisp salute as Slava led the way from the Magpie's hangar, then split to form two lines of ten, the shortest almost at the ramp, the tallest near the edge of the platform.

The girl who swept between the lines could have been Chloe's sister.

"Your Highness," she cried, her slightly harsh, familiar accent and olive skin betraying her as Stephan's sister. She smiled like she was greeting a boon companion and rushed up to meet them in a flurry of black dress and white lace, rushing past Slava to clasp Chloe's hands. "It's such a delight to meet you at last!"

"Um," said Chloe.

"Lady Milissa," Slava said, bowing.

"Welcome back, Captain," the girl – Milissa Kyrillos, apparently – acknowledged him with a faint nod. When she turned to look his way, she hesitated, her eyes widening a bit as they lit on Rudy. They were the same stratosphere blue as Chloe's, a bit smaller and more tilted and set in a fuller face with a longer, more sloping nose.

Milissa started to speak, stopped. Her smile wavered. She faltered again, then, biting her lip, turned back to Chloe.

Rudy had seen that look often enough, though not lately. Seen it on the faces of tournament fangirls who thronged outside his mecha bay at all the big events.

Milissa confirmed his worst fears when she spoke again. "You doubly grace us with your presence, Highness," she said, squeezing Chloe's hands in hers, "by bringing so esteemed a mechaneer as the Crimson Phoenix with you."

Chloe recovered enough from the unexpected welcome to try to smile as she asked, "You're a fan of Rudy's?"

Milissa laughed. "It should go without saying!"

Chloe laughed along with her, weakly.

"Now," Milissa continued, "let's complete the set. Where is my dear brother?"

Chloe's face paled even more than usual. Rudy winced.

"Stephan…" Chloe fell to her knees and clasped Milissa's hands tightly. "Stephan's… Lady Milissa, I'm so sorry!"

Milissa's eyes widened. She took a step back and might have slipped off the ramp if Chloe hadn't been clinging to her. "H-Highness, you, you shouldn't –"

"He stayed behind to cover our escape from the Reformer," Chloe said. "To ensure my escape. He swore he'd follow, Lady Milissa, and I pray he did, but... He put himself in danger for me and now you may have lost him and I'm so very, very sorry."

She pressed her face to the noble girl's gloved hands.

Milissa knelt beside her. "It's all right, Highness," she said quietly. "I'm sure Stephan will be fine." Her voice almost stayed level, until she said her brother's name. She recovered quickly, smooth as silk.

"You've brought yourself," she said, "which is what Stephan and I and everyone here want. And you've brought a great pilot with you. I'm sure if Stephan had needed help, he would have asked the Crimson Phoenix for it, and with the two of them fighting together, no force of worthless Feds could have stood against them."

She sounded like she was trying to convince herself. Doing a hell of a good job of it, too. Of course, even if she was right about Rudy's ability, he didn't think the Black Rook would have trusted the Crimson Phoenix's assistance.

"Lady Milissa –"

"Please, Highness, call me Milissa," she said. Her smile looked almost genuine to Rudy. Either she was a hell of an actress, or she actually believed he and Stephan could take on the Reformer and win. "Now, you shouldn't kneel to me. What would people think?"

"Erm," Chloe said. "Right."

Rudy had to suppress a chuckle. The only people whose thoughts seemed to trouble Chloe were her absent parents.' The mores of high society weren't exactly her forte.

Once they were both standing, Milissa relinquished Chloe's hands at last. "Captain," she said, turning to Slava, "I suppose you'll have to report to me until Stephan gets back."

Not if, when. Her confidence did either Stephan's piloting skills or her gift for self-deception credit.

"Of course, Lady Milissa. I have a report prepared –"

"Later, Captain," Milissa said, waving him off. "For the moment, Her Highness and the Crimson Phoenix must come to the estate and get settled in – and eat! You both must be bored out of your minds of spaceship food after such a trip. We have a feast ready. Only, Crimson Phoenix, I must apologize, I did not know to expect you, so I didn't include a side of beer-battered fish. I trust you'll find the local ocean breeds very flavorful once we can lay a proper spread. And Highness, we don't know your favorite dish yet, but that will be fixed soon enough. If you can forgive me?"

Rudy and Chloe stared at her.

Milissa bit her lip. "You aren't too upset, I hope?"

"Of course not," Chloe said. "You've already done so much!"

"Your Highness is far too kind. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't give you both proper welcome, especially with Stephan away."

And now he was just 'away.' Rudy wondered how often Milissa had had to rationalize her brother's absences, his possible deaths. He found her confidence infectious. Except he wasn't nearly as happy about the prospect of Stephan's return as she seemed to be.

"Milissa," he asked, "how did you know about the fish?"

Slava growled at his dispensing with the honorific before Milissa's name, but the lady herself looked pleased by it. "As I told Her Highness, Crimson Phoenix, I'm a great fan of yours. I've watched all your matches, you know."

"Really? You get those all the way out here?"

"I have them specially delivered," Milissa said. "My brother seems annoyed by it, but…" She put a hand to her lips to stifle a giggle, then, glancing into the gap in the Magpie's mecha bay where Stephan's machine should have been, let hand and smile both drop. "But I like them anyway," she finished mirthlessly.

Chloe reached out and took her hand again. "I'm sure he'll be here soon," she said. "He seemed very powerful."

"Yes," Milissa said. She took a deep breath and restored what seemed to be her customary smile. "Now, there's no point to our standing around moping! Come, I'll show both of you to the estate and get you settled in. We mustn't dally, you know. With only twenty men, it's best we reach the gates before dark."

Chloe and Rudy chorused, "Huh?"

"It is not just the trees that grow big here," Slava said, looking to the woods.

"We don't have to worry," Milissa said. "Really, Highness, most of the large predators are scared off by the sound of so many people. It's only the bandersnatches we'd have to worry about, and it's been a fruitful season, so they shouldn't come out before evening."

Neither Rudy nor Chloe had the stomach to ask what the bandersnatches were.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 41: War Changes

The cannon bucked in Jack's Stingray's hands and pumped a round clean through an onrushing green mecha, coring out its engine. The machine's momentum carried it into the Stingray. It bounced harmlessly away.

"Surrender, dammit," he shouted, hoping the Feds were even bothering to receive over open channels. So far, he didn't think he'd actually killed anybody in this fight, and if he could help it, he didn't plan on starting.

Jack had fought in the Civil War and done his share of killing in it. Hell, three months ago, he'd made damn sure some of the Reformer's mechaneers died back on Wellach. Nonetheless, he liked to think of himself as a basically peaceable guy.

Especially when he still wasn't sure he was on the right side.

"You're outnumbered and outgunned," he said to whoever was listening, adding 'and hella outflown' in his thoughts only – if he said it, it was liable to piss the Feds off enough they'd keep fighting. "We won't hurt you if you surrender, and if you keep going, you're gonna get killed!"

While he waited for a response, he fended off two more attacks almost casually. He could track and down the Fed regulars without breaking a sweat. His mecha and his still-rusty skills were just that much better.

How the hell could the Federal Navy be reduced to this just fifteen years after the Civil War? With the nobs still kicking around on the periphery, no less?

One of the Fed mechaneers soared up from below, firing wildly with his automatic cannon. Jack didn't even have to dodge. If he had, he probably would have increased his chances of getting hit. He snapped off two shots, one into the green mecha's shoulder, a second scraping down the front of its hull. It still tried to correct its aim, so Jack reluctantly lined up a third shot to go through its head and hull.

"Sorry, buddy," he muttered, starting to squeeze the trigger.

Abruptly, the Fed mecha released its gun and burned backwards. Since the gun had lost none of its momentum, it tumbled away from its wielder and eventually bounced off Jack's leg armor.

He lowered his cannon.

"Attention rebel forces." Jack's communications window displayed a haggard-looking Navy officer. He could have passed for a cadet if not for the captain's stars adorning his green uniform. "This is the Federal Navy frigate Equanimity. Cease fire. We are powering down our shields and weapons. We... surrender."

"Oligarchical forces," Jack corrected. "And we accept your surrender."

"That's... er, thank you," the young captain said.

"Round 'em up, boys," Jack called to the three Devil Rays accompanying him. Two were on the ship's hull, where they had already cut its shield generators from their moorings, while the third was acting as Jack's wingman. "And radio the Venture. Looks like we've got ourselves another prize ship."

Three grins answered his.

Another prize ship, another squadron of Navy mecha. That made three so far, to go with the two star systems the Feds had tried to guard. Jack and his new subordinates had suffered only a single casualty, and both he and his mecha would recover.

If the Feds had been smart, they would have stayed at the heart of the systems and made the Algreil Aerospace escort carrier Venture come to them. If they'd been smart, though, they wouldn't have been so damn easy to beat. Somebody in the Etemenos military bureaucracy had one hell of a poor tactical doctrine.

Maybe Otto was right. Maybe the Oligarchy could wrap up the Feds in a 'short, victorious war.' Maybe the next time Jack saw Ellie and Chloe, it would be on a platform on Etemenos with a medal hanging from his neck, celebrating the new galactic order.

Yeah.

And maybe they hadn't fought more than a skirmish and the Feds still had them outnumbered by a factor of ten galaxy-wide. To say nothing of the defenses of the capital world itself. Shields so powerful even the Imperials were supposedly not sure they could get through them and guns to match, powered by seven man-made suns and backed by a full fleet of the Federal Navy's finest.

Not to mention the Animus Hunter corps.

Thinking about the strategic situation soured Jack's mood as he and his men burned back to the Venture.

It was a miniature carrier of the type the Oligarchy had deployed in droves during the waning years of the Civil War, about three times the size of the Mother Goose and almost all mecha bays and cargo space. It had just enough room for twenty mecha and its bridge crew. Theoretically, it had room for twenty mechaneers, too, but from Jack's recollection that was an exaggeration.

He didn't have to worry about space on the Venture now. It housed only eight Stingrays and a couple of bays worth of Mayfly scout drones converted into AI-controlled electronic warfare mines. The rest of the space doubled as mechaneer quarters and rec room.

Algreil Aerospace could build plenty of machines to fill the Venture, along with every sister ship in its fleet.

Pilots? Not so much.

He wondered if the Equanimity's young captain would have surrendered if he'd realized that the Oligarchical forces amounted to only one squad more than what was buzzing around his ship. Considering the disparity in mechaneering, Jack figured his men would have won the fight anyway, but it would have been a close thing.

Which was, of course, why Otto had the Venture fly with half its official crew compliment. If the Feds didn't catch on, they'd think they were up against twice as many opponents as they actually were. And if – when – they did catch on, the Algreil Aerospace forces would send out full compliments and catch them by surprise again. Actually, Otto would probably make the switch just before he guessed the Feds would catch on.

Otto knew how to run a war. Nobody ever doubted that.

"Message for you, Colonel," the Venture's captain said as Jack disembarked from his Stingray.

Jack nodded to the man. In most of the Federal Navy, a ship's captain outranked a any mechaneer officer. Marcel Avalon seemed to be the exception that proved that rule. In the Oligarchical forces, branch didn't matter, only rank. Technically, Jack was in command of the entire Venture, although he didn't know how to fight a capital ship and wouldn't have tried. "What's the word?"

"I don't know, sir," the captain said. "It's from Mr. Algreil."

Speak of the devil, Jack thought. "Gotcha. I'll take it on a private channel." He slipped the mask of his flight suit up.

Otto's face appeared before him. "Hear you caught yourself another fish, Jack," the oligarch said. 'Fish' was old mechaneer slang for a small capital ship like a frigate or escort carrier; big ones were 'whales,' their point defense craft 'sharks.'

Jack chuckled. "This one's pretty small. I'm thinking of throwing it back."

"Very funny," Otto said. "I'm glad you're getting tired of the small frys, though."

Jack's laughter died in his throat.

"A second Federal Navy fleet is gathering in the Etemenos system. Attack configuration. One of the ships that just returned is the flagship, the Reformer."

"The Divine Auric Drake again, huh?" Jack thought back to his and Otto's fight with Marcel Avalon. That was one Fed mechaneer he didn't outclass. "You sure about attack configuration?"

"Oh, yeah. Until the Reformer showed up, I didn't understand why they hadn't set off already. Seems they were waiting on their golden boy."

"You think they're gonna hit Algreil Prime?"

"Wouldn't you?"

Of course, Jack thought. The Oligarchy had declared war and started picking off federal garrisons piecemeal. The Senate had to respond or they'd lose control of half their systems and the confidence of the rest. And Otto had set himself up as the face of the Oligarchy. "You calling the Venture back?"

Otto nodded. "We're going to assemble the fleet here and move out to meet them."

Jack started to nod in return. Then he froze. "What about Chloe? Last we heard, the Reformer was tailing her and your brother, right?"

"That was... what we thought, yeah."

"You don't know?"

"If the Feds had the Heir," Otto said, "they wouldn't be shy about saying so. Morale around here would fall apart before you could blink. Hell, even Rudy's famous enough they'd boast about capping his worthless ass, not that it would take much."

Unless they didn't want to publicize what they planned to do to 'the Heir,' Jack thought. To Chloe. To my little girl.

And he'd wanted to spare those bastards? Principle, he'd –!

He took a deep breath. Even if the Feds wanted to keep catching and hurting Chloe under wraps, Otto was at least right about his brother. The Feds could boast about killing or imprisoning the famous Crimson Phoenix and still keep quiet about who else they had locked up.

Not killed.

Jack wouldn't, couldn't, believe 'killed.'

"They're still out there, Jack," Otto said. He almost sounded concerned, which for Otto meant 'less sarcastic than usual.' "When I hear from Rudy, you'll be the first to know."

"Thanks," Jack said.

"I'm not doing it as a favor, old buddy."

Jack didn't have to be told. Otto might have been bullshitting when he told the other Captains of Industry he'd planned having the Heir raised by a former subordinate, but the oligarch would play that card for all it was worth.

Nonetheless, Jack said, "Thanks anyway."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 42: First Among Equals

"You should have waited until you made a full recovery before giving your report, Marcel," President Rhetta Ferrill said sternly. "You know I'd never blame you for looking after yourself."

The President of the Federal Senate, First Among Equals and the closest thing the galaxy had to a ruler, was a short, thin woman with severely-cut brown hair and a loose, groundling-style suit that seemed to have been tailored to match her hairdo. She had a stiff posture and a trace of a harsh accent from her heavily urbanized homeworld, Raypoint.

She had nearly exploded from behind her desk when Ellie and Avalon entered, and hovered over the admiral like a mother hen.

Ellie found the contrast surprisingly charming, and wondered if it had helped Ferrill to her present position.

"My condition is stable, Madame President," Avalon said. "Even if it had not been, however, I felt it necessary to report to you in person. And to accept full responsibility."

Ferrill frowned at the statement, then at Ellie. The president seemed somewhat annoyed at Ellie, though she didn't know if it was because she was intruding on what Ferrill thought should be a private meeting or because she was a hybrid. "And this is?"

"Ellie Hughes," Avalon said. "The wife of former Colonel Jack Hughes of the Algreil Devil Rays, adoptive mother to the young woman we believe to be the heir to the Astroykos Dynasty."

Immediately, Ferrill's expression brightened. "My apologies, then, Mrs. Hughes. In my distress at poor Marcel's condition, I've neglected an important guest." She extended a hand, which Ellie reluctantly shook.

"Er, thank you, Ma'am," Ellie said, surprised at the warm reception.

"I suppose you think we have a great deal more to apologize for," Ferrill said. She sighed. "I suppose you're right."

Ellie didn't respond. She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but apologies certainly didn't rank high on the list.

But then, nothing about her arrival in Etemenos had gone how she expected. Avalon had whisked her to the very heart of the world-city's silvery core, to the hub of galactic power, with no guards and him incapacitated. Even now, the closest security forces waited outside of Ferrill's office, separated by a corridor long enough to benefit from its surface flowing to or from the door.

Avalon had behaved as though he trusted Ellie. Ferrill had behaved as though she accepted his judgment unconditionally.

Did that mean they were telling the truth about their plans for Chloe – or lack thereof?

Or that they were very dedicated to appearing so?

Ellie tried to focus her acute senses on the problem, but surprise clouded her judgment. Besides, she had no way of knowing how good of a liar Ferrill was. She was, after all, a politician. Ellie had a spacer's distrust of the breed, coupled with a hybrid's loathing of the Federal Senate.

"The preliminary report I received said the Reformer fired on your adopted daughter's transport," Ferrill said. "Is that true, Marcel?"

"It is."

"Why?"

Avalon tried to hang his head. It didn't go far. "I do not know, Ma'am."

"Why not?"

"I was engaged in single combat with the Black Rook – Stephan Kyrillos – at the time."

"Then the decision was made by your first officer, Captain Little?" Ellie suspected she only noticed the edge that crept into Ferrill's voice because of her felid hearing. The contrast between the president's friendly demeanor and her harsh accent seemed to hide a lot of emotion.

"The responsibility does not lie with Captain Little," Avalon said. "He made a judgment call. In his place, I would probably have done the same."

"Under other, better circumstances," Ferrill said, "that would be left to a court martial to decide."

"These are not 'better circumstances,' Ma'am."

"Of course not." Ferrill scowled and looked away. "They would want to pin a medal on the good captain, in any case."

Ellie cocked her head. "If you'll pardon my asking, Ma'am – why wouldn't you?"

Avalon and Ferrill both turned to look at Ellie as if they'd forgotten she was in the room.

Or as if they wanted her to think they had.

Ellie's head hurt from trying to figure out the layers of deception she might be snared in, not least because she couldn't even be sure they existed in the first place.

"Don't get me wrong," she continued, "I'm glad you apparently want Chloe to be safe. But from where I'm standing, it seems like you're crazy to want that. If you'd left her alone, she never would have hurt anyone, but as angry as she must be, with the aristocracy teaching her, why in the world don't you want my daughter dead?"

"She has a right to be angry," Ferrill said. "She has already lost one set of parents to actions precipitated by the Federal Senate, and as far as she knows is well on her way to losing a second set."

Ellie cocked her head. "That's... kind of my point, Ma'am."

"Is not the purpose of the senate to prevent that sort of injustice?"

"How do you plan to manage that?" Ellie asked.

"By redressing the wrongs done her in the past," Ferrill said. "By giving her the chance to right others."

"You want her to take back her throne?"

"Of course not. Whatever claims your daughter might decide to press, Mrs. Hughes, we are not about to sacrifice the peace and equality of the galaxy for her sake. However, if she is, as I have every reason to suspect, a reasonable young woman, we can reach a mutually beneficial settlement with her." Ferrill turned away. Her hands, clasped behind her back, clenched so tightly she seemed about to cut off circulation to her fingers. "At least, that was my original hope."

"Madame President…" Avalon's medical chair drifted closer to her.

"My hope," Ferrill repeated, clearing her throat, "was that your daughter would accept a ceremonial role in the new government. That in doing so, she would restore relations with the Periphery and reintegrate the aristocratic colonies there. That the 'peace and equality of the galaxy' I'm so fond of speaking of would actually exist."

"I thought you people believed it already did."

"Do you believe that, Mrs. Hughes?" Ferrill's hand drifted up to almost brush against one of Ellie's pointed ears. Apparently, she realized the gesture would have been patronizing from a stranger, because her fingers halted in mid-air. She'd made her point anyway, not that she'd needed to.

"No, Ma'am," Ellie said quietly. "I don't believe what I know isn't true."

"A rare gift," Ferrill said. "My experience is that most people believe what they want to be true, my illustrious colleagues unfortunately included. They like to believe the important work is done, for instance. No matter that hybrids are enslaved in all but name and nobles exiled on pain of death, no matter that oligarchs are raised higher than the old aristocracy ever was."

"So change it. You're the president, right?"

"A president is not a dictator, Mrs. Hughes, much less an empress. My power is limited to vetoing such measures as my colleagues can be bothered to bring forward if they would make things worse. Without broad political support, I cannot change anything."

"And Chloe could? You said you wanted a figurehead, not a ruler."

"Figureheads have power, too, Mrs. Hughes," Ferrill said. "More power than rulers, sometimes. They control hearts rather than bodies."

"Sounds like a pretty good deal," Ellie said. And if it were true, it actually would be. Chloe would probably accept the offer if she thought she could do real good, especially for hybrids.

Let's see, Ellie thought, if they mean it.

"In fact," she said, "I'll tell Chloe everything you just told me – as soon as I find her."

"That's rather our responsibility at this point, Mrs. Hughes," Avalon said. "We have the resources –"

"But Chloe doesn't want you to find her. Your best chance to do so is to let me go and look for her." And decide if I should recommend she see you once my head is a whole lot clearer, Ellie added in her thoughts.

Besides, she looked at her request as a test.

"I'm afraid that's not possible, Mrs. Hughes," Ferrill said.

Test failed. As expected. "Why? Am I a prisoner here?"

"Of course not," Avalon said.

Ferrill sighed. "Actually, Marcel, she probably should be."

"Why, Ma'am? On what grounds would we hold Ellie, even if we wanted to?"

"We would not hold her," Ferrill said. She heaved a sigh and returned to her desk. "The rest of the Senate, and Etemenos System Security, would not be so kind, and they have all the grounds they need."

"Because I'm a hybrid," Ellie said, thinking she understood.

The President of the Federal Senate barked a laugh. "Ironically no, Mrs. Hughes. For all the injustice your kind faces courtesy of your uncertain legal status, I'm afraid in this case Marcel and I are the ones acting with uncertain legality."

"On what grounds would Ellie be held?" Avalon demanded. Quickly, he added, "Ma'am."

"Sedition in a time of war," Ferrill said, "which the Reformer's logs confirm. And suspicion of conspiracy to commit treason."

"Conspiracy with who?" Ellie asked.

"With your husband, Mrs. Hughes," Ferrill said. "As he is, at the moment, with the vanguard of the fleet Marcel is about to make war on."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 43: The Periphery

Chloe wore a floor-length, fur-trimmed dress of some sort of soft, supple leather Milissa assured her was one-hundred percent real. Which was apparently a selling point. She somehow managed to feel overdressed and exposed all at once. She'd had to shed the familiar comfort and modesty of her flight suit, and the dress's bustline drooped below her shoulders. But even Rudy had, however grudgingly, given in and put on the local garb. Chloe didn't see how she could have refused to wear it as well. A tall hat, as furry and white as the dress's trim, sat on her head. She wouldn't say she wore it, though, because when she glanced at the similar one nestled on Milissa's curls, her own looked ridiculously ungainly.

Who would have thought there was a skill to wearing a hat?

Chloe sighed.

"What's the matter, Highness?" Milissa asked brightly. She did everything brightly. If it were possible to mourn brightly, Milissa would have done it. Since it wasn't, she apparently refused to acknowledge she might have any reason for mourning.

Chloe envied her terribly, and felt even worse for doing so.

In the weeks since the Errant Magpie returned to New Kyrillopolis, Chloe hadn't heard anything from Stephan. Or anything else from offworld. If any transmissions came to the planet, and she had to assume they did, Slava and Milissa didn't see fit to share their contents.

New Kyrillopolis wasn't anything like she'd pictured the aristocratic enclaves of the periphery, either. The estate-world's name, suggestive of ancient cities, seemed like a bad joke.

Oh, the house itself was gorgeous in its ancient styling, all marble columns and rich carpets and wood paneled walls – real wood, even, though that was less shocking than usual considering the seemingly endless expanse of forest beyond the grounds. Those grounds were, if anything, even more beautiful. The estate was large, perhaps as big as the entire Algreil Aerospace arcology on Wellach, and everything not a building or a path was covered with hardy flowering bushes that bloomed even in the winter, poking out from the snow in flashes of color.

But there were no grand balls. No painfully handsome young noblemen. No noblemen at all, in fact, and Milissa the only noblewoman. Everyone else seemed to be a retainer, and most of those were men-at-arms. They treated Chloe with almost awed deference, which made her uncomfortable and kept her from getting to know any of them.

She wondered if that wasn't intentional.

She wondered why.

Certainly there was no training. She knew exactly as much about her powers as she had when she arrived. If Milissa had any psychic abilities she might have explained, she never displayed them. She seemed entirely uninterested in powers and politics. Left to her own devices, she talked about mecha tournaments, about clothes, or, mostly, about the glorious career, personality and appearance of one Crimson Phoenix, Rudolf Kaine Algreil.

Chloe couldn't imagine any topic she less wanted to discuss with her hostess.

Was this what Stephan had risked his life for? What Chloe had followed a hunch for? Sitting 'safe' on a barely-inhabited planet on the edge of human space, where the Feds could pluck her away as soon as they found her, farther from rescuing her parents than ever?

Milissa repeated, "Highness?"

"Sorry," Chloe said. "It's nothing."

"Oh. Good." Milissa shrugged and leaned over the edge of the marble balcony. She leaned far over, stretched, yawned. "I can't wait for the new year, can you, Highness?"

"Is it New Year's already?" Chloe looked away before Milissa could see her horrified expression. Had it really been four Imperial Standard Era months since she'd seen her parents? Time, it seemed, flew.

Principle, how she wished it wouldn't!

"Oh, yes," Milissa said. She rolled over on the rail and leaned her head back till she was nearly horizontal. Then she frowned. "With Stephan away, though, we won't have nearly as festive a year's end as usual."

"I'm sure he's all right, Milissa," Chloe said.

Milissa laughed. "Obviously. I simply meant he won't be around to entertain us."

Chloe tried to imagine Stephan 'entertaining.' Failed.

"Maybe you could do it, Highness," Milissa said suddenly.

Chloe blinked.

Apparently quite taken with her idea, whatever it was, Milissa clapped her hands and leaned close. "Are you any good with snow?"

"I'd never even seen snow before coming here," Chloe said. An exaggeration, if barely. She'd seen it on the Mother Goose's screens during rare visits to cold-weather planets.

She'd seen plenty of snow since her arrival on New Kyrillopolis, though. The balcony sported a dusting of it despite the servants' best efforts to keep it cleared away, and the forest beyond was almost pure white.

"Oh." Milissa's grin wavered, then settled into place. "But you'll be a natural, I'm sure. It rather goes without saying!"

A third voice wafted from below the balcony. "If you two are going to make out, it's no fair making me crane my neck all this way to watch."

"Rudy!" Chloe leaned over the balcony and glared down at him. Down, at least, until he kicked himself off the wall, flipped up to the railing, and landed on it beside her, sitting as calmly and serenely as if he hadn't had to leap a good two and a half meters just to grab the bottom of the balcony.

Startled, Chloe slipped and bumped into Milissa. They ended up tangled against the far railing.

"Wow," Rudy said, "I was kidding."

Chloe glanced down. She and Milissa were practically snarled in each other's arms. She sprang up. "That is not what we were talking about. Principle!"

Rudy shrugged. "A man can dream."

"You're disgusting," Chloe snapped.

Milissa climbed to her feet and glided over to Rudy. "It's true, Crimson Phoenix, you're really out of control." She made a show of stifling a giggle. "Of course, as a fan, I wouldn't have it any other way."

Rudy just grinned wider.

"And that jump was incredible," Milissa continued. She leaned over the railing again, this time right next to Rudy. "It must be, what, three meters at least? How in the world did you manage it?"

"Three meters is nothing," Rudy said. "All you need are footholds and bam, there you go."

"Well I think it's something." Milissa leaned even further out, stretching again. Showing off.

Her hands slipped. She tumbled forward with an undignified squeak, her hat flying and her legs kicking.

Rudy's arm shot out and snagged her by the waist. "The hell are you doing? Jumping three meters may be nothing, but falling it sure isn't!"

He hauled her back to the balcony, and she collapsed against him, gasping. Her arms wrapped around him and she pressed her face to his chest.

Rudy looked down at her and started to say something.

Then he looked up and met Chloe's eyes.

"I'm pretty sure she's all right," Chloe said. She didn't think she sounded too sarcastic. "Right, Milissa?"

"Oh, yes, Highness," Milissa said. She nestled her cheek against Rudy so she could face Chloe while she spoke. Lo and behold, she didn't seem to be gasping with fear now. "Thanks to the Crimson Phoenix."

Chloe nodded stiffly. "It's a wonder you managed without him."

"Isn't it, though?"

"You should probably let go now, Milissa," Rudy said. "Since you're fine and all."

"Must I?" She looked up at him and pressed closer.

"Don't bother," Chloe said. "I wouldn't want to intrude."

She turned on her heel and stalked into the hallway. The doors swung shut behind her.

They slammed open immediately after, but she didn't stop. She made it around the corner before Rudy caught up to her and missed a grab for her wrist.

"What?" Chloe asked, still not turning around.

"I could ask you the same," he said. "Why are you so tense?"

"Why do you think, Rudy? Our charming hostess hangs on you like you're the last escape pod on a crashing ship."

"So she's a fan," Rudy said. "Lots of people are."

"'Lots of people' don't practically jump into your arms in front of my face."

"Objection."

Chloe turned around, hands on her hips.

"She jumped off the edge of the balcony," Rudy said. "She only ended up in my arms because I grabbed her so she didn't crack her fool head."

"Principle forfend," Chloe said sarcastically. She winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth. "I don't mean that. You did have to grab her."

"I stand vindicated, then?"

"It's just..." Chloe shook her head. "Maybe if you wouldn't encourage Milissa, she wouldn't get the idea to do crazy stuff like that. What if she'd gotten hurt, Rudy?"

"I'm pretty sure she knows her limits," Rudy said. "Not so sure about yours, though. It's not just me and Milissa, is it?"

"Of course not. I know that's nothing serious." She didn't know any such thing, of course – Rudy had looked awfully comfortable with Milissa wrapped around him –, but it seemed politic to say.

"So what's really bothering you?"

"More like, 'what isn't?' We're further from rescuing my parents than ever, Principle alone knows what's happening to your company, and Stephan... if he's not dead, he's sure doing a darned good impression. What are we even doing here, Rudy?"

With a face full of wide-eyed innocence, he suggested, "Getting fawned over by Milissa?"

"Be serious, Rudy!"

"No."

Chloe hadn't expected such a curt denial. Whatever Rudy might say, he'd suddenly gotten serious, and she didn't understand why. "Why not?"

"Because there's not a damn thing you or I can do about our situation unless we want to break out of this place guns blazing, steal a ship, crew it ourselves, and blast off for Algreil Prime or the nearest better idea you've got."

"Don't even say such a thing! We're guests here."

"My point exactly. Guests with no ship, no crew, no plan and no destination. Face it, Clo, we're powerless." He took her hands and pulled her forward, closer than she really should have let him.

Well, she thought, it wasn't nearly as close as Milissa had been.

A large part of her thought that was hardly a good excuse, but it sufficed.

Rudy gave her one of his rare serious smiles. "We'll figure out some way to get back on track, but for now, just try to think of it as a vacation. Relax."

"I can't vacation when my parents are in trouble, Rudy."

"I'm pretty sure I just proved you can't do anything else."

"You've totally shifted this conversation, you know."

"That was the plan."

"I should be mad about it."

"Seems that way."

"I'm not."

"Figured."

They'd drifted closer with each word, until Chloe was, or at least felt, every bit as tightly pressed against him as Milissa had been. With a deep breath, she pulled her hands free, clasped them behind her back and stepped away. "Has anyone ever told you you're too charming for your own good, Mr. Algreil?"

"Not for my own good, no," Rudy said. "For everybody else's? Sure."

Chloe laughed.

"About time," he said. "For a while there, I thought you were gonna get all weepy on me again. You know how I feel about that."

"Can't stand it," Chloe said.

"Damn straight."

"Me neither," she said. "And Rudy – thanks. I will try to relax."

The warning klaxon chose that moment to start blaring.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 44: Strife

"Alarie, sweetie, honey, baby, I gotta ask a little question." Otto leaned across the desk until his face was only centimeters from his wide-eyed wife's. "Just one simple, little question."

Alarie looked too startled to answer.

Otto leaned even closer, like he was going to kiss her right there in the office, closer still till they were touching cheek to cheek and his lips were at her ear.

Then he snapped, "Where the hell are your father's ships?"

Alarie winced away. "I don't know, Otto, I swear, it's some sort of mistake, it's not my fault, I don't know –!"

"Well there's a damn surprise," Otto said. He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "Remind me again why you even come to these meetings? It apparently isn't your dad's support, and it sure as hell isn't your keen insight."

"Leave her alone, Otto," Jack said. Every time he saw the two together, he had to restrain himself from punching his boss. Trying to, anyway. He'd thought Otto was cruel to Ellie, but compared to how he treated his own wife, he'd practically put Jack's on a pedestal.

He said, "It's not Alarie's fault her dad's ships aren't here yet."

"That's very kind of you, Colonel Hughes, but Otto's right," Alarie said quietly. "There's... really no reason for me to be here."

Jack stared at her.

She got to her feet, nodded slightly to Otto. "May I be excused?"

He waved her off. "Do whatever you want."

"Thank you, Otto." Alarie produced a bland smile, nodded again to both men, and padded from the office. The door slid shut behind her.

Otto rolled his eyes. He started to bend over the pile of papers and hologram projectors on his desk, then caught Jack's expression. "What?"

"The hell do you do that for?"

"Do what? Are you still talking about Alarie?"

"What do you think?"

"I think," Otto said, "it's none of your damn business, Colonel Hughes. So why don't you butt out of my personal life and take a look at this shit that's doing it's damndest to end same."

"You're making me hope they pull it off."

"Oh, spare me. Alarie knew what she was getting into when she pawned herself off for a share of my company."

"That's no reason for you to go out of your way to hurt her," Jack snapped.

"Aren't we just the white knight? Between this and your furry love, I'd think you were a nob in disguise."

"You leave Ellie out of this, Otto. It's pretty damned obvious you wouldn't know the first thing about actually caring for someone."

"You never can tell," Otto said. Then he picked up one of the projectors and held it up. His touch activated the device and it spewed out a hologram of Algreil Prime's star system. "Now shut up about me and Alarie and pay attention. This is important."

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not dropping it," Jack said. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it's none of my damn business. I can't do anything about what Alarie lets you get away with, or what, Principle knows why, you want to get away with – but Otto, you better shape up soon."

Otto scowled at him. "If I didn't know better, old buddy, I'd say you were trying to threaten me."

"No, I'm warning you. 'Cause as it stands, you're wasting a whole hell of a lot of time with me. You think I'd bring my wife and daughter into an environment like this? Have them around someone who acts like that?"

"Obviously they're much better off with the Feds, who want to kill them," Otto said. "I mean, what's death compared to a little harsh language?"

"Maybe so," Jack said. "But you're still betting on Chloe getting on board with your rebellion, and that sure as shit ain't happening if she hears you treat your wife that way."

Otto laughed. "Did she learn to be a nosy busybody from dear old dad?"

"Probably, except where I come from we call it common decency. You should try it some time."

"It may be decent," Otto said, "but I think you'd be unpleasantly surprised at how uncommon it is."

"I wouldn't be," Jack said, "but Chloe would. And you'd be short her help and looking at some real long odds. Especially since she's liable to decide you're the bad guy in this whole thing, and I'm halfway to agreeing. Then you've got the Feds, the nobs, and the girl you think can probably lick 'em both on your case."

"If you told her to follow orders –"

"She'd chew me out for following the orders of a man neither of us ought to respect," Jack said. "Ellie and I didn't raise her to take our word for it. We tried to do right and get her to do the same. Principle grant we did a damn fine job."

"It is none of your business," Otto snapped. "None of your business and none of your daughter's when we find her."

"Dammit, Otto, why do you care so much about humiliating Alarie? Care enough you'd risk losing my and Chloe's help, and anybody else's who's got half a heart's?"

"She knew what she was getting into," Otto repeated, "and this discussion is closed."

Otto's reactions left Jack dumbfounded. He'd always known Otto was a cold-hearted son of a bitch, sure wouldn't have wished the oligarch on any daughter, sister or cousin of his. But being actively, devotedly cruel to someone who'd never done him any harm?

Jack's instincts screamed that the situation didn't add up.

"I don't know, and you'll be glad to know don't care, how come you married a woman you obviously hate. All I know is, you're risking a lot of loss and you're not getting any reward, and that's bad business, Otto. That ain't the 'old buddy' I remember."

Otto started to snap a reply. Then he closed his eyes, exhaled, and said, "You... may have a point. I'll take it under advisement."

Score one for being able to sleep at night after I fight on your payroll, Jack thought. He didn't mind working for a bastard like Otto, provided he could tell himself Otto was being a bastard with good reason.

"But Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't forget. I only need your daughter to convince the cowards and fools I must reluctantly call 'colleague' to stand up and do what they should have done fifteen years ago. Not her power, not her inheritance. Just her presence."

Jack didn't like the sound of that.

"If I thought bringing her here would do at least as much harm as good, old buddy, I wouldn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't stick my neck out on her account or your wife's, and right now you've got exactly one chance at saving either of them: yours truly."

"That's not –"

"Do you have a backup plan, Jack?"

Jack didn't.

"Do you honestly believe I don't?"

Jack didn't.

"Thought so," Otto said. "Now shut up and look at the hologram."

What else could Jack do? Stiffly, he took the machine from Otto and turned it around so its control pad faced him. He thumbed in on Algreil Prime, where four fleets of Oligarchical vessels were gathered. Algreil Aerospace's flagship, the cruiser Journeyman, hovered beside the space station where Jack and Otto sat. Arrayed around it were its three sister ships, twenty-two destroyers, ten escort carriers and over a hundred frigates. Three smaller fleets ringed the station, each representing another corporation in the Oligarchy that had answered Otto's call.

All told, they only amounted to about half the size of Marcel Avalon's Second Fleet.

"Your thoughts," Otto said.

Jack tried a few out. You're a bastard. We are so dead. This is the craziest thing I've ever heard, even from you.

He settled on, "We need more ships."

"We'll get them," Otto said. "By the time Avalon assembles his Second Fleet and reaches this system, at least Valhalla Vehicleworks, BiStar and OBERG will have their ships in-system. Plus the Marchesses."

He sounded almost apologetic when he added Alarie's maiden name.

Almost.

"You said two of those would be here last week, too," Jack pointed out.

"And one of these weeks, I'm bound to be right. Anyway, we need to figure out how to use the assets we have. In fact..." Otto grinned. "I just had a really interesting thought."

"That sounds bad."

"Oh, believe me, it's terrible – for the Feds, if we can pull it off." Otto brought up a larger version of the hologram in Jack's hands and spun it around so his finger rested on the edge of the system nearest where they'd estimated Algreil Prime would be in its orbit. The system and its sun were both small, so fleets could come in fairly close. A big boon to commerce. To defensive war, not so much. "We've detected Avalon's compression tunnel. This is where he's going to come out."

"Okay," Jack said.

"And this," Otto said, swiveling the hologram slightly to point at a tunnel exit nine gigameters from the Federal one, "is where ships from our absentee allies are going to come through."

"Wonderful. Avalon can pick apart our reinforcements one at a time."

"Not if we get there first," Otto said.

"You're gonna fight them before you have all your ships, right where they're coming out of compressed space? Once the first ship drops, they'll have a complete image of our fleet in their tactical computers and we'll be guessing what they throw at us next."

"But we'll have our mecha out and waiting for them," Otto said. "Theirs will be stuck launching as each ship comes back into normal space. They'll be disoriented."

"Sounds pretty risky."

"No risk, no reward," Otto said. "It stands to reason that the bigger the risk... well, you get the idea."

"That doesn't track and you know it."

"But it'll play great with the rest of the Captains of Industry. They'll all be praying I crash and burn in the opening wave."

"They'll be playing the safe odds," Jack muttered.

Otto ignored him.

Jack was getting too damn used to that.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 45: The Project

Marcel Avalon wore the white and dark green dress uniform of his station, emblazoned with the symbols of his battlegroup, the Federal Navy's Second Fleet, the Reformer, and the Divine Auric Drake. Ceremonial sidearm and sword adorned his waist, held in place by a gold brocade belt. In profile, he looked like a recruiting poster come to life.

Except that he was still seated in his medical chair.

Except that when he turned to Ellie, one side of his face was the pale pink of newly fabricated skin.

Except that he looked nearly as miserable as she felt.

"So," she said, "you're really going."

"I have my duty," he said. "You know that."

"Your duty. And how do you expect to achieve that? Your leg won't heal for a month at least. Maybe never, if you damage it while it's regenerating. You're still taking Limiters to keep the pain of your internal organs being rearranged from driving you mad." Ellie shook her head. "You can't even walk, much less pilot."

"I would think you'd be thankful," Avalon said. "If I am at less than my full capability, I am less likely to defeat your husband."

"You wouldn't beat Jack anyway." Ellie wished she could believe that. She'd seen Avalon fight a mechaneer-aristocrat to a standstill. How could any ordinary man hope to stand against him?

Of course, she reminded herself, Jack was hardly ordinary.

Just not a mechaneer-aristocrat. Not a psychic errant.

And not a match for the Divine Auric Drake.

Avalon asked, "You really believe that, Ellie?"

"No," she said, hating herself more for admitting it than for feeling it in the first place. "You'd probably demolish him."

"I don't want to fight him," Avalon said.

"Then why are you?" Ellie cried. She rushed across the spartan Etemenos apartment and fell to her knees beside the medical chair. "Why do you have to do this, damn you?"

"Because it's my duty."

"And you'd die for that. Kill for that. Kill a man you know isn't guilty of anything more than protecting his family, the man I love. And you can sit there with a straight face and try to sound kind to me?" Her hands closed around his, shaking. She felt like she was going to cry, or laugh, or maybe throw up.

All of the above sounded about right.

"I have my orders," he said. "If your husband had not sided with Otto Algreil's rebels –"

"If you people hadn't forced him to, you mean?" Ellie looked up at him. It would be so easy to take comfort in his troubled expression, his kind words.

No.

She refused to be comforted!

Avalon was going to take his Second Fleet to Algreil Prime, and he was going to kill Jack, die trying or both.

Ellie's grip on Avalon's hand tightened. She hoped, and wondered if she should hope, that she wasn't hurting him. It was his left, only just recovered. "If what the president said is true –"

"It is," Avalon said automatically.

"– then this is all a big misunderstanding. Jack and I fearing you'd hurt Chloe. The attack on the Algreil arcology. Jack fighting for his old boss. His old boss fighting at all!"

"It was not a misunderstanding on the part of Otto Abeir Algreil," Avalon said. "If that man did not plan on this exact result, it is only to the extent that he lost the engagement on Wellach."

"I could give a damn about Otto Algreil," Ellie snarled. "Principle! That man deserves the worst you could give."

"In this, we are agreed."

"But Jack doesn't. I swear he doesn't. He's always been loyal to the Senate, always believed in this government. Even when it did wrong, he believed it would make things right." Ellie gazed up into Avalon's mesmerizing amber eyes. "Admiral, Marcel, please, let me come with the Reformer. Let me talk to him!"

"I…" Avalon sighed. "I can't, Ellie. I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Because you are only free at all thanks to President Ferrill and I vouching for you. You are guilty of sedition in a time of war, Ellie, though neither of us knew at the time war had come. I can't believe you wouldn't do more if you believed the stakes were the lives of my men or the life of your husband. I won't put you in a position to make that decision, for your sake or my men's."

Ellie hung her head.

Free? On a world-city where she knew no one and nothing, where the hallways formed and vanished from a nanomachine sea, where likely every person she'd met save Marcel Avalon and perhaps Rhetta Ferrill saw her as property?

Yet she couldn't deny his accusation. She would destroy the Reformer and every man aboard, and herself with it, if she thought it would save Jack's life.

"Why aren't you afraid I'll kill you now, then?" Ellie asked. Avalon was somewhat recovered, but not so much that she couldn't have taken his life if she'd wanted to. She could probably yank the sidearm from his own belt and shoot him with it.

Except that she couldn't do that.

Avalon knew she could kill him. He knew she probably should. Yet he had let her take care of him, unwatched, unguarded, unaided, for three weeks. She'd taken the best care she could, too. Principle alone knew why, but she could only bear the thought of Avalon dying when she weighed his death against Jack or Chloe's.

"Well?" she demanded. "Why aren't you afraid?"

"If you killed me," he said, "it would be to protect your family. It would be insufficient, but it would not be wrong. Since it would be my life against theirs, I would not hold it against you. Harming my men is another matter entirely."

"How can you say that and still go out and fight Jack?"

"I have my orders."

"Damn your orders!" Ellie sprang to her feet. She stalked away from him, fists balled so tight her nails dug into her palms. "That's a coward's excuse. You know what's right and you refuse to do it; what's wrong, and you refuse to stop it."

"You know my opinion on this matter," Avalon said. "I cannot afford to have any other. President Ferrill is the duly elected leader of the Federal Senate. Hers is the will of the people, and I am their hand."

"You trust her that much?"

"Of course!" If there was one thing that could crack Avalon's shell, it was President Ferrill.

Ellie had to try. If it wasn't the only thing she could do for Jack, it was the only thing she could bring herself to. She forced the tension to ease from her body, the tightness from her voice.

She turned back to Avalon. "Why do you trust her so much? Just because she got elected president?"

"I obey because she is the president," Avalon said. "I trust her because she is the closest thing to a mother I have."

Ellie fumbled for an answer. "I hadn't realized... she was that much older than you."

"I'm younger than I look," Avalon said. "And the president looks well for her age."

You look too young to be an admiral, Ellie thought. If you're younger than that...

She didn't doubt Avalon's competence, but if what he said was true, how could he speak with a straight face about 'equality' when he could only owe his position to nepotism?

She said, "I don't understand."

"I don't either, to be honest," he admitted. "I'm a military man, not a scientist. Suffice to say that I am not exactly, or not entirely, human."

Ellie's eyes widened. "You're a hybrid?"

"Or something like one, yes," Avalon said. "I was 'born' in a research facility during the waning years of the Civil War. My creators were part of the Reinforced AnthropoMorphic Soldier Enhancement System, or RAMSES, Project, one of many such programs that sought to match the mental powers of the aristocracy to better oppose their social power."

"Marcel," Ellie whispered, "I think you shouldn't be telling me this."

"You're right," he said. "Everything you're hearing is classified so top secret, I doubt a hundred people outside the senate know it. None of my crew. As far as I know, none of my immediate superiors."

"Then why tell me?"

"Because I want you to understand, Ellie." Marcel's medical chair hovered closer to her. He reached out and clasped her hand. "Unless you do not want to know."

I don't, Ellie thought. Oh, Principle, I don't. I don't want to think about this, about –

She said, "Please, tell me."

"As far as I know, I was six months old during the Battle of Etemenos. At that point, my physical maturation was closer to twelve years."

Ellie felt her mouth going dry. Six months before Etemenos.

It couldn't be true.

She asked, "How?"

"Hormone, nanomachine and nutrient treatments," Avalon said. "As I said, I am no scientist. The specifics of the project are beyond me. I don't even know where my genetic code comes from, save that it includes hybrid and aristocratic strains. I know only that my early months were comprised of training via subliminal briefing. My... creators hoped I would be ready to take the field as early as calendar age three."

Ellie wanted to look away, but his gaze held hers as powerfully as a gravitic field. She said, "That's horrible."

"They were horrible times," he said.

"You can't excuse doing something like that!"

He smiled ruefully. "If the directors of the RAMSES Project hadn't accelerated my growth, trained me, in that manner, I wouldn't even be alive. I find it difficult to condemn them for that.

"Not," he added, "that I find it difficult to condemn them."

Ellie cocked her head. Up until now, she'd assumed Avalon couldn't see the horror of what he described.

"The Battle of Etemenos killed the Emperor, then believed to be the only surviving Imperial. It broke the power of the aristocracy and crippled the Oligarchical military." Avalon's smile turned bitter, nearly to a snarl. "Under the circumstances, breeding supersoldiers was deemed unnecessary. Dangerous. And, of course, political unacceptable."

"What happened?"

"My creators attempted to shut down the project," Avalon said. "They were not entirely successful."

"Merciful Principle," Ellie whispered.

"Perhaps. Enhanced or no, I was physically only twelve years old when I killed a dozen of the project's security guards, took their weapons, and fought my way into the research station's residential quarters before I was captured. The Principle's intervention is not out of the question."

Wordlessly, Ellie wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him close. She felt tears rolling down her cheeks.

If Avalon noticed her, he gave no sign. "Still, I would have died there if not for President Ferrill. She was not the president then, of course, only the junior senator from Raypoint and assistant to then-President Casimir. She learned of the plan to disband the RAMSES Project and erase all trace of it, including the test subjects. She convinced President Casimir to investigate the Defense Research Committee and threatened to expose their plan to a vote in the full senate if they did not rescind it. We were only hybrids, nonpersons, but it would have been politically uncomfortable for the committee's members."

Ellie shuddered.

"Why not agree, though? They had given the order already and already it had been carried out." Avalon's body shook with what might have been a sob or a bitter laugh. "But for their succeeding too well in my case.

"They would have killed me despite the rescinded order," he continued, "as I was obviously a 'life form hostile to galactic security.' But President Ferrill would not allow it. Before I ever even met her, she was willing to pull every string, cash in every favor, to save me. She risked her career, her freedom, perhaps her life.

"And in the end," he concluded, "she saved mine."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 46: Guests

Rudy burst into the control room a full fifteen paces ahead of Chloe. Back on Wellach, she'd almost managed to outdistance him in a sprint, but he'd always cornered far better, and she had to assume he'd kept in better shape. Too much time spent cramped up on ships and lazing around New Kyrillopolis. Rudy kept busier showing off for her and Milissa. And probably for himself.

Regardless, she only caught the tail end of what he said to Slava. "– worrying about that shit while there's something going down you're probably gonna need my help for!"

She got the drift.

"It is not appropriate to ask guests to help," Slava growled. "Or for guests to enter without asking."

Rudy shrugged. "Next thing I do that's appropriate will be the first."

Chloe tensed to interpose herself before the two came to blows again. Until they got close, she looked around the control room.

She'd expected New Kyrillopolis's antique aesthetic to end where its serious business began. She'd been wrong. The control room looked of a piece with the estate's luxury suites, though its wood-paneled walls were adorned with displays like a warship's, and the elegant, wood-framed furniture mimicked the layout of a ship's bridge.

Slava had apparently been seated in the command chair, because he stood in front of it now, glaring at Rudy and blocking Chloe's view of a significant portion of the room. She didn't know the other Kyrillos men-at-arms staffing the chamber by name.

"Get out," Slava said to Rudy. Then, after a hesitation probably longer than custom dictated, he bowed to Chloe and said, "Your Highness may stay. Of course."

Rudy took a step forward. "If Her Highness stays –"

Chloe grabbed his arm and shook her head. "It's okay, Rudy. Why don't you go find Milissa and see if she's all right."

He stared at her like she'd gone nuts. Which, considering what she'd just asked, she probably had.

She sighed. "Just go, please? If anything important happens, I'll tell you afterwards, but we can't afford to fight with the Kyrilloses."

"Like it'd be much of a fight," Rudy muttered.

A growl rumbled from Slava's mouth, and the pair of felids seated at the far end of the room snapped around to match his glare.

"Go," Chloe hissed.

For a wonder, Rudy went.

Hopefully not because he was that eager to see Milissa again.

Chloe pushed the thought away and turned to Slava.

"Many thanks, Highness," the ursid said. "You are right. We cannot afford this fight."

"What's happening? I know you didn't want to tell Rudy."

"Lord Kyrillos," Slava said. "He is back."

"That's great news," Chloe said. She hoped she was right. "Isn't it?"

"He is not alone, Highness."

"Oh." From the way Slava said it, the people with Stephan weren't exactly friendly. "The Feds? Are they trying to hold him hostage or something?"

Slava rumbled something noncommittal. Chloe took it for an 'or something.'

She ran through the possibilities.

The first, which made no sense at all, was that Stephan had betrayed her and his people. She certainly didn't expect loyalty from him, whatever he might claim, but she expected him to look out for his own.

The second was that he hadn't had a choice.

She gulped. She filed door number two away in a mental compartment labeled 'things she couldn't do a thing about.'

The third was that whoever was out there already knew how to find New Kyrillopolis.

Couldn't be the Feds. An oligarch? Maybe a certain red-haired oligarch? She glanced at the door Rudy had sprinted through. He'd been arguing with Slava and he'd been awfully quick to drop it. Had he found some way to get in touch with his brother?

If he could, would he?

If he had, should she be happy about it?

She might actually be able to do something about an Oligarchical extraction team, whether the something turned out to be saving the Kyrillos estate from the 'garchs or vice versa. Unless they gave her reason not to, she'd at least give it a shot.

"Who is it, Slava?"

The ursid grunted again and averted his eyes. Some of the other men-at-arms shot him nervous glances, but none of them looked to Chloe.

"I want to help," she said. "Please."

"That won't be necessary, Highness." Milissa's voice drifted through the silently opened door. She followed a moment later, gliding lightly enough across the carpet she hardly seemed to ruffle it.

Rudy followed at her heels.

Chloe suppressed a frown. "Would somebody explain what's going on?" she asked, more sharply than she'd intended. At least, she hoped she hadn't intended it so sharply. Milissa probably didn't deserve it.

"We have more guests," Milissa said. "And Stephan's come home."

Any other time, the Kyrillos girl would have bubbled that. She said it seriously, almost sarcastically, and her smile looked awfully thin. Milissa looked every bit her brother's sister.

Chloe asked, "So why does this place feel tense as a space elevator cord?"

"Because our guests are not necessarily welcome," Milissa said. She turned to Slava. "Captain?"

"There are five of them."

Milissa's grin wavered. "Color?"

"We do not have visuals at this range," Slava said.

"But if there's five, we know who it is." She sighed. "Oh, Principle above, this is not what we needed right now!"

"Who is it?"

"Complicated," Milissa said. She took the command chair Slava had recently vacated. Wordlessly, the ursid moved to an open console.

"Complicated how?" Chloe occupied the chair beside the last unmanned console.

Slava started to answer. "Highness, it is difficult –"

"No, Captain, it's quite all right," Milissa said. "The five mecha out there belong to fellow members of the aristocracy. Five brothers, to be precise."

Chloe couldn't help it. Some of her old images of the periphery crept into her head and threatened to make her smile. Rudely, she shoved them to the back of her mind. She'd seen enough to know how little truth there was to those dreams. "Why is that bad?"

"It may not be," Milissa said. "These gentlemen are not exactly enemies of House Kyrillos."

"Not exactly?"

"Our houses have given occasional offense," Milissa said, "but there haven't been any duels for well over a lifetime. Stephan would very much like to keep it that way."

"How do these guys feel?" Chloe asked. "About dueling, I mean?"

"They're quite fond of it, Highness," Milissa said, "so we must take care to make absolutely clear no one present is capable of giving satisfaction."

Rudy swallowed a comment, but whether challenging, arrogant or lewd, Chloe was glad not to know. She shot him a little glare anyway, and got back a little grin. Lewd, then.

"In any case, they are bringing my brother home, so I suppose they expect us to be grateful."

"You're sure Stephan's with them? How can you tell?"

"My Lord's mecha sends us a signal," Slava said.

Nothing as fancy as Milissa reading her brother's mind, then. Chloe wondered sometimes if the younger Kyrillos had any powers at all. If so, they were either underutilized or dwarfed by her brother's.

"If they're bringing Stephan home," Chloe asked, "why don't they contact us and tell us?"

"They know we're aware of them," Milissa said. "As the hosts, we are expected to contact them and bid them welcome."

"Then why don't you?" Chloe searched the console she sat beside for some sort of communications device. If one existed there, she didn't recognize it. Not that she recognized the instruments she did see. The Mother Goose, it wasn't. "The sooner he gets back, the sooner we can be sure he's all right, right?"

"Because it would be too polite." Milissa spoke slowly, frowning slightly, as if she were explaining an obvious principle to a thick-headed child. "We mustn't give the impression we act at their convenience rather than our own or else they'll feel free to take more than we wish to give."

"Like…?"

"Concessions," Milissa said. It was the flattest word Chloe had ever heard her utter, and she managed to pack a lot of emotion into it. None of it pleasant.

Chloe got the idea she should maybe shut up and watch.

Principle! Even Rudy, who normally couldn't keep from running his mouth for five seconds, had figured as much out. In Chloe's defense, she supposed Milissa might have mentioned something to Rudy on the way to the control room.

Sounded like a pretty feeble defense.

She shut up and watched.

Chloe watched the instruments, most of which followed patterns she wasn't familiar with and whose function she could only guess at. She watched the men-at-arms, who, with Slava leading them, operated with what she assumed was cool, military efficiency. Mostly, she watched Milissa.

The Kyrillos girl might have been a split personality. Traces of the familiar, frivolous, flirtatious Milissa remained, but not many. She moved almost as coolly and efficiently as her retainers.

Or, as her brother.

Chloe shuddered, and wasn't sure why. The room temperature felt like it had dropped about ten degrees. She had to fight to keep from tugging the too-low bodice of the dress up so she didn't have as much skin exposed to the chilly air.

Rudy's hand settled on her shoulder. She glanced up at his smile, which seemed to be an attempt at reassurance.

She returned it with about as much success and kept watching.

"Six mecha have entered the orbit of the processing station," one of the men-at-arms said. "We have a visual."

"Let's see them," Milissa said.

They appeared on what Chloe had thought were just more wood panels but now recognized as very high-resolution screens. She wondered how much of the house was thus disguised.

Five of the mecha were red-brown with golden bands. She didn't recognize their markings, but Milissa evidently did, judging from her tired sigh.

The sixth was the Black Rook.

Stephan's machine had obviously suffered from its bout with the Divine Auric Drake and the Reformer. Chloe remembered most of the damage from what she'd seen of the fight, but the mecha had clearly gotten the worst of the explosion at the battlecruiser. Already down one arm when last she saw it, the mecha had lost the other as well. If the twisted shoulder joint and trailing polymers were any indication, an explosion must have torn it off. As the angle of the mecha shifted relative to whatever camera the Kyrilloses were using to observe them, Chloe could see more of the damage on Stephan's machine's back. Nothing resembling thruster-wings remained, not even jagged stumps. Those seemed to have been pushed into the mess of shattered metal where its rear armor would have been.

Chloe tried to imagine how it would have felt as neural feedback and winced. From the tightness of Rudy's hand, she figured he did, too.

Milissa didn't speak for a long time. At last, she whispered, "Oh, my."

Chloe fought an urge to rush to her side. She might not like Milissa – okay, she didn't like her, no 'might' about it –, but she knew how it felt to see family get hurt. Milissa might be a flirt, but Principle knew she didn't deserve this.

Stephan... might. Chloe hadn't asked Rudy what more he knew about the Kyrillos family business. She didn't like to think what she'd learn.

Nonetheless, Chloe couldn't wish it on Stephan, either. She owed him at least her freedom and probably her life, too, and Rudy's besides.

Slava glanced back at Milissa. "My Lady?"

Milissa didn't answer. She stared at Stephan's mecha, ashen-faced, as if she'd never seriously considered the possibility he could get hurt.

Slava repeated his query.

Milissa gave the same response: none.

"My Lady, if we do not tell them we are watching, they may do something not so polite," Slava said urgently.

Milissa's lip trembled.

Chloe rose from her chair and said, "Open a channel, Captain."

Her voice sounded oddly distant, commanding – imperious. She swallowed a gulp. She'd never slipped into a role like the imperial one she'd used on the Errant Magpie by accident before.

Slava, or one of his subordinates, obeyed even before they had time to think about it.

The main screen went blank for a fraction of a second, then transformed itself into a face that could have been from another branch of the Kyrillos family tree. One who had let himself go, though. The mechaneer whose image filled the screen really did fill it. His flight suit did nothing to hide that he carried more pounds than the Principle intended his frame to, albeit in equal portions of fat and muscle. His deepset dark eyes practically sunk into a fleshy, ruddy face, and even his sharp nose seemed somewhat diminished in comparison. His long, curly hair and beard struck Chloe as almost ludicrously youthful in comparison to the rest of his look.

"Good afternoon, Lady Kyrillos," he said. He had a jovial voice, but it sounded uncomfortably loud. "It is as always a great pleasure to enjoy the..."

His voice trailed off as he saw Milissa still seated and Chloe, obviously aristocratic in her present garb and with the dye washed out of her hair, standing.

"And who is this vision of loveliness with you?"

Chloe started to answer, but Milissa suddenly bolted to her feet and said, "Lady Jaric. Lady Petra Jaric."

Chloe didn't remember telling Milissa about that. Had Slava?

Had Rudy?

"Lady Jaric," Milissa continued, "it is my distinct pleasure to introduce you to Lord Arsen Brise."

"The pleasure is all mine," Lord Brise said, a gleaming white grin splitting his features.

"Thank you, Lord Brise," Chloe said.

"You're very welcome." Lord Brise eyed her appreciatively – and, for Chloe, uncomfortably – before turning back to Milissa. "As you presumably already know, Lady Kyrillos, my brothers and I are about to do you some small good fortune. Unless, of course, you planned on inheriting shortly." He chuckled at what he apparently meant to be a joke.

Milissa laughed politely, which was more than Chloe could manage.

A snort of genuine laughter from the side of the room caught her attention. She glanced that way. Rudy had slipped out of the field of vision of whatever camera projected Chloe and Milissa to Lord Brise, and he apparently found the visitor funnier than either noblewoman did.

"My brother is well," Milissa said. It was not a question. Nor, however, was it a statement of the obvious.

It was somewhere between a plea and a prayer, and Chloe's heart went out to Milissa for it.

She almost regretted the mean and hurtful things she'd thought about the Kyrillos girl.

"Nothing a good long rest in the company of two such lovelies wouldn't clear up," Lord Brise said cheerfully. "Is Lady Jaric present as Lord Kyrillos's betrothed? We hadn't heard."

Chloe frowned, surprised. "His betrothed? Why would you think that?" She supposed Petra wouldn't have said that. Petra would have been flattered.

Lord Brise looked just as surprised, so maybe Chloe's slipping out of character wouldn't cause any problems. "I can see why Lord Kyrillos might make an exception to his usual policy for you, Lady Jaric," he said, "but scarcely without hope of reward."

His usual policy?

"Petra," Milissa said quickly – too quickly for Chloe to ask any more questions, and Chloe had to think it intentional –, "is not from the periphery. Stephan rescued her."

"What from?" Lord Brise asked.

He sounded idly curious, and Chloe almost answered as carelessly. She checked herself at the last second. There was obviously a heck of a lot going on that Lord Brise, and Milissa, weren't telling, but Chloe couldn't even begin to puzzle out what it was or what she should do about it.

She still had to answer the question, though.

"A life of crushing monotony," she said, which was both true for Petra's imaginary history, the sort of thing she'd say, and safely noncommittal. Chloe hoped.

"Then he's quite the hero, Lady Jaric," Lord Brise said.

"May we speak with the hero?" Milissa asked. "I, and all of us, of course, have missed him so."

"Unfortunately," Lord Brise said, "Lord Kyrillos is not in a condition to speak with you at the moment."

Chloe waited for Milissa to respond. When the Kyrillos girl seemed unable to, Chloe asked, "What's the matter with him?"

"He had a bit of a run-in with our Federal friends. Nasty bit of business, and a nasty place for it, too. Fortunate for him he was giving off enough psychic turbulence for my brothers and I to hone in on. Doubly fortunate that we were closer than an Animus Hunter."

Psychic turbulence sounded bad to Chloe's untrained ear, but Milissa actually seemed to perk up. "Perhaps," she said, "you'd like to stay at New Kyrillopolis for a time, Lord Brise?"

Chloe wanted to shoot her a "what the heck?" but saw no way to get it past the nobleman watching them.

"I'd be delighted, Lady Kyrillos, to avail myself of your company, but under the circumstances I fear it might be misinterpreted by our more… zealous peers."

"Surely a few days would do no harm, My Lord. Surely none could gainsay your motives," Milissa said, fawning like she did over Rudy. Chloe wondered why. "Surely you are above reproach."

"You might be surprised," he said. And Principle above, he actually winked.

Chloe was used to Rudy carrying on. He had the excuse of being young and something of a celebrity. And, though she'd never admit it, good-looking enough to get away with it. Lord Brise... wasn't. He had probably been handsome a decade ago and could be again if he lost the half of his weight that wasn't muscle, and maybe he was a big name in aristocratic circles, but he wasn't any kind of young.

He wasn't half as smooth as he seemed to think, either, because he'd given Milissa the out she'd obviously been looking for.

"Somehow, My Lord," the Kyrillos girl said, "I shall manage to control my disappointment. A visit would no doubt bore you in any case, as Lady Jaric and I must attend to my brother during his convalescence."

"Right you are, Lady Kyrillos," Lord Brise said. "Perhaps you can alleviate your grief by coming to my estate on Boria as soon as this foolishness between the mundanes is concluded."

"Something much to be looked forward to," Milissa said.

Chloe had to keep her eyes from rolling. Rudy, comfortably off to the side of the screen, didn't bother.

"Perhaps," Lord Brise continued, "you and your brother will see your way clear to our betrothal now that I have done you this small service, eh?"

Lord Brise's expression remained fixed in a mischievous grin. Chloe wondered if the sense of satisfaction she felt from him was psychic, or just her impression.

She glanced at Milissa.

The Kyrillos girl's face was frozen in a polite smile. She didn't even look at Chloe. She repeated, "Something much to be looked forward to."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 47: Rendezvous

Welcome home, Steph, Rudy thought. Hope you're enjoying it.

He wasn't being entirely sarcastic.

Stephan Kyrillos had been unconscious when Lord Arsen Brise and his brothers delivered him to the landing pad on New Kyrillopolis. He hadn't woken up until Lord Brise disembarked, insisted on an overlong exchange of kisses on the cheek with Milissa, and pulled himself back to his mecha with effort apparently equal to escaping New Kyrillopolis's gravity well. Which, considering Lord Brise's weight, was maybe pretty close to true.

Rudy chuckled at the memory.

Stephan had woken up almost as soon as his rescuers left. He hadn't exactly said that the Brise brothers kept him under so they could negotiate with the more pliable Kyrillos, but he hadn't said otherwise, either.

He'd sure looked almost as pissed as hurt.

"Poor baby," Rudy muttered. "Somehow, he'll just have to content himself with Chloe fussing over him if his hot sister has to pack her bags for the big day."

Fuss, Chloe had. Milissa, too, but unless the nobs were way more screwed up than even Otto thought, it wasn't the same coming from a little sister.

Hell of it was, with Stephan safely returned and his possible death no longer hanging over Chloe's head, she had finally taken Rudy's good-as-ever advice and relaxed. She seemed looser, calmer, than she had since he met her.

Looser, calmer, and less in need of the company of one Rudolf Kaine Algreil.

Rudy kicked an outlying root. His foot got the worst of the exchange. He glared up at the tree.

It stayed stoically, infuriatingly silent.

"Maybe I should break my foot," he mused. "If that stiff can get this kind of crowd with injuries he just imagined, the real thing would be a hell of a hit."

"Don't even say such a thing!"

Rudy whirled, dropping into a fighting crouch and bouncing backwards toward the tree.

At first, he thought Chloe had snuck up on him. Then he realized he was looking at Milissa. She'd pulled her dark curls into a ponytail like Chloe preferred when her hair was too long to hang loose without getting in her way, she'd ditched more than half her makeup, and replaced the rest with powder that made her tanned skin look closer to spacer-pale.

"I'm sorry I startled you, Crimson Phoenix," she said. She lowered her long dark eyelashes and dipped her head in what an untrained observer would have called remorse.

"What are you doing out here?" Rudy asked. "I thought it was supposed to be dangerous."

"It isn't dark yet," Milissa said.

"Isn't far from it." Rudy eyed the darkening sky. Since they were near the estate, he could actually see it overhead. In the deep woods, like the path from the landing pad, the canopy was so thick it could pass for a cave system.

"Which is why," she said, stepping closer, "I was looking for you."

"To tell me to come in before the monsters get me?"

"Well..." Another step. "Yes. Of course."

"Or to put the moves on me while Chloe's fussing over your poor, injured bro?"

"It isn't like that," Milissa snapped. She surged forward and met him eye to eye. They were about the same height. Her stratosphere blues blazed. He hadn't seen her so offended before.

It made her look more like Chloe.

"You of all people must know what it's like, Crimson Phoenix. Stephan's injuries, even if they weren't real, they hurt like it, and –" She bit her lip. It seemed to be habitual with her. It made her lips look fuller and redder.

And more like Chloe's.

Rudy knew he should start taking her back to the estate. For one thing, if there really were large predators in the woods, they probably came out closer to dusk than night. She could get hurt.

So could you, dumbass, a voice that sounded too much like Otto's for comfort reminded him. And I don't just mean by the animals.

Otto.

Turning on the old Algreil charm was liable to get dangerous when Milissa was turning on the Kyrillos equivalent.

But Rudy remembered something else about the day New Kyrillopolis's lord and master came home. Something Lord Brise had said.

He lay a hand on Milissa's shoulder.

She melted into what she apparently expected to be an embrace.

"Milissa," he said quietly, "I need to ask you something."

"Anything, Crimson Phoenix," she whispered against his chest.

Shit, Rudy thought, I've had this dream. Not here, exactly, and not with Milissa. But with who she looked too damn much like.

Which, he thought, had to be intentional.

Milissa might actually be a fangirl like she claimed, but she was a nob, the sister of one of the most powerful and dangerous ones alive. Alive, hell. Ever. Even if she didn't have ten thousand angles on every move she made with that gorgeous bod pressed against him –

Rudy imagined a globe of cold water. He couldn't remember if Otto or one of his much-loathed Fed or Oligarchical instructors had taught him this mental exercise. He'd never been very good at it. He almost imagined drinking the globe, but water was way too lame to be a regular part of his diet. Imagine drinking something with neither alcohol nor electrolytes!

Thinking about it distracted him regardless.

Anyway, even if Milissa didn't have plenty of angles to go with her curves, Stephan sure as hell did.

Let him. If an Algreil couldn't outplot a Kyrillos something was wrong with the galaxy. More wrong than usual.

Rudy said, "So what's the deal with Lord Brise?"

"Let's not talk about him," Milissa said.

"Let's," Rudy said. Gently, he pushed her away. He told himself he was being polite and subtle by taking his sweet time prying her off; better start practicing in case he had to tell Chloe the same thing. "Before you say or do anything I'll regret, I think you better tell me about him and you."

"It's nothing, Crimson Phoenix," Milissa said. "He's just a pompous old fool. He and all his brothers. Even the ones younger than me are old at heart, and Principle knows they're even worse for pompous."

Rudy laughed. "With an opinion like that, it's a wonder you invited him down for tea, much less to hang out here for pretty much as long as he likes."

"I had no choice," Milissa said. "I couldn't offend him by seeming ungrateful. Word would get around, and sooner or later someone would get the idea Stephan had been ungrateful, and where would we be then?"

Where indeed. Rudy got the impression the nobs maintained an economy all their own. The currency was trickier to nail down, but no less binding. No less deadly when you were in debt, either.

Since he couldn't care less about economics, aristocratic or otherwise, he shifted tactics. "I get the impression Lord Brise thinks you're his fiance. Or supposed to be, anyway."

"He can think what he likes." Milissa turned her nose up and away.

"What does Stephan think?"

"What he likes," Milissa said. A lot quieter.

"And you?"

"He'd be a very favorable match, politically speaking. It would be nice to be able –" Milissa bit her lip again, this time to clamp it shut. She turned away. "Well. Nothing will come of it anyway."

"Lord Brise seems to think something will, as soon as things settle down with the mundanes." A group in which Rudy was included. He didn't see himself as mundane, and Milissa didn't seem to either, but the aristocratic term for non-psychics still applied.

For now, Rudy wanted Milissa to forget that fact.

"I'm safe for life, then," she said.

"It's that bad?"

"You know how stubborn they are," she said, dismissing the whole of mundane humanity with a wave of her hand. "Once they get it into their heads to brawl about something, they quite simply won't stop until they make a mess of everything."

"So there is a new Civil War brewing," Rudy said.

"Well, of course." Milissa gulped. "Oh."

"You weren't supposed to mention that, were you?"

Slowly, she shook her head.

"Stephan's orders?"

Milissa didn't protest, which Rudy took as a 'yes.'

"Which means Steph knew it before he left."

Milissa took a halting step back. "I shouldn't –"

Rudy caught her wrist easily. "But you're gonna."

"Unhand me!"

"No."

Milissa wilted before the word. She fell backwards against a tree and would have dislocated her wrist if Rudy hadn't relaxed his grip enough to let her slide down.

Chloe would have kept fighting, Rudy thought. Kept fighting and lost, sure, and gotten depressed when she realized she wasn't a world-beater, or at least didn't know how to be.

Milissa didn't look nearly so broken up over losing the argument. She just pouted.

Rudy suppressed a sigh of relief. She was still gorgeous, still the type he'd once claimed wasn't his but sure as hell seemed to be, still a fangirl –

– but she couldn't pass for a non-spacer version of Chloe.

"I'm not letting go until I get some straight answers," Rudy said. "Is my brother gearing up to fight the Feds?"

"I think he already started," Milissa said.

"What's your brother gonna do about it?"

"I don't know. Probably nothing."

Rudy decided to believe her for the moment. Besides, Stephan wasn't about to throw in with the Feds. Any involvement above none would help the Oligarchical cause, not hurt it. Not in the short term, at least. "This is all over Chloe?"

Milissa nodded.

"What the hell am I gonna do?" Rudy asked. He meant the question rhetorically.

Milissa fingered the strap of her dress.

"I'm not talking about 'doing' you, Milissa," he said. "I'm talking about my brother and the Feds."

"But there's nothing you can do," she said. She reached for, and got, his hands. "If you go, you'll just get killed. I – I mean, the Empress, too –"

"That's real noble of you," Rudy deadpanned. "Thinking of Chloe's feelings."

She pulled away like his hands had caught fire. Maybe because her ears had.

"You're right," she said quietly. "I'm not a very good person."

Then she started crying.

Don't go to her, moron, Rudy told himself. She was faking. Obviously. She wasn't even faking because she was a crazy fangirl who wanted him in bed. She was doing it because her asshole brother ordered her to do it.

Obviously.

Even if she wasn't, why go to her? She wasn't a good person. Maybe she needed a good cry to wrap her head around how shitty her attempt to manipulate him away from Chloe had been. Couldn't hurt.

Obviously.

And he was an oligarch, not a nob. He didn't do favors. He got equivalent exchange. Sometimes he even asked it of Chloe. What the hell would Otto say?

What, if Milissa hadn't made herself into a romantic rival and maybe even though she had, would Chloe say?

Damn it.

Rudy put an arm over Milissa's shoulders. "Hey, I didn't mean it that way."

"But it's true," Milissa sniffled.

"Yeah," Rudy allowed.

She looked up as if stung.

She looked damned young right then. Some of her makeup had started to run, and it made her seem smaller and more vulnerable than if she hadn't worn it at all. Most fangirls were young, in his experience. Most grew out of it.

Rudy felt a sudden flash of anger toward Stephan. Milissa couldn't be much older than Chloe and she might be younger. Weirdly, she also seemed a hell of a lot less worldly. Chloe knew too damn well all the things she was supposed to avoid to be a good spacer girl, and why. Rudy might disagree on the whys, but he understood them. Principle knew she beat them into his head often enough! Rudy was willing to bet the next time Milissa met a 'why' that wasn't 'I want it' or 'Stephan wants it' would be the first.

Or, he thought, she's a hell of a better manipulator than he'd given her credit for.

Either way, he figured Stephan took the blame. Who else was going to train his sister to be this way?

"Milissa," he said.

She blinked. "Yes, Crimson Phoenix?"

"I've got just one more thing to ask you, then you're heading home."

"Anything," she breathed.

Rudy looked past her and asked, "What does a bandersnatch look like?"

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 48: Quarter

Two fleets of Oligarchical vessels slid silently into place beside those already in formation. Jack recognized the Valhalla Vehicleworks insignia on one set of vessels. The original parts of the Mother Goose bore the same logo.

The new vessels joined the seven Oligarchical fleets burning from Algreil Prime. In theory, the combined forces almost equaled the Federal Navy's Second Fleet.

In theory.

Nobody was counting the size of the ships in the Fed fleet. If you counted by tons or guns, the Oligarchical forces looked a hell of a lot smaller.

And outnumbered? Oh hell yeah. In mecha if not capships, the Feds would have them outnumbered three to one. Maybe more like five to one. Maybe ten. Otto kept those numbers to himself, which never meant anything good.

Then, of course, there was the fact that the Second Fleet was two out of ten. First Fleet wouldn't stray from Etemenos and the Federal Senate, but the rest of the Fed assets would bring the hammer down on Algreil Prime if the 'garchs somehow managed to win this first fight.

Otto claimed they'd have Chloe by then.

He claimed they'd have a lot more ships, too.

He claimed they'd win this fight without them.

He was the self-confessed best bullshitter in the galaxy.

Jack didn't see what Otto had to gain from getting his whole fleet – hell, his whole company – wiped out, but then, maybe the Oligarch didn't think he had anything to lose, either. The Feds planned to take him down whether he fought back or not.

"Look alive, Devil Rays." Otto's voice, still infuriatingly confident, crackled over their com systems. "According to our projections, Second Fleet is almost in-system."

We are so, so dead, Jack thought. "Roger, Devil Ray Leader."

Otto was nominally in command of the whole fleet, but since he was the best mechaneer they had, he led from the front. Jack wasn't sure who was in charge on the huge Algreil Aerospace cruiser, but it wasn't his once-and-current boss.

Devil Ray Leader was not actually piloting the Stingray for which his unit was so famous. Neither were his squadron leaders, Jack included. The production model Epee in which Jack sat hadn't impressed him at the Wellach Cup. He hoped it would perform better in real combat than it had in the tournament. Still, he had to admire the thing's power. It hummed beneath him, responding fluidly to his slightest command. In performance if not reliability, he trusted it to outperform any Fed mecha.

Hell, it practically made him feel invincible.

Which was maybe more dangerous than the Feds and the mecha's own questionable coolant system combined.

Jack knew what the nobs had done when they felt invincible. Gone and lost the Civil War.

"Let's give them a welcome to remember," Otto said. "All ships, flank speed. We're attacking the Feds as they come out of their compression tunnel."

The capital ships swept forward.

The Devil Rays hovered around their parent vessel, dragged by its gravitic shields as if they were in the orbit of a planet. Their mecha never could have moved so fast on their own. Nonetheless, the journey seemed agonizingly long. By the time they finally neared the weirdly-distorted space that marked the Feds' compression tunnels, Jack was sure the entire enemy fleet would have emerged.

They hadn't. The lying bastard of a clock wedged amidst Jack's various tactical readouts claimed only minutes had passed.

What had emerged were a pair of escort carriers, the only two they expected from the Reformer's battlegroup. These disgorged a swarm of mecha to screen the advance of the remaining ships.

It was probably suicide on the part of the carrier crews. Their shields couldn't distort space enough to deflect a direct hit from the Oligarchical cruisers.

As for the carriers' mechaneers, well... sacrificing them was pretty much standard Fed doctrine. The Devil Rays were the leading element of the Oligarchical battlegroup because they were the best. The Feds followed a different practice. The mechaneers swarming into them were second-tier at best, expendable to the elites who would jump through with the larger ships.

Jack almost felt sorry for the poor bastards.

Okay, he did feel sorry for them.

It didn't stop him from returning their fire when they started to blaze at the onrushing Oligarchical fleet, or from slamming the Epee's claws through one's cockpit as he passed, or tossing another mecha into his wingman's killing grasp. The Devil Rays blew through the cloud of mecha in a fraction of the time it had taken either side to reach the battlefield, hurtling toward the comparatively undefended escort carriers. No casualties, not on the Oligarchical side.

Jack started to dip toward one of the carriers.

"Ignore that trash," Otto snapped. "Let the second-line units clean them up."

"We're gonna be surrounded," Jack said.

"Bound to happen sooner or later."

Jack sighed. The plan was all too typical of Otto. Since the oligarch had been right often enough to stay alive through dozens of such crazy plans, Jack followed him in.

The Devil Rays shot past the Federal Navy front line. Jack's rear instruments noted the explosion of one of the escort carriers. The Journeyman or one of its sister ships must have managed to put an anti-ship shell clean through the small vessel's shields.

Jack had no time for pity.

In contrast to the usual Fed doctrine, the Reformer and its sister ships were the next out of their tunnels, and they were already launching mecha behind a wave of anti-mecha gunfire. Two Stingrays and an Epee blew apart before their pilots could correct for the sudden attack. Otto's machine nearly banged into Jack's as both men swerved away from shells that outmassed their mecha.

"He knew we were gonna try this, Otto," Jack shouted. "Avalon knew –"

"I know," Otto said. He sounded deadly calm now. A bad sign. When Otto let himself calm down, it meant he'd really, truly lose it if he didn't keep himself under control. "Just go with it. We're dead if we turn around and let those guns chew us up."

Unable to argue, Jack followed the oligarch into the second wave of Federal mecha. The rest of the surviving Devil Rays followed.

A line of Wyverns met them, the gleaming gold of the Divine Auric Drake at their center. If Marcel Avalon had already launched, he had to be gunning for a killing blow before the Oligarchical fleets could reorganize. Most Fed commanders played it safe and relied on their superior reserves of men and equipment. Avalon was going for a big reward, but he was taking a hell of a risk, too.

If the Devil Rays could kill him before he killed them, they might just have a chance.

In atmosphere, in a planet's gravity well, the Devil Rays' Stingrays had handily beaten the Wyverns of the Federal elites. The Oligarchical mecha were some of the few that could truly call one gee 'favorable terrain,' at least against other mecha.

They weren't in favorable terrain this time.

"We aren't in Stingrays, either," Jack muttered. Hell, if Otto's little brother could take Marcel Avalon on in an Epee, how bad could the machine be?

"Listen up, Devil Rays," Otto said. "Our targets are the Divine Auric Drake and the Reformer. We're gonna slag Admiral Avalon's flagship, and on the way, we're gonna do the same to him. The Feds can pour all the men and material they want into this mess, but without their chain of command, they'll be helpless. Clear?"

A chorus of "Sir!"s answered him, Jack's included.

Otto made it sound possible. Maybe even plausible.

Jack wished he didn't know better.

His communications system buzzed. The hell? It should have automatically picked up any transmission from a friendly. He willed it active without glancing at the communications window, not wanting to take his eyes off the battle line his Epee was soaring towards.

"Colonel Hughes, I presume," Marcel Avalon said.

Jack was startled enough to risk a glance at the window. The Admiral's infuriatingly handsome face, weirdly pale on one side, gazed back at him.

"I'm glad to see the rumors were true and my men and I did not inadvertently cause your death on Wellach, Colonel."

"Wish I could say the same," Jack said.

He'd supposedly changed to a private channel at the com system's prompting, but he figured Otto could still listen in. The next time the oligarch trusted anybody would be the first. Hopefully, he wouldn't get the wrong idea. Jack didn't look forward to having both sides shooting at him.

"You believe I am your enemy," Avalon said.

"The part where you kidnapped my wife and tried to kill me kinda tipped me off, yeah." Jack eased his Epee sideways to line him up with the rapidly approaching golden mecha. If Avalon wanted to distract himself with a chat, might as well take advantage of it.

"I saved your wife, sir," Avalon said. He was either genuinely offended or one hell of a good liar. "As to our battle on Wellach, I need not remind you who it was that fired the first shot there. I never wanted to fight."

"You sure threatened like you did," Jack said. "But I guess you were hoping we'd just hand Chloe over, huh?"

"I hoped as much, yes."

"Fat chance," Jack snarled. "You bastards'll never get your hands on her."

"Yet you would make your daughter Otto Abeir Algreil's living weapon?"

Jack was almost glad the lines met then and he had to focus on dodging a thrust from the lance of one of the leading Wyverns. Wasn't like he could say with a straight face that Otto wouldn't do that.

Jack smashed his opponent aside with the butt of his rifle and snagged the Fed mecha's flailing leg with the Epee's claws. The monomolecular edges went right through the armor and the broadening composite behind them tore a trail of artificial muscle and wire loose to drift through the vacuum.

"I am trying to help your daughter," Avalon said. "And I am trying to prevent your death."

"You're a ballsy liar, Avalon," Jack said. He lined himself up with the admiral again. "But you've got to be kidding me."

"I am not," Avalon said. He matched Jack's flight path, parting a wave of the smaller Wyverns as he approached. "I am asking you, on Ellie's behalf and at her request, to stop fighting and listen to what I have to say."

"Ellie's –!" Jack's lip curled back in a snarl. "That's some kinda nerve, after what you bastards did to her!"

"Nerve or no," Avalon said, "it is on her behalf I speak. You are right: terrible things were done to her under the auspices of the Federal Senate, things that can never be made up for. Do not add her husband's death to the list!"

"If that's what you're worried about, Admiral, don't."

Avalon sighed, relieved or damn good at pretending to be. "You will hear me out, then?"

Jack put a round from his mecha's rifle through the Divine Auric Drake's shoulder.

"Nah," he said. "I'll just make sure I'm not the one doing the dying."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 49: Concentration

A candle flickered before Chloe's eyes, close enough to make her face feel hot in the cool winter evening. Instinctively, she focused her attention on the flame, crossing her eyes.

"Are you concentrating, Highness?" Stephan asked. He stood by the window, staring out at the snow and the trees. He'd been there for most of the afternoon, hardly paying attention to the training he was supposed to be giving Chloe.

Turnabout, she supposed, was fair play.

She mumbled, "Mm."

"Good." Stephan didn't turn.

Chloe's eyes relaxed as they adjusted to the flame. So did she.

"Concentrate, Highness," Stephan repeated.

Chloe sighed. "Sorry, Stephan. I don't know what's wrong with me this evening."

He didn't respond. He acted almost as distracted as Chloe felt. There was an odd tightness to his voice, as if he were only paying half attention to their conversation and training. As if something else held more of his interest.

The minute Chloe let her thoughts wander, she lost her concentration completely.

She wondered where Rudy was. What he was doing. Since Stephan returned, she hadn't had much time to spend with Rudy. First making sure Stephan was all right – he had risked his life for hers, after all –, then, at long last, training to use her powers.

Not that she'd learned anything so far.

She watched Stephan light and move candles with his mind. She tried to do the same.

She failed.

Either he hadn't explained the technique properly or she didn't have the talent for it. He insisted the latter was impossible.

Chloe was beginning to wonder.

She wondered where Milissa was, too. Normally, the Kyrillos girl provided an audience for her training sessions. Milissa never participated, but her presence raised Chloe's spirits anyway. Not exactly a friend, she was at least someone to talk to.

Besides, if Milissa was watching Stephan train Chloe, she wasn't with Rudy.

Were they together now, Chloe wondered, talking about Rudy's career as a tournament mechaneer? Milissa's knowledge of and passion for the subject seemed inexhaustible.

Chloe wished she'd thought of a word other than 'passion.'

She gulped.

"Concentrate," Stephan said tightly. He stretched the word thin as monofilament wire and sounded as lethal.

Chloe blinked. She'd completely lost track of the candle.

Suddenly annoyed, she said, "What am I supposed to be learning here, anyway?"

"Concentration."

"Oh." Chloe suppressed another sigh. No point in complaining. She wanted, needed, to learn this stuff. If she didn't, how was she supposed to rescue her parents?

She hadn't expected it to take so long, though! In the stories she'd read, a noble's awakening occurred in a day, an hour. Seconds even. Once she learned to gather her powers, she just had them.

No such luck.

Sometimes, Chloe wondered if it wasn't all just some cosmic mistake. Maybe her hunches were just that, her supposed powers fake, the strange story of her parents finding her nothing but a fairy tale.

"Stephan," she said, "how long is this going to take?"

"Until you're ready, Highness," Stephan said.

Chloe doubted a real princess would put up with his sharp tone. Too bad. He'd provided a haven for her and Rudy, he had fought to save them – and he was her best hope to save her parents.

"My parents are imprisoned while I sit here," Chloe said. "If I could learn just a few actual techniques, maybe –"

"You could crack open the planet they were held on trying to save them?"

Chloe stared at the back of his head. "You're kidding."

"I almost wish I were, Highness."

If Stephan weren't just exaggerating, Chloe understood why the Feds, why everybody, hunted her. One person with the kind of destructive power an entire fleet struggled to match?

Chloe shuddered.

For an instant, she saw herself, or rather her birth mother's silvery mecha, floating above the shattered ruins of a small planet. Perhaps a prison planet where undesirables were sent to die in obscurity. Die they had. Died by her hand, her mind. Died by the thousands. Somewhere amidst the ruins below lay Jack and Ellie Hughes, the victims of their daughter's hubris.

It wouldn't happen like that. It couldn't!

"You're growing agitated again, Highness," Stephan said. "Please try to concentrate, or this will take even longer."

"I understand what you're saying, Stephan," Chloe said. After a vision like that, she understood all too well. "Only, why can't you save my parents?"

"Doesn't my battle with the Reformer and the Divine Auric Drake speak to the outcome of such an attempt? Awakened to and in control of your powers, you, Highness, might challenge the Federal Senate directly, but no other can."

"Don't challenge it directly, then," Chloe said. She rose from her chair and strode to his side, grabbing his arm. "Rudy says you control a criminal syndicate across human space. Why can't you kidnap my parents from their kidnappers?"

Stephan's gaze didn't waver from the window even then. Chloe couldn't imagine what had him so fixated.

"Why, Stephan?" Because you're afraid I'll leave, she thought. Like she could walk away from her powers now? If she simply rescued her parents and fled, she just bought them time. Not much time, either. She needed power to save them.

She needed power for Rudy's sake, too. He might have forgotten his demand for knowledge and power, but that didn't mean she didn't think he deserved both from her. He and his company lost so much because of her. She'd feel responsible for that no matter what he said.

"These things take time," Stephan snapped. He took a deep breath. Slowly, he added, "Highness."

Before Chloe could respond, Stephan suddenly bent forward, eyes wide, gasping. His long fingers clenched on the windowsill.

Chloe grabbed his shoulders. His frame coiled so tense he nearly shook. "Principle, Stephan! What's wrong?"

He didn't answer. From the way he ground his bared teeth, he might have lacked the ability. His back tightened even more and his legs bent like he meant to leap clean through the window.

Chloe tried to drag him from the glass.

Abruptly, he shook her free and spun on his heel. His long black coat flapped in his wake as he sprinted for the door.

Chloe ran after him. "Stephan," she shouted, "what's happening?"

He didn't turn or stop or even slow in the slightest. When he answered, she understood why.

"My sister," he said, all the emotion drained from his voice, "is going to die."