(TGG) The Cardinal Files: An Inside Job.

[Countess Marina]

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Wages of Playing God.


Mars, Evidenzburo Operational Headquarters.


"Hi, daddy!" The brilliantly chipper voice came from a yet relatively exhausted Sophia, the trip over having been rushed in the extreme with Isabella aboard, and a considerable degree of interest to it. She was leading Lida in the midst of the Evidenzburo facility deep on Mars to which they had been summoned for their high-value debriefings and the evaluation of Isabella before a final determination was made on her status, though Sophia already knew what that would be with a considerable degree of certainty.

The man being addressed was of course Leonidas von Pleven, and Sophia hadn't bothered to warn Lida about this eccentricity of her personality: "I know you weren't able to see me off to school today but I made this awesome new friend while I was there! This, father, is Lida Alilova, and I want you to promote her. She deserves it." There was a faint grin. "Down to business, though, I suppose." It was unlikely that Lida's debriefing would be allowed in the same room; someone would certainly be interested in double-checking her mission reports with a direct and reliable eye-witness for once, not out of some lack of faith in her but simple curiousity. Nonetheless, she simply hadn't been able to help the introduction before her and Lida parted ways… Assuming they did. If they really trust me…

The yacht was still being processed by the prize court back on Dvonomir, but Sophia had already settled on her name, and had been planning to go back after the taking of New Kiev to provide testimony anyway. That, and then return in the yacht to her family home. The prospect filled her with very genuine excitement, most of it at the thought of the surprise she could show to her niece.

Leonidas chuchkled openly, thanking the darker complexion that helped hide any sign of a blush. Sophia's eccentricities were well-known, but their meeting was being recorded. The holographic interrogation room would capture everything for later review. That he had set it to resemble an Albertine drawing room, complete with roaring fire, dim candle-lighting, shelves and curio cabinets with the high-backed, heavy built furniture of the area contributed a certain familial intimacy. There was a time and a place for severity and rigid formality, and usually with enemies of the Empire; agents should be made to feel at ease and welcome. Long practice had shown reports delivered in emotionally relaxing surroundings were ultimately more reliable than the supposedly focusing effects of a coldly sterile environment.

"Well, I can spare a welcome back for my finest agent," Leonidas started, tipping his head politely to Sophia. His eyes alighted on Lida, and he took her hand in the limpid courtly fashion approved for business between unrelated and unacquainted men and women. "And you have the gratitude of the Empire as well, Inspektor Alilova. Meeting a partner that Cardinal is enthusiastic about is something I confess I thought would never happen."

"It's a fairly intimate matter," Sophia elaborated with her abrupt reversion to the deathly serious. "Something between telepaths which is usually the reason why I detest other telepaths. But Lida was quick on her feet, and fearless about trusting me. She might as well be my younger sister, at this point."

"Welcome to the family," Leonidas replied, making light of Sophia’s affectation to him and giving Lida a friendly smile. "Well, please, take a seat. And feel free to order up any refreshments you want. The holo-replication facilities here are probably in the top five most advanced in the Empire."

"Thank you." Sophia moved to slip into one of the chairs with a faint yawn. "Some tea, I think, would definitely be preferred," she glanced around, wondering if it would actually materialize out of thin air like in the federation. "So, this was a really interesting mission, as missions go."

Refreshments materialized as they were ordered. The replication technology was ancient but rarely used, and the forcefields that allowed holograms to have substance allowed for the glasses to brought over as though riding on a carpet of air were the main unique part of the system. It was far from the finest coffee in existence, but it was warm and caffeine-filled which is what counted the most.

Lida watched with interest as a china cup materialized on the table in front of Lida. "Coffee, black with cream and sugar, please." She was delighted when the drink appeared suddenly, and she tasted it as Sophia and Leonidas bantered. It wasn't freshly brewed artisan coffee, but it was better than quite a few cups she had once had.

"Well, it's probably best to start from the beginning," Leonidas noted, initiating the formal debriefing of Cardinal and her partner. "Your assignment, Inspektor Vuletic, was to determine the extent to which Alliance intelligence was involved in subversive activities in the Wladimyr sector. We have corroborated the evidence you were able to supply proving that AID had no role in events there. From our interrogations of Colonial Freedom League subversives and officials it appears clear their contacts with even informal Alliance bodies was highly limited. Nevertheless if we had not been able to nip them in the bud those contacts may have grown into something more threatening. Your actions, and those of Ms. Alilova, have contributed substantially to the security and well-being of the Empire and as such are commended in your personnel files."

Sopha sipped her coffee, nodding and shrugging lightly. "Roughly about what I expected, Sir. It's a relief to have formal confirmation, anyway, but I was quite happy when I discovered on Vladimir from the CFL initially that they didn't have those contacts. I of course pursued the entire mission up to that point on the assumption of the worst case, and acted with the urgency and celerity that case seemed to demand, perhaps sometimes to the detriment of the local sector security efforts."

"The sector authorities have nothing but praise for your actions," Leonidas said, offhandedly. Eindrecht in particular had been highly impressed by the speed with which she had broken one of his most troublesome suspects. "Which brings us to New Kiev. Infiltrating there was necessary to be absolutely certain of the leads you had developed on Dvonomir and Vladimir, but it also has allowed us to locate that system. Your warning about an attack on Vladimir never materialized, but concentrating the fleet to meet it has given the Viceroy the opportunity to put an end to the threat the Rus exiles represents. Permission for a conquest expedition has been approved by the Hofkriegsrat, which should substantially reduce the overall threat level in that sector. Both of you have earned an additional commendation for that, and since you hadn't been awarded it yet, Unterinspektor Alilova, your file is to be decorated with the Distinguished Service Award, second class."

Lida nodded, and felt a fair bit more excited for the praise than Sophia had. "Thank you, sir. I was just following Inspektor Vuletic's orders..." But humility aside it was still deeply impressive to be awarded the second-class distinction so early in her career.

Sophia giggled softly at the way that Leonidas had put it, and then turned to Lida with a smile. "Well, yes, but knowing when initiative is inappropriate is just as useful of a skill as exercising it when it is." She turned back to Leonidas. "Are there any specific points that need to be covered in our reported conduct while outside of Imperial territory, Sir?"

"There are usual cautions about the sort of seductions you relied on, but I think you have heard them enough to recite them from memory. Not that they are really necessary in your case, Cardinal." He shook his head, apologetically. "But for the sake of Unterinspektor Alilova here, the service condones using whatever means are required to gain the trust of targets. It does however recognize the possibility of losing detachment when such methods are pursued, and the potential to become overly sympathetic to a suspect or target when intimately involved with them. So they should ideally be used only as a reluctant resort by experienced agents, and with proper perspective. It does not appear that there were any problems arising from that in this instance, however."

"I was rather strict about keeping Unterinspektor Alilova out of that game," Sophia noted rather fastidiously. "It's my talent, and I'd like to reinforce the point." A sip of her coffee, then. "Messy business, though."

"The reports make clear how responsible you were on that point," Leonidas conceded. "There is however one more serious issue. Your interrogation of Isabella Sanchez led to her mental infirmity. We're still able to retrieve information from her mind, but the damage done to her psyche is essentially unrepairable. There are questions about whether or not this was necessary, especially in light of the potential for later interrogation by specialists on Dvonomir."

"I'm not trained in interrogation as a primary specialty, Sir, and you know that my abilities make me extremely susceptible to the emotions of those undergoing interrogation. I felt it necessary to have coherent answers that had been validated when making my initial report, and to break her to reduce the risk in transit. There were, after all, only two of us and Isabella was highly skilled in ships' systems." Sophia was silent for a moment. "I screwed it up, of course. Though I am quite convinced my reasons for conducting the interrogation itself were valid, my own inexperience and emotional difficulties led me to use an unnecessary bludgeon. The feedback cycle influences me rather badly during interrogation and my judgement can be--and was--clouded by it."

Leonidas nodded, and decided against giving voice to the doubts expressed by other officials who had reviewed the reports. Doubts he knew were probably justified. "Very well then. The review panel found no reason to doubt that your actions there were justifiable, though not the most reasonable course of action given your inexperience. It has been decided that you are to receive a verbal reprimand for the use of excessive force in the interrogation, as a consequence of being unfamiliar and untrained with the techniques you attempted on Ms. Sanchez."

Sophia closed her eyes and nodded, silent. She drained the rest of her coffee in one fairly convulsive motion, and looked back to Leonidas, coming off slightly like a hurt teenage girl, perhaps being called to the carpet for being out too late at night. "Understood, Sir," she finally, and simply replied. It was a strangely emotional reaction for Sophia and she finally elaborated: "I am not particularly pleased with the incident myself. It was unquestionably a failing."

Leonidas nodded, accepting her contrition if not the excuse she presented. "I'm sure it won't happen again. But unless it is a true emergency you are to leave psychic interrogation to controlled circumstances or delegate it entirely to specialists." That much was for the review panel, and the records. "Now that you have been reprimanded that is the end of that. Both of you are owed the thanks of the Empire for your accomplishments. I know you won't accept a promotion, and you seem to have found your own fine reward over the course of the mission, Sophia. But for you, Lida, I have orders transferring you to Earth for additional training at our educational facilities in the capital. You have not completed the requirements for promotion to Inspektor... yet."

Lida's excitement was contagious. That was more than she had ever thought to achieve. The second-class Service Award, a transfer to Earth, even the possibility of early promotion. "Thank you again, Sir. It's an honor to be selected for further training on the homeworld. I won't let the Empire down."

Sophia smiled softly at her partner's enthusiasm, and quietly ordered herself another cup of coffee, slumped back in the chair with a distinctly thoughtful look on her face. Then she spoke again. "The Titicaca, Sir. What do you think?"

Leonidas chuckled at the suggestion. "Yes, that should be a fine name for what appears to be quite a fine vessel. The Navy will register it as a reserve auxiliary vessel to go with your reserve commission, and you'll have access to their facilities for repair, refuelling, and so on. I just hope it doesn't tempt Naval Intelligence to try and poach you away from us in the agency proper."

"Taloran dreadnoughts do have rather excellent steam baths," Sophia answered back with a faint yawn and a softly threatening tease of a smile. “And they’re a favourite and easy subject for NavInt to go spying off on…”

He feigned shock before shaking his head and laughing with her. "Well, I think I can promise your next assignment will be somewhere outside the home universe. In the meantime you've got the mandatory two weeks of leave, and that goes for you as well, Lida. In your case we've made arrangements for you to stay over at Waidhoften for the term of your training here on Earth, and that'll begin as soon as your two weeks leave has expired."

"Actually, Sir, I'd like to take some of my extended vacation time. Quite a lot of it, actually, if that can be arranged. I think after this mission," Sophia continued, "I need it to regain my health and sense of balance. I need to be able to reflect on precisely what happened with the interrogation of Isabella out of my own personal sense of responsibility, and have some time to consider my responsibilities and how I might avoid such a situation in the future. I also have a family matter in regards to my niece I wish to take care of, a positive thing rather than a negative one fortunately, and also I wish to be available to provide testimony at several trials doubtless to result from the imminent taking of New Kiev. In short I'd like to use some of that accrued vacation time to take an extended leave of absence to let me travel within the Empire."

The request took Leonidas by surprise, but he gratefully agreed. "There is nothing pressing now, thanks to your success. And you certainly have the vacation time to use. I'll gladly expedite the paperwork for your leave."

"You told me I needed to be mindful of my health," Sophia had easily caught on his surprise, of course. "So I took the events of the mission as a general sign that I needed a serious hiatus from my work. That and, for once, there's something I actually feel like doing. My niece Jelica always wanted to work in space navigation, and I paid for her technical education--first in the family other than me to go to school--but she's been having trouble finding work without much experience. I'll take her for a cruise on the Titicaca so she can build her operating hours up."

"Well, I have been pushing for you to take more time off. It is a worthy enough cause, as well. And familiarizing yourself with more sectors of the Empire will be useful." He grimaced. "I doubt we can keep ourselves free of Alliance and other interuniversal interference forever, so you may yet find yourself spending more time here. But yes, certainly, I'll have that request forwarded through as soon as possible and I hope you enjoy the time you spend with your family."

"Thank you, Sir," she glanced to Lida. "And, thank you, Unteranalytiker, for the support you provided me on this mission. We'll doubtless run into each other again at Waidhoften, but for the moment, I hope you enjoy a very well deserved exploration of the capital and the surface of Earth. You're always welcome to call on me in Prague as well, of course."

"I will call on you before you leave," Lida promised. "I will have to explore Vienna, of course. My parents will be so proud to get a message from me there." She smiled gaily at the thought of perhaps crossing the path of some Court figures. "Prague sounds nice too and it's not far away, so maybe I can spend some days there too."

A few further pleasantries were exchange, and finally Leonidas brought the debriefing to a close with a final formulaic admonition to keep the details of their mission secret. Lida left first, eager to arrange the first possible transport to Earth. As Sophia headed out, von Pleven held her back. "Sophia, the recorders are off. Now tell me, what really happened with Isabella? I know you too well to believe you just lost control of your powers that grossly, much less to imagine that you did out as some kind of revenge." That was the main consensus of rumor going around informed circles, but he had dismissed it out of hand.

"Because the catechism of the Catholic Church explains that we may hold out hope of salvation to those who are not of sound mind regardless of their sins," Sophia answered without a trace of hesitation, "that a state of grace might be extended to those who no longer have ability to be redeemed by the Church. I let myself get to close to people on this mission, it's true and that's why I'm taking the vacation. But of course not in a way that would ever compromise my integrity to the Empire. You see how I have resolved this issue. I cared about her, so I gave her the highest gift I could: The chance for eternal life. She was an atheist, and a desrolinist, and completely given over a martyr's complex for their cause. She would have been shot, and gone straight to Hell. And I knew I could never convert her, so, I committed her to the infinite grace of God, you might say."

Leonidas sighed. This was exactly what he had expected. "I'll leave it to your priest to handle the theological implications of what you did. I don't believe the Church has ever favored lobotomizing non-believers in the hopes they would then be saved, though." He looked at her, sympathetically but exasperated. "Don't make this a habit, Sophia. It will call into your question your professionalism and objectivity, and is far outside regulations about handling prisoners. Your superiors will forgive much, but their patience has limits with even the finest agent."

"I won't do it again, Sir. I haven't done it before. If I may say it simply, she brought it on herself. First time I've been in a position where I've been encouraged to defect by a senior leader of an organization hostile to the Empire. And she debates hard. She tried to convince me that I'd be happier as her lover, able to live the life I was naturally suited for, and that my powers didn't change my own desires, at heart." A breath. "She's wrong, of course, but that wasn't the point; she was trying to convert me, and so, naturally... I was trying to convert her. I rode that to its natural conclusion with the emotions brought on by her desire to 'save' me."

"That much is in the report..." Leonidas nodded, satisfied with the explanation and her assurances. "So she did. Alright. But in the future, and I do not doubt you would know it, if you find yourself drawn into such a cycle... just render the prisoner unconscious."

"Yes, I understand, Sir. It wouldn't have been that hard, had I been prepared to do so. I wll be, next time."

"No doubt so." Leonidas nodded, decisively. "Well, I will head out to process that paperwork for you. You should have leave authorization in a couple of days, no later. I hope you enjoy your grand tour. And do send word to me now and then, if you will."

"I will," she smiled, the concern and seriousness seemed to wisp away again, in the mercurial world of Cardinal.

[Countess Marina]

Chapter Twenty-Four: Ending a Winter Night's Dream.


New Kiev System.


The emergence of the grosslinienschiffe SMS Marschal van Voerwerde into the outer system of New Kiev was a breathless moment for Admiraal zer Raum Villem Pajukivi. Every transition was a potential ambush, and formation-keeping across the hyperspace-realspace boundary was a challenge for even well-drilled crews, nevermind a sector fleet. There were a great many, too many ways for even a small mistake to lead to serious damage, but he sighed with relief as his flag-bridge holotank popped appropriate blue-colored tags into the right emergence zones.

The Imperial commander’s relief was a nightmare for the New Kiev system defense command, on the barren moon Czernobog. Tachyon sensors had detected the sudden emergence of a comparatively vast amount of mass into realspace, and further signals identified the unknowns as warships. The Marschal van Voerwerde massed at empty displacement nearly forty million metric tons, and fully loaded out and prepared for battle over one hundred million metric tons. It was just one of eighteen Kaiser Ferdinand class dreadnoughts that instantiated into the system, and those were surrounded by another eighteen Siegreich class linienschiffen that were almost as massive. Swarms of lighter cruisers and destroyers established the further reality of a war-fleet that had come to New Kiev to stay.

Alarms were sent to Admiralty headquarters in New Vladimir, and every ship in the Great Rus fleet was put on immediate alert. The Great Rus fleet that had limped to New Kiev following a final defeat around Novo Apraxin had boasted twenty-four relatively modern battleships, but that had been over a century ago and the resources of the system were just not up to maintaining them. The decision was made to gather all the vessels still fit for service to fight it out around the fortress-moon Czernobog, with support from the cruder strike-fighters based on New Kiev proper. It would let the Rus put up the stiffest fight they could.

Back aboard the Marschal van Voerwerde Pajukivi was receiving the first of his own FTL scans of the system. He stood up from his command chair slash acceleration seatto track the plot on the holotank, and as he did so graced the flag-bridge with a towering presence. Pajukivi was beanpole tall and wiry, with the fair hair and pale complexion of his German and Estonian ancestors, which lent him a gaunt, almost scarecrow appearance. The spare grey jumpsuits favored by the navy for practical applications aboard ship did nothing to mitigate that impression with fancy braid and brighter colors as the service uniform did.

“For once our colleagues in naval intelligence seem to have known what they were doing,” he said, acerbically, as the picture of Rus ships became clearer. Three decades as commander of the Wladimyr sector fleet had worn down his faith that the spies knew what they were doing. But at long last, the most notorious haven of pirates and rebels was within his grasp.

His flag-captain was out on the main deck of the bridge, overseeing the operations of the specialists manning computer banks. Fortunately Kapitän Vernado Niarkhos had not yet jacked in with his DNI, so he caught his commander’s underplayed comment. Swarthy and somewhat squat looking, thanks to adaptations for the higher-gee colony of Olympos, he made a marked physical contrast to the admiral. “Count twenty-four hulks fitting the mass and signals signature of Boyar class battleship. A division of Koschei class cruisers based around Moon A, local name Bielobog, and eight Vozhd class light cruisers around Moon B, Czernobog. Picking up signals for destroyers in orbit of New Kiev, and it looks like Pavel Yeremeyev’s cruiser in an eccentric orbit. We’ve certainly got enough sensor readings on Grom Pobedy to know it when we see it.”

“And we have total surprise. They are bustling like a turned-over hive of nottermites.” His grin gave his face a certain corpse-like, death’s head quality. “We’ll go with tactical engagement variant Beta. We shouldn’t need the Torby’s battle-squadron to handle those ancient vessels, and the assault carriers will need an escort just in case. We’ll take the linienkreuzer squadron instead. The new Leopard class ships have almost as much firepower as the Seigreich and this will be their first engagement in the Wladymir sector. We may as well blood them while we have the chance.”

“Tactical variant Beta, aye aye sir,” Niarkhos confirmed.

Then he did plug in, and felt his mind expand as it was enhanced by the powerful capabilities of a dreadnought’s computer core. The dumb-AI cursorily acknowledged his presence as a new addition to the pool of operators with a miniscule fraction of a percent of its processing power. He could feel another presence in his mind, touching his consciousness, not with the upfront brute power of the AI but with the subtle hint of a psychic. Even the ship’s XO was not exempt from the scrutiny of the DNI watchdog corps of telepaths, though they were busy enough it was a momentary feeling and he adjuted quickly.

Communications lasers beamed out from the flagship, to the nearby vessels of the lead battle-squadron. Each vessel in turn beamed off a laser to another squadron flagship, and the process was repeated until the orders had passed down the chain of command. It was an elaborate lattice-work hierarchy of communication, and rather inefficient but most important undetectable by the enemy. There would be no signals to intercept, no intelligence to gain by simple volume analysis. Though there were other options.

“Perhaps we should consider using a telepathic command circuit after all, sir.” Vernado spoke a little hesitantly, but there was much to recommend. Using the ship telepaths to relay orders directly to DNI operators who would input them into the computer cores was close to instantaneous and allowed the highest degree of precision in keeping formation and executing flag signals. It had given the Imperial Navy a much-needed edge against the technologically advanced Ssi Rissan. It had also become a serious vulnerability against the Bogumils, who had more powerful telepaths, and so the practice had been abandoned but it remained in the drill manuals as an option.

But Admiraal Pajukivi shook his head, shooting down the suggestion. “Intelligence suggests that the Rus have few telepaths, but we hardly have confirmation and I would rather not find out the hard way. No, we’ll use the standard communications in this engagement. It should be over quickly enough once we close to range.”

That much was surely true. The Rus capital scale missiles were two generation behind those of the Empire and the greater the scale of action, the greater the disadvantage that would be. Their computers were less capable, which meant that their ECM and ECCM functions were much less powerful than those of Imperial vessels of the same tonnage. That would allow the Empire to inflict greater damage in the long-range missile duel closing in from one light-minute, while making the Rus attacks much easier to handle. The advantage would diminish, but still remain important in point-defense, as they closed into short-range engagements. At under ten light-seconds the fleets would be dueling at ten paces with machetes; the nature of energy weapons had not changed at all in centuries, but the bigger fleet invariably got the advantage of their short-lived brutality.

There were also the carriers. New Kiev had a large number of strikefighters based on the planet. They were much easier to produce and upgrade than warships, but the Rus were still far behind the technological and industrial curve. And Lord Stephens had called in favors from the beginning of the crisis, bringing in an elite carrier strike flotilla from maneuvers in the neighboring Kaset Wisai sector. The group included a detachment of thousands of Delphinian auxiliaries being introduced to service in the far rimward border. Now the preternaturally efficient cephalopod spacers and their advanced interceptors would come as a nasty surprise to the Great Rus strikefighters.

The burn in-system at least provided plenty of time for the defenders to collect themselves. The fleet could pick up frantic broad range signals, including an unencrypted system-wide alert ordering civilian vessels into New Kiev orbit for “defensive services to the state.” That caused Niarkhos to break out of his DNI-focused concentration and clap his hands triumphantly.

“Yes, they won’t scatter,” Pajukivi said dryly. “It appears we need not worry about their evacuation starting this cycle over again. But I expect a certain decorum on my flag bridge, Kapitän.”

“Aye, sir,” the flag captain replied, hiding his flash of resentment. He would be quite happy to take up his reward as a linienschiff commander once this tour of staff duty was over. Villem Pajukivi had what might charitably be called an efficient manner, but few subordinates liked him. The oppressive sense of the bridge wore on as the fleet cropped closer to New Kiev and the enemy vessels gathering over Czernobog. The Admiraal zur Raum seemed quite satisfied with the quiet attention to duty, and oblivious to the undercurrents of disquiet.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, as the engagement countdown had already gone into the red showing combat envelope immanent, one Rus ship broke off from New Kiev orbit and headed at full military acceleration straight above the system’s plane. It was unusual enough for Pajukivi to note it on the holotank immediately, and demand as much information on the vessel as possible. “Contract holotank display around that ship and filter all extraneous data!”

The three-dee projection zoomed in, showing the wire-frame orb of New Kiev and one enlarged notational symbol for the analogue to a heavy cruiser. There was a name attached to it. Grom Pobedy.

“Damn it,” Vernado said, quietly enough but with explosive volume on the almost-silent bridge, well above the steady hum of machines. After a moment of shock he bluffed through. “Killing or capturing Pavel Yeremeyev was almost as important as taking New Kiev in quieting down the Wladimyr sector. We can’t intercept with our present course and velocity, or even dispatch a cruiser division to chase the ship down. We’ve already failed half our mission objectives.”

“And due to circumstances beyond our control,” the Admiraal responded serenely. “Decorum, Kapitän Niarkhos. I should not remind you further. In any case it is merely one man, whose homeland now falls under our dominion. The Wilhelm Tell of Wladimyr sector will be hunted down like that prototypical rebel without this secure base to fall back on.” There was supreme confidence in his voice. “The ruling dynasty has cultivated a valued patience, on the bedrock assurance that God will always favor the Empire in the end. In twenty years Yeremeyev will be remembered as a Barbarossa, perhaps, but he will exist only in memory.”

“Picking up launches from the surface of New Kiev, total strikefighter content in excess of twenty-thousand!” The holotank immediately shifted at the alarm of the sensor operator, expanding outward to show the defensive network around the planet, including Czernobog. The swarm of tiny notational figures broke orbit with contemptuous ease and began accelerating at over thousand gees, trying to gain velocity to catch up with another group of fighters launching from Czernobog. The Rus fleet and its core of battleships was, too, beginning to move from orbit to build up a decent inertia before the combat commenced.

“Launch a full strike of interceptors as we enter two-light-minutes range, one magnum pass on the fighter swarm, ignoring the missiles the coordinated missile salvo. Our own strikefighters will launch after the enemy swarm has been rendered a non-factor” There would be time only for one magnum strike by the Great Rus fleet, which he hoped to blunt with his elite interceptors. If each Delphinian killed only two enemy strikefighters it would leave a paltry shield to distract his point defense from the missiles following them. And in turn Pajukivi’s own strikefighter contingent would face no attrition before hitting the point-defense zone of the Rus fleet.

“Aye aye, sir. Passing on orders for the engagement to the fleet. Carriers launching in one minute, thirty seconds.” A telepathic link would have shaved the minute off, Niarkhos thought with the portion of his mind not occupied in relaying orders to the fleet. But it was only a small part of his attention, and with the release of the tactical commands it would be smaller still. Battle had begun, and every synapse and neuron would be strained in the fight. There was no more time for second-guessing.

The Rus strikefighters barreled in as one mass, well ahead of the first missile launches from their old battleships. Those came on, a hundred long-range attack munitions from each functioning ship in a single strike massing over 2000 strong. Each missile boasted a heavy gigaton-yield warhead, as well as tons upon tons of targeting computer, electronic countermeasures, and maneuvering drives. From the concentration of ECW efforts it was apparent the Rus had targeted them all on the lead Imperial squadron, where the Marschal van Voerwerde was located.

Pajukivi took the development in stride. It was either a very good guess, or very good luck on their part, though it would be fleeting. His own battle-line would toss out nearly twice as many missiles of superior quality, against a smaller number of ships. But first, his pilots had their jobs to do.

The launch of dozens of missile-sized fighters from the internal bays of a carrier, repeated every thirty seconds, was an impressive sight in and of itself. Practical considerations meant that outward design of strikefighters and interceptors was nearly identical even across racial boundaries. Sleek, long weapons-buses more than nimble planes, they could accelerate at thousands of gravities with more highly efficient inertial compensators, strict crew training, and matter/antimatter reaction engines. Their shape was in some sense a harbinger of their utility, as well. Ultimately they were delivery platforms for powerful but short-range warheads and if the delivery vehicle returned, well and good, but if not their expenditure was regretted only slightly more than that of an unmanned missile.

And the Imperial fighter corps knew it, but defied the grim logic of material warfare with accustomed flair. The human fighters barreling out into space were decorated with artwork, and some boasted kill-marks establishing the pilots as veterans. The Delphinians did not use such elaborate artistry, but every one of their ships was painted with the off-orange flesh color the pseudocephalopods associated with aggression and threat displays. Those who had toured with human formations before had painted on bronze beaks at the nosecone of their interceptors.

Once in space such details were rapidly obscured. On the flag-bridge of the Marschal van Voerwerde they were just light blue symbols on a holographic display with some notional data on fields below. Color alone distinguished them from their foes as they screamed into the deeper system. Soon the two masses began to merge, and many read blips, and fewer blue blips, began dropping off the screen.

Space did not allow for dogfights as much holographic fiction depicted. There were no barrel rolls or daring acrobatics, no ability to loop behind an enemy. Inertia at the accelerations allowed by fighters made that quite impossible. The standard tactic for interceptors was one quick slash head-on, and then a rotation of the interceptor itself to take Parthian shots at the enemy fighter-swarm as they passed through. They would then try to dump their speed and reverse course back toward their carriers, but there was no possibility of another intercept pass before the strikefighters delivered their munitions. There was the possibility of intercepting the enemy on their retreat back to their own bases, but the interceptors would have used up most of their combat missiles and would be limited to lasers instead. It was still a discouraging prospect to a strike group that had already faced the massed point-defense of a battlefleet.

The action was distinctly anti-climactic. The Rus fighter swarm was gutted in a matter of minutes as the two forces passed into combat range and through a furball. On the holotank display aboard the Imperial flagship, the blue and red fighter symbols interpenetrated, and when they separated the red mass was a fraction of the size it had been. That represented thousands of deaths, and more were yet to come.

“Execute our own combined missile and strikefighter launch, now.” Pajukivi barked the order as he gripped on to his command seat. Now the Rus would see how a real navy carried out such an attack.




Pavel Yeremeyev watched from the plot on his own bridge as the Imperial fighters devastated the Rus strike. His brows narrowed in what any veteran of the crew would recognize as a serious warning sign.

There were fewer of those veterans around now. Kliment was gone, and the chief engineer had been hospitalized with nearly mortal wounds in the fighting to retake the ship. There weren’t enough replacements for all those who had died, and those he did get were green as grass from the navy’s academy. His decision to run appeared well-founded by the way the Rus crews and fighter command had been unable to coordinate an overwhelming strike against the Imperialists. That made it no more palatable.

“Bloody damn fools!” He roared out suddenly, bitterly, and sent a massive fist crashing into the armrest of his command chair.

The more skittish green replacements looked up, alarmed. Pavel dismissed them with an angry wave of his hand. The veterans shushed them down before they could ask questions or exacerbate the captain’s rage further.

The remains of the Rus strikefighter mass met the point-defense envelope of the Imperial fleet and seemed to disintegrate. The symbols for the friendly craft just disappeared, blipped off squadron by squadron by defense missiles and laser clusters as they barreled in to deliver short-range munitions. Several Imperial picket vessels were still overwhelmed, destroyers blinking out as they were smothered in antimatter munitions, but it was clear that the strike did no serious damage to the core of the Imperial Fleet. As The lone few Rus groups swung through the Imperial fleet and began reversing their acceleration, it was clear there would be no strong second strike. There were too few strikefighters and even fewer escorts to run the gauntlet of those supremely efficient Imperial interceptors.

“Twenty thousand dead, at least,” Yeremeyev said disgustedly. “For nothing. I told them a stand up fight would end this way. Who faces the Imperialists every year? Who knows what he is talking about?” The old battles in the Rus Admiralty came back to him. “The damn fools threw away those lives for nothing, not even time to evacuate!”

That had been the crux of his disputes with the Rus government and factions of the Navy. They were so damned complacent, so convinced the Empire would never find them. There was no effort expended on further colonization, to establish another fallback world. There were no plans to take the further remains of the Rus state out of the clutches of the Empire if the coordinates of New Kiev were ever revealed. The civilian vessels dragooned by the Admiralty could have saved hundreds of thousands of Rus subjects, maybe millions, allowed an escape through other friendly Outsider polities, kept the dream of freedom alive.

It would have been something other than a pointless lost battle that would spell the end of the Great Rus.

He brooded as the Rus missile strike came nipping on the heels of the disastrous strikefighter sortie. They too came on in a mass and passed through the same point defense envelope their manned cousins had already faced. If the missiles and fighters had been carefully coordinated they might have managed to overwhelm local defenses and sneak through the resulting vulnerabilities to direct attacks on the battle-line. Instead the destroyer and cruiser screening divisions were ready to shift their target profile and put up an effective fire against the attack.

Even though two thousand missiles was a relatively small salvo, even though the Rus were technologically inferior by over a century, they still did damage. The Grom Pobedy’s crew erupted in cheers as one of the Imperial cruisers disappeared off the plot, and Yeremeyev bit down the impulse to upbraid them. They had in the system alone four dozen more where that one had come from. Nor had the Imperialists strike back yet arrived, but it would shortly.

He gazed a baleful eye on the holotank display as he switched to show the status of the Rus fleet. On it, the red symbols of a massive fighter-strike and a missile swarm twice as large as that offered by the Rus, closed in together. Rus interceptors were less effective, few in number thanks to the decision to send everything at the enemy. They did little attrition as the waves hit the point defense envelope of the fleet.

Batteries of high-acceleration countermissiles on Czernobog at least added to the protection of the fleet even after it had pulled away. But it wasn’t enough. The Imperial strikecraft dove in on the much too light screen of the Rus, savaging the destroyers and cruisers that might have intercepted the ship-missiles. Nearly three thousand gigaton-yield missiles survived to break through into the teeth of the old Rus battleships. They mobbed the First Battle Squadron led by the mighty Bogatyr, the flagship of the navy.

The plot displayed a calm stream of updated information underneath the symbols of the vessels in question. It was an antiseptic way of depicting the carnage of combat that he was only too familiar with. The eight vessels of the First Battle Division were attracting four hundred missiles each, after a further whittling down through the point defense fire of the combined squadrons of the wall. Individual laser clusters skewed about on the ship hulls, but all too rapidly the warheads began slamming home and the Alderson Fields began heating up. Put enough energy onto a small enough area, and there would be burn-through damage and the bloody mangling of crew members.

One of the hapless green crewmembers shouted out in alarm. “Bogyatr is in the red already!”

Pavel speared him with a glance that left the young boy quaking. But it was true, they were absorbing dozens of hits already. There were more missiles screeching in, and there would be more strikefighter attacks. Before they even closed to the twenty light-seconds of real combat range the battle was already going badly for the Rus.

He watched in unexpressed agony for hours as the situation developed. The Imperials kept hammering home on the First Battle Squadron as they closed the range, with those damned steady four-thousand missile strong salvoes pouring into the defensive gaps created by the strikefighters. The Alderson fields on the old battleships expanded, burning ever brighter until they finally flashed brilliant-white and shut down. Their destruction would follow shortly, since an overloaded field generator was so much useless slag. It was a damned hard struggle to maintain his composure as he saw the flagship destroyed and with it, the link to the last exodus of the Rus state.

They were almost to the gravity limit where they could engage their hyperspace engines when the battle ended. The fleets had closed in like boxers leading with a hard right. At twenty, then ten light seconds separation between them, the missile salvoes had come too fast and too furious for Grom Pobedy’s sensors to track accurately. The technological advantages of the Rus fleet mattered less at such a range, but the Imperials had more ships, larger ships, and were in much better shape from the long-range duel. It was not a fair fight.

The Rus navy struck their fields before entering energy range. It was to be expected, and Yeremeyev did not begrudge the Navy their submission. When two fleets closed to energy range, only one would emerge. The weaker opponent was strongly encouraged to surrender before that point since the pointless destruction would see vast casualties on both sides. If the decision to push the fight to that point served no real tactical purpose, the winning side could be... vindictive about treating prisoners. Or rather, not taking them.

“Sir, there is a signal of surrender!”

Yeremeyev looked over at his comms chair, another new green officer. “I know,” he said, resignedly. “I saw on the display when the navy struck.”

“I mean from New Kiev, sir,” the midshipman corrected with silken care. “The Grand Duke! He’s surrendering to the Imperialists!”

Yeremeyev felt ready to explode. He bolted out of his command chair, and started pacing with the dangerous energy of a predator just waiting to strike at whatever prey was foolish enough to come into reach. The senile old fool had undoubtedly been nudged by those callow boyar bastards. They had wasted New Kiev’s existence enjoying their wealth and status, never once truly exercising any leadership, always taking the easy course... it was why he despised them. And now they were finally taking a course of action that would secure them their benefits once and for all.

He sank back down into his chair after biting off a rage. A sustained resistance on the ground would have been possible, might have restored some honor to the boyars. The end result would be the same, the Imperials ruling New Kiev. That was a necessary culmination of them ever learning of the system’s location, a fact that Yeremeyev had long appreciated. And now his dacha, his woods, his villages and towns and birthplace were all lost. He could never set foot on New Kiev again. And who was responsible for that?

As they shifted into hyperspace, Yeremeyev startled the bridge with a snarl. “That bitch, I’ll kill her!” Neither the crew nor the captain himself knew which bitch he was referring to.

[king of hybrids]

Aaand she's back

Ooch

[Countess Marina]

Last Chapter: Homeward Bound.


The trials of Colonial Freedom League participants from Vladimir took place in the Supreme Court in the capital of Rzehv. An imposing, solid baroque structure, it was part of the "historic" downtown government center that formed an oasis of traditional architecture amid the towering skyscrapers that dominated the rest of the city. Gendarmes in modern personal armor shouldering assault rifles patrolled around the entrance, where sophisticated electronic sensors scanned everyone entering. The trials were being down in batches, which led to serious crowding of the courtroom once the families of the accused were accommodated. They were also a target for the few agitators who dared to show their faces, and rumors of surviving cells plotting breakout attacks were rife in the city. No chances were being taken by the planetary government, which had already resolved to use later supplementary trials of the higher leadership to make an example for the rest of the population.

But the batched trials were at least a way of dealing with the tens of thousands of lower-level activists and members quickly. Membership in the CFL had been criminalized centuries ago, when the organization had first been banned under the First Empire. It was simply a matter of establishing that the accused had been involved in the organization to justify a guilty verdict, and the court could move on to the more involved process of sentencing. Sentences had to be passed down individually and with due attention by the magistrate to the circumstances of involvement, as well as prior records and other mitigating conditions, before punishment could be handed down.

Tamara Beletskaya had been found guilty in the first trial, months ago. Only lately had the court docket cleared enough to allow them to go back and hand down sentence on her. Magistrate Ivan Federov had her case, and has listened attentively while Inquisitor Panacilk had made the argument for the relatively harsh penalty of forty years imprisonment and exile from Vladimir. She had run away to New Kiev and therefore given a more affirmative measure of allegiance to His Majesty's enemies, compounding merely subversive criminality with state treason. Her privileged background meant that she had no excuse of ignorance or want to drive her into the ranks of a criminal conspiracy. The Inquisitor did his job as well as possible, and Federov had taken notes throughout the presentation.

Her Advocate was the locally famous Emil Getyko, the foremost pleading expert on Vladimir. He gave a presentation of his own, presenting Tamara as the naive victim of a treacherous lover, seduced into a conspiracy whose consequences and gravity she didn't comprehend. He disputed the charge that Tamara's flight was premeditated treason but rather presented it as a panicked response to circumstances beyond her control, and subject to peer influence that made refusing personally dangerous.

Federov quizzed both the Inquisitor and the Advocate after their presentation, taking more notes as he did so. Once that was done, he called for the character witnesses to take the stand and have their say. As per the usual protocol now they would be asked questions by the Magistrate, and by the Inquisitor and Advocate as appropriate. Aside from the sentencing presentations it was expected that both lawyers would be neutral and even-handed in their approach, with a goal of recovering fact rather than strengthening their cases. The Magistrate would then deliberate and announce a decision that took into account all of the outstanding circumstances, the gravity of the offense, the propensity of the guilty party to reoffend, and prospects for rehabilitation. Emotion ideally had no role in the process.

In a court of law, an Evidenzburo agent was necessarily required to shed a certain degree of identity and approach the court honestly, even if operationally aliases could be used in legal settings, not so much for this private affair--which was not even required of her, technically: She could have refused the court under needs of the service easily enough, and had instead volunteered. Nonetheless, she dressed as she was, in long black skirt with light black fringes, a silver buttoned blouse, and long black duster with her hair firmly pulled back. But she still came off more as a teenaged girl at a funeral than a serious agent of His Majesty the Emperor, especially with her gloves respectfully removed in the courtroom. The name was read off as 'Inspektor Sophia Vuletic' by the court recorder and she rose and stepped forward to the witness stand and waited for permission to sit, her face schooled and expressionless.

"Do you, Sophia Vuletic, affirm that you will answer honestly and completely all questions posed to you by officers of this court, under penalty of imprisonment and fine for dishonesty or evasion?" The courts had had to deal with diverse enough religions and cultures even back in the pre-spaceflight era that the old oaths before God had been long dropped. A rationalist ethos held the threat of temporal punishment more efficacious for deterring perjury anyway, and that truth-telling was obvious enough of a virtue that all decent peoples regardless of religion would practice it. That last assumption had been spurred by, and played a role in, the process of Jewish assimilation with the abolition of separate Jew Oaths in the Empire and the other Habsburg lands.

"I so affirm, Your Honour," Sophia replied, answering and suppressing a faint smile that would have otherwise shown forth at the words, since Your Honour was the title of address for most Taloran military officers, not law officials. So strange, all I've seen. But Tamara needs me now, the stupid, foolish girl. She straightened herself slightly, and still seemed utterly innocuous in the court, perhaps to the point that some of them might not yet have gotten over that very explicit rank of Inspektor and the cold black garb she wore.

Federov nodded, and flipped a page of his notes to start over with a fresh slate. "How are you acquainted with Ms. Belatskaya, Inspektor Vuletic?" It was a standard, rather broad opening question that would allow the witness considerable leeway in telling her story, or when dealing with a spy, to not tell a lot.

"She was the initial contact in the cells that I made on Vladimir, Your Honour. I approached her by asking for shelter, identifying myself and my subordinate as other individuals, tourists from Dvonomir, who had been caught up in the Imperial dragnets. She offered us a place to stay to avoid being detained again during the curfew and we went home with her, her lover, and his friend. She treated us very well for a hostess, behaving like any other spoiled college girl I've met in my life, Your Honour, with no real apparent revolutionary ambition. But of course after relating various details--for example a finger I'd broken was attributed to the security services--it was ultimately let out that they were united together in a cell associated with the Rus revanchists. We then claimed to be members of the Colonial Freedom League, and asserted the severity of the situation and the need to flee--we directly begged to be taken off planet, and encouraged it to take place.

" Tamara had no real conception of the seriousness of her actions by that point, and took us shopping and other various and normal activities before her boyfriend managed to get the resources together to evacuate us through a network of traitorous, schismatic priests. It was only when we were changing in nuns' habits to escape the planetary surface that she realized the severity of her situation and broke down crying at the prospect of never seeing her family again. I comforted her and encouraged her to be strong then, and we ended up bunking together on both the escaping freighter and the Grom Pobedy when Pavel Yeremeyev picked us up. She was a friendly girl, basically innocent of moral failings except for her sexual weakness and susceptibility to influence on the account of others, both myself and her boyfriend alike. She settled into life on New Kiev with no revolutionary ambitions whatsoever and only regret at ending up so impoverished, as she intimated at our last meeting.

"I would note that she was released from detention initially on my explicit order so that we could take advantage of her cell to infiltrate the Rus State, and her flight from Vladimir was directly the result of my orders and my lobbying to their cell as well."

"A question, your Honor?" Getyko rose up from his seat at the defendant's table. Tamara herself was still in detention, and would not be brought before the court except for a final interview and to hear the sentence passed on her. Federov nodded his indulgence. "Inspektor Vuletic, then, it is your belief that Ms. Beletskaya would not have fled to New Kiev absent your own encouragement, done in your capacity as an agent of the Imperial intelligence services? I wish to establish this indisputably for the record."

"Yes. She would have never had the courage without my presence to stiffen her." Sophia knew better than to elaborate extensively; the Inquisitor's grilling would be a chance for her to explain with more nuance without compromising the statement.

The Inquisitor duly rose to the challenge, after a request to the judge for time. Joseph Panacilk had a reputation as an aggressive examiner, and he would not pull punches on an Imperial agent. "Inspektor Vuletic, the nature of conspiracy is such that many may be convinced by their peers to attempt some thing that they themselves, alone, would not dare to. You have already alluded to the moral weakness displayed by Ms. Beletskaya in the case of her boyfriend, one Genrikh Trefilov. Do you deny the possibility that he could have exercised the same role in directing Ms. Beletskaya's actions that you claim for yourself?" And, by implication, that someone else could step in with the same influence, casting doubt on the ability of Tamara to be successfully rehabilitated.

“No, I do not deny it and indeed readily acknowledge it, though I find such moral weakness and the attendant influence it leaves them susceptible to common among women of a certain class of which Miss Beletskaya was a part. Genrikh might however have been far less effective at overcoming her fears." She had to be careful when testifying, not to err to much on the side of a desire for explanation and exposition. The legal world, ironically, was not well suited for her, but she regarded the chore as an ethical one.

The magistrate looked up from his notes. "From your acquaintance, limited though it was, you are certain that Ms. Beletskaya was not motivated by treasonous or subversive intentions in her membership with the CFL? And that it was an exclusive consequence of her intimate relationship with another member of the group?"

"She found the idea of the revolt as told to her by her lover to be romantic," Sophia clarified, "But readily confessed to a completely nonexistant understanding of any of the ideology of the CFL or the Rus revanchists. She impressed me as really being mostly in it for the men from first to last. To say that she had intentions, Your Honour, would be to gift Miss Beletskaya with entirely too much intelligence."

“Then her behavior was a result of bad influences and acquaintances, and not malicious as such?" Getyko sensed an opening here, and took it. "Not from any desire to be a threat to the Empire?"

"Correct. Miss Beletskaya showed no malicious or outraged tendencies toward even blatant moral ills. She always appeared more incomprehending than not, and never capable of any kind of strong sentiment."

He nodded his concurrence. "Was she involved with anything at all more serious than a notional membership in a banned organization? Indeed, in your professional judgment, is she even capable of doing serious harm to the security of the Empire?"

"Only if being used as a completely ignorant dupe by the sinister and malevolent, Your Honour."

"I think that will be enough questions," Federov said, after the rapid exchange. They seemed to have extracted all relevant testimony from the agent, and time was a factor. There were a number of other witnesses to get through, and he wanted the sentencing wrapped up today. "Do you have any further observations on the conduct of Ms. Beletskaya that you wish to appraise the court of?"

"I believe firmly that if she can find even a halfway ethical husband the moment she's released, she will not again trouble His Majesty's courts for even the smallest of infractions," Sophia concluded in a simple and blunt summarization of exactly what she thought Tamara Beletskaya to be good for. Poor thing.

"Thank you for your testimony, Inspektor Vuletic." Magistrate Federov finished a final note, then put down his fountain pen and struck the judge's dais with a gavel. "We will take your observations into due account in our further considerations. You are henceforth dismissed from this court."

"Thank you, Your Honour." Sophia pushed herself up and politely stepped down, heading out to leave the court-room... So she could get to the spaceport and file her flight-plan. She'd been living on the Titicaca since arriving to avoid paying money for a hotel, and it was scarcely like the yacht could be matched by any hotel in her budget.

She was met at the exit by a well-dressed couple. The man was short and squat, rough-looking despite the expensive suit he had on, while the woman looked like a sister of Tamara's. They maneuvered around a bored looking bailiff to intercept Sophia before she got out of earshot. "Thank you for testifying for Tamara," the woman began. "She was never a bad girl, she just got mixed up with those CFL hooligans..."

"No, she was never a bad girl," Sophia agreed simply, watching the couple with rather studious eyes. It had been obvious where the defence counsel came from even beforehand, of course. "Quite the contrary, she was always affiable and nice and I do feel rather bad for her."

"Thank you for saying so. Your words will count for a lot with the judge." Tamara's father nodded, agreeing with himself. "I don't think we'll have to fear exile now."

"No, you won't. They might even let her out in fifteen years. She's had prolong, it won' t be a waste of a life, and she might learn responsibility in a serious prison like that. Perhaps. It won't be one of isolation, certainly. Or you may have to unmake bad habits she learns; I cannot say. But take care of her moral education while she is confined." Sophia turned away. "On Earth, Mister Beletskaya, I spend my time between my duties to the Empire in the service of the cause of the reform of prostitutes. Universally they are not bad people; just poor, and given no direction in life, and still might be redeemed by Christ.

“Well, Tamara has never had to want for the former, but if you wish for your daughter to have a life that isn' t one of but more misadventure and shame, consider carefully how you'll give her that direction. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have not seen my own family in several years, and need to be off to rectify that." Sophia gave them no chance to make a reply, certainly not in the decorum of an extremely heavily policed courthouse.


*********************************************


The field at Glina was a tiny little thing, 4,000 meters in length for the single runway and that was it, with numerous landing pads circling out from it. The incredible thing, then, was the long and lean yacht with its stub wings and high fuselage, overhead mounted engine room, which settled down on a heavy quad-set landing gear, one under each stub and one fore and aft, off to the side on one of the parking strips.

“Well, someone rich must be up hiking in the mountains or something, right, da’?” Jelica Vuletic informally asked her father as the man brought his old van, a simple wheeled all-terrain model with loading bay in the rear for cargoes, up into the Glina field vehicle park, staring at the ship which, though it wasn’t really that big, still looked like a superdreadnought from this close up, and must have been several thousand tons at least. Empty.

“It’s the size of an assault lander, Jelly,” Gradimir Vuletic answered with a bit of amused fondness. “So the person must be very rich indeed, or connected. C’mon, dear,” he addressed to his wife, who watched the interplay between the two with some faint irritation. Jelica’s sky-high dreams had mostly served to drain money from her distant sister in law without any result, to date, after all, and it was time her husband stopped coddling his eldest daughter.

His younger brother Tvrtko laughed at the nickname and followed them out. His wife, two daughters—the oldest one catching furtive glances at her engagement ring—and three sons followed. Gradimir had only Jelica and his two sons. And of their oldest brother, Vatroslav, there was nothing at all except for the gravestone which Sophia still visited every time she came home, and cried, every time she came home. It had been fourty years, and yet for their strange older sister, it had never slipped away. Nor had the bittersweet nature of her meetings with her cloistered sister Marija who she had slipped away from as they grew up at the same age, before the three brothers, as her psychic powers had manifest.

“Hmm!” Tvrtko exclaimed as they walked over together, all twelve of them, toward the terminal. “She’s got Imperial Auxiliary markings and a pretty hefty armament for a yacht. Might be a Count, bringing His Worshipfulness down to the planet to hunt or whatnot. But why Glina? It’s all claimed land, not like down in the south at Varazdin.” Where Tvrtko Vuletic and his family lived on a farm Sophia had helped them buy… The trip up to Glina to meet both his older brother and his sister was trivial in light of that. Particularly when she usually ended up paying for everything, including the lunch she’d suggested for them all in the terminal when they came to pick her up. It did have a good restaurant…

…Of course, recognizing her face was often hard, these days. But the figure remained mostly the same, and as they entered the restaurant the waitress waiting for them seemed well aware they must be the Vuletic party, and with a smiled greeting led them toward a section of the dining room laid out with a bunch of tables pushed together in a long set. And at the end was Sophia. Looking a bit worse for wear, truth be told, but without any hints of cosmetic surgery on her face since the last visit when she’d appeared with her latest look. That much, at least, was reassuring in some sense.

She had been looking through the menu, but leapt to her feet when she saw them with an outburst of emotion… “Gradimir! Tvrtko! God be praised that I see you again… Jelica, little Marija, Zvonimira… And, yes, my nephews—Slavco, Petar, Velimir, Mihovil, Dubravko, God, but it’s good to see you all!” The black clad woman, shorter than many of the addressed children, went down the line, hugging them and kissing their cheeks with inordinate fondness, pausing for a moment at Jelica to grin a bit dangerously as she did.

And then, warmly and more quietly, embracing her brothers in turn and offering polite greetings to their wives Emilija and Jagoda. Then she returned to her position at the head of the table—she was the eldest left, after all—smiling with intense brilliance. “I’m so glad you’re all here to meet me. It’s never a more heartening sight in all the world than to see my family together,” she offered with a quiet sincerity.

“And it’s never a better sight than to see you still breathing, big sister,” Tvrtko answered with amusement. Especially at the emphasis on big, since Sophia, dark, latin little Sophia with her legacy of Bogumil blood, who never quite fit in with the rest, had always been the smallest of the lot. But though she had not fit in to the slavic stock of the Vuletic family, the place they all occupied in each other’s hearts was the same without the slightest bit of difference, and nobody doubted first and foremost that Sophia Dragomira was every bit a Vuletic, even when she had turned out to be a telepath of terrifying power.

“Still breathing, but I don’t have a heartbeat,” Sophia answered in dry amusement… But from her tone, it also left her brothers with the chill of the idea that she wasn’t joking.

“Sophia…?” Gradimir queried more cautiously.

“Got banged up on a mission. Fortunately there was this stasis tube nearby. Can’t really say anymore, except that the artificial heart is manufactured by the same company on reserve to make them for the Imperial family, so don’t worry about the reliability!” The declaration sparked some giggles and laughs, some nervous and many sincere, from her nieces and nephews. Everyone knew as a matter of course that Auntie Mira, as she was most fondly known, was completely invincible in whatever she did for the Empire. Except for the adults, to whom Vatroslav’s gravestone provided all the contrary evidence necessary, including to Sophia herself.

So there was a moment of nervous silence, and Sophia managed to delicately avoid its lingering by correctly guessing that her nieces and nephews wanted a vegetarian manestra—correctly guessing in the sense that it was a game they’d long made of her invariably ‘guessing’ correctly with her powers. Well, it wasn’t perhaps their first choice, but Sophia had arrived on a Friday and they knew their auntie Mira, for all her kindness, was a stickler about religious observation. The day’s meal would be excellent, but they’d have to settle for seafood.

“Will you ever retire, Sophia?” Emilija asked from her seat beside Gradimir. “Surely you’ve found some fine officer willing to marry you, and settle down by the capital, by now… And with a wound like that…”

Sophia shrugged idly. “I like my job, Emilija, and I don’t see much reason to leave it. Nor have any men really stood out to me. Marija and I were always like that, you know. I might have followed her into the religious life if it weren’t for my talents, and the call to Imperial service. I still feel it, for that matter, which is a good enough reason not to retire. Anyway, I just picked up a major perk…” She looked next down the line to Jelica, and Emilija followed the eyes and frowned a bit at her daughter.

“So, Jelica, since I’m going to try and ignore the stereotypical ‘God help me, but you’ve grown so much since I last saw you’,”she exagerrated the voice to giggles, seeing as Jelica was the oldest of the lot at nearly twenty-five and all were now entering their teen years, “I’ve been hearing from your father that you’ve had real trouble certifying the hours you need for your sub-twenty-k-ton piloting license. Can’t get any apprentice work, usual encouragement not to be a spacer from silly men who don’t get the point of our society, und so weiter, und so weiter, she finished in amused German. “How would you like to pick them all up?”

“Mother will never let me join the Navy,” Jelica answered instantly, which got a vigorous agreeing nod from Emilija.

“Oh, you don’t have to. You can get them with me, Jelly,” Sophia answered with a grin, and gestured outside. To the view of the enormous interstellar yacht.

Gradually as people got the meaning, a hushed silence fell over the family.

“God above, Sophia, who did you….” The comment from Gradimir, who like Vatroslav had been in the army, was cut off just in the nick of time as the small telepath giggled softly to her younger brother and shook her head.

“Oh no. Don’t you remember how I’m a commissioned officer in the reserves? That fancy part about getting a civil service and a military paycheck at the same time. Well, as it happened, for one of my recent missions they put me to active duty for some inane bureaucratic reason. This paid off incredibly, because as it happens on that mission I,” another wave toward the yacht, “stole that from enemies of the Empire. The prize court awarded her to me. I’ve named her the Titicaca, and the auxiliary status means we can siphon fuel off from Navy bases, pretty much. So, Jelica, I’ve accrued more vacation time than I know what to do with while I’ve been in the service, and I’ve come to take you out for quite some time, cruising the Empire, making connections, and getting your hours. And then, I’ll let you use her whenever I’m busy, which as you know is, heh, quite often. Consider it our shared venture, and I think a worthy substitute for a gift.”

“Auntie Mira I….” Jelica’s eyes were wide as she stared across the table at Sophia.

“I already paid to send you to the training academy, so why should I stop now?” Sophia smiled brilliantly, and settled back to enjoy in a motherly way the look of shock on Jelica’s face as the soup was served.

“Thank you, sis,” Gradimir said with a quiet and intense enthusiasm, which his wife did not really share.

So much for her finally growing up and settling down with someone, Emilija shook her head, but did smile wryly. “I admit I approve more of this than I did of someday finding out you’d procured a commission for her.”

“Well, I had thought about that, and though I’m sure Leonidas could do something, there’s no guarantee that poor Jelica wouldn’t end up filing forms in the lowest level basement of some office in Vienna, which would kinda of not exactly be a spacer’s life,” Sophia answered cheerfully.

“Leonidas?” Tvrtko asked.

“My manager. We have those in the civil service too, you know,” Sophia answered as coyly as ever. They all had long figured out, considering growing up around her telempathic powers had been a fact, that she was in the Evidenzburo, but it was still not something discussed in public, or really at all. Sometimes Tvrtko and Gradimir would muse on her existence and safety in privacy over a few beers, but that was that, and so the point was quietly accepted.

Gradimir laughed softly. “Well, I’ll leave it at that. But thank you, sister. To say you’ve made all of Jelica’s dreams come true is a minor understatement.”

Sophia smiled brilliantly from the far end of the table, emphasizing the fine curve of her cheekbones and ever-youthful face. Though they’d all had the highest end prolong, unlike many others on their hardscrabble homeworld, and would be around for quite some time… All due to Sophia. But it had been too late for her parents, and she missed their steady presence at these gatherings. Yet there was much new life ahead, and the farm awaited. And so did a chance to finally establish a real relationship with at least one of her nieces and nephews, whose presence reminded her all the more of how she’d almost certainly never have children, and definitely never be able to raise them on her own. Her life had carried her much too far from that course.

“Thank you so much, Auntie Mira,” Jelica replied, almost trembling, as the waitresses came around again, getting somewhat distracted, so that Sophia went ahead and ordered her a gin and tonic.

That got a very reproving glance from Emilija. “If you’re going to teach her responsibility…”

“Well, I’m going to make her into a good spacer. But I think in her line of work being able to handle liquor is a job requirement,” Sophia answered with brilliant jovialty. “So, Jelica, steady your nerves a bit, though of course we’re not taking her up any time soon—I intend to stay here quite some time, this visit. Among other things, I need to distribute all the gifts I got from the capital, let’s see, there’s a new hunting rifle for Mihilov, a..”

A voice from the other end of the table, the twenty-three year old ‘little’ Marija—to distinguish her from her cloistered aunt—piped up at once. “Wait, what, you’ll stay? Thank God! I can actually invite you to my wedding and actually have my auntie Mira there, since grandmama didn’t live long enough… Oh, Auntie Mira, you must come, won’t you?”

“You’re getting married?!” This time Sophia did squawk.

“Yes, yes, and he’s a wonderful fellow—a lieutenant in the local gendarmes!—even if it isn’t as grand or fancy as a thing as taking Jelica off to go gallivanting through the Empire, auntie. I’m so happy and we’re to have a proper Christian wedding and everything, the first one for one of the family’s girls in quite some time…”

Sophia and Jelica exchanged a sheepish glance at that. “Well, of course I’ll go,” Sophia answered with a decisive shrug. “When is it?”

“Two months, three days!”

“Well, excellent, my little Marija. We’ll stay that long, take everyone on the cruiser through the system before that, and then… Well, Jelica and I will be spending close to a year on our cruie. I have a LOT of vacation time built up.” Sophia grinned. “So, how would you like to go on a honeymoon to Earth?”

The squeal was the happiest sound that Sophia had heard in quite some time, and she ducked her head down and shook it faintly. It might never really be the life that Sophia could have in the long run, but she was indeed happy these times she spent with her family. No, Isabella, you just never did understand. And I’m sorry.

[king of hybrids]

Great story as usual countess

Speaking of the Talorans have they gotten round to using their very democratic very polytheist client state in the cyrranus cluster for PR purposes with the ADN