The Mechaneer

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 23: Ancestry

Ellie stared at the dark green composite of the bulkhead.

The Feds hadn't even bothered with limiters. She, and the Algreil Aerospace employees with her, knew better than to try anything. Civilian uprisings against destroyer crews generally fared poorly.

Two destroyer crews, she thought, laughing and sobbing a little at the idea.

So much firepower, so many men, so much trouble – all over Chloe Hughes.

Ellie missed her so much.

She realized she was letting her thoughts wander and forced them back into line. She didn't dare think too much, or else she'd start comparing her present captivity to the one she'd endured during the Civil War. A decade and a half later, she still couldn't bear to think about those awful months in a Federal VCL – Valuable Confiscated Livestock – camp.

She shuddered.

A gruff voice pierced the fog of unwanted memories. "You're the cat Jack ended up with, eh?"

Ellie glanced to her right. A grizzled older man in an Algreil mechanic's uniform shared the cell with her.

"I'm Jack's wife," she said. She wanted to muster righteous wrath, but the appearance of the second destroyer and being separated from her husband left her too tired to try.

"So they tell me," the mechanic said. He extended a rough hand, almost as big as Jack's. "Name's Boss."

Ellie smiled weakly and shook the offered hand. At least he made the attempt, unlike his Oligarchical boss. "Ellie," she said. "Is that your actual name?"

"A man's name is what people call him, Ma'am," the mechanic said. "And people call me Boss."

"I doubt the Feds will."

He shrugged. "They can call me dog shit for all I care. Bastards all, that lot. Begging your pardon for the language."

Ellie nodded. If they'd only left Chloe alone! She couldn't hurt a fly, much less the 'peace and equality of the Federated Stars.'

Boss said, "You're that girl's mother, too."

Ellie looked up. "Excuse me?"

"Chloe Hughes. The one the fuss is all about." He whistled. "She must be really something special."

"She sure is," Ellie said.

"I'd'a never guessed it to look at her," Boss said.

Ellie's eyes lit up. She reached across the cell and grabbed the mechanic's big hands. "You've seen my daughter?" Horror filled her. "Is she here?"

"Not here, Ma'am," Boss said. "At the tournament, though I didn't know it then, of course. The Feds raked me over the coals on the matter, not that I could tell 'em a bit they didn't already know."

"She was with Ot… Mr. Algreil's brother, right?"

Boss nodded. "Mr. Rudolf paraded her around like his own special prize – not that I blame him, mind, for she's a right pretty thing, a genuine classy lady. Not a bit like his usual fangirls."

Ellie winced. She recalled Otto Algreil's description of his brother. The responsibility of a five year old and the testosterone of a fifteen year old. "There must be some mistake," she said. "It's only been…"

She realized she'd lost track of time while under the influence of the Algreil limiters. "How long ago did your company take me and Jack?"

"Four weeks," Boss said.

"Chloe wouldn't hook up with some man in just a month," Ellie snapped.

"As to that, I can't say," Boss said. "I got the impression she didn't give him anything more'n a smile and a kind word, if that's what's worrying you."

Ellie breathed a sigh of relief.

"She did seem mighty attached to Mr. Rudolf, though," Boss continued. "I'm not sure I'd have had the guts to climb into the cockpit of that deathtrap and pull the poor fool out. She didn't even hesitate."

"Chloe would help anyone, Boss," Ellie said. "That's how Jack and I raised her. But frankly, we didn't have to do much to steer her down the right track. She's a wonderful girl."

"You're spacers, aren't you? Jack was, I know, and I can tell it rubbed off on you." Boss grinned. "Speaking as someone who used to be before he got suckered into the 'corporate family,' forgive me if I say I hope your Chloe stays attached to Mr. Rudolf."

So Boss was a spacer himself? His casual attitude toward hybrids – from the automatic, unthinking slur 'cat' to 'Ma'am' in just one sentence – was typical of the free traders, smugglers and salvagers who lived a nomadic existence among the stars.

Wishing what sounded like a fate worse than death on another spacer's daughter, on the other hand, seemed quite out of character. She asked, "Why?"

"'Cause Mr. Rudolf, if you'll pardon my saying so, Ma'am, could use a good woman to settle him down."

Ellie laughed. "I don't doubt that, Boss. You'll forgive me, though, if I say I hope he finds someone other than my daughter."

Before the mechanic could answer, the door to their cell slid open.

Three Federal Marines, their composite body armor almost a perfect miniature of the line mecha, filled the doorway. They parted to allow a navy officer to pass. Ellie, used to flight suits, barely recognized the uniform coat and trousers of a capital ship's crew. Only the Ouroboros on his chest told her he was a Fed.

"This felid is the one?" the navy man asked.

One of the marines saluted. "Yes, sir."

The navy man glared at Ellie. "What kind of man," he said, "calls a creature like this his wife? This Jack Hughes must be some kind of deviant."

Ellie wondered if he realized she could understand him. She wondered if he wanted to provoke her.

Boss's hand tightened on her arm. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

He needn't have worried. It took more than petty insults to get Ellie's hackles up. She'd faced far, far worse the last time she enjoyed Federal hospitality.

"I am Ellie Hughes," she said calmly. She rose and presented her unbound hands. "What can I do for you, Sir?"

The naval man recoiled as though slapped. Apparently he'd never heard a hybrid speak before. Ignorant, then, rather than actively trying to provoke.

"You, uh, can come with us. The Admiral wants to see you."

"I understand." Ellie spoke precisely, enunciating each syllable, making sure the Fed heard just how well she could speak. Let him ruminate on that for a while. Someday, he might understand, too.

First time for everything.

"Shall we go, Sir?" Ellie asked, dripping faux-politeness.

The naval man cleared his throat. "Y, yes. This way." He took a step back to allow the marines to flank her, as though he expected her to go berserk and tear him apart. Maybe he did.

Ellie couldn't entirely blame him for his nerves. She doubted he'd ever seen combat before, and the Reformer, at least, had surely lost crew to the Algreil fission cannon.

"You be careful, Ma'am," Boss called. "Jack and that girl of yours will be expecting you back when this mess gets sorted."

"I will, Boss." She smiled back at the mechanic, accepted his flashed thumbs-up. "You take care, too."

She wanted to thank him, but didn't have time to find the words.

He'd seen Chloe firsthand! He'd thought her impressively brave – though Ellie wished she hadn't risked herself – and a good match for his employer's brother. He was a spacer, too, a man whose opinion Ellie could respect.

Chloe would be okay. Even if she couldn't reunite with her parents, she'd find a way to survive and a life of her own.

Chloe had to be okay.

Ellie found herself almost smiling as she followed the marines and the naval man down the dark halls of the destroyer. They led her to a series of tubes much like a Wellachan gravlev station and guided her to one. The right one, she assumed, though how they navigated the maze of their immense ship she couldn't begin to guess.

Like a gravlev, the little car they escorted her to hovered above the floor and dampened what had to be phenomenal acceleration. Ellie barely had time to register the dozen tangled tube stations they passed before at last coming to a stop. If she'd had some hope of navigating the hallways, the tubes left her completely confused.

Her acute senses, confused by the images flashing past, made her slightly queasy. They told her she should be suffering inertia enough to squish her against the walls of the car, yet she felt nothing. She paused to steady herself before disembarking.

"Hurry it up, cat," the navy man growled. "The admiral is waiting."

Ellie's ear twitched. So much for improving his opinion of hybrids.

She did as he asked, though. Antagonizing him could only cause more trouble.

Fortunately, they walked down only a few block's worth of hallways before stopping at a pair of double doors.

"Inside," the navy man said.

Ellie approached the doors. They slid open to reveal what she at first took for a secondary bridge. A huge screen filled one wall, displaying the view outside the destroyer: Wellach's stratosphere, the color of Chloe's eyes, broken up by the lights of the Reformer parked beside its sister ship. The destroyers must have risen after the battle. Did they fear a reprisal? Did Algreil Aerospace have the resources to pull one off?

Since Jack's fate rested with his former company now, Ellie hoped they had the resources, but chose not to use them. He'd endangered himself enough for one day without flying off on some damn fool rescue mission.

"Mrs. Hughes," said the man seated at the center of the room. His voice immediately commanded her attention, even more in person than through the speakers in Otto Algreil's office. Rich, melodic, almost hypnotic – and familiar. The voice of Marcel Avalon, the Divine Auric Drake. "Please come in."

Mechanically, Ellie stepped into the room.

Her escorts followed. "Admiral," the navy man said, saluting smartly.

Admiral Avalon's chair swiveled. His hair was plastered to his head by sweat, he wore a smudged flight suit in place of a naval uniform, dark circles ringed his amber eyes, blood daubed his chin – and he still took Ellie's breath away.

I'm getting too old to react like this, she thought. Then, thank the Principle he wasn't the one to capture Chloe! Ellie couldn't have blamed her daughter for falling for the admiral's extraordinary charms.

"I've brought the 'breed," her navy escort said, "as per your request."

Avalon rose. He towered over Ellie and the navy man and stood taller even than the marines in their body armor.

The navy man shrank back from his superior's glare.

"I did not ask you to bring 'the 'breed,' Lieutenant," Avalon said. "I asked you to bring Ellie Hughes, the wife of a Civil War hero. I see you have, apparently by mistake, fulfilled your orders. Fortunate, as I find myself somewhat short of patience under the circumstances."

His voice was more than intoxicating, Ellie decided. He expressed menace as convincingly as he did appeal. He must have trained in some memetic art to tap into the human brain at the most elemental level.

The navy man stammered out a "Sir" and a shaky salute.

"You are dismissed, gentlemen," Avalon said. "I would speak with Mrs. Hughes alone."

His subordinates vanished, leaving Ellie alone with their admiral.

She realized she should be terrified of Avalon, realized she wasn't only because his extraordinary voice had been tuned to put her at ease rather than frighten her. He could not control her mind the way a powerful telepath might – she hoped – but he could influence her emotions so powerfully as to come close.

Recognizing the manipulation gave her some small defense against it.

She hoped.

"Please, Mrs. Hughes," Avalon said, "make yourself comfortable. I cannot begin to apologize for the anguish I have caused your family, but at least accept such hospitality as I can offer."

Ellie sank into one of the chairs. The reactive gel startled her, conforming to the contours of her body until she felt more comfortable than she had in – how long? A decade and a half, at least, since she'd enjoyed this kind of seat.

She rebelled against the comfort as she did Avalon's voice. All tricks, she was sure, to get her to betray Chloe.

She said, "If you want me to tell you where Chloe is, Admiral, you're wasting your time. You know as much as me. She's apparently with the younger Algreil brother."

"I did hope you could tell me," Avalon said, "but that is not why I asked you here."

"Why, then?"

"As I said – to apologize."

"You can't mean that."

"No?" He raised a platinum eyebrow. "On the contrary, Mrs. Hughes. What's been done to your family shames me. You have been separated, and now that separation may have become permanent."

Ellie's response froze on her lips. Jack? Or Chloe?

Oh, Principle, no. Not that, not either of them, please –

She whispered, "What do you mean?"

"Did your husband fly with the Devil Rays this afternoon, Mrs. Hughes?"

Ellie didn't answer.

"Six of their number fell," Avalon said, "but my men have found only three – all dead, none of them Jack Hughes or Otto Algreil. I confess, the mechaneer in me hopes I have faced such legends and prevailed, and the man in me prays your husband at least escaped the engagement."

Jack would survive. He'd promised he would come back.

But Admiral Avalon didn't have to know that. She said, "You believe Jack would fight against the Senate? He's always been loyal, always a patriot. He believed in your damned government, Admiral, and what has it gotten him?"

"Then I am truly sorry, Mrs. Hughes," Avalon said, "for if your husband did not fight and is not among our captives, then he is surely dead."

"W, what…?"

"Otto Algreil rigged his arcology's supply of fission bombs to explode once his people escaped. All those who attempted escape by sea were tracked and apprehended by this ship, the Constitution." Avalon closed his eyes. "I lost many of my best mechaneers to the blast, and anyone still on the arcology died with them. Had the Reformer alone been present to redirect the blast, we might all have died."

No one had remained in the Algreil facility, Ellie knew. She found herself wanting to tell Avalon as much, to assuage what guilt she could.

She reminded herself the admiral had plenty to answer for.

"So, if your husband did not fight, there is no hope for him." Avalon hung his head. "Principle! I always admired Jack Hughes as a man of courage and conviction. A man I would have been honored to call friend – and now I find myself confessing to his wife I was the catalyst of his death!"

"How could you imagine you could call him friend, Admiral, when you want to take his daughter away? When you send Animus Hunters to terrify her – to terrify all of us?"

"I did not send Errard Zelph," Avalon said. He strode to Ellie's side and bowed deeply. "Mrs. Hughes, you must believe me. The Senate is divided – terribly divided – and your daughter has become the catalyst for this division. President Ferrill personally dispatched me to find your daughter before the likes of Errard Zelph, or Otto Algreil, could."

Ellie frowned. "I don't understand."

"Your daughter, Mrs. Hughes, could cause terrible harm." Avalon held up a hand to forestall Ellie's rejoinder. "I know what you'll say. That she would not do so. That you have raised her right, taught her faithfulness and humility. I believe you, as does President Ferrill.

"There are those, however, who would not ask your daughter for her power, or accept that she will not use it." Avalon raised his mesmerizing leonine eyes. "They would compel her power, Mrs. Hughes, or steal it. They would shake the peace and equality of our galaxy to the core with such power, and unleash a terrible evil on every man, woman and child within it – your daughter most of all.

"I came here to prevent this tragedy," Avalon continued. "Instead, I have caused nothing but more tragedies. I have shattered your family and your confidence in the Federated Stars, driven your husband to one of the most dangerous men in the galaxy and your daughter to that man's brother. Principle! Mrs. Hughes, I wanted to apologize, but can I but beg your forgiveness?"

"Who am I to grant you forgiveness," Ellie asked. She leaned forward and stretched her hand toward his tensed shoulder.

She jerked her hand back, horrified.

In minutes, Avalon had compelled such closeness as Ellie had felt only a handful of times in her life.

She couldn't fight his memetic manipulation, she realized. Avalon had her wrapped around his little finger, and she knew it, and she couldn't stop it. When he asked for sympathy, instincts coded into her brain, to her very nervous system, demanded she give it.

She wasn't even sure he intended it.

Principle! What was Marcel Avalon?

"You are someone I have wronged, Mrs. Hughes – Ellie." He clasped her hand and pressed his forehead to her fingers. "Now, because of my mistakes, I may have to do you still more wrong. I must beg forgiveness not only for what I have done – for making an enemy of your family – but for what I may yet do. I must stop your daughter from using her power against the Senate, Ellie, and the Principle only knows how or by what means."

"What power, Admiral?" Ellie demanded. "I know Chloe's a noblewoman, but she's hardly unique in that regard. What makes her so important to you and the Senate and the Animus Hunters?" And to Otto Abeir Algreil?

"You truly don't know?"

"I don't," Ellie said.

"Your Chloe is far more than a noblewoman, Ellie." Avalon raised his eyes to hers. He smiled sadly. "She is the sole heir to the Astroykos Empire."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 24: Breaking Point

Chloe's flight suit sloughed off water as Rudy eased the mag-cycle off the streets of the port village. The leaking, nuclear-ravaged highway had flooded over her head at times. Fortunately, the mag-cycle, and her and Rudy's flight suits, worked underwater. More fortunately, Rudy had been right about the wisdom of the Wellachan founders: the highways flooded, but they did not sink.

Chloe resisted the urge to shake the remnants of Wellach's world-ocean from her. Rudy had cautioned against making noise.

"Hell of a ride, eh, Clo." He sounded tired and sullen and painfully loud. His words echoed off wet metal walls and the open ocean at the far end of the alley and up toward the distant sunlight reflecting off the spires flanking them.

She put a finger to her lips.

He tossed an exhausted wave. "Screw it. We're out of hot water for the moment."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Same way I could possibly know the bike would work underwater," he said, sighing. "I guessed."

Chloe wanted to argue. She started to speak. She ended up slumping on the steps leading up to one of the buildings, head in her hands, legs splayed. Her whole body ached from the wind resistance she'd endured when they fled the exploding platform. Choice muscles and bones promised extra soreness and bruises where the bike smashed into her during its frantic twists and jumps.

And the Feds had hit Algreil Aerospace over her.

That last hurt worse than all the aches and pains in the world.

She felt Rudy's hand on her shoulder. "You okay, Clo?"

She shook her head.

He sat beside her. His arm snaked around her shoulders. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah." She ducked out of his embrace without even thinking about it, shifted to face him. "Will your company? Your brother?"

"I told you, Otto can take care of himself."

"He can't fight the Feds, Rudy," Chloe said. "Not and win."

"Maybe." Rudy sheathed his mask and ran his fingers through his spiky red hair. "Looked to me like he's been planning this for quite a while."

"Because of what happened to Kalder-Black?"

"Among other things."

Chloe cocked her head, but he offered no further explanation.

She said, "Why would the Feds think your brother had me?"

Rudy looked away. "Maybe they didn't," he said. "Maybe they found out about those milspec weapons at the Algreil arcology."

And maybe you believe that, Chloe thought, but if so, why not meet my eyes when you say it?

Had he told Algreil Aerospace about her? Had he planned on revealing her identity to his brother – or, more likely, had he already done it?

If so, why the crazy story about 'going to see an old friend of her dad's?' If Rudy thought he could get his company's considerable resources behind the search, why wouldn't he say so?

Instead, he said, "What now?"

Chloe searched for an answer.

An answer found her.

After almost a month without a strong hunch, this one flooded her mind like none she'd ever had. She could almost see her destination: a deeper darkness looming over the black of deep space, an inactive ship, a hulk, a silvery mecha within, glowing with inner fire –

"I know where I have to go," she said.

"And that is…?"

"A battlecruiser."

Rudy laughed wanly. "You back to 'turning yourself in,' Clo?"

"Not a Federal one," she said. "An Imperial one. A hulk. Where my parents found me."

"What's there for you?"

"Knowledge and power." The answers flooded her brain. She wasn't sure most of the words were hers. The feeling unnerved her more than she wanted to admit.

"Both sound pretty good at this point. When do we leave?"

"I have to go alone," Chloe said. "Too many people have been hurt because of me already."

"Fine."

She looked up, startled from the semi-trance state she'd fallen into.

"Fine," he repeated. He stood, stalked to the bike and started to push it toward the water.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? This sucker is marked. I don't have time to fence it. If we're breaking things off here, I've gotta find my brother and probably prep for a war."

He really meant to leave? Chloe choked back the unjustified anger and the entirely justified fear flooding her. She'd asked him to leave often enough. To follow her hunch, she needed him to leave.

Asking, needing and wanting proved entirely different things.

"Before I do, though," he said, "answer me one question: how?"

"Pardon?"

"How do you plan on getting to this phantom battlecruiser? Let's review what you're working with here." He leaned against the bike and crossed his arms over his chest. "Stop me if I get any of this wrong. You have no ship, no mecha, no legal ID you can use, no marks, no contacts, no influence, no way to get any of the above, no proof of your claim the cruiser is still there – and no chance."

I have a hunch, Chloe thought. It suffices.

"The only thing you've got, Chloe, is yours truly." He pushed off from the bike. It rolled into the water with a spalsh. With its engine off, it immediately plunged beneath the crystalline blue waves. "So maybe you could be a little more grateful."

"How is it gratitude to put you in even more danger? Your whole life may have been destroyed because of me!"

"And leaving now makes that better how?"

"Things won't get worse."

"The hell they won't!" He strode back to her and grabbed her by the shoulders before she even realized he was moving. Chloe winced as his fingers pressed her sore muscles. He didn't seem to notice. "I've gone through hell for you, Chloe Rina Hughes! I lost a tournament – again – because you were here, I lost my bike because you rode it, I got nuked because you were with me, I maybe lost my brother and corporate gravy train because the Feds thought you were with him. I may be out of work and an outlaw besides, so you can kiss tournaments goodbye, and fame and fortune and fangirls – oh, yeah, my whole life is a damned wreck because of you. And what do I have to show for it? Not a single, solitary thing."

Chloe drew herself up. "Except saving your life!"

"So you fixed at least one of the messes you yourself said you caused," Rudy snapped. "I better fall down on my damned knees and thank you."

Chloe's shoulders slumped.

He was right, wasn't he?

If she hadn't come to Wellach, neither the Black Rook nor the Animus Hunter would have, either. Rudy had said otherwise once, when he still cared about making her feel better.

"I'm sorry," Chloe whispered.

"You're sorry?" Rudy barked a laugh. "Sorry doesn't begin to cut it, babe."

"Sorry's all I've got to give! You said yourself there's nothing I can do to get to the battlecruiser. How could you expect some kind of payment?"

Rudy shook his head. "Sorry's all you're willing to give, you mean."

Chloe stared. Then she shoved his hands away. "That's what this is about? Getting me in bed? I am sorry, Mr. Algreil – but not sorry enough to do something I don't think is right."

"Your damned spacer morality means more to you than all the crap I've taken for you?"

"My parents mean more to me," Chloe said. "I will not disappoint them."

"Like they'd ever know –"

"So that's how it is? It starts with sleeping with you. Then it's lying to my parents. Or did you mean giving up on finding them?" Chloe spun away from him. "Either way, it just proves they were right to warn me about guys like you."

She hesitated, tensed, angry and scared and powerfully, inexplicably miserable.

Rudy said nothing.

Slowly, Chloe started for the archway separating them from the street. She concentrated on setting one foot in front of the other.

She almost made it to the arch.

"Wait," he said.

She stopped. Didn't turn. Didn't dare.

Her parents couldn't have warned her enough, she thought.

Rudy asked, "Where do you think you're going?"

"Away," she said.

"No."

"That's not your decision –"

He spun her around and pressed her against the arcology wall, uncomfortably close. "You think so, huh?"

"Rudy, you're hurting me –!"

"And you're killing me, Clo," he said.

"If you touch me," she snapped, "Principle as my witness, I will kill you."

"Touch you?" He shook his head. "Nah, that's not my style. You can keep your spacer morality and die an old maid for all I give a damn. But I am not your nob, your knight in shining armor. I am my father's son and my brother's brother, an oligarch born and raised. Not because we're born with mystical powers. No, Chloe – Miss Hughes – because we are the canniest, toughest, meanest sons of bitches in the galaxy.

"I told you when we first met. I am not helping you because you need help, or because you're cute, or because I get my kicks out of doing good deeds." The blue flame was gone from his eyes. They were hard and cold, matching his mocking twist of a smile. "I am helping you for equivalent exchange."

Chloe shuddered.

"I will have my equivalent exchange, Miss Hughes," Rudy continued, his voice ice, his grip on her shoulder steel. "I appear to have lost my company and my family and my job and my fame to the Feds. You will get them back for me or give me the power to do so."

Chloe managed to squeeze out a "How?"

"Knowledge and power, and knowledge is power," Rudy said. "The Feds seem to think you're more than just an ordinary nob. You seem to think you can figure out how to use that more than ordinary power. Right?"

"R, right," she stammered.

"Bully for you. When you do, you will use it for Algreil Aerospace. You will force the Feds to pardon the company and all involved. Or, if Otto is starting a new Civil War, you will win it for us."

"That's too big for me –"

"The Feds don't seem to think so."

"Then they're wrong!"

"You better hope," Rudy said, "you're the one who's wrong."

He stepped back, giving her room to slump against the wall and suck in a breath. She gazed after him through eyes rapidly clouding with tears.

"You're not gonna be my girl," he said. "Fine. You're no longer my friend, either, because right now I can't afford one. As of this moment, Miss Hughes, you're my employee."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 25: Sides

"A second destroyer? Underwater?" Otto Algreil pounded his fist on the table. "The slick son of a bitch!"

Jack didn't say anything. He'd fought. He'd guided his battered Stingray to the meeting point Otto had told him to come to, a submarine mecha bay hidden beneath one of the northern arcologies. He'd informed his flight leader of what he knew.

His job was done.

What did he want, a medal?

No.

Just his wife, who the Feds had captured again, who they'd abused so terribly the first time he'd sworn off their war after dedicating his whole adult life to it.

Just his daughter, whose whereabouts he could only guess at and whose company might be even worse.

Was that so much to ask?

"I'll bet the nukes didn't get them, either," Otto continued, oblivious to Jack's ruminations. "One shield might have been overloaded, but two? Now that bastard Marcel can tell the Senate what happened, even present witnesses. Dammit!"

Jack looked up through red-rimmed eyes. "You really thought you'd wipe out a Federal destroyer and not get caught?"

"It should have worked, shouldn't it? Jam their longband communications, suck them in with a mecha duel, evac my people, overload their shields with the nukes? It was a good plan, Jack. You know that."

"No plan survives contact with the enemy, Commodore."

The Oligarch looked up, a snarl curling on his lips. Then, abruptly, he laughed. "Ain't that the truth, old buddy?"

Jack didn't give a damn about implicating Algreil Aerospace. Didn't give a damn about implicating himself, for that matter.

But Otto's plan would have gotten Ellie to safety – if it had worked.

He cared a whole hell of a lot about that.

"Sure," Jack spat. "Old buddy."

"What? You mean to tell me you didn't get a rush from being out there again?"

"Guess I don't get off on killing people and coming damn close to dying myself," Jack said.

"Really?" Otto leaned across the table. "Somehow, I'm not entirely sure I believe you, Jack."

"You always were a skeptic," Jack said.

"Look, I get what you're moping about. Your wife was with my people when they got picked up. Don't worry about her. Marcel fancies himself a knight in shining armor, more noble than the actual nobles. He won't harm the fur on her pretty little head."

Jack glared up at Otto. "What would you know about what I feel, you bastard?"

"I'm a married man, too, you know," Otto said. "Admittedly, Alarie and I have a somewhat more… distant relationship, but then, we each got fifty percent stock in the other's company, so who's complaining?"

"This is your fault, Otto. You should have turned us over to Avalon."

"Never," the Oligarch said. "The Feds stole everything the Oligarchy fought for. They treat us like subordinates after we won their damned war for them. No way in hell do they get the kind of power your daughter is packing."

"Just how much do you know about that power, anyway? Clo's never done anything but come up with some good hunches in thirteen years."

"She's the Empress, Jack."

"What!?"

"You've got to understand," Otto said, "I don't have proof, and I doubt the Feds do, either. They obviously believe it, though. It's the only thing that could justify the kind of firepower they sent and the way they're willing to use it."

Jack thought back to Chloe's real mother. That was an easy thing for him to do, even after so many years. He could picture the scene any time he closed his eyes. The surface of that silvery mecha sloughing away like water to reveal a luminous, raven-haired figure clutching a tiny child, the immense pressure of her powers, the shock of her beauty.

For years, he'd told himself she had to have been a noble, even though he'd fought nobles and none of them had that kind of presence. What else could he call her? A goddess, an angel?

Or one of the last scions of the Astroykos dynasty, cousin and betrothed to its last Emperor, whose transcendent psychic powers made her close enough to those legends to be mythic in their own right.

A legend wouldn't have died a few minutes after passing Chloe off to Jack and Ellie. An Empress, on the other hand...

Had?

"How is that possible?" Jack whispered.

"You know how the Emperor got involved in the Civil War, right? And the Senate – then House of Commons?"

"Sure. The Emperor went crazy and tried to take all the power for himself. Disband the Commons and the Oligarchy, turn the House of Lords into his cabinet."

"Not that fairy tale," Otto snapped. "I mean the real reason."

Jack stared.

"So you really don't know. Guess it's story hour."

"Make it quick, Otto, 'cause right now I've gotta tell you, this is looking more like one of your bullshit sessions to get me onboard with some crazy scheme than like anything approaching the truth. I haven't forgotten what your last plan did to Ellie."

"Shut up for five seconds, already. The point is, Emperor Theophilos XIX didn't just 'go crazy.' He went mad, if at all, with grief over his murdered wife."

"Huh? I didn't think he was married yet."

"Yep. To Princess Karissa Demaratos," Otto said. "The old Grand Admiral's daughter. Meaning she had Imperial blood of her own, from a different branch. Officially, Karissa died before she could get hitched. Unofficially, they eloped two years before she died."

"How come that was unofficial?"

"Because her father died without approving the match, and considering their politics a damn good chance he wouldn't have. The Emperor might have been a hopeless romantic, but he so did not need a scandal just then. Especially not a scandal regarding the Demaratoses, who were the big Imperial proponents of keeping the war going."

"What was so important about 'just then?'"

"The end of the Civil War," Otto said, "by way of an Imperial dictate."

"And you didn't take the deal," Jack muttered.

"The Emperor wanted to hand the nobs everything they asked for, a silver platter to go with their silver spoons. At the time, in case you've forgotten, we were winning. Or have you switched sides?"

Of course not. Jack didn't believe in the nobles' right to rule, any more than he did in hybrids being forced to serve.

Trouble was, those positions hadn't been compatible during the Civil War. Seemed like they still weren't.

All he said was, "No."

"Good. I'd hate to think you'd fallen that far." Otto waved a hand in dismissal. "Anyway, the point is, the Emperor was pissing on Grand Admiral Demaratos's grave and robbing his cradle at approximately the same time, and he wanted to keep at least one of those out of the public eye so he could pull off the other. But it never came to that, because the House of Commons – President Casimir – wouldn't pass the original ceasefire bill."

"So the Emperor kicked them out?"

"So the Emperor knuckled under," Otto said. "At least, that's what we thought until Karissa turned up dead."

"It was a transport accident, right? Or is that another 'fairy tale?'"

"Actually, from what I can tell, nobody, including the Emperor and the Senate, knows what really happened to Karissa's transport. First off, it was no transport. It was the Emperor's flagship, the Apollo."

A battlecruiser, Jack thought. Just like the one where he'd found Chloe.

Oh, Principle.

"As such," Otto said, "it sure as hell didn't just have an accident. Somebody decided to off the Empress to push the Emperor into acting."

"How do you murder an Imperial?"

"Very carefully?" Otto shrugged. "Probably with a fleet's worth of nobs, or a knife in the back from somebody she trusted enough to not bother reading his mind. It took all our fleets and the entire Animus Hunters corps to finish off the Emperor, but I don't know how Karissa stacked up."

Jack swallowed.

"Whoever did it," Otto said, "they blamed the attack on the Commons and made the Emperor believe it. He kicked them out of Etemenos, which was exactly what Casimir and his crew were waiting for. They formed the Senate, coopted our war, and forced the surviving nobs to work with the Emperor. The Emperor came out of Etemenos boiling mad, a million men died, and finally, he did, too."

Jack shuddered at the thought of the Battle of Etemenos, and he hadn't even been there. Otto had.

Jack couldn't help but look at the oligarch with more respect. He hadn't been among the million dead, after all. A testament to his piloting, or his luck?

Either way, it didn't mean he was right. "Even if that's true," Jack said, "there's another problem. To fit your timeline, Chloe would have to be almost as old as you, not your little brother. She's not, Otto, trust me. When Ellie and I first got her, she couldn't have been much more than five, maybe six."

"Tell that to the Feds," Otto said. "They believe she's the Empress, and I can't take the risk they're right. Who knows what happened to Karissa? What she was capable of? I saw the Emperor fight, Jack. He was one step short of a god. Karissa had less Imperial blood and probably no combat training, but she was still more powerful than anything you've ever seen. Messing with the flow of time would be nothing to either of them. Hell, even we can do it by moving close enough to light speed without compressing space."

If you're right, Jack thought, I know what happened to Empress Karissa. She died in the Mother Goose's mecha bay after handing Chloe over to me and Ellie.

"If you get Chloe, Otto, what are you gonna do with her?"

"Frankly, Jack, I don't have a clue. Like I said, the Emperor was out of our league. Maybe, maybe with the whole Federal Navy focused just on taking out an Imperial, they could pull it off, but I wouldn't bet marks on it."

"You'd crown her," Jack said.

Otto shrugged. "I can think of worse fates."

"Not many. Not for Chloe. That kind of responsibility is the last thing she wants. Anyway, what about Oligarchical principles?"

"What about them? I didn't want to overthrow the Emperor, Jack. None of us did. We wanted the right to conduct business in his Empire without meddling from the local nobs, to make as much money and amass as much power as we had the balls to. It was the House of Commons that wanted to wipe out the imperial line and take their place 'for the peace and equality of the galaxy,' right?"

For the peace and equality of the galaxy – if Otto was telling the truth – the body that would become the Federal Senate had set out to kill the angel who'd died in the Mother Goose's hangar. Had killed her, even if indirectly.

For the peace and equality of the galaxy, the Senate wanted Chloe dead.

For the peace and equality of the galaxy.

Jack had fought for those principles, alongside the people who had killed Chloe's real mother and now meant to finish the job on the imperial family.

Dammit –!

"I'm all out of options here, Jack," Otto said. "You can see what the Feds are willing to do. How far they'll go. I've got a family of my own – a wife and brother, and a corporate family that depends on me, too. Now that Avalon can broadcast to the Senate, all those people have to fight or run."

"You'll fight," Jack said.

"Damn right. I'm not entirely unprepared, as you may have noticed. The Senate stole human space from the Oligarchy after we fought and died for ninety years to secure it, and now they're worse than the nobs for crimping our style."

"You'll make Chloe fight."

"I'll ask her to, Jack. 'Making' someone do something when she could turn your whole damn planet inside out with a thought is a little audacious even for me. At least with us she'd have a chance, though."

Jack looked down at his big, deceptively nimble hands. Old callouses ached where he'd gripped military mecha controls again. A good ache, like an old friend.

Otto could bullshit like nobody he'd ever known. His facts did seem to add up, though. The dead battlecruiser, Chloe's angelic mother, the Feds' interest.

Images flashed through Jack's head: Ellie in a Valuable Confiscated Livestock camp, used, abused, sentenced to what would have been death if he hadn't stepped in. Chloe on the run, scared and alone, trying so hard to save her parents she forgot to save herself.

Jack imagined the Emperor seeing terribly similar images as some silver-tongued Senator explained how, to the regret of all, the Empress would not be arriving on Etemenos. Jack imagined going to war with the whole galaxy because of those images. Who could do less, and call himself a man?

Jack never thought he'd have something in common with Theophilos XIX.

He wasn't an emperor or even a mechaneer-aristocrat. He couldn't fight the whole galaxy to get his family back.

Didn't mean he couldn't try.

"There's gonna be a new Civil War, old buddy," Otto said. "Sooner or later, you'll have to choose a side."

"I've got only one side," Jack said. "Me and Ellie and Chloe.

"But," he added before Otto could argue, "if you're asking if I'll fly with the Devil Rays again… I don't think the Feds will leave me much choice."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 26: Syndication

Though it might conceal any number of hidden assailants, Rudy welcomed the darkness of the office.

It gave him an excuse not to meet Chloe's eyes. Not that she'd been looking his way much since his tirade in the alley. She'd followed, mute and docile as when the Feds took her ship and, she'd thought, her parents. He'd led her to a gravlev and across a span of disturbingly familiar highway to a port village, explaining as they went exactly what he planned and what she had to do to pull it off.

She'd said all of one word the whole way. When he finished his pitch, she mumbled, "Okay." She wouldn't say anything more to show she understood or even had paid attention.

Rudy didn't have the heart to ask her.

He felt he should apologize. Why, though? She did owe him, dammit, owed him through the roof. What gave her the right to get on her high horse and preach at him? She should've been down on her knees thanking him for considering sleeping with her sufficient payment for the hell he'd gone through!

Which didn't explain why he felt like the galaxy's biggest ass, and its biggest fool.

So they sat, silent and presumably alone, in an office lit by a single antique lamp. Their uncomfortable metal chairs faced an uncomfortable, unoccupied metal desk.

"Oliver Brent and Petra Jaric?"

Rudy jumped in his seat. So did Chloe, the most animation she'd shown since the alley. The names were the fakes he'd given at the desk. The voice speaking them came from behind the desk. The no longer unoccupied desk.

A man sat there in a flight suit as dark as the shadows, his face high enough to lie outside the narrow sphere of light. Had he sat there the whole time, or had he somehow entered without Rudy's notice?

Just how tired am I, Rudy wondered.

Chloe said, "T-that's us, Sir."

"Kronid," the man said, as though she'd asked a question. He extended a hand, dark-gloved like the rest of him. Chloe haltingly took it and gave a feeble shake. "Stephan Kronid."

"Petra Jaric," Chloe said, proving she'd paid better attention than Rudy expected. She rose and gave a nervous bow.

Rudy mumbled, "I'm Ollie Brent."

"My assistant," Stephan said, "tells me the two of you are seeking transport. Discreet transport."

"That's right, Mr. Kronid," Chloe said. Rudy wondered where her sudden talkativeness came from, but he couldn't complain. She sure hadn't missed a word he'd said on the gravlev. "Can you help us?"

"I certainly can, Miss… Jaric. I'm afraid it falls to you to demonstrate why I should."

"There's plenty in it for you," Rudy said. "Hell, if Petra's right, there's a fortune out there for somebody who knows how to fence it."

"Fence it, Mr. Brent?" Stephan asked. Rudy felt, more than saw, his thin smile.

"Uh," Rudy said. "Sell it, I mean."

"Very good." Stephan folded his hands on the desk. Something about his voice grated on Rudy. It wasn't just that he was a stone cold killer who probably had a fifty percent chance of knowing exactly who Rudy and Chloe were and what the Feds would pay for turning them over. The voice itself played on Rudy's nerves. It seemed familiar.

Rudy knew about the Kronistine Syndicate because he'd tangled with its low-ranking members in his academy days.

A crooked bookie asked Rudy to throw one of the illicit mecha tournaments he frequented. He threw the guy's bribe in his face instead. Come tournament day, a couple of dark-suited thugs tried to make sure he wasn't in any condition to win. He'd broken one of each of their legs and left them outside, calmly won the tournament, and walked away.

Apparently, the Syndicate respected his dedication – or, more likely, ran a background check and turned up the name Algreil –, because they never bothered him again.

Still, he kept an eye on their known haunts courtesy of the corporate databanks, just in case they ever decided to settle an old score.

Maybe, he thought, using that info to try to find someone to get him and Chloe off Wellach wasn't the brightest idea he'd ever had.

The Syndicate operated a lot like one of the Oligarchical corporations, but without the Oligarchs' legal sanction. They looked after their corporate family, they provided goods and services, they turned a profit. They even had their own fleet and mechaneers, geared up as pirates and assassins.

And smugglers.

"Explain to me, Miss Jaric," Stephan was saying, "why exactly you want to go to this defunct battlecruiser, and why you require unusual discretion in getting there."

"I'm looking for a mecha," Chloe, as "Petra Jaric," answered. "It's not acceptable for me to have one."

"Why not?"

She leaned into the light and opened her eyes wide. "What do you think, Mr. Kronid?"

"You're a noble," the Syndicate man said calmly.

Chloe nodded. "Don't mistake me. I take my Limiters every day. I claim no special privileges. I am a good citizen."

Rudy had apparently sold her on his idea. She presented herself as the daughter of one of the small cadre of aristocrats who'd agreed to the Senate's terms, giving their ancestral lands to the government and taking nanomachine injections to suppress their psychic powers.

Stephan asked, "Why do you want a mecha, then?"

"Because it belonged to my father," Chloe said. The best lies contained a germ of truth, but in this case, Rudy thought it was easier to sell the idea of a nobleman's mecha rather than a noblewoman's. He wasn't sure if the nobs had been desperate enough to allow their wives and daughters to fight by the end of the Civil War. Why give the Syndicate an excuse for doubt?

Chloe continued, "I want the logs from the ship he served on and the machine he piloted. My mother tells me nothing of him, fearing I will dream too high, but I must know of his exploits."

"Federal law forbids members of the former aristocracy from owning mecha, though," Stephan said. "You understand you are risking a great deal of trouble just by asking someone to perform this service for you?"

"I'm quite aware of that," Chloe said. "But Ollie –" Here she reached over and squeezed Rudy's hand. "– tells me you can help."

"What gives you that idea, Mr. Brent?" Stephan asked. "I hope no one has told you I am not a law-abiding citizen."

"I hear stuff," Rudy said. "You know, on the street. I'm pretty plugged in."

Rudy played the role of the boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks, the poseur rebel who landed an upper-class girl by pretending to be ten times cooler and more badass than he was. The kind of guy who thought he could get in good with the Syndicate if he just got his big break, and who was very wrong to think so.

"I'm sure you are," Stephan said, not bothering to hide his condescension.

Mission accomplished, Rudy thought.

"Please, Mr. Kronid," Chloe said. She aimed her big stratosphere blues at the darkness where the Syndicate man's face should have been. "I so want to learn about my father, to have something to remember him by. When I found out where he'd been killed, I…"

She looked down, bit her lip. "Please," she whispered.

He reached across and patted her shoulder. "There, there, Miss Jaric. I sympathize with you more than you may realize. Family, you see, is very important to me, too."

"Then…?" Chloe hesitated.

She was a hell of an actress when she set her mind to it. Her dad was supposed to be a legendary fast-talker, so Rudy supposed it made sense.

"It takes a lot of marks to fund an expedition like this, Miss Jaric," Stephan said. "Especially when it must remain off the official books. Are you sure you are willing to spend so much on what, by your own admission, is ultimately a mission of sentiment?"

"Money is no object," Chloe said. She smiled nastily, a look Rudy would never expect from little lost puppy Chloe Hughes but seemed perfectly natural for spoiled, sentimental brat Petra Jaric. "I rather like the idea of spending my stepfather's marks to get a memento of my real father."

Rudy snorted a laugh. Ollie Brent would dig that cruel streak in his girl. Rudy Kaine Algreil might not mind it, either.

Stephan Kronid apparently didn't care for it, judging from the forced politeness of his chuckle. "In that case, Miss Jaric, we may come to an accommodation. If you'll give me your financial transaction code?"

Chloe gave him the one Rudy had told her to, instead, recently filled with marks he'd drawn from personal accounts he expected to see frozen within the day. He'd taken out two megamarks of spending money, but he planned on saving that for close encounters.

Besides, Stephan would probably get suspicious of someone who could flash that kind of cash.

Chloe's eyes widened a little as the marks Stephan was charging counted up on her flight suit's screen. Rudy couldn't tell if it was part of the act or if she was genuinely shocked.

"Well, Mr. Brent, Miss Jaric," Stephan said, "it seems we have equivalence."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 27: Petra

'Petra Jaric' stood at the back of the Errant Magpie's sleekly sterile bridge, imperiously watching four men in black flight suits orchestrate the ship's entrance into compressed space. If the young noblewoman felt the least bit uncomfortable at traveling on a ship full of criminals, or anything but haughtily pleased by said criminals' lusty glances, she betrayed no sign. She was the picture of oblivious arrogance.

Chloe Hughes, of course, was absolutely terrified.

Between the dark screens and flight suits and the oversaturated white lights bathing the bridge, the Magpie and its crew gave a reasonable impression of their ship's avian namesake. The whole environment was a study in sharp contrasts, white walls and lights, black suits and shadows.

Also like magpies, the crew were thieves – or worse.

"Are you comfortable with compression jumps, Miss Jaric?" Stephan Kronid asked.

Chloe hadn't noticed the Syndicate man's approach. She never did. "I'll be fine, Mr. Kronid," she said. "It's very good of you to ask." Which was almost like thanks, but not quite.

It seemed in-character.

Chloe didn't know what bothered her most. The coldness between her and Rudy, the Magpie's crew of likely rogues, the ease with which she seemed to slip into the petty, petulant role of Petra Jaric, or simply being aboard a compression-capable ship other than the Mother Goose.

She felt like she was running away from her obligation to her parents, even though she knew the battlecruiser offered her only hope of helping them.

"You seem troubled," Stephan said. "Did you and Mr. Brent have a fight?"

"I'm fine," Chloe repeated. She turned to face the Syndicate man.

He was exceedingly tall, coffee-and-cream dark and rail thin, made more so by the way his black flight suit seemed to meld into the overbright light, with an acquiline nose, deepset, heavily shadowed dark eyes, a sharp jaw and a ponytail of thin, straight black hair. He was handsome, she supposed, and extremely menacing even when he was doing nothing more than standing there smiling his too-white smile.

Petra, Chloe decided, would not deign to notice such details. She filed them away but flashed a thin smile rather than following her instinct to step back. "How long until we enter the compression tunnel?"

"A few more minutes," Stephan said. "My men must compute both a legal trajectory to give the traffic managers and an actual one that avoids the usual transport lanes."

"Of course," Chloe said. She pretended to pretend to understand. She actually did, but Petra wouldn't. The Feds, like the Empire before them, managed space traffic to prevent two compression tunnels from intersecting. Technically, a very talented pilot could steer a very nimble ship safely through intersecting tunnels, but only the wildest thrill seeker wanted to try. Criminal and military ships routinely ignored safe channels, as the Errant Magpie was about to.

Another thing to worry about. She wished she were as ignorant of the danger as she pretended to be.

Rudy said Stephan would double-cross them for sure once they got to the battlecruiser and Chloe either showed the Syndicate man how to activate its remains or failed to do so. Until then, though, Rudy said, Stephan would bide his time and count his marks.

Rudy also said he could take the Magpie's four crewmen, an ursid among them, in a fight.

Chloe wanted very badly to believe him.

"Your attachment to your father is admirable," Stephan was saying. Chloe realized she had let her mind wander and hadn't been paying attention to either the Syndicate man or her cover. Stephan assuredly noticed her distraction, but either canniness or politeness prevented him from saying so. "I take it your current familial arrangements don't suit?"

"Mother remarried," Chloe said, "for money rather than either position or love. It's all very well to be able to buy respect, but my stepfather does not deserve it."

Stephan chuckled. "Does position matter so much to you… Petra?"

The way he said the name cut short her response. Chloe tried to identify the undercurrent. Did he hate nobs? Many people in the Federated Stars did. Or did he know who she was?

Or was he just testing her to see if he could get away with using her persona's first name?

"It is all I have left, Mr. Kronid," she said. Petra, in Chloe's mind, genuinely felt the loss of station, even though she'd been a young child when it happened. She slumped and gave a little sigh. "I don't expect people to bow and scrape, of course, but one wants to at least be acknowledged.

"Is that," she added plaintively, "so much to ask?"

"I'm sure you don't have any trouble being acknowledged, Petra," Stephan said.

Chloe suppressed a sigh of relief. Using the name again settled the matter. He was simply trying it out and appreciating the closeness of a first-name basis.

I should use that closeness to my advantage, Chloe thought.

Just thinking it made her feel dirty.

Yet, she already saw ways. Petra, who had gravitated toward a petty thug like Rudy's alter-ego, Ollie Brent, because he was rough and handsome and dangerous – mostly dangerous – would find the idea of being a powerful gangster's girl exhilarating. Anything to offend her resented mother. Anything to liven up her drab, shallow life.

"I… really should be going, Ste… Mr. Kronid," "Petra" said. She must maintain the illusion of propriety. For the second time in as many minutes, Chloe found herself pretending to pretend what she actually felt. She felt smothered by the layers of bluffs.

"Of course," Stephan said. He stepped aside to permit her to leave the bridge and swept a long arm toward the door. "I wouldn't dream of keeping you waiting."

"You're very generous," she said. She forced a smile, quickly, then swept from the bridge, doing her best to portray a troubled young woman contemplating a terrible mistake and prepared, even excited, to make it.

She strode down the Errant Magpie's long, white hallways to the room she and Rudy shared. The door, programmed to respond to her touch as soon as they came aboard, slid open when she pressed her hand to it.

The lights were off inside. Only a small screen, still silently portraying the flow of Wellachan waves, illuminated the room. Chloe's eyes took a moment to adjust as she stepped in and let the door slide shut behind her.

She knew where Rudy was long before she could see him, though. Sprawled on the gel couch on one side of the room, eyes closed, snoring.

He'd slept on a lot of couches, lately. First at the hotel on Wellach, where he'd refused to get a suite with two beds, supposedly to keep up his reputation, but she figured he'd had at least some hope of sharing the one. Now on the Magpie, because their cover demanded they give the appearance of sleeping together.

Chloe sank to the bed and buried her face in her hands.

"Rudy," she whispered, too quietly to wake him. "I'm so sorry. You're right, you're completely right. I owe you knowledge and power for the risks you took and the things you lost. And more than that, because you were a friend to me when I needed one the most."

He thought she was angry with him, she knew. She had been, at first, and shocked at the harshness of his words. She didn't blame him, though. Couldn't.

She didn't know why those words choked in her throat when he could actually hear her. Somehow, it never came out right, or at all.

She peeked through spread fingers.

Rudy's chest rose and fell in rhythm to his snores, peaceful as a baby. He was so much easier to talk to when he didn't come back with a smart remark at every sentence. So much more likable.

Lovable, even.

"I can't figure you out, Rudy," Chloe said. "Who are you, really? Who's your Chloe Hughes, and who's your Petra Jaric? A smartass punk who doesn't care about anything or anyone? A ruthless Oligarch who tallies up every service rendered and penny loaned and expects payment with interest?"

She leaned closer. Her voice lowered to the point she almost couldn't hear it. "The nice guy you sometimes seem to be underneath it all – even if you'd never admit it?"

Or, she reminded herself, the nice guy you sometimes pretend to be.

Principle, she thought, don't let that person be the fake, because –

Because Jack and Ellie Hughes were so, so right to warn their daughter about guys like Rudy.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 28: The Hulk

"Looks like you were right, after all, babe," Rudy said. He faked a grin and gave Chloe a comradely elbow.

No response.

Rudy wanted to glance at her, but he found it difficult to look away from the immense hulk filling the Errant Magpie's main screen. Rudy hadn't seen a Civil War-era battlecruiser up close since he was a little kid. Maybe he didn't remember how big they looked. Maybe this one looked even bigger than most.

Eight kilometers of reinforced composite armor and immense main guns and cavernous mecha bays and city-sized crew quarters.

All dead.

An eight kilometer long corpse, drifting through deep space.

Finally, he wrenched his eyes to Chloe.

She stared at the battlecruiser, wide-eyed, ashen-faced, fists clenched, unmoving. She didn't seem to have even noticed him speaking. Whatever he found so unnerving apparently affected her much more.

He reached over to take her hand.

Stephan Kronid stepped between them. He looked almost as ashen-faced as Chloe, not that it stopped him from butting in. "Let's get this over with," he said.

A murmur of assent rounded the bridge.

Rudy was glad to see the battlecruiser unnerved even the hard men of the Kronistine Syndicate. Made him feel better about letting it creep him out.

He was not glad to see Stephan step between him and Chloe. Even less to see the crime boss take Chloe's hand and say, "Are you going to be all right, Petra?"

"Petra will be fine," Rudy said. 'Ollie Brent' wouldn't stand for that crap. Had to stay in character, right? Hell, Rudy Kaine Algreil wouldn't stand for it, either. Rudy wasn't a good enough actor to project a wildly different personality. He was bluffing about his competence, not his character. Ollie Brent basically pretended to be what Rudy actually was.

"Yes," Chloe said, sounding distant and dazed and anything but 'fine.' "It's just a shock to see it like this. Where my… my dad… must have died."

Stephan nodded sympathetically.

Rudy resisted the urge to punch the crime boss out. With any luck, Stephan would pull a double-cross soon and give him an excuse to abandon restraint.

Rudy didn't doubt for a minute he could take the Kronistine men. He'd handled them easily enough when he was younger and less experienced.

Besides, he thought, eyeing Stephan and Chloe, he had more incentive this time.

"Quinn, Tarkov, keep the ship running," Stephan ordered. "Slava, with me. We'll get to the bridge and see how much of the ship is still working, then we'll look for Petra's father's mecha."

"Sir." The Syndicate men snapped to it with almost military efficiency.

Rudy had to admit he was impressed. The ones whose asses he'd kicked all those years ago must've been small-time in comparison. Which begged the question, why would some kind of big league crime boss and his elites operate off a backwater planet like Wellach?

"Me and Petra don't care about the bridge," he said.

Chloe and Stephan turned to him, the latter frowning. Chloe still looked dazed.

"Why don't the two of us go pick up her dad's mecha, and you guys can work on salvaging the ship or whatever the hell you want," Rudy said.

Stephan shook his head. "We should stick together. The ship may still be dangerous, and I doubt either of you have salvage experience."

Chloe started to speak. Caught herself at the last second.

Had Stephan noticed? Any of his men?

Rudy couldn't tell.

Quickly, he shrugged. "I'm not scared of a bunch of moldy ghosts. How about you, babe?"

Chloe looked absolutely terrified. She said, "N-no. I'm not scared."

"It's not the ghosts I'm concerned about," Stephan said, "it's the deadfalls, the live electrical conduits, the radiation, the unstable floors, the unexploded ammunition… need I go on, Mr. Brent?"

"I can handle it," Rudy said, making his voice sullen. "You trust me, right, babe?"

"Yeah," she said weakly.

Dammit, Chloe, he thought. I'm trying to get us clear of these guys. He didn't dare say it, though.

Instead, he said, "Look, man, if you're that worried, just send one of your guys along to spot all this crap you're saying's inside. We can wrap up here and get home." He jerked a thumb at the battlecruiser's looming hulk. "Unless you like the scenery?"

Stephan's deep set eyes narrowed. He glanced at the battlecruiser, at Chloe, at Rudy again. "You're very right, Mr. Brent. Slava, you're with our clients."

"Sir." The biggest of the Syndicate men, an ursid almost twice Rudy's height, nodded. "I take you to the ship, little ones."

Rudy couldn't even object to being called little by the immense hybrid. He shrugged. "Sounds like a plan. C'mon, 'Pet, let's grab your memento and get the hell out of here. I'm starting to think this was a bad idea."

"Yeah," Chloe said. She stepped around Stephan and let Rudy take her hand. Hers trembled a little through her flight suit.

"You take care, Petra," Stephan said. Slick bastard. He sounded genuinely concerned – or maybe it was just the nervousness in his voice since they arrived at the battlecruiser. "I expect to see you again very soon."

She smiled weakly, not turning. "Of course."

Rudy did turn, and glared.

Stephan was already staring at the battlecruiser.

Chloe saw the place her mother died, the place she joined the people she thought of as her parents. Not to mention whatever the hell she might sense from the hulk with her intermittent, unreliable psychic abilities.

What about it set Stephan Kronid's nerves on edge?

Now, Rudy understood casual jitters. The battlecruiser's hulk drifted at the very edge of a star system far off the beaten path. It would have special significance to the Hugheses and they wouldn't have necessarily come back to finish the salvage job.

Someone should have bagged a lot of that hardware in the decade and a half since the Civil War, though. So why hadn't they?

Why did the battlecruiser look almost intact, except for the places where the Errant Magpie's lights played over jagged tears from mecha weapons?

Maybe Stephan worried about the same things, his concerns magnified because he wanted to profit the Syndicate by selling off bits and pieces of the battlecruiser.

Rudy couldn't shake the feeling the crime boss's fears went beyond the merely economic.

What did it take to scare a man who thrived in one of, if not the, most dangerous and ruthless business environments in known space? Who, just by virtue of going to work in the morning, exposed himself to bombs and bullets and poisons and worse?

Rudy decided not to think about it. Wasn't like he could do anything but follow Chloe's hunch, regardless of his fears or Stephan's.

He and Chloe followed the ursid, Slava, to the Magpie's personnel airlocks. Rudy wondered what mecha the Syndicate men had stashed in their hangar. He couldn't imagine they'd gone without any, but he'd never been able to get inside to check. He'd never even seen them check the hangar, much less open it up long enough for him to slip in and look around.

"You know to use masks," the ursid said. "Outside, there is no atmosphere, and what is left inside we do not trust."

"We're not completely ignorant," Rudy snapped.

Chloe cast a sullen glance his way. "He's only trying to help," she said, which didn't seem in-character for Petra. Of course. Chloe had a hangup about hybrids.

Rudy would have liked to remind her she wasn't supposed to be herself, but he couldn't exactly do that without completely blowing their cover. Hopefully Slava wouldn't notice.

Rudy shrugged and slid his flight suit's mask up.

"Air tanks," Slava said, taking a pair from the wall and handing one each to Rudy and Chloe. "Careful. They are heavy in gravity."

No kidding, Rudy thought as he took the canister of compressed air and affixed it to his flight suit. He had to brace Chloe until she could get hers properly attached. Slava donned a pair without noticeable effort.

Wordlessly, he checked the connections on their tanks, nodded his massive, masked head and led them into the airlock.

Rudy leaned back and waited while the air evacuated into the ship's storage tanks. Gravity faded next. He was glad he'd trained and fought mecha battles in zero gee so often. The first time, what seemed like a lifetime ago, he'd thrown up all over his cockpit. Didn't bother him a bit, now.

Chloe was at least as used to the absence of gravity. If anything, she seemed to perk up, though that could have just been relief as the external air tank's weight disappeared.

Rudy frowned. Would Slava notice Chloe's comfort with zero gee? Would Stephan? He hadn't warned her about seeming too competent because, in atmosphere, she normally seemed anything but. She'd lived almost her whole life in space, though, and she might show it without ever realizing groundlings didn't move the way she could.

No way to warn her now.

The battlecruiser's overwhelming, awful presence might save the day. Chloe seemed clumsier when she looked at it, and it sure as hell distracted Stephan.

Distracted Rudy, too.

Without a transport's admittedly paltry armor between him and the gargantuan hulk, it unnerved him even more. More than the size, more than the damage, more even than the inexplicably intact, unsalvaged spans, it radiated menace – and pain. Some kind of psychic backwash, strong enough even he could feel it? He knew exactly squat about such things.

He jetted over to Chloe's side and gave her hand another squeeze, as much to give himself some kind of anchor to reality as to check on her.

"You okay," he asked over the comlink.

She didn't answer.

He shut the comlink off and pressed his head close to hers. Sound would vibrate through the material. "Hey," he whispered.

She shifted to face him.

He asked, "Is your comlink running?"

"I forgot to turn it on," she began. Her voice sounded muffled and distant with two flight suits as the medium through which it traveled. He couldn't make out inflection, but guessed she was nervous as hell.

"Don't," he said. "Listen, we've got a second to talk without them hearing us. Let's use it already."

"Oh." Pause.

"What exactly is wrong with you, Chloe?" Rudy asked, more glad than he cared to admit or explain just to be able to use her real name again. "And are you gonna be okay going in that place? Are any of us?"

"It's… hard to explain," she said.

"Try."

"You ever get that feeling like someone's walked over your grave? The hair on the back of your neck stands up and you feel cold even when it's hot out and your breath catches?"

"Yeah?"

"It's like that, only it's not a moment, it just keeps going, and it keeps getting worse."

Rudy gulped. "Are you sick?

"Only in my head," she said. Something that might have been a nervous laugh and might have been a sob passed through their flight suits.

"Should we go back?" Rudy asked.

"No!" She pulled away, then realized they couldn't communicate at all without physical contact. She drew up right next to him, like they were kissing.

It was, Rudy realized, the closest they'd ever come to doing so.

"We have to keep going, Rudy," Chloe said. "Well… you don't. It might be better if you didn't, if I went the rest of the way alone."

"Not a chance, Clo." Rudy patted her shoulder. "Even if I were willing to let you go, which I'm not, I don't think ol' Steph would look to kindly on me and Slava there letting you jet around solo.

"Besides," he added, grinning, "you still owe me that knowledge and power."

He realized his mistake as soon as he said it. Chloe couldn't see his grin or hear the way he tossed the line off. All she could hear, barely, were the words.

She stiffened and pulled away and, with a few expert puffs of maneuvering jets, turned to the battlecruiser.

When he heard her voice again, it was a little stronger, a lot colder, and over the comlink. And, he thought, all Petra Jaric. "I believe we can get to the nearest mecha bay this way. Let's be quick, shall we?"

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 29: Ghost Ship

The tiny thrusters on Chloe's suit swiveled to brake as she drifted through a jagged hole in the battlecruiser's pockmarked hull. She came to a graceful stop, lighting upon the deck as easily and firmly as if it had sported full artificial gravity.

She switched on the searchlight slung over her shoulder.

A corpse floated not a meter away. Ice crystals covered its face, freezing its expression of shock and pain and fear.

Horrified, Chloe sprang back from the corpse, momentarily forgetting she floated in zero gee. Her momentum carried her upwards. Something thudded against her back. She whirled, shining her searchlight on a severed arm that trailed crystallized blood.

She choked back a scream, half-jetted, half-swam away from the limb as it went tumbling toward the vacuum of space.

She slammed into another body. Its frozen, lifeless arms seemed to reach for her, begging for succor or remembrance – or company in the endless frozen sleep of death.

Old screams echoed in her mind. Blind panic. The world going mad. Shouts of anger and cries of fear and sobs of pain. Death, awful death, and this was only the beginning –

Chloe bounced off the corpse and tumbled.

Arms encircled her.

She thrashed in them, wildly, unreasoningly terrified of the awful grip, certain she would turn and see dead eyes leering at her through a shattered flight suit.

"Chloe!"

She stopped struggling.

"Principle," Rudy swore. "You could've killed yourself jetting around like that! It's just some corpses."

Just. Just?

Chloe had seen corpses before. After more than a decade as a salvager's daughter, she knew the myriad ways a person could end up dead in space.

But not so many people at once. Not like this.

Rudy patted her arm. "You gonna keep your cool now?"

"Yeah. Sorry." She gave him a weak smile, though he couldn't see it and she didn't feel it.

A third light bobbed toward them – Slava, the ursid gangster. He settled into a drift that brought him past their position. His huge frame knocked corpses away without noticeable lost momentum. "You are all right, little ones?"

"We're fine," Rudy said. "Petra got a little too close to a corpse for comfort, that's all."

The ursid shrugged, sending his light playing across a far bulkhead. If the slaughterhouse bothered him a bit, he gave no sign.

Chloe froze. Rudy said 'Petra' had gotten a little too close, but he'd shouted 'Chloe' over the comlink when she'd endangered herself.

Slava didn't seem to have noticed. He might not have, or he might be faking it while he waited on instructions from Stephan. Stephan, if he was tuned to the same frequency, surely would have picked up on the slip.

"We should keep moving," Rudy said. "Pet's not comfortable here."

Wasn't that the truth! Chloe couldn't manage to stay in character, and wasn't sure it mattered anymore. Regardless, her alter ego's reactions wouldn't be any different from her own. The battlecruiser hulk and its horrors fell outside both their ranges of experience.

"The shortest route to the nearest mecha bays is through this passage," Rudy said. "According to the schematics we got off the Magpie, it's a long, straight shot, only two airlocks along the way. We can build up a real head of steam and cross the kilometer between us and the mecha in about fifteen minutes."

"I am hoping that is the right mecha bay," Slava said fervently. So the place did affect him. He just handled it better.

Chloe fell in behind the two men. She was a better zero gee maneuverer than either of them, she soon found, but couldn't bear to go first into the dead, darkened passages. Even with Rudy's familiar, comforting red flight suit as a beacon, she imagined the shadows reaching out to snatch her. If she'd had to lead...

She shuddered.

The hallway Rudy described looked more like a highway. Certainly it was bigger than Wellach's thoroughfares. Shining all three of their searchlights down its expanse, they couldn't see the far end and could barely make out the ceiling. It looked mostly intact and mostly empty.

So far, at least, none of the dangers Stephan had warned about – dangers Chloe knew well from a girlhood aboard a salvage ship – had materialized. The battlecruiser seemed completely inert, its broken and dangerous pieces having bled their momentum off into waste heat over the years since its destruction. Despite its gruesome contents, it seemed safer than many of the salvage sites Chloe had seen.

Except for the aura of menace choking the airless halls.

Chloe jetted forward to place herself closer to Rudy and Slava.

They drifted through the cavernous hall, silent as the void around them. Its silence was cathedral – awesome and infectious.

No, not cathedral. Calling it that seemed like blasphemy.

The Mother Goose had visited the Theist Core in Godwin's World orbit once. Chloe's parents had taken her to the soaring, three-kilometer cathedral of crystal and stained glass that splinter sect maintained to venerate an involved and sympathetic Principle. There, she'd been silent from the awesome joy of the place, joy she felt just as keenly despite seeing the Almighty Principle as First Cause rather than involved personal god.

Here, she was silent from almost palatable horror.

She couldn't say why. Unlike the blasted wreck they'd entered through, the hallway held few corpses and no visible signs of the attack. Her fear came from within, growing in the back of her mind and spilling over to her tingling nerves.

Something worse than a slaughter had happened here.

Chloe fought down her animal brain's demands. Flee, it begged, pleaded, demanded. This is a bad place.

I know it's a bad place, she thought, but I need knowledge and power, and Rudy needs them, and this is a place thick with both.

Provided she was willing to pay the price. To accept forbidden knowledge, to wield evil power.

No!

The knowledge and power she sought were not forbidden, not evil. They had belonged to her birth mother. They had, in a way Chloe couldn't begin to understand, saved her and delivered her to Jack and Ellie Hughes. They were her birthright and they were right.

The battlecruiser's silence mocked her insistence.

"Slow up, Petra," Rudy said. He caught her arm and fired his thrusters in reverse, arresting her flight toward a huge, closed airlock.

She probably wouldn't have hurt herself if she'd hit it.

Probably.

"Can we get this open?" Chloe asked.

"Shouldn't be too hard," Rudy said. "I doubt they were on lockdown when the place got hit. They couldn't very well have fought if they were."

Did they fight, Chloe wondered. Did they get the chance? She saw only Imperial corpses floating through the vacuum.

Maybe their enemies took their dead with them.

Rudy released her and drifted to the airlock's controls. He fumbled with the panel covering them for a moment, until Slava joined him and yanked it back with a single twitch of his arm. Rudy shot a glare at the ursid, who just shrugged again.

Chloe would have found it funny under better circumstances.

Under the present ones, she could easily imagine the two men tearing each other's throats out over that small slight, fighting with hands and feet and mouths until one or the other was dead and the victor collapsed as adrenaline pumped out of control through his shuddering body.

She bit her lip to stifle a gasp. Where had that thought come from?

She glanced nervously over her shoulder, expecting to see… something.

She didn't.

She heaved a sigh of relief.

The airlock's huge door rolled into its housing. On the side with atmosphere, however fouled, it would be thunderously loud, but in vacuum it made no sound at all.

"A third of the way there," Rudy said. His cheer sounded forced.

Chloe followed him and Slava into the airlock.

Rudy extracted a corpse clinging to the inner controls and began the process of pressurizing the airlock. One great door swung down, incongruously silent. Its twin wouldn't be once there was air to transmit the sound to the three tiny figures floating between them.

Slava, his deep voice echoing oddly as both comlink and atmosphere transmitted it, said, "Keep your masks up, yes, little ones? There is air, but we do not know there is good air."

"There isn't," Chloe said.

Both Rudy and the ursid gangster glanced at her.

Everything here is bad, she thought. She said, "Just a hunch."

Slava shrugged and looked away, but Rudy kept eying her. She wondered how much he'd figured out about her hunches. After all, unlike the ursid, he knew she wasn't on any kind of Limiters to prevent the unconscious use of psychic powers. She'd come to the battlecruiser on the strength of a hunch, pressed on in spite of her fears on the strength of a hunch.

The airlock's far door rumbled open.

Most of the emergency lights still glowed in the hallway beyond. They conferred a better sense of the sheer scale of the battlecruiser's halls than man-portable searchlights ever could. The tube-like hall stretched across Chloe's entire field of vision, broken up at the edges by man-sized and mecha-sized hatches and swiftly-moving belts covered with handholds to speed Imperial navy men on their way. The walls were unnervingly clean, a pleasant, pristine off-white except for a few scorch marks.

There were more bodies here.

Lots more.

Chloe stared numbly at them.

At first, she merely comprehended the quantity of the death. Easily hundreds of corpses thronged the hall.

Only when her eyes fully adjusted to the emergency lights and she wrapped her mind around the numbers involved did she comprehend the quality.

She knew where her vision of Rudy and Slava killing each other came from. A dozen pairs of bodies tumbled past in death's-grip embraces, their dead faces twisted in sightless, senseless hate. The combatants all wore Imperial uniforms.

Other, still more bizarre sights afflicted her.

Some of the pairs and trios and quartets were not attached by grips made clawlike by death. Some appeared melted together, their forms folded into a single grotesque. They had, from the looks of it, literally torn themselves apart trying to escape the prisons of each others' flesh.

Others protruded from the composite walls, their corpses seamlessly joined to their ship. One, his fate perhaps more merciful than most, was suspended from the bulkhead by his neck, his head one with the metal. Another drifted past, chest and stomach speared by the legs and part of the seat of a metal chair.

None of the meldings showed any signs of external bleeding, though most must have quickly and painfully killed the men whose internal organs had been mangled by them. Whatever had afflicted them had not done so with raw force.

The ship's plants, monstrously overgrown, shrouded other corpses. Chloe couldn't tell if the unnaturally thick, thorny vines had grown over the dead men or if they had become fused like the others.

"Merciful Principle," Rudy whispered.

No, Chloe thought, blaspheming and not caring that she did. Not merciful at all, to allow the pattern of these men's days to end thus.

"What could do this?" Rudy asked. He reached out and brushed hands with an amalgam of two Imperial officers whose arms joined at the elbow. "What in the hell could do this? Look at this!"

"I don't know," Chloe said.

Rudy whirled around, jetted to her side, grabbed her shoulders. "You have to know," he said. "You're the nob. You're the psychic. You're the one whose mecha is here. You have to know."

"You know better," Chloe said. Her voice sounded strangely calm. She realized she was too horrified to even fear. "I know as much about whatever powers I have as you do – nothing."

Rudy didn't move for a long time. She supposed he was staring through his flight suit's mask, and wished she could see his face.

Abruptly, he pulled her tightly into his arms and clung desperately.

"Principle, Chloe, the bodies…!"

She returned his embrace, cradling his head and pressing him close. Mechanically, she stroked the shaking muscles of his back.

"And the minds," he continued, oblivious to her efforts to comfort him. "The ones who weren't twisted outside, they killed each other."

A powerful shudder passed through him. Chloe felt the motion pass into her, imagined taking all the revulsion and terror with it. She felt the oppressive aura close in around her and choke her breath and tear her flesh and twist her mind –

– and pass as quickly as it came.

"It's okay, Rudy," she said gently. She kept kneading his tense muscles. She pressed her lips to his forehead and mimed kissing him through two layers of flight suit. "Whatever happened here, it was awful beyond anything we can understand, but it was a long time ago. We just feel the echoes of it because so much terror and pain flooded these halls all at once, a lot of it from psychics. It's just a memory, and however bad a memory may be, it can't hurt us."

He raised his masked face to hers. "Clo…?"

She nodded. "It's okay, Rudy," she repeated.

She glanced at Slava. The ursid had neither spoken nor moved since they entered the hallway. Chloe wondered if she would have to snap him out of more than natural fear, too.

She realized how many times she and Rudy had used each others names.

She just couldn't find it in her to care anymore. It seemed such a small thing, compared to the enormity of the battlecruiser. They didn't need to fool Stephan. Either she would find her mother's mecha and have nothing to fear from the gangsters, or she would fail and Rudy would fight them like he'd planned from the outset.

With a start, Chloe realized the only initiative she'd shown since her parents' kidnapping came when Rudy needed her help. The rest of the time, she trusted him to sort things out.

She wondered if he would have to sort out Slava.

She hoped not. Though she knew it was irrational, she couldn't wrap her head around the idea of a hybrid as her enemy. It wasn't just that Chloe loved her mom and thought well of hybrids because of her. For years, other hybrids had crewed the Mother Goose and treated Chloe like a little sister.

"Slava," she said, "is everything all right?"

"No," the ursid said.

Chloe gulped. Here it came. Either the psychic turbulence of the place or the arguably justified wrath of a gangster who'd been lied to.

She felt Rudy extricate himself from her arms, already tensing in a zero gee fighting crouch she thought worthy of Jack Hughes himself. The highest praise she could give.

Slava surprised them both, though. Instead of enraged, he sounded downright nervous. "I have heard from Sir Kyrillos," he said. Chloe wondered at the new name, but before she could ask, he continued. "We have company."

"Who?" Rudy asked. He was all business now, shutting out the surrounding horrors, focusing on the new threat.

"Sir Kyrillos says," Slava said, "it is the Reformer."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 30: Algreil Prime

Silver, blue and red. Jack didn't have to look far to see where Algreil Aerospace's colors came from. Algreil Prime, the world they'd colonized as equal parts corporate headquarters and manufactory, glowed like an immense logo. Outside the massive arcology complexes, it was an uninhabitable desert. The Algreils didn't terraform it, Otto had once said, because they didn't want to risk damaging the rare minerals in the soil.

Jack wondered if they hadn't left it unterraformed to avoid damaging their company colors.

"It's been a while, hasn't it, old buddy?" Otto. Grinning his usual shit-eating grin, no doubt.

Not long enough, Jack thought, but he knew he didn't mean it. Deep down, he was glad to be back. If it weren't for his separation from Ellie and Chloe, he would have almost looked forward to what being back meant.

He said, "Huh."

Otto chuckled. "Brace up, man. I've got business to attend to, and I don't want you hangdogging it through meetings. It's defeatist."

"The hell do you want me at meetings for?" Jack asked. "I'm no bureaucrat."

"You're the Emperor's daughter's adoptive father," Otto said, "and a decorated war hero. And, you're in serious contention for the silver medal for second best bullshitter in the galaxy. I want to show my colleagues that we have a serious chance of winning this thing – and fast, this time."

"You think that's true?"

"I think it's closer to true now than it will be in ten years. The Feds will take us apart if we don't do the same to them."

Jack grunted. Hard to believe he'd have welcomed that news a few months ago. Principle, had it only been that long?

"Besides, if that bastard Avalon hadn't pulled a second destroyer out of the deep blue sea at exactly the wrong moment, we'd be halfway to winning already. The Feds' best fleet decapitated with no confirmation of who did it, and us with plenty of time to get into position to put the Senate down. To say nothing of your daughter."

"Instead," Jack said, "Chloe's Principle knows where, we slunk off the planet on a smuggler's bulk transport, and we probably got here about a week before a Navy task force from Etemenos. Almost doesn't cut it."

"Relax," Otto said. "I've got everything under control."

Says the self-proclaimed gold medalist bullshitter of the galaxy, Jack thought. Hell of it was, Otto could almost convince him they had a chance – and that it mattered they had a chance.

Almost didn't cut it.

The transport that had brought them, their battered mecha and a handful of Algreil Aerospace escapees from Wellach to Algreil Prime swooped toward the station orbiting the planet atop a massive space elevator. Jack felt the familiar jolt of merging gravitic fields as ship and station joined, and idly wondered just how much Otto had paid the transport's captain to get them out from under Federal interdict.

"Gentlemen, you are cleared to disembark," the transport's computer announced. "Have a safe and profitable trip."

Not likely, as far as Jack could see.

For all his carping, though, he found himself following Otto as the Oligarch stalked toward the big airlock of his home station.

The airlock doors hissed open. Only on the transport side, Jack knew, because even during the Civil War Algreil Aerospace's headquarters had used smooth, silent nanomachines rather than hydraulics.

Two lines of suited men bearing the Algreil crest flanked a broad passageway in alternating electric blues and reds. Otto stepped onto the silver carpet down the center, motioning for Jack to follow.

A quartet of further Algreil men, these in Devil Ray armored flight suits, stepped forward and snapped off a crisp salute. "Mr. Chairman, Colonel Hughes," the leader said. Jack didn't recognize him from the Civil War. The blazon on his chest indicated he had served with the Marchess Wardens rather than the Devil Rays. "If I may say so, sirs, it is good to see you back in one piece."

"Good to be back, Colonel." Otto returned the salute. Jack, automatically, did likewise. "What's our situation?"

"Under advisement from the board of directors, Boardmember Marchess-Algreil has assumed temporary control. She has forestalled Federal action by condemning the attack on a Federal Navy vessel and disavowing knowledge of your location. Officially, sir, we do not know you're still alive."

"Good girl," Otto said. "Nice to hear she didn't panic or get sentimental."

The Warden frowned slightly. Jack assumed 'Boardmember Marchess-Algreil' was Otto's wife, heir to the United Shipping Magnate, and that the man before them had changed corporate families when his heiress did.

"Is Alarie on the station?"

The Warden nodded. "She is presently engaged in negotiations with Senator Howell, sir."

"Negotiations! There's a laugh. Since that senile old fool only speaks marks, I assume you mean bribes? Again, good. He'll think we want to play along, and he's small-time enough not to damage the war chest." Abruptly, Otto switched topics. "Senatorial mood?"

"Guarded, sir," the Warden said. "They do not appear to want open conflict, but we have no indication they are willing to permit the incident to drop as a mere accident."

"Typical." Otto started walking again. His men fell into line automatically. If Jack hadn't remembered the habit from his Civil War days, and had a week in transit to practice, he'd have been left behind. "Don't inform Alarie I'm back until she's done talking to Howell. I'm going to stay 'dead' to the Senate for as long as it takes them to figure it out, and we can't trust her not to let it slip. In the meantime, we need as many of the 'Koi' contacted as possible. Secure communications, obviously."

"Obviously, sir," the Warden said.

Jack had followed the rapid-fire Oligarchical delivery up to that point, but now Otto had completely lost him. "The 'Koi?'"

"C.O.I.," Otto said. "Captains of Industry. The Oligarchy within the Oligarchy, if you will. Those who weren't happy about Kalder-Black and getting screwed out of the spoils of war."

"Just how long have you been setting this up, Otto?"

"Long enough."

Which, Jack knew, was all he would get from his once-and-current boss. Just like old times, he was on a need-to-know basis, and how much he needed changed with Otto's whims. Of course, Otto usually planned those seeming whims a few months in advance, with a dozen backup options per hour.

The Warden said, "When Boardmember Marchess-Algreil concludes her conference with Senator Howell, shall I instruct her to join you, sir?"

Otto shook his head. "I'll tell you when to contact Alarie, Colonel, and it won't be until after the C.O.I. meeting. She may need to run some more unwitting interference while we decide on a course of action."

"If I may, sir, the Boardmember has been very concerned –"

"You may not," Otto snapped.

"Very good, sir," the Warden said flatly.

Jack kept his mouth shut. He had to. He'd never met Alarie Wein Marchess-Algreil, and even if he had, her and Otto's marriage was none of his business.

Chloe hanging out with Otto's brother, on the other hand... Jack had to suppress a shudder. Principle, let her be too smart to see the charming side of an Algreil and ignore the rest!

Otto led his small party to one of the tram cars that spun around the station's outer ring. He must have given it an order through his flight suit's computer, because the numbers indicating its destination changed as it rolled over to admit him. "All aboard," he said, motioning for Jack and the Warden colonel to take a seat. The rest remained behind without so much as a word.

Jack climbed in. For someone who liked such spartan conditions in his office, Otto sure as hell knew how to arrange transportation in style. The tram felt roomier than the entire Mother Goose, though Jack would have traded them in a heartbeat.

"I can't believe you're taking me to a damn meeting," he said. "What do you expect me to do?"

"I already told you," Otto said, "you'll put the C.O.I.'s minds at ease."

"You're gonna tell them you've got Chloe," Jack said. "Right?"

Otto grinned. "The thought had crossed my mind."

"And when they find out you don't?"

"By the time they find out," Otto said, "it won't be a lie. Or don't you think we'll get her back?"

"I'm only here because I think you've got a shot at it – which is more than I've got. But the Feds are on site, not us, and Avalon already beat you once. What makes you think Chloe and your little brother can lay low on Wellach?"

"Don't underestimate Rudy. He's not half as stupid as he looks, which, I'll admit, isn't saying much. He'd also sooner die than give in to the Federal Navy, and he's not an easy guy to kill."

"You sound like you speak from experience." Jack laughed.

Otto didn't. "He'll buy us enough time."

He sounded as far from cocky as Jack had ever heard him.

Suddenly, Jack found he didn't much care for the conversation. He said, "At least it keeps the Reformer pinned down."

"Actually, Colonel Hughes," the Warden said, "the Reformer left Wellach orbit two days after you did."

Jack and Otto both stared at him.

After a too-long pause, Otto said, "Explain."

"I was under the impression you were apprised of this, sirs. Admiral Avalon's flagship departed the planet at maximum sublight and entered a compression tunnel eleven hours prior to your transport."

"That doesn't make a damn bit of sense," Jack said. "There's no way Avalon would leave Wellach, not unless –"

"Unless he had your daughter," Otto finished, "or knew where to get her."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 31: Reunion

"Where are you taking me?" Ellie asked.

The marines flanking her said nothing.

At Avalon's orders, she occupied a guest suite aboard the Reformer and received the treatment due a senatorial attache or visiting Oligarch, not the hybrid wife of a salvager suspected of fighting for a renegade company and harboring an imperial fugitive. She dined with the admiral and his senior staff, read, watched and listened to whatever she requested from the destroyer's databanks, fielded no questions, suffered no torture.

Yet she remained a prisoner, and miserable.

The Reformer's crew resented her, she knew. They would have even if most of them didn't consider her an animal, because their magnetic, hypnotic admiral lavished every consideration upon her. He all but waited on her hand and foot.

Why?

Ellie didn't flatter herself that Marcel Avalon was smitten. Maybe in her prime, when her looks had sufficed at least to get her into trouble, but not after fifteen hard years of salvage mechaneering. People said spacers looked younger than their age, but hybrids generally didn't live as long as unmodified humans. When Ellie looked in the mirror, she saw more than thirty-six human years in the smile lines crinkling her eyes and the streaks of early gray in the fur at the tips of her ears.

She'd initially thought the admiral wanted to get to Chloe through her. Perhaps he did. If so, he was a consummate actor, never allowing anything to break through his mask of concern.

Sometimes, she thought he genuinely felt as sorry as he said he did.

Whatever the reason for his solicitousness, she would have traded all of it for a lightless dungeon cell and an intermittently filled bowl of cold gruel if she could have had just a glimpse of Jack or Chloe in return.

"This way," the marine on her left said. He pulled her by the arm as though he didn't think she could figure it out for herself, or as though it was the only outlet he had for his resentment.

Or perhaps, she thought sadly, both.

The marines marched her to an almost identical pair, except that these wore solid gold shoulder pads on their dark green, mecha-like battle armor. Ellie's escorts snapped off crisp salutes.

"Here's the package the admiral requested," the one who had grabbed her said.

"Good work, Corporal," one of the gold-shouldered marines said. "We'll take it from here. The two of you are free to return to your regular duties."

"Sergeant," Ellie's guards said in unison, stepping back. She didn't watch them march down the hallway, but she could hear them all the way to the tube station.

"You," the other gold-shouldered marine said, "come with me."

At least he let her walk under her own power.

He escorted her through the double-doors he and his comrade guarded.

Ellie gasped.

She stood on the Reformer's primary bridge for the first time. She'd seen promotional posters for the Federal Navy displaying non-classified views of their most advanced warship, but seeing it first-hand would ordinarily have eclipsed those. The bridge stretched fifty meters across and its dark green bulkheads were almost luminous with reflected glow from hundreds of screens and holograms and the huge three-dimensional image displaying their position relative to objects within a megameter.

Yet the view through the wall-spanning main screen captured her whole attention. Even the Reformer looked like a toy next to the gargantuan vessel sprawled before it. She recognized it immediately.

Oh, sweet Principle, no, she thought. The Reformer would only have left the Wellach system for one reason, and she knew it.

Because Chloe had.

They had tracked her –

– to where it all began, all those wonderful years ago. To the hulk of a derelict Imperial battlecruiser, and a silvery mecha, and a luminous being who entrusted Jack and Ellie Hughes with the gift and the burden of a lifetime.

"Mrs. Hughes," Admiral Avalon called. In public, it was 'Mrs. Hughes' and 'Ma'am.' In private, uncomfortably often, it was 'Ellie.' "Please join us."

As if I have a choice, Ellie thought. She didn't push Avalon's hospitality. If she did, she knew it would vanish and she would be treated like the prisoner she was. She would take a stand if and when her doing so actually mattered.

The marines didn't bother escorting her to the high-backed chair Avalon commanded the bridge from. He perched on it, leaned forward, muscles tensed, eyes fixed on the screen, a sprinter awaiting the start of a race – or a predator awaiting a moment of weakness in his prey.

He flicked his eyes to her as she approached. "I would offer you a seat, but I fear we are at battlestations and cannot spare one. Please forgive me."

"It's no problem," Ellie said. "But, Admiral, if you're at battlestations, should you really have a civilian –" An enemy civilian, she thought with fierce, irrational pride, though you insist on ignoring it. "– on the bridge?"

"I may need your assistance," Avalon said. "Even the few seconds it would take to connect to your chambers could mean the difference between life and death."

Ellie laughed. "I'm a pretty fair sensor operator, Admiral, but not good enough to win you a battle. My moral support certainly won't do so, even if I choose to give it."

"Not our lives or deaths, Mrs. Hughes," Avalon said. "Your adopted daughter's."

The laugh died in Ellie's throat.

"She is aboard that ship, and in very dangerous company. As soon as we pinpoint her location, we will attempt to contact her and then extract her. She must place her trust in us, Mrs. Hughes. You must convince her."

"You can't expect me to do that," Ellie said. "As far as I'm concerned, you're still Chloe's enemy."

"I've told you many times, I want only to help Chloe."

"You've told me," Ellie said, "but you haven't shown me."

"Nor can I," Avalon countered, preempting an angry interjection from the junior officer seated on his far side, "unless you give me the chance to."

"I guess I'll just have to take your word for it, then," Ellie said, "because I won't help you without some sort of guarantee of Chloe's safety."

"I cannot make such a guarantee," Avalon said, "because she has placed herself in grave danger."

"How?"

"Lieutenant Richards, please display the ship we trailed here." Avalon waited for a holographic image of a large civilian transport, its sleek, bird-of-prey lines painted black and white. The registry information hovering beside the image proclaimed it the Errant Magpie, one of the late-war Garuda-class transports that supplanted the Mother Goose's Balder-class.

"Is this supposed to mean something to me?" Ellie asked.

"This ship is registered to the Seven Stars Trading Company," Avalon said, "which is owned by Lightspeed Joe's Easy Marks, a dubious financier operating out of the Kellermain system."

That company, Ellie recognized. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Those loan sharks. Jack made the mistake of mortgaging the Goose through them and we've never heard the end of it."

"In that case, you may be fortunate we confiscated your ship, Mrs. Hughes," Avalon said, "because 'Lightspeed Joe's' is a front for the Kronistine Syndicate."

"The crime family?" Ellie's gaze flickered from the hologram to the admiral. "You're saying Chloe came here on a ship owned by the Syndicate? That's crazy! She'd never take such a risk."

"She has done so," Avalon said. "I assume she was led astray by the advice of my old adversary the Crimson Phoenix. No doubt Rudy Kaine Algreil believes he has the situation entirely in hand. I assure you, and would assure him, he does not."

"How do I know any of this is true?" Ellie asked.

"You still believe I would lie to you?" Avalon sighed. "Well, I suppose it does not matter. You'll see for yourself when we hail the men occupying that derelict battlecruiser's bridge. I have it on good authority a member of the Kronid family's inner circle leads them."

Avalon tapped a button on one of his armrests. At the wordless command, a communications feed displaced the battlecruiser's image on the main screen.

"Admiral Avalon, I presume," said the black flight-suited figure on the screen. "I'd say it was an honor to attract the attention of the Federal Navy's finest, but let's be honest. We both know I think nothing of the sort."

"Do I address Stephan Kronid?" Avalon asked. Ellie had to step back to avoid blocking a hologram that erupted at the admiral's side, confirming his supposition. A criminal record longer than Ellie was tall rolled past the projection of the Syndicate man's face. She caught 'mass murder' and 'high treason' and couldn't stomach the rest.

She thought of Chloe in such company and shuddered.

"You do address me," Kronid said. "Which begs the question, what do you want from me?"

"Your life, scum," Avalon snarled.

Kronid either hid his emotions well or held up better in the face of Avalon's wrath than anyone Ellie had met. The Syndicate man didn't even draw back as Avalon's extraordinary voice assaulted him. Calmly, he said, "I suppose you'll settle for the lives of my passengers, though? Or do you want to hold out for the erinyes, too, for whatever good it would do you?"

Ellie's ear twitched. Erinyes?

"Abhorrent as I find it, I will offer you a deal," Avalon said, hate simmering just below the boiling point in his voice.

Kronid nodded. "Which is, of course, the only reason you came within a pentameter of me."

"Perhaps."

"Certainly." Kronid folded his long frame into a command chair much like Avalon's, steepled his hands. The chair seemed to fit him well. He glanced at something below him and his hands tightened on the arm-rests.

The communications window showed only Kronid, his perch, and an empty expanse of carpeted floor behind him. Ellie wondered what the Syndicate man was looking at. Something on the bridge of the battlecruiser? Principle alone knew what carnage lay at the former "brain" of the dead ship.

"But in any case, Admiral," Kronid said, "why should I make a deal with you… instead of dealing with your little destroyer?" He toyed with controls Ellie assumed tied to the battlecruiser's weapons.

"You're bluffing, and badly," Avalon said. "Your Errant Magpie could not carry a battlecruiser crew if you packed them elbow to elbow in its cargo hold."

Kronid shrugged theatrically. "True enough – if only my Maggie were here. I took the precaution of calling in reinforcements as soon as I knew where your prize wanted to go, and why. Really, Admiral, you ought to know we of all people know how to operate this ship. But if you require a demonstration…"

The battlecruiser's external lights flared to distorted life, bending weirdly under its powerful gravitic shields.

"Shields," Avalon called, but his crew had reacted instinctively to pull them up as soon as the other ship did. "Prepare for evasive maneuvers."

Kronid laughed. "Now, now, Admiral. This ship is big, but it's also old and damaged. I don't know I could kill every last one of you Federal bastards before you got in here with your mecha. I'd much rather not have to try."

Ellie watched Avalon wrestle with the decision. He seemed unable to control the way he projected his emotions. His audio-visual empathy might make him an effective leader, but she doubted he could run a bluff to save his life. He cycled through rage and frustration and concern and settled on satisfaction.

"Bringing the shields up and turning on the lights? I remain unimpressed, criminal, and unconvinced. These are simple tasks, suitable for a less than skeleton crew. If that ship's main guns still functioned and you controlled them, you would have attempted to fire before I raised my shields." Avalon smiled grimly. "Although, they would have been up in time anyway; Otto Algreil taught us a painful lesson in punctuality."

"Perhaps I don't need or want to kill you myself, Admiral," Kronid said. "Perhaps all I need is time.

"Perhaps," he said, "I find it much more appropriate to let Madame President's favorite hunting hound catch his quarry and find out how badly outmatched he really is."

"If you intend to use Chloe Hughes and the erinyes against me, Kronid," Avalon said, "you will be disappointed. Her adoptive mother is aboard this ship. The daughter will not harm her."

"An amusing lie, but Chloe will do what I tell her," Kronid said. "She's proven delightfully pliable so far."

"You lying bastard," Ellie snarled. She leaped forward, as though she could throttle him through the Reformer's main screen.

Kronid actually seemed at a loss for words. Then his cool slipped back into place. "Well. Ellie... Hughes, I suppose, now. You really are aboard that ship? I figured it was Avalon's turn to bluff. And, I might add, you're as lovely as ever."

She blinked. "What?"

"I'm a little sad, though not surprised, you don't remember me," he said. "We only met briefly, and we were both quite young. I certainly remember you, though. I would even if your brothers hadn't always spoken so highly of you."

"My brothers –?" She shot a glance at Avalon. "What is he talking about?"

Kronid answered. "Didn't the admiral tell you, Ellie? I know his grossly misnamed comrades in Federal Intelligence are aware of it by now, so I can only assume Madame President passed it on to him. Your family and mine go back a long way."

Ellie stared at the crime lord, picturing the man behind the mask of the black flight suit.

Beanpole thin. Sharp-nosed. And that voice...

Ellie had known a man with that voice in a life so long ago she scarcely thought of it now. Like most free hybrids, she'd been a liegewoman to a noble house. Her lords had answered to a greater house, and the owner of that voice had been its favorite son.

Stephan Kronid?

Stephan Kyrillos.

Psychic. Mechaneer-aristocrat. Hero of the Civil War.

A man who Ellie, and every other girl she'd known, had fooled themselves into thinking they loved, before she learned what a paltry imitation of love that empty crush was.

The last man Ellie would ever want her daughter around – and, maybe, the best hope her daughter had.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 32: Revelation

"What's going on?" Rudy jetted up to Slava and got as much in the ursid's muzzle as he could manage in zero gee. "Is Stephan talking to the Reformer? What frequency are they using, dammit?"

Slava ignored the questions. He went around Rudy with two quick bursts of maneuvering thrusters and continued toward the far airlock and the mecha bay beyond. His head stayed cocked the whole way. Listening to words from Stephan on high, no doubt.

Rudy's flight suit played with frequencies, seeking the one that would let him and Chloe in on a conversation that was probably determining their fates.

Stephan, he figured, would turn them over to the Feds in a heartbeat. Probably buy the sleazy bastard a few pardons, or at least a few Federal megamarks. The only thing keeping Slava from trying to grab Rudy and Chloe had to be his boss dickering on the finder's fee.

Rudy followed the ursid through the miasma of twisted Imperial corpses not because he wanted to buddy up to the ursid gangster when Feds and Syndicate settled on a price, but because he wanted to be as close to the mecha bay as possible.

The nobs were supposed to have had some damned fine machines. From what Chloe said, her mother's mecha surpassed even those. Maybe, with its power, he could renegotiate terms favorable to him and Chloe.

Assuming he could subdue an ursid twice his height and four or five times his weight.

Assuming Chloe could get her mother's mecha running.

Assuming either of them could pilot it.

Assuming good old Marcel didn't bring enough firepower to laugh it off – to throw bodies at the problem until it ceased to be a problem, in true Fed style.

Those sounded like painfully long odds, even to Rudy.

He had no better ideas, so he played them anyway.

He and Slava burned to a hard stop a few meters from the airlock. Slava wasted no time tearing the cover off and hurling it to bounce off the floor. His big hands worked the controls with surprising delicacy, sliding the great circular lock open faster than Rudy could have.

He sure seemed in a hurry.

Maybe negotiations had fallen through.

"Chloe, come on," Rudy said – no reason to screw around with 'Petras' and 'Ollies' now – before realizing she hadn't bothered to stop. She was in the airlock, barely clearing the opening door, barely stopping at the far one. He joined her.

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I'll figure something out."

"In case you don't," she said, jetting next to him and slowing herself by clasping his hands, "I want to apologize."

"You want to apologize?"

"For everything you've gone through," she said, "and for how little you've gotten in return."

"If you're propositioning me, Clo, I'd much rather you waited till we were in an atmosphere where we could safely unseal these flight suits."

"Please be serious, Rudy." She sounded so heart-rendingly earnest, he couldn't say no. Damn that girl! "You're not a spacer, so you probably can't understand how much it bothered me when you asked what you did."

She trailed off.

Rudy sure as hell wasn't a spacer, but she was wrong. He knew enough about their culture – from going on two months in Chloe's company if nothing else – to understand pretty damned well.

He'd known that for a long time, but he sure as hell hadn't let it stop him from raising the subject. Sure, he'd been kidding. Mostly.

He didn't think it was something Spacer girls kidded about.

Maybe it was time he started thinking about that, huh?

"Listen, Clo," he said.

"Let me finish." She seemed to get her confidence back, then lost it again just as quickly. "I think we're gonna die or get separated or worse."

Rudy gulped. "You have a hunch?"

"I have a brain," she said.

He wished he could tell her not to worry, but since she probably hadn't thought of half as many of their problems as he had, he didn't have the heart to. "Go on."

"Rudy, I, someday… someday, if you…" He could see her gulp through her flight suit. "… what I'm trying to say is, you've done so much for me, and I wish I could give back half as much. I hope someday I can. Knowledge and power, of course, and anything else it's my right to give."

"Chloe," he began. He had it all laid out, a genuine rarest-of-all-rarities Rudy Kaine Algreil apology. He was the one who didn't get it. He'd been tired and angry and scared and coming off the god of all adrenaline highs, and what he'd wanted to say as a joke came out serious, and when she went off on him it had pissed him off so bad he couldn't even see straight. He didn't want knowledge or power or any of that crap, and she sure as hell was his friend as long as she wanted to be, and anything else she wanted to be, and if he'd hurt her, then dammit he meant to make it up to her a hundredfold! And he –

– never said a word of it.

The airlock finished its silent, stately roll to the open position.

"We have no time," Slava said. "The Reformer is here!"

The ursid grabbed Rudy and Chloe, moving quicker than anyone that big had any right to. He hauled them into the mecha bay on full jets, leaving a superheated particulate trail that rapidly dispersed in vacuum.

Row upon row of mecha, painted white and gold and pale green – Imperial Guard colors –, filled the hangar. One look at the sleek elite models and Rudy fell silent, more awe-struck than by the battlecruiser itself. These were mecha decades ahead of their time. He could tell at a glance that the Epee, though considered state of the art by Federal and Oligarchical standards, wrestled with design flaws these had already solved.

Principle, talk about knowledge and power! If Otto could have put models like this into production, Rudy would have three or four Etemenos Cups on his mantle.

Yet none of the Imperial Guard mecha had launched during whatever attack doomed their ship.

None of them looked like the silvery mecha Chloe's parents had told her about.

"I don't think it's in this bay," Rudy said, shouting because the senses of scale and motion seemed to dictate he should. Without any kind of background noise, the feedback from his voice sounded painfully loud over the comlink.

"It isn't," Chloe said miserably. "I would feel it if it were."

Great. Wonderful. Their trip through the battlecruiser's hellish interior amounted to exactly squat?

Rudy sighed. "Now what?"

"We have to find it, Rudy." Chloe stretched out her long fingers and gripped Slava's flight suit. "Slava, you have to slow down! We have to search another mecha bay."

"There is no time," the ursid gangster said. "I am sorry, but the Magpie must pick us up."

"No! We have to find it," Chloe insisted. "We can't let the Feds get mother's mecha."

"They won't." A new voice entered the comlink conversation – Stephan's. "The people responsible for Empress Karissa's death dare not approach her erinyes. That angel's flaming sword would destroy them as surely as it will defend its rightful owner."

"What the hell does that mean?" Rudy asked.

"It means get your Oligarchical ass on the Magpie, Rudy Kaine Algreil, or I will have the pleasure of leaving you to rot on this ghost ship." Timed to Stephan's words, the mecha bay doors opened, moving in eerily silent fits and starts, and the Errant Magpie slid expertly through them. Its own, much smaller mecha bay opened in a single smooth motion as it swooped toward Rudy, Chloe and Slava.

Before it reached them, a mecha emerged.

It looked like a black version of the Imperial Guard models lining the mecha bay. Long arms ending in long, elegant fingers with vibrating, razor-sharp backs, a sextet of long thruster-wings emerging like a black sun from its smoothly rounded, humanoid torso, a sloping, avian head, pointed feet equipped with thrusters of their own, clearly designed exclusively for zero-gee use.

On its raven-feather shiny breastplate gleamed a white-outlined emblem of a black crow on a black field, soaring above a white tower.

Black crow.

Black Rook.

"Son of a bitch," Rudy swore. "That's where I recognized his voice from."

"With a razor-sharp mind like yours, I have no doubt you'll one day provide your company with record profits," Stephan, or whatever his real name was, said. "Now get aboard the Magpie."

"What are you gonna do, Rook, checkmate a whole destroyer?"

"I backed that destroyer off," Stephan said, "using my brain. I told them Her Highness had the erinyes and that she would destroy them all, assuming this battlecruiser does not. While they seemed disinclined to believe either, I expect the bluff to hold Marcel Avalon long enough for the Magpie to clear the battlecruiser's gravitic shield."

"Wait, what? 'Her Highness?' 'Erinyes?' I thought you nobs spoke the same language as the rest of us." Rudy slipped Slava's grasp and pulled Chloe after him. "I think you owe us an explanation."

"I certainly owe Princess Chloe an explanation," Stephan said. "You may be present if she wishes. However, I also owe her the service of getting her away from the Federal Navy."

"Princess?" Chloe looked down at herself. "There must be some mistake, Mr. Kronid!"

"Then we will learn as much later," he snapped. Belatedly, he added, "Your Highness."

"You still haven't explained why you're out here in your mecha," Rudy said. He hadn't explained a whole hell of a lot of things, starting with why a Periphery noble apparently ran a crime ring in his spare time.

"Because unlike you," Stephan said, "I do not need a ship to create a compression tunnel with which to escape this place. I will create a diversion to keep the Divine Auric Drake and his men from realizing you intend to flee, then join you."

"Are you sure you'll be all right?" Leave it to Chloe to worry about a guy who'd consistently played her and Rudy for fools. She sounded genuinely concerned about the bastard. "Can't you just come with us?"

"My first duty is to ensure your safety, Highness," Stephan said.

Rudy rolled his eyes. What was the harm? Chloe couldn't see him do it.

"Besides," the crime boss-cum-noble – or was it the other way around? – added, "the Crimson Phoenix has twice defeated the Divine Auric Drake. I hardly think the latter will provide me with a challenge."

That's it, Rudy thought. You'd better live, you bastard nob, 'cause I've got to kill you myself.

Chloe squeezed Rudy's hand, bringing him back to the moment. "I know what you're thinking," she whispered, "and maybe you have a right to, but this is not the time. Right?"

"Right," Rudy sighed.

He and Chloe followed Slava into the Errant Magpie's mecha bay, while the Black Rook faded into the shadows of the battlecruiser's larger one. Stephan's machine seemed to vanish. Rudy wondered if he just blended in, or if he used the same camouflage of light-deflecting psions the Animus Hunter had at the Wellach Cup.

Rudy also wondered what had happened to the Animus Hunter at the Wellach Cup. He'd seemed like the more powerful psychic in his duel with the Black Rook, at least to the point Rudy lost consciousness.

Rudy glanced around the hangar he hadn't been able to get into. Four smaller Civil War-era mecha, equipped like the Black Rook had been at the tournament, filled four of the bays. Probably mecha for Stephan's men-at-arms. Four bays sat empty, including the two largest. Rudy assumed one of those belonged to Stephan's preferred mecha and the other waited for Chloe's mother's.

Her 'erinyes?' Did Stephan mean the silvery mecha they'd come to find?

He shrugged. Whatever it was called, they weren't gonna get it this trip, and Rudy didn't fancy coming back for it.

"Up, little ones," Slava said. "To the bridge."

With a last glance at the mecha – not that Rudy particularly wanted to pilot one of the Civil War relics left in the bay – he bounded up a ladder and pulled Chloe after him. Good thing. She almost slipped, and he didn't blame her. Moving in normal gravity felt crippling after only a half hour of zero gee.

The long-locked door slid open as they approached. Rudy charged through and sprinted upwards. He hated feeling powerless and in the dark, and away from the bridge, he was both. At least he'd be able to see the fight on the Magpie's main screen.

He wondered who he should root for. The enemy of his enemy, in this case, was another enemy.

He decided to back Marcel. The enemy he knew and all that, and besides, if the admiral and his men took Stephan down, Rudy still felt confident he could wrest control of the Errant Magpie from the latter's thugs.

Where he would take the ship, now, posed a greater challenge.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 33: Turnabout

The Errant Magpie jerked upwards. Chloe would have been hurled across the bridge if the ship's artificial gravity hadn't dampened the acceleration. Instead, she recognized the motion only from the images flashing across the main screen.

"Strap in, Your Highess, Commander Slava," Tarkov, the Kronistine helmsman, called from the front of the bridge. "This could get choppy."

Chloe noticed he didn't bother to warn Rudy, who strapped into an empty chair anyway.

She wondered how much maneuvering the Magpie could do. The Mother Goose could never have executed such a turn at all, much less one capable of taxing the newer ship's obviously better-than-line-model inertial dampeners.

Slava asked, "Where is Lord Kyrillos?"

Chloe realized with a start that the hybrid commanded in Stephan's absence. Until the Kronistine men revealed their actual allegiance, he'd acted the part of a common thug.

"I've lost contact, Commander," Quinn, the sensor man, said. "He's stealthed."

"The Reformer?"

"Coming in fast," Quinn said. "It will be onscreen – now."

The Magpie finished its turn toward the sea of stars. A blunt wedge loomed on their left, its well-lit exterior growing larger with every second.

Tarkov glanced over his shoulder. "Sir?"

"That is not so good," Slava said. "Your Highness forgive us, we must wait."

"It's your ship," Chloe said. "And please, don't call me that."

For an awful moment, Chloe thought the Reformer intended to ram the battlecruiser. Its searchlights lanced at the battlecruiser all across the visual spectrum and even beyond, painfully bright.

Then she realized the bigger ship's shields had come up, distorting the view. The destroyer executed what seemed like an impossibly close pass before vanishing overhead.

"Now?" Tarkov asked.

"Wait for Lord Kyrillos," Slava said.

A mecha's smaller searchlight pierced the hangar.

Chloe tensed. The Magpie, she realized, had its own lights off. But wouldn't the Feds recognize it anyway?

They never got the chance.

A blur shot from the shadows beneath them. The probing searchlight spun wildly into the vacuum, still attached to the dismembered arm of the mecha bearing it.

A silvery form unfolded before the line mecha, bathing the hangar in brilliant light.

For a moment, Chloe thought it was her birth mother's mecha, but it looked somewhat smaller, more mechanical than her parents had described that machine. Besides, Chloe recognized the outline if not the color scheme: Stephan's machine. "Why does he look like that?" she asked.

"I can guess," Rudy said. "I'll bet the Black Rook there is trying to sell Marcel on you having your 'erinyes' and knowing how to use it. I'll also bet he's piping his communications through the battlecruiser so it looks like he's still aboard."

"This is so," Slava said.

"But why?" Chloe asked. "Say I did have my mother's mecha. Say I even knew how to fight. It still wouldn't amount to a hill of beans to a whole destroyer, right?"

Slava, Tarkov and Quinn exchanged glances.

Chloe gulped. "Right?"

"What exactly is Stephan trying to sell?" Rudy asked. "I think we better know, in case we need to back up his bluff."

"Erinyes," Slava said. "That is an Imperial's mecha. With that, with Her Highness to pilot it? Admiral Avalon would have no time to be afraid."

"You expect us to believe," Rudy said, "that one mecha, however powerful, could take on a modern destroyer?"

"Or a whole fleet," Slava said.

"Then how come this 'erinyes' is sitting in a mecha bay on a dead battlecruiser, Chloe grew up with adoptive parents instead of her allegedly invincible real ones, and we're cutting and running?"

Slava's whole head bent forward with a frown of concentration, difficult for his jaw to form. After a long time, he said, "That, I do not know, Oligarch's son."

Rudy groaned. "Wonderful."

Chloe kept out of the interchange. She felt an inkling of a hunch, an answer just beyond her reach, but her mind refused to grasp it. She wondered why her intuition – her clairvoyance, since she had no reason to deny what it was anymore – instinctively shied from this truth.

Once she learned to use her powers, she'd understand.

She blinked. She had come to the battlecruiser for knowledge and power, believing her mother's mecha held both. In doing so, she had delivered herself into the hands of people who could, who surely would, train her to use her psychic heritage.

Did she know for sure which outcome her clairvoyance had predicted?

Before she could consider the implications, the view on the screen recaptured her attention.

Stephan might not wield the power to destroy the Reformer, but his mecha had so far done nothing to dispel the illusion he did. Every sweep of his machine's glowing arms sent a wave of laser-like white light rippling through a squadron of Fed mecha. The waves cut through stubby line mecha like monomolecular scythes, casting the machines' dismembered remains into deep space. Even if the Reformer hadn't moved to the far side of the battlecruiser to avoid the alleged erinyes, its guns could not have targeted something as small as the Black Rook through the cruiser's powerful gravitic shield.

"Are you sure," Chloe asked, "he can't beat them all?"

"Those crappy line mecha are just here to flush us out," Rudy said. "Once the elite mechaneers in Wyverns show up, much less the Divine Auric Drake, Stephan will have to bug out."

"That is not so certain," Slava said. "It is the ship my lord fears, not the men."

"Oh, please," Rudy said. "That's the kind of attitude that lost you guys the Civil War."

The ursid growled.

"What? You did, remember? Lose, I mean. Even before the Feds butted their noses in, the Oligarchy was winning."

Chloe reached for his arm. "Rudy…"

He glanced at her. "You don't buy this crap, do you, Clo?"

"Stephan does seem awfully powerful." She thought, but didn't say, he beat you using one of those 'crappy line mecha' you're disparaging, and you in your Epee. Doesn't him being powerful make that less shameful?

Rudy rolled his eyes. "I'm just saying, he's ridiculously outnumbered. The Feds can take these kinds of losses. Billions of kids would give an arm and a leg to call themselves Federal Navy mechaneers. A war hero never has to sleep alone, you know? And those line mecha literally build themselves. I've seen the nanopaste colonies working the asteroid belts. Plop a canister down, come back a month later and you've got a batch of newly minted cookie-cutter mecha."

"This does not mean my lord loses," Slava said, "only that his winning this fight does not win a war."

"It means the Feds will keep throwing troops at him until he makes a mistake," Rudy said. "Everybody makes mistakes, and it only takes one. How many young noblemen you guys have waiting on an opening in the mechaneer corps? Ten? Five? Any?"

Slava didn't answer verbally. His curious, ursid frown said volumes.

"Thought so," Rudy said. "What about mecha? How come you men-at-arms don't get fancy ones like your boss's? Don't suppose you can't make new ones like that?"

Again, Rudy's question elicited no answer.

"Look," he continued, "I'll be honest – I really don't want you guys to build back up and win a new Civil War, although I'm not sold on the idea the Feds are an improvement. With that said, you're at least not actively trying to kill me, so here's some free advice: 'your lord' is out there because he wants to show off, not because it's important enough for him to risk his precious noble ass over."

"You have no right," Slava snarled. He surged from the captain's chair.

Rudy met him halfway across the bridge. He rolled inside an overhead swing and kicked himself back and airborn before the ursid could clasp him in a killing grip. The impact rolled Rudy smoothly to his feet and sent Slava rocking back on his heels.

Quinn shot from his seat in defense of his superior. Tarkov apparently didn't dare switch to autopilot when he was waiting for an opening to flee, but he craned his neck to watch.

Rudy vaulted Quinn's lunge and kicked the Kronistine man into Slava as the latter started to right himself. Rudy followed the tangled men down, snagging Quinn's ankle with his own and spinning the stunned sensor operator up into a punch that smashed him across his console to the lower deck where Tarkov sat.

Slava had his footing now, though. He socked Rudy backwards into a darkened, unused bank of controls and lunged after him. The ursid reeled back, gagging, from a punch to the throat. He recovered almost instantly, hurling back a second punch with his massive forearm and smashing Rudy into a screen.

Rudy didn't stay down long. He whipped his legs up to grip the ursid's neck. When Slava pulled his arm back to wrench Rudy's legs away, Rudy snapped himself forward at the waist and jabbed the ursid's nose. The momentum sent them both sliding toward the center of the bridge, Rudy's fists shooting like pistons into his dazed opponent's snout. He flipped off before Slava crashed to the deck.

Chloe had watched the whole exchange in a single unconsciously held breath.

Now she exhaled – and moved.

"Get the sensor man," Rudy shouted. "We can take the ship now –"

Chloe tackled him.

She couldn't have hoped to scratch Rudy in a fair fight. She lacked anything approaching combat training, much less martial arts, he outmassed her by kilos overall and even more in muscle mass, and she possessed all the killer instinct of a frightened deer.

But knock him back while he stared, stunned?

That, she could do.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, her face flush and her knuckles white with rage.

He stared up at her. "Thought we were gonna –"

"You didn't think, Rudy, not even a little. You never think. You just wing it and fly by the seat of your pants and want to make a big show of fighting these men because you're mad Stephan's a better fighter!"

"We planned on this, Chloe," Rudy hissed. "Remember? We had it all worked out."

"When we thought we were dealing with gangsters," she said. "Even then, you swore you'd only fight them if they betrayed us or if you thought it was the only way we'd survive."

"Whatever you say – Princess." Rudy spat the title like a curse.

Chloe climbed unsteadily to her feet and took a step back.

She felt Slava's hand on her arm, tensed.

"You are well, Highness?" he asked.

"Of course," she said. "Rudy would never hurt me."

"Too bad the feeling isn't mutual," Rudy said. He flipped to his feet and backed up against a console. "Seeing as how you probably just got me killed."

"No one is going to hurt you, Rudy," Chloe said. "These men aren't gangsters. They're men-at-arms to a member of the mechaneer-aristocracy, and they think that I'm the daughter of the Emperor. Even if they're wrong, I'm at least a noble."

"They're Stephan's thugs," Rudy said. "They may be something else as well as gangsters, but that doesn't mean they're any less gangsters."

"But they aren't really criminals," Chloe said. She looked over her shoulder at Slava's bloodied face. "They just pretend to be part of the Syndicate to sneak around the Federated Stars. Right?"

The ursid didn't answer.

"How do you think," Rudy said, waving a hand to encompass the Magpie's battered bridge, "they keep this operation running? The Feds froze all the nobles' assets and drove them from all but the most remote of their physical holdings. Stephan does operate the Kronistine Syndicate. It's the only thing that makes sense. In fact, I'll bet it's nothing new. When did you people take the Syndicate over?"

"There was no need," Slava said. "It is ours, always was. Intelligence division."

"You boys must've been pretty slick back then. Are you slipping nowadays, or are most people as gullible as Chloe?"

She flushed, more embarrassed because she couldn't deny it than angry because he said it.

"It is not so hard," Slava said. "The crime is always there. We organize. We guide. Then we listen. Effective, yes?"

"Like I said, pretty slick. I doubt Otto has as good of an intelligence service, and the Feds sure as hell don't."

"What happens now?" Chloe asked.

"Now," Rudy said, "your friends here probably shoot me."

She followed his gaze. Quinn had drawn a long, heavy-caliber pistol. He pointed it at Rudy's chest.

"No," Chloe cried. "You can't!"

"He attacked us, Your Highness," the sensor man said. "He could've killed me, knocking me over the railing like that. Or all of us, if he damaged the controls. For your safety, we have to put him down."

"He made a mistake," Chloe said. She tried to interpose herself between Rudy and Quinn, but Slava's grip was iron on her arm. She whirled on him, twisting uncomfortably. "He thought it was what I wanted."

"It does not matter," Slava said. "Quinn –"

The Kronistine helmsman inclined his head. His finger tightened on the trigger.

Rudy tensed, his eyes flashing about as he searched for cover and a way to get to it.

Slava stood impassive, his bloodied jaws forming his subordinate's name.

Tarkov split his attention between the standoff and the main screen, where the Black Rook's arm froze, faux-erinyes light forming to lash out at the first of the elite Wyvern mecha cresting the view.

The chronometer's count of seconds disappeared, awaiting its near-instantaneous replacement.

A drop of blood, Slava's or Rudy's, pooled at the edge of a broken console and, sparked into motion by a stray wire, began its plummet to the floor.

Chloe saw it all, down to the minutest detail. She felt like she had an eternity to take it all in, like she could step outside the moment and put it in a glass and keep it forever.

Then time flowed back, and a gun crashed, and Chloe moved.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 34: Scars

Ellie stood on the Reformer's bridge, not because she believed she had any place there, not because she wanted to see what promised to be a bloody spectacle, not because she would stop Chloe from destroying the ship if she could, not even because anyone had ordered her to stay.

She simply didn't know where else to go.

On the main screen, Marcel Avalon's Divine Auric Drake and four Wyverns of similar design converged on a silvery mecha obviously meant to evoke images of the silvery mecha within the battlecruiser.

Ellie had seen Chloe's mother's mecha with her own eyes. The dancing quicksilver fake was impressive – but she knew it for a fake from the outset.

She wondered if any of the Federal Navy men could guess what she thought of the mecha, decided they couldn't. To read her expression, they would have to pay her the slightest attention.

None, save for those whose duties kept their gazes locked to their consoles, looked anywhere but at the mecha duel unfolding before them.

Ellie knew Stephan Kyrillos had to be the pilot of the silver mecha. Unlike most of the mechaneer-aristocrats she'd served, he had loved to boast about fooling the Oligarchical forces as much as he'd loved to boast of destroying them in open battle. Playing the role of a crime lord should have constituted his most spectacular deception. Impersonating an imperial and disguising his mecha as what he and the Federal Navy called an erinyes trumped it easily.

He might require his tricks just to survive now, but she'd never believe he didn't still enjoy them.

Ellie would have shared his amusement at the consternation of their mutual foes – for such the Feds surely were – if she hadn't so disliked the idea of Stephan having access to Chloe.

Ellie didn't fear for her daughter's life. Stephan had every reason to protect her.

He also had every reason to use her.

Ellie had not numbered among Stephan's conquests back then, but not for lack of trying. She'd watched other girls catch his eye, while her own best efforts only managed to enchant her own liege, Corin Basilios. He'd been younger than Stephan, even younger than Ellie's teenage self, barely more than a boy, and only a knight besides. Nonetheless, on the eve of his shipping out, she'd agreed to his advances.

At the time, she'd felt mortified when, afterwards, Corin cried himself to sleep in her arms. She felt like she'd failed herself by not winning the affections of a greater lord.

It didn't occur to her until a month later, when she learned of Corin's death, and her brothers', and as far as she'd known, Stephan's, why Corrin had wept. That was when it sunk in for her why the mechaneer-aristocracy had been reduced to sending teenagers to war.

A month after that, her homeworld fell. What remained of the Basilios family was executed on the spot. What remained of Ellie's, the Feds dragged to their VCL camps.

Thinking of the camp, she took a fierce joy from watching one of Stephan's blasts of coherent light slice cleanly through a Wyvern's torso, sending the halves spiraling apart as their separated thruster-wings fired at opposed angles. Anyone who flew for the Feds deserved the worst Stephan Kyrillos, Otto Abeir Algreil, and anyone else who cared to join in could imagine!

A small part of Ellie reminded her that the Navy pilots had probably never even heard of the VCL camps. She refused to excuse them their ignorance, though. Unlike civilians, they could have found out. Unlike civilians, they could have done something. Resigned, as Jack had over just a hint of what had happened, or revolted in such numbers the Senate would have had to stop.

Ellie found her back to the wall of the Reformer's bridge and her head in her hands. She'd done so well, despite the familiar Federal uniforms and the familiar Federal green walls, but now she'd broken her cardinal rule.

She didn't think about the camp. Ever.

Seeing Stephan again, she couldn't help but remember.

She wondered if he knew.

That she and her family and friends and rivals had been rounded up for "processing" after the Basilos family was destroyed and the survivors of House Kyrillos fled for their holdings in the Periphery.

That Ellie had been pregnant by Corin, and that the Feds had murdered their baby – son or daughter, she never had the chance to know, oh Principle, they never told her, no matter how much she begged for even that much, no matter what she did.

A hybrid was valuable. A half-hybrid demonstrated genetic compatibility with humans, and that created uncomfortable questions the Feds would not permit.

She had never told anyone, even Jack. He knew most of it: the cruel guards, the cramped barracks, the occasional deaths, and the planned experiments that would have killed the rest trying to unlock the secrets of artificial psionics. But not, never, about her and Corin's baby. Nor that the reason she couldn't bear Jack's children had nothing to do with genetic incompatibility, everything to do with Federal-mandated sterilization.

Ellie knew Jack would feel her baby's loss as his own. She knew he would have fought the people who'd done it. And she knew he couldn't win.

If Chloe could...

Ellie shook her head. No!

She didn't wish war on Chloe! She would not, never, risk her adopted child's life and happiness to avenge her murdered one's. If bringing the Federal Senate to justice meant Chloe using her powers, then the Feds could damn well continue to exist.

Even so, Ellie prayed Stephan would win the battle unfolding over the battlecruiser.

Unless Marcel Avalon's skill at deception exceeded that of all other men she'd known, Ellie truly believed he was a good man, that he wanted to help Chloe, that he did not know what his Senatorial masters had ordered, and that he would never believe it.

She just as truly believed his character meant nothing. Avalon would follow his orders to deliver Chloe to the Senate, and the Senate could not suffer an imperial heir to live. Principle knew, they had no compunctions about killing innocents! As long as Chloe existed, as long as anyone descended from her existed, billions of people would consider themselves subject to her. If Avalon's fear of engaging an awakened erinyes was justified, Chloe had the power to press those claims.

Stephan, on the other hand, was not a good man, though Ellie couldn't judge if he was truly a bad one. He helped himself first and foremost, his family second, his fellow aristocrats a distant third. He would use Chloe to his advantage. He would seduce her if he could, and he would surely persuade her to use her power against the Feds.

But unlike Avalon, Stephan would make his own decisions. He followed no orders, obeyed nothing but his own ambitions. Ellie saw no reason he would want anything but Chloe's continued health. He would want to sire the new imperial line, not destroy it. He might even be persuaded to settle for the mere existence of that line.

Ellie wished for a far better pattern to Chloe's days than what Stephan would provide. Better a poor pattern than none at all.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 35: Imperious

Chloe slid to a stop between Quinn and Rudy, facing the Kyrillos man-at-arms. Behind her, she heard Rudy slam against a bulkhead as the slug hit him.

Help him! Her every instinct begged her to run to his side and see if she could help. To see if he was still within her power to help. But if she did that, he wouldn't be. The Kyrillos men would kill him, if they hadn't already. He'd been right about them, so right, and now, because she'd interfered –

"Step aside, Your Highness," Quinn said. "I have to make sure –"

Chloe locked gazes with him.

"Put the gun down," she said. She hardly recognized her voice. She felt like she would shake apart, but she sounded perfectly calm.

"Highness –"

"If you don't put the gun down," Chloe said, "if Rudy is d... if you do him any further harm... I will destroy this ship and kill every last one of you."

Quinn hesitated.

"It is enough, Quinn," Slava growled. "Put it down. We must talk."

The pistol clattered to the Errant Magpie's glaringly white floor.

"There is nothing to talk about," Chloe said. "You call me Princess, you call me Your Highness, and you will obey me as such. You will disarm yourselves, and then you will take Rudy to our quarters and render such medical assistance as you are capable of."

"He's dangerous, Your Hignness," Quinn said. "He's the one who started the fight. Forget killing me and Slava. If he'd pushed the wrong buttons, he could have alerted the Reformer to your location!"

"Rudy was wrong to act when he did," Chloe said, "but he and I arranged ahead of time for him to seize this ship at the first sign of trouble. After all, as is now painfully clear, we were dealing with gangsters. The fault is as much mine as his, and even more your lord's. Had Stephan told us the truth from the outset, we could have worked this out without violence."

Chloe's tone seemed to freeze the Kyrillos men in place. Slowly, the two who were still armed unbelted their guns and lowered them to the floor. Slava took a half step toward Rudy, looked to Chloe.

She nodded.

She allowed herself to turn as the ursid approached Rudy.

He flashed her what was probably meant as a grin, but looked more like a grimace. He'd stumbled into a console and sprawled on the floor, and she could see cracks in his flight suit where its nanomachine fabric had hardened into ablative armor. From his expression, she figured he had cracks inside, too. The suit prevented the slug from penetrating his body, but it could only do so much to disperse the kinetic energy.

But he was manifestly, unambiguously, wonderfully alive.

Chloe fought back her cry of relief. She could not afford even the slightest show of weakness in front of the Kyrillos men – not if she wanted Rudy to remain alive.

"Can you move?" she asked, her voice still unnaturally calm.

He nodded, and winced. "Not and like it, but yeah."

"How bad is it?"

"Broken collarbone, suit says. Couple of cracked ribs. Had worse. Hurts to talk."

Chloe nodded. "Slava, please help Rudy to our quarters."

"Highness." The ursid bent to obey.

Rudy pushed him away. "Said I've had worse." He braced his legs and uncurled himself, carefully avoiding supporting himself with his hands. "I'll make it."

"You need to lie down and either get medical nanopaste on your chest or let your suit work if it has that functionality." Chloe hated not being able to sound as concerned as she felt, but if she let go of the illusion of control, she didn't think she could get it back.

"Works for me." He took a few steps toward the door, hesitated.

Chloe swept to his side and, gently as she could, hooked one of his arms over her shoulder. "I'll help you."

Slava's shadow fell over them. "Highness, we still have troubles. It is not wise for you to leave."

Chloe looked up at the ursid. She half-allowed and half-forced her smile, her inclination to trust hybrids and her shock and fury at the Kyrillos men's actions combining into an expression she hoped looked imperious. "I leave the escape in your capable hands, Commander."

"Highness." He bowed, fist pressed to his chest. "We do our best."

"Then the Reformer is as good as foiled," Chloe said.

The ursid bowed deeper.

Chloe acknowledged the bow with a nod and stepped backwards, easing Rudy through the bridge doors.

She didn't dare speak or relax until she and Rudy were down the hall and into the quarters they'd shared. Until the door slid shut and she eased him off her shoulder and onto the bed. Until, finally, she could sink onto the couch and bury her face in her hands and breathe.

Rudy said, "Wow."

Chloe spread her fingers enough to peer out at him. He'd propped himself up on his elbows; but for the cracks on his suit, she'd never have guessed he was hurt.

"I mean, damn – I thought your Petra Jaric was a good performance, but that was something else." He gave her a thumbs-up.

"You were faking," Chloe said flatly.

Rudy shrugged. "Sort of. I'll have a bruise the size of a dinner plate, but nothing a little tender love and care – I mean, a little medical nanopaste – won't fix up. It takes more than a candy-ass pistol like that to punch through this gear. This is Marchess Threelete series nanofiber, so cutting edge the Feds can't even get it on the open market. Works like a dream."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Well, this is the first time you've wanted to get me into bed…"

Chloe slumped back on the coach and closed her eyes. "Be serious, Rudy. Please?"

"What's wrong, Clo? You were great up there! Seems I didn't do half bad, either, so barring any intervention from our pal Marcel, we're good to go."

She heard him stand and sprint to her side. She felt his hands closing around hers, and realized the latter had been shaking.

He whispered, "Chloe?"

"Great? I don't feel 'great,'" Chloe said. "Don't want to be 'great.' It's all too big for me – or maybe I'm scared it's not too big, maybe I am –"

Rudy shushed her. His hand slid along her arm and up to cup her chin.

She opened her eyes.

His electric blue eyes twinkled inches from her face. "You know what you need, Clo?"

Chloe shook her head. "Rudy, please don't. No kidding around. Please. Not right now."

"You need," he said, "to calm down and take a deep breath. Maybe not in that order."

"Oh." She smiled wanly. "Guess I kind of jumped the gun, huh?"

He chuckled. "Tell you the truth, I was going to crack a joke if you hadn't asked so nicely. So... not really."

"Heh." Chloe reached up to remove the hand on her chin. Her fingers didn't seem to want to obey, because they just lay over Rudy's.

She gulped.

Rudy cocked his head.

Chloe opened her mouth to tell him he was too close. She couldn't find the words.

He leaned forward.

Chloe wrapped her other arm around his neck.

And the Errant Magpie shuddered sideways, throwing both of them to the floor.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 36: Fire Support

Rudy winced as his back impacted the Magpie's hard floor for the second time in ten minutes, again when Chloe landed atop him. He eased her aside and rolled to his feet just as another tremor rocked the transport.

Chloe looked around frantically. "What in the world?"

"Sounds like Stephan's goons didn't live up to your expectations." Rudy sprinted across the rocking deck to the screen on the far wall. A touch of his palm brought up the view from outside.

It wasn't pretty.

The Black Rook, shedding silver and no longer glowing like a wannabe Imperial, smashed through a pair of line mecha and into the battlecruiser's hull. One of the aristocratic mecha's arms ended at the wrist. One of its thruster-wings vented fuel from a severed tip. The Divine Auric Drake and two smaller Wyverns swept down after it, backlit by the vast searchlights of the Reformer as it pressed weirdly through the gravitic distortion of the larger capital ship's shields.

"I take it back," Rudy said.

Chloe joined him at the window.

"Stephan's the one who isn't living up to expectations," Rudy continued. "Slava must've made a run for it because his boss is getting his ass kicked."

"We have to –" Chloe bit her lip.

"What? Help him?"

"Stephan is risking his life for us. For me, anyway."

"Bully for him," Rudy said. "For once, though, he has the right idea. Namely, that we need to get the hell out of here. We're already taking fire from the Reformer, as seen by our unfortunately-timed trip to the deck."

Chloe looked away. Either she didn't want to concede the point, or thinking about them almost kissing clammed her up.

Rudy suppressed a sigh. When it wasn't her spacer morality or his acting like an asshole, the universe just had to step in and throw a wrench in the proceedings, didn't it? If he'd been a religious guy, he'd have had to question the beneficence of the Almighty Principle.

As though to emphasize his doubts, the Errant Magpie shuddered again. The Reformer's secondary guns tracked the transport, spitting shells bigger than the mecha fighting outside. The Magpie's shields couldn't create a gravitic distortion big enough to throw those anti-capital-ship weapons off course.

"Not too concerned about collateral damage, are they?" Rudy muttered.

"Why would they be? Me being with Stephan raises the stakes. They can't let somebody they think is an Imperial end up with the aristocracy."

"Point." Rudy had always hated watching others fight. With his and Chloe's lives on the line, he found new reserves of loathing. "I wish those guys up top would hurry. At this rate, I'm gonna get so sick of sitting here and watching things play out, I'll hop in a mecha and save Stephan's worthless ass."

Said ass certainly looked in need of saving. The Black Rook dashed one Wyvern against the battlecruiser hull with straight telekinesis. No light show now that he was fighting for his life, apparently. The Divine Auric Drake effortlessly rolled around the wave of invisible force, his remaining wingman close behind him.

Avalon's polearm shot out. Stephan turned the blow less than a meter from his cockpit, shearing off part of his mecha's shoulder and leaving a sparking line scored in the battlecruiser's hull.

Drake and Wyvern hurtled back from what had to be some kind of telekinetic shield, but while the smaller mecha struggled to correct its momentum, Avalon recovered almost instantly and surged back in.

Rudy whistled. "The hell'd he learn to fight like that?"

"He seemed very good at the Wellach Cup," Chloe said. "He almost beat you, right?"

"Yeah, but this is just over the top. Hell, at this rate, he's gonna practically solo a nob. I've never seen Marcel pull off moves like this."

"Maybe he's never had to."

Rudy shot her a glare. She ignored it.

The Black Rook seemed just as surprised as the Crimson Phoenix. He flew backwards across the battlecruiser's hull, dodging lightning thrusts from the Divine Auric Drake, weaving between the weapon and sensor mounts protruding from the dead vessel.

One of those mounts exploded, raining shrapnel. Stephan rolled away. Avalon plowed through, batting aside debris almost casually.

Chloe gasped. "Now what?"

"The Reformer is sitting inside the edge of the battlecruiser's shield bubble. Half its guns can fire through it," Rudy said. "Marcel must have called in fire support."

The two mecha circled. Against the gigantic backdrop of the battlecruiser, they looked like two armored men facing off. The other Feds backed off, apparently less confident than their leader in their ability to dodge the Reformer's fire. Or maybe less confident the destroyer would hold its fire on their account.

The Black Rook stretched out a palm. The Divine Auric Drake tried to dodge, but instead of blasting Avalon, Stephan pulled him forward. The once-again-black mecha's other arm shot forward to meet the gold with the telekinetic blast Avalon must have expected from the first gesture.

Then both disappeared into a cloud of swift-dying fire and cascading metal.

Chloe glanced at Rudy, her eyes wide with confusion.

For a few seconds, he could only return the same look.

Even with his mechaneering experience, it took until another explosion rocked the battlecruiser before he understood what he'd just seen.

The Reformer had found the range to the mecha dueling beneath it. Every one of its shells massed more than the Divine Auric Drake and the Black Rook combined and slammed into the battlecruiser's composite armor with more acceleration than the best inertial dampener in the galaxy could negate. With its attacker inside its shields, even the battlecruiser itself couldn't survive that kind of pounding.

Two mecha on its surface sure as hell couldn't.

Had Marcel Avalon actually killed Stephan Kyrillos?

Had he died trying?

Or both?

Rudy leaned toward the screen, fists balled. He didn't know who to root for, or whether he should hope both men dead, but he sure as hell wanted to know what had happened.

Despite the violence of the impact it hurtled from, the debris moved painfully slowly. The last inflamed battlecruiser atmosphere burned away, the artificial asteroid field of shattered armor parted. Something metallic moved under its own power within the cloud.

Then the scene collapsed as the Errant Magpie's compression tunnel warped the light into unintelligible patterns.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 37: Compression

Rudy shouted, "Chloe!"

Her eyes flew open. For a second, she saw Rudy's face contorted with – what? Agony? Terror? Rage? Why couldn't she tell?

But the face centimeters from hers was only flush with concern, reflected the dim light of the suite.

"R-Rudy?" Her pounding heart began to slow. She blinked. The awful double vision of Rudy faded. The vision she wanted to see remained. "You're okay?"

"You know me, I'm always okay." Rudy flashed a brief, almost automatic grin, but it couldn't hide the worry lines surrounding his electric blue eyes. "What about you? What the hell happened?"

"What was I doing?"

"You were screaming, kiddo," Rudy said. "I heard you across the hall. If I didn't expect them to have us both under all kinds of undocumented surveillance, I'd say it was a wonder your buds in the Kronistine Syndicate weren't piling in here thinking I tried to murder you."

That loud? "I had a nightmare." Saying it let her gulp down a breath. Only a nightmare. "We're still in the compression tunnel?"

He nodded. "Hell of a trip."

Longer than any Chloe remembered in her years aboard the Mother Goose. Just how far out was Stephan's estate? Far enough to survive a galaxy that had turned against its master, she supposed.

"Folks say staying in one too long can mess with your head," Chloe said. "Maybe that's why I freaked out."

Sure. A side effect of too long in a compression tunnel. Not because of the horrors she'd seen in the battlecruiser. Not because her parents had been kidnapped because of her, Rudy's company attacked because of her, Stephan, perhaps, killed because of her.

Rudy's raised eyebrow suggested he didn't buy her explanation, either. "Because of the tunnel, huh? Must've been one hell of a bad dream."

Chloe tried to remember the details, regretted it.

She recalled just enough to know she didn't want to know the rest. Scenes from the battlecruiser. A broken world, twisted bodies, but in her dream, the screaming faces belonged to people she knew. Her parents. The Mother Goose's old crew. Spacers she'd met. The Kronistine men. Admiral Avalon. Stephan.

And, over and over again, Rudy.

Shuddering, she tried to pull away from him and realized for the first time she was already huddled against the wall where it butted against the reactive gel bed of Stephan's vacated suite.

Rudy gripped her shoulders and tried to force her to meet his eyes. "Clo?"

"I'm fine, Rudy," she whispered. "You should leave now."

"The hell I should. You're about as 'fine' as an Epee with no coolant."

"I said you should leave," Chloe snapped. She pushed him away and scrambled to her feet, sinking almost to her ankles in the yielding gel. Where did Rudy get off, barging into her suite that way? And climbing onto the bed while she slept!

He let her shove him off the bed. He rolled to his feet at the end of the motion, arms crossed.

"Go!" Chloe pointed a shaking finger at the door. "Get away from me!"

"No."

Chloe's fists clenched. She started to snarl another retort.

Instead, she sank back to the bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. She pressed her face against her legs and shut her eyes. She felt Rudy's hand on her shoulder and leaned into him. She fought to keep from crying, though she wasn't sure, as the dream faded into increasingly obscure snippets, who she wanted to cry for.

She forced down a deep breath, set her jaw, looked up.

Rudy frowned down at her. "Feeling better?"

Chloe shook her head.

"Well," he said, "at least you're honest." He winked.

A chuckle fought its way from her lips.

"You better watch it," she said. "Your humor is contagious."

"An epidemic," he agreed solemnly.

"Thanks, Rudy," Chloe said. "I do feel better now."

"Damn straight. I'd hate to waste all this talent." In the dim light, she almost couldn't see how strained his grin was. Chloe was glad her memory of the nightmare continued to fade. She must have sounded even worse than she felt.

Rudy squeezed her shoulder. "No more bad dreams, you hear?"

"Principle willing!"

"You want me to stick around and make sure? I double as a dream catcher, you know."

"Y–" Chloe, remembering at the last minute they were huddled together on a bed, bit back an unthinking 'yes.' "I mean, you... better not. We took separate quarters and all."

For a wonder, he didn't push it. He patted her shoulder and uncoiled himself, hopping back to the floor. "If you need anything, Clo..."

"I'll call you," she promised.

And she would, and he would answer –

Or, the echo of a dream whispered in the back of her mind, he would die trying.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 38: Captains of Industry

"Ladies and gentlemen," Otto Abeir Algreil said, spreading his arms to encompass the long oval table before him, "welcome to Algreil Prime."

Jack, sitting behind and to the side of his once-and-current boss, followed the sweep of Otto's arm. A who's who of Oligarchs presumably "sat" at the table, but their holograms had no distinguishing features. Plausible deniability, in case the Feds won and won fast.

Only Jack, another Algreil man at Otto's back, and a trio of Marchess – or was it Marchess-Algreil? – representatives actually attended in the flesh. Alarie Wein Marchess-Algreil, seated at the far end of the table, was the only physically present 'lady' Otto could have been referring to, and she practically disappeared into her throne-like seat. Her two retainers, in Algreil colors but from the protective way they clustered around Alarie obviously still Marchess men at heart, only served to make her look smaller and sicklier by comparison. Beyond the table, the room was uncomfortably dark.

The holograms, and the Marchesses, fixed their gaze on Otto.

"I'm sure you all know by now why you've been called here," Otto said.

A murmur of agreements. The assembled Oligarchs sounded nervous to Jack, though it was hard to tell through the programs they used to scramble their identities.

"You've all familiarized yourselves with the material I provided?"

"We are fully prepared to judge this matter, Algreil," one of the holograms said. Jack found it hard to even figure out which one was speaking, though Otto seemed to follow their conversation easily. "The question is, are you prepared to hear our judgment?"

Jack didn't like the sound of that. He glanced at Otto.

The Oligarch's cocky grin hadn't wavered. He said, "Let's hear it."

Another hologram answered him. "It is the opinion of this council that you, Otto Abeir Algreil, provoked a confrontation with the Federal Navy destroyer Reformer, leading to the destruction of your assets in the Wellach system and the heightened tensions between ourselves and the Federal Senate. Furthermore, we believe this provocation was deliberate and that you intend to use the resulting conflict to push for open war between the Oligarchy and the Senate."

"All true," Otto said.

Jack stared.

Since none of the assembled oligarchs responded immediately, Jack figured he wasn't the only one who couldn't believe the admission. Not that Jack put the actions past Otto – he'd been plenty frank about his plans. No, what blew Jack away was that his boss would come out and say it to his colleagues.

"How can you possibly justify this?" one of said colleagues demanded. "How can you expect this council to sit here and listen to you bald-faced admit you're trying to provoke another Civil War?"

Both good questions, thought Jack.

"Was that ever in question?" Otto asked. "If it was, gentlemen, you have my apologies. Let me break it down for you: I am openly calling for us to fight the Federal Senate."

"You can't be serious!"

Otto cocked an eyebrow. "Of course I'm serious. You're the jokes. What did you think the purpose of assembling the Captains of Industry was? Did you think we were a Principle-damned social club? I formed this council following the dismantling and nationalization of Kalder-Black specifically to organize resistance to the Senate's overreach. Armed, military resistance."

"But the Senate is not overreaching this time," one of the oligarchs countered. "You opened fire on their ship!"

"After Admiral Avalon violated the Senate's own search-and-seizure laws and the Treaty of Etemenos, which grants our arcologies independent operation. Maybe Avalon had a warrant, but I sure as hell never saw it. And he's one of them usually going on about how sacred their 'law' is!" Otto snorted. "Legally speaking, I acted overzealously, but not outside my rights."

"You can't expect that to fly with President Ferrill. Even if her rhetoric is just that, she'd never be imprudent enough to send Avalon out without legal authority."

"I don't expect it to 'fly,'" Otto said. "That's my point. The Senate's signed, notarized promises aren't worth the paper they're printed on."

"Do you deny that you set up the situation to provoke the Reformer? You spread rumors you had an Heir! How else could Avalon have responded?"

"I was under the impression, gentlemen, that an Heir to the Astroykos dynasty, should such a person exist, would be just another citizen. After all, we're all equal under the law, right?"

Except for hybrids, Jack thought – and thought of Ellie. Not that the 'law' seemed to have done Chloe a damn bit of good, even though she was acknowledged as human by it.

One of the oligarchs sputtered, "You can't extend that kind of sentiment to a noble – an Imperial, for Principle's sake!"

"And why not?" Otto asked. "It is what the law says."

"Because people like that are too dangerous," the hologram's owner said. "Letting them walk around free is just asking for trouble. Measures have to be taken. Preemptive measures! Surely this council should support the Senate in controlling the old aristocracy!"

"Chloe's not dangerous to anybody," Jack snapped. He leaned forward and slammed his palm on the dark wood of the table. "She wouldn't hurt a fly!"

Only Alarie, seated at the far end of the table, even looked at him.

Otto waved him back.

Reluctantly, realizing he probably shouldn't have said anything, Jack obeyed.

"Too dangerous," Otto said. He sounded like he was trying the words out. He repeated them, cocked his head. Sighed. "Gentlemen, Colonel Hughes is right. The alleged Heir the Federal Senate was looking for was living peacefully as a spacer salvage worker prior to becoming the target of an Animus Hunter. She made no attempt to reclaim the throne the Senate believes to be hers, or even to employ the powers they believe she has."

"Are you saying she doesn't –"

"I'm saying," Otto continued, "that she didn't provoke a damn thing."

"Still, she was dangerous." The oligarch sounded sullen. He had to know Otto was leading him into some kind of trap, but if he didn't try to push through, he'd lose even more face than if his fellow oligarch made a fool of him. Better to be decisive than right, right? "If she had decided to attempt something, she would have been a serious problem."

"And you wouldn't?" Otto's eyebrow quirked up again.

"I – Huh?"

"You wouldn't be a serious problem if you 'tried something?' I wouldn't be? Any of us wouldn't be?"

"Enough, Algreil," a second hologram said. "You've made your point."

"Wrong," Otto said. "The Senate, and my illustrious colleague here, made it for me."

The oligarch Otto had used to get the point across still didn't seem to grasp it. "What are you trying to imply, Algreil?"

"The Senate demonstrates its blatant willingness to ignore laws, treaties, and the very constitution it was based on. Why? Because the target is 'too dangerous.' But who is truly 'too dangerous?' The side that lost the Civil War? Or the side that was already winning it before the Feds stepped in to take the credit?"

"We couldn't have beaten the Emperor," the second hologram said.

"Perhaps. But then again, we didn't try, either. That was the Senate's cause. Last I checked, they were the ones who dragged the imperials into the Civil War. We were fighting to keep local lords' noses out of our business, not to change the government on Etemenos."

"You think the Senate considers us a threat?"

"What do you think Morgan Kalder-Black thinks?"

"That was an isolated incident –"

"What do you think Chloe Hughes thinks?"

"The alleged Heir? That has –"

"He has a point –"

"– cannot risk so much –"

"– this is intolerable, Algreil!"

"We did not come here –"

"– but if we could –"

"Gentlemen!" Otto stood and leaned over the table.

The oligarchs immediately fell silent.

"We are a danger to the Senate," Otto said. "We broadcast their proclamations. We ship their food. We build their mecha. We do a thousand things they need, a thousand things they'd have to rebuild from scratch if we stopped. Rhetta Ferrill knows all this better than most of you seem to. And if we continue squabbling like this, like the nobs did, we'll lose like the nobs did."

"Even if we stand united, Algreil – which, I hasten to add, we do not intend to do – we would lose. Those mecha are already built. The Federal Navy has grown too expansive, the Animus Hunters are too powerful, and in any case we could never hope to break through Etemenos's defenses."

Otto shrugged. "You might be right. For all our power, that's a tall order."

"If we can't win, what's the point in fighting? We have no reason to think the Senate won't consider you an isolated threat and respond accordingly. Why should we sacrifice ourselves for a competitor's sake?"

'Cause if you think Otto's telling the truth, Jack thought, you'll be next on the chopping block. Why not fight when you at least have a chance?

He expected Otto to say much the same.

Instead, Otto said, "Because, gentlemen, this competitor has access to the power of the Heir to the Astroykos Dynasty."

"What?" It took everything in Jack not to join in the chorus. Not many of the holograms managed it. Alarie didn't, either, and since he could actually see her face, her shock would have been obvious even if she had kept her mouth shut.

"Colonel Hughes," Otto said, motioning to Jack, "is the adoptive father of the young woman who is, as the Federal Senate correctly deduced, the heir to the throne. He is also, as many of you are no doubt aware, a member of my Devil Ray squadron."

"A former member," a nearby hologram said. "I was given to understand that the falling-out was rather unpleasant."

"You were given to understand that, eh?" Otto grinned at the image of the man.

Jack's stomach lurched. He suddenly realized the bluff Otto was trying to run. No way in hell would the other Oligarchs buy it, though, not that he could see. Not even from one of their own.

Would they?

"Do you mean to say, Mr. Algreil, that you planned for Colonel Hughes to find and adopt the heir?"

"Of course not," Otto said. "That would be absurd."

Jack suppressed a sigh of relief. Partly because he didn't think the Captains of Industry would buy such a, as Otto said, absurd lie, partly because Jack had half convinced himself that Otto had planned it all.

"I released Colonel Hughes from official service so he could find the Empress and/or her erinyes," Otto said. "That she was dead and her daughter wasn't proved an unexpected bonus. Far better to raise a tame Imperial than to try to persuade one to help us."

"If that were the case, why would you have left her on a salvage ship bouncing around the periphery instead of bringing her to Algreil Prime?"

"If she'd been raised here," Otto countered, "who here wouldn't know it? Who wouldn't at least suspect? If all of us knew it, do you really believe the Feds wouldn't? If they had, do you think Algreil Aerospace wouldn't have had its own 'isolated incident?'"

"But the danger –"

"Was nonexistent. I had my best officer on the job." Otto clapped Jack on the shoulder. Jack was sure his grin looked pretty damn forced. He hoped the other oligarchs couldn't see it clearly. "Raising the Heir exactly as we would want. Training her exactly as we would want."

The assembled oligarchs stared. At least, Jack figured they did, because they didn't say anything and all their holographic avatars were angled at him and Otto.

Otto sat back down and leaned on the arm of his chair, smirking. "Any more questions, gentlemen?"

If Jack hadn't figured running his mouth was liable to shoot down Otto's house of cards – and Jack's own chances of saving Ellie and Chloe – he'd have had plenty.

The Captains of Industry did not.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Chapter 39: Etemenos

Ellie stared at the screens displaying the view outside the Reformer. Her eyes were wide, her mouth parted, her attention fixed on the silvery vista that appeared to erupt beyond the destroyer's hull.

She knew she should look upon the gleaming expanse with horror or hate.

She felt nothing but awe.

Etemenos!

Invisible from outside its world-shields, it unfolded before her eyes like a dream as the Reformer charted its course through the bubble of gravitic distortion.

The capital-world of the Federated Stars was the size of a small gas giant, far larger than any habitable planet, even more so than any other product of human artifice. Concentric rings of superdense metals whirled in a stately dance around its core, a giant astrolabe that was practically a system unto itself. Each of the seven rings could have docked thousands of ships as big as a battlecruiser, to say nothing of the smaller, privately-owned stations on different axes. Each glowed with warning lights and running lights and purely decorative lights, creating the illusion of internal stars offset by the weirdly distorted view of the actual stars through its shields. Some bore the glowing insignia of Oligarchical enclaves, others the Ouroboros of the government, others a dizzying mix of symbols from private holders and sub-Oligarchical companies.

Ellie couldn't begin to imagine the resources the Astroykos Empire had expended to create the capital-world. Even with nanoassemblers, which she wasn't sure they'd had, it would have taken the mass of a dozen planets. And since it rose from deep space, far enough from any star to allow vessels to emerge from compression tunnels just hours from its surface rather than days or weeks, all that mass had been transported across dozens of pentameters at least.

Jack had always called Etemenos's construction wasteful, and Ellie had never had reason to disagree.

Now she did.

The Reformer glided through a maze of shifting rings and space traffic. Perhaps because of its importance as the Federal Navy flagship, it only had to maneuver to avoid the former. Other ships, even bulk freighters many times the destroyer's size, circled around it. Watching from her quarters, Ellie felt they were moving slowly, but she eventually realized the scale of Etemenos was playing tricks on her. The Reformer moved faster than it had in Wellach's atmosphere, but it still took the better part of an hour to reach the immense silver sphere that was Etemenos's core.

At last, the ship settled into a concave cone that served as one of the core's docking bays. Carefully tuned magnetic fields formed much of the planet-sized sphere's outer structure, showing off the arena where the Etemenos Cup tournament was held and, at the heart of that, a second, smaller metal sphere where the emperors had once held court and the Senate now did.

I wish Jack could see this, Ellie thought. He would at least appreciate the outer layer of Etemenos's core. Thinking about what went on at its heart, Ellie at last recovered her dislike of the place.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the faint hiss of the door to her quarters.

She nearly jumped off the bed. She hadn't seen a human being since being escorted from the bridge after Avalon's battle with the Black Rook two weeks before. She felt sure she'd have died of thirst but for the dispensary in her quarters.

She didn't exactly see a human being now, only the armor of a pair of Federal marines, looking more like miniature mecha than men. One of them pointed to her, then jerked a thumb toward the door.

Ellie offered no protest as they led her through the ship's seemingly endless corridors. She wondered if Avalon had finally deigned to remember she existed, or if some Federal bureaucrat had.

She wondered for the thousandth time if Avalon was even still alive.

It seemed impossible the admiral would have left her completely unattended for weeks after all but waiting on her hand and foot. Whatever his reasons, he'd always treated her like a guest rather than a prisoner.

On the other hand, if he were dead, why would his first officer have left Ellie in her gilded cage instead of putting her in a literal one? Or, for that matter, dumping her out the airlock like the trash most of the Reformer's crew so obviously considered her? Had he simply forgotten her after having her hustled back to her quarters? She couldn't rule out the possibility.

For the thousandth time, she put her questions out of her mind. She gained nothing from dwelling on them, and in any case her answers probably lay wherever the marines were taking her.

That proved to be to an airlock big enough to have swallowed up mecha like the Goslings, if not the entire Mother Goose. Smooth and silent, it slid open on a waiting room hardly bigger than the airlock. "Sit," one of the marines said. Without waiting for a response, they turned on their heels and marched back through the closing airlock.

Ellie took in her new surroundings. There were no facilities or decorations, just four long, low couches of reactive gel with circular tables at each end. It seemed oddly plain compared to her image of the capital world-city. Because it was a military facility? In that case, she would have expected screens ready to display strategic updates. Two doors led off from the room. She didn't bother to check them, since even if they weren't locked, she had no idea how to escape or what she would be escaping to. After a quick pace around the room's outskirts, she sighed, stretched and seated herself on one of the couches to wait.

The next several minutes seemed to stretch into hours. Finally, the airlock slid open again. This time, enough marines and navy officers piled out to nearly fill the room, surrounding –

– a sleek, hovering medical chair, in which sat Second Admiral Marcel Avalon.

Ellie couldn't help but gasp.

The medical chair was a mobile version of a typical reactive gel chair, but its covering of nanopaste 'fabric' was more like that of a military-grade flight suit. It extended over Avalon's entire body, replacing his uniform, perhaps having merged with it when the suit's own medical subroutines proved insufficient, and a pseudopod-like extension covered the left side of his face. From the way he sat, Ellie suspected at least his left arm and both legs were injured to the point of uselessness.

Nonetheless, he managed to smile with the visible half of his face. "Ellie."

"Admiral!" Instinctively, she tried to rush to his side and was brought up short by the barrel of a marine's wrist-mounted gun.

"Let her pass," Avalon said. His voice sounded weak and scratchy, but if he'd suffered any serious damage to his lungs or vocal cords, it had already been repaired. Understandably, since soft tissue healed much faster than bone.

The marine lowered his weapon.

By then, Ellie had enough of her wits about her to remember that this man remained her enemy. She approached his medical chair, but didn't rush to comfort him as she'd been about to. "Are you..." Of course he wasn't alright! She swallowed that cliché and instead said, "I'm glad you're alive."

"And I as well," he said, "although I suspect if Limiters were not sealing off my pain receptors, I might feel differently."

Ellie wasn't sure if she was supposed to laugh at that; from the smattering of nervous chuckles from Avalon's subordinates, she gathered she wasn't the only one.

"Admiral," one of those subordinates said, "perhaps we should inform President Ferrill that you need more time to recover –"

"I have been asleep overlong already, Captain Little," Avalon snapped. Ellie wondered if the harshness in his tone was from his injuries, or if this was the continuation of an argument she'd missed. "I will give my own report."

"Sir," Little said stiffly, saluting and stepping back.

Definitely the continuation of an argument.

One, inevitably, Avalon's subordinate had lost.

"I'll, um, see that the ship is moved to drydock, sir," Little said.

Avalon tried to nod. The nanopaste extending up his neck restrained him too much, so he was forced to settle for a stiff "Very good, Captain."

Most of the officers returned to the Reformer with Little. The rest, and half the marines, exited through one of the room's doors, leaving Ellie and Avalon with the remaining marines.

"The President will want to meet with me in private, gentlemen," the admiral told the latter, "so you may consider yourselves on early leave."

Ellie could imagine the frown beneath the marine commander's expressionless helmet. "But Admiral –"

"Surely you don't think I'm in any danger here?"

"The prisoner –"

"She is acting as my assistant," Avalon said. News to Ellie. "And she is not a 'prisoner,' she is a 'guest.'"

The marines hesitated, but, to a man, headed for the doors. Avalon's orders were absolute.

When the door slid shut behind them, Ellie said, "They're right, you know."

Avalon raised his visible eyebrow.

"In your condition, I could kill you. Or take you hostage and try to get away."

"A prisoner might do so," Avalon allowed.

"I am a prisoner," Ellie snapped. "You probably killed my husband, you certainly tried to kill my daughter, though thank the Principle that was unsuccessful, I've been locked in that damned room for weeks. What would you call it?"

Avalon's visible eye widened. "Tried to kill your daughter?"

"What do you call firing a destroyer's main guns at a transport you thought she was aboard?"

"I never authorized any such action!" Avalon's voice broke, and he coughed harshly. "Dammit. If that's the case... You're sure the ship escaped undamaged?"

"Yes," Ellie said. "Your crew apparently weren't so pleased to hear of Chloe's escape. When I was escorted from the bridge, they were lamenting their misses."

Avalon breathed a ragged sigh of relief. "Heads will roll for that –"

"Stop lying to me," Ellie said. She slumped onto one of the couches and buried her face in her hands. "Even if you don't, the Senate wants Chloe dead."

"That isn't true," Avalon said. "I swear it. President Ferrill will swear it, too, when we see her."

"We?" Ellie looked up. "I thought you planned on a private meeting."

"I wanted to talk to you," Avalon said. "And to have the President talk to you. We must lay to rest these baseless fears. Baseless? Perhaps not – not if my own men violate their orders so egregiously." Something seemed to occur to Avalon, and his frown deepened. His eyes flicked to the wall behind which the Reformer loomed.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," he said. Too quickly.

He's lying, Ellie thought. Possibly to himself.

Trouble was, she couldn't begin to guess what he was lying about. The Senate's commitment to Chloe's safety? Or something to do with the fight at the battlecruiser?

She tried to remember the details of the battle. Avalon had coordinated it from his mecha until he got caught up in his dogfight with Stephan Kyrillos. If he'd kept trying to run a fleet action and fight a duel, he'd have surely been killed, as, it seemed, he almost had been. The Reformer hadn't fired on the Kyrillos transport until after the dogfight began in earnest.

Did that mean Avalon meant what he said about keeping Chloe safe?

Or did it mean they hadn't had a shot at the transport until he was out of contact?

For that matter, the Reformer hadn't started firing at the Black Rook until the dogfight began. Had Avalon ordered that? Too many voices shouted through her memories. The Reformer's bridge was a loud place to be in a fight, especially for a felid.

"How were you hurt?" Ellie asked.

"Kyrillos struck me with a telekinetic blast," Avalon said. "Crushed most of my cockpit, but, fortunately, only most."

And the blast from the Reformer that was the last I saw of you? Ellie didn't say what she was thinking, mostly because from Avalon's troubled expression, he'd already considered the possibility that his injuries were neither Stephan Kyrillos's doing nor an accident.

Avalon was, after all, the one who'd told her of the competing factions in the Federal Senate. He might want to believe he'd left them behind when he left Etemenos, but had he? Could he?

Ellie thought of Avalon's crew. Of their loyalty to him, yes, but also of their cruelty to her. If Avalon wasn't lying about his and President Rhetta Ferrill's position, surely such men would want to thwart her.

Captain Little, the first officer? One of the battery controllers who guided the ship's weapons? An individual gunner?

It wasn't hard for her to see one or all of them as a would-be assassin.

If one of Avalon's men had wanted to assassinate him, though, why not do so when he was surely near death? Perhaps he was right about the cause of his injuries, perhaps the Reformer's medical staff weren't in on the plot, or perhaps there had simply been no plausible way to deny responsibility once Avalon was brought aboard.

She asked. "You've been unconscious all this time?"

"You heard Captain Little. I should technically have waited for the sickbay to heal me completely before waking. Talking and moving around makes the process more difficult."

"Then why are you talking? You don't owe me that, surely?"

"I owe you this and more," Avalon said. "As you say, your husband is likely dead because I attacked the Algreil arcology on Wellach, and now I have endangering your daughter on my conscience."

"You weren't the one who gave that order."

"My men, my ship – my responsibility." His right fist balled and rose as if to slam against the arm of the medical chair. It fell back, and he slumped.

Ellie rose and went to his side. "You're right about owing more than you can give, Admiral," she said quietly, "but I still don't want you to give more than you have."

"Thank you, Ellie," he said.

"Are you going to rest now?"

"I can't. Debts aside, I have my report to give. Will you escort me to the President's office? I am, as you can see, somewhat lacking in mobility."

To the president of the Federal Senate. Ellie suppressed a gulp. As much as she hated the senate, the thought of meeting its head in person left her feeling weak-kneed. Despite Avalon's supposed lack of mobility, she knew his medical chair was self-propelled. She didn't have to go.

But Avalon had promised that President Ferrill would allay her fears about the Senate's plans for Chloe.

If anyone could convince her of that, if she could breathe easier knowing the greatest power in human space didn't want her daughter dead...

Even if it wasn't true, at least Ellie might be able to sleep at night.

"Of course, Admiral," she said.

 

[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]

Did I forget to post a message saying a chapter wouldn't go up the day after (US) Thanksgiving? Let's say that in infinite worlds, all things are possible.

Did I also post the chapter for Royal Road, almost twenty in advance of where SV was supposed to be? Ugh. wtf.

(Sorry, dear readers.)