Chương 50: Maneuvers

New Toledo, Vidako Imperium Stellarum December 20, 2847 By the time Cassie collapsed onto her loaned bed, in the same room that she'd been lent the last time that she and Arc had visited the Palacio de las Orquídeas, she was utterly worn out from the flight—and from the trip through New Toledo which had followed. Just as they'd anticipated, there was another line of reporters and cameramen waiting when they disembarked from the duke's private plane.

And though the media had been held back at a distance, they'd all clamoured and shouted and positioned themselves to try to get the best picture, or a sound bite they could use. This visit had been framed, by the duchess, as a personal invitation, rather than a formal event. As a result, there'd been no parade through the streets accompanied by mechs painted in the Montalban colors, only a fast-moving convoy along a route blocked off by the local police.

"Only one bug, and the model is a few years old," Jessica announced, returning from Cassie's en suite bathroom with her scanner in one hand, and a very small electronic device in the other.

"Actually hidden inside the toilet tank. I'm surprised it's still working at all."

"You think Montalban put it there?" Cassie asked, grabbing a few of her pillows and bunching them up behind her back so that she could sit comfortably. Jessica shook her head.

"He'd buy something better than this, I think. He can certainly afford to. No, I'd guess that someone paid off one of his cleaners, on the theory they'd put you up again in the same rooms they used last time. I can try to figure out which one of the servants was compromised."

"Do it if you can, but it isn't a priority," Cassie decided. She leaned over to the nightstand, stretched her arm, and got hold of her tablet.

"I want you to check over Arc's room, too. Do that first."

"Planning to spend some time there?" Jessica prodded. Cassie paused with her finger over the video file from her parents.

"Would you have a problem with it if I did? You've had another two months to get used to the idea." Jessica hesitated.

"May I speak freely, Your Imperial Highness?"

"You may." Cassie set the tablet down on the bed next to her and gave Jessica her full attention.

"My assignment is to keep you safe," the older woman said.

"Not to approve or disapprove of your romantic entanglements."

"You could have fooled me," Cassie grumbled.

"At the request of the imperial guards—at my request—imperial intelligence has run a thorough background check on Cadet Sandhurst. Your brother got there first, of course, but that was only him getting access to the preliminary investigation conducted on every applicant to the imperial academy at Vidako," Jessica explained.

"The process for vetting someone who is entering a relationship with a member of the royal family is much more… extensive."

"I presume my parents will have the entire file, as well," Cassie guessed. It was just one more way in which her life was anything but normal, in which the mechanisms of the imperium were constantly intruding on her. Jessica nodded.

"I'm certain they've been briefed."

"Is there anything I need to know, that Orion hasn't already told me?" Cassie asked.

"I don't believe so." Jessica shook her head.

"Everything indicates that Arc, and his family, are exactly what they appear to be. Rather average working class citizens of the imperium, who just happened to be lucky enough to have a bright son, and unlucky enough to lose a daughter to piracy. No criminal records, no massive outstanding debts, no relatives in the Singularity."

"Does that mean you're going to stop giving me a hard time about him?" Jessica sighed.

"It's not that I don't like him, Your Imperial Highness. It's mostly that I don't think there's much of a chance your father will ever approve of him."

"The Obligation of Espousal only covers marriages," Cassie pointed out.

"Not boyfriends. I'm not talking about eloping with him tomorrow. We've got three years left at the academy, and then at least one term of service each in fleet after that. But I would appreciate it if you stopped making things more difficult for me."

"I suppose I can do that," Jessica grumbled.

"Alright. I'll go check his room over, and then dispose of this thing and any other bugs I can find. You're going to watch the message from your parents?"

"Alone," Cassie said, with a nod.

"Lock the door behind you." She waited until her bodyguard had stepped out into the hall, and then lifted her tablet back up and tapped on the file. The tablet's camera blinked to life, and she leaned forward so that it could scan and map her eye, then compare the image of her retina with the one on file in imperial records. That cleared her to enter a passcode, which permitted her to scan her thumbprint.

The fact that all three methods of verification were needed to open the file was clue enough that it was more than a simple holiday greeting. When the video finally began to play, it opened with an image of Cassie's mother. Cordelia Anne Sabran-Solaris, Empress of the Imperium Stellarum and daughter of Yves Arsène Sabran, Duke of Teegarden's Star, had the youthful face of a woman who had undergone extensive genetic modification.

In fact, she looked hardly older than Cassie, and as there was no chance of her ever holding the throne of the imperium in her own right, she was not constrained by the laws which limited an emperor's lifespan. Like Cassie, Cordelia's eyes were a vibrant, bright blue that flaunted human ideas of what was 'natural.' Her hair, however, was a warmer tone—dark, yes, but with shades of polished and stained wood which caught any light in the room.

She was beautiful and elegant, as an empress should be, and whenever Cassie stood next to her mother, she couldn't help but feel awkward and gawky by comparison.

"I understand that we have the boyfriend to thank for the fact you won't be coming home for the holidays," Cassie's mother began, straightaway and without any preamble.

"I've had our gifts for you, and your brother's, sent along by courier to Vidako, but I doubt they'll arrive until after the holidays. I confess, I thought I would have longer before both of my children abandoned me." Cassie rolled her eyes. Her mother could be so dramatic.

"In any event, I hope that you will be careful," Empress Cordelia went on.

"Remember what I've taught you, and for once actually think about the signals you are sending. By bringing this poor boy on your arm to a formal dinner, by trotting him out in front of the cameras, you've dragged him into our world. He doesn't have the years of training you do on how to handle it, which means that he is your responsibility. I'm not expecting you to achieve any political coups out there, but at the very least try not to make things more difficult for us.

On that note, I believe your father has a few matters to speak to you about." There was a shaky movement of the image, and then Cassie's father entered the frame, clearly sitting down close to her mother, so that both their faces were visible. If Cassie's eyes had come from her mother, her hair and skin tone had come from her father. Emperor Altair Janus Solaris was a severe man of fifty-four, with streaks of gray running through his black locks and care-worn lines in his angular face.

He looked, Cassie decided, weary.

"Hello, Cassie," her father said.

"I wish that this message could simply be a chance for us to say hello. I'd thought that we could discuss what's happening when you came home between semesters, but –" He shrugged. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"The attached briefing is sent in your capacity as princess imperial," Altair went on.

"I'm sure you'd prefer more details, but this is all you're entitled to at the moment." Cassie understood. She had a right to regular security briefings, so long as she remained a potential candidate for the next imperial election. The summaries were high-level overviews, for the most part, intended to make certain that in the event of her father's unexpected death, whoever was chosen to take his place would come in with a basic idea of the state of the empire.

"I'm certain you've heard about the Na'xir attack on Ha'veth," Altair went on.

"I can tell you that Admiral Wai broke the swarm forces in orbit, but he's gotten bogged down trying to clear the Na'xir hives off the surface. We've kept a lid on the precise numbers, Cassie, but it isn't good. A lot of LeShaii died in the time between the initial attack, and when we could get a carrier battle group into the system."

"You have probably also heard that Rear Admiral Madine has taken another group in that direction," Altair said, "because we weren't very well able to keep a lid on it. What you probably don't know is that Rear Admiral Cree Void Skimmer is bringing the Carinus to Bian, while Rear Admiral Masarik is en route to Tau Ceti with the Vitellius." Cassie swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. That's four carrier groups all going into combat at once, she realized.

The imperium hasn't sent that many people into battle since the Singularity War. Based on the best estimates I can make from available data, Lyra supplied, the fleet movements your father is describing would involve a minimum of twenty-seven thousand personnel. If those carrier groups include troop transports with marine complements sufficient to wage a ground war against the Na'xir, those numbers go up substantially. It still remains a relatively small proportion of the imperium's total fleet.

"But you don't need these kinds of numbers for a border raid," Cassie whispered.

"—contact made at Shaii'veth already," her father was saying, and she realized that she'd been distracted enough to miss some of the message. That was fine. It was important enough that Cassie was already going to watch the entire thing a second time.

"And, of course, we can't let our border with the Singularity appear weak," her father went on.

"So we're sending additional carrier groups to reinforce our numbers there. Those groups will include the Numerian." Which was Orion's ship.

"If we're lucky, you'll be able to hide out on the academy campus and avoid questions," Cassie's mother broke in.

"But I'm afraid the same likely won't be true while you're staying with the duke. You know what to do, Cassie. Don't discuss specifics when it comes to fleet movements, but project confidence that the Imperium will defend its people."

"I'm sorry to dump this on you," her father said, with a pained smile.

"But I'd also rather you be warned than caught by surprise. We miss you, Cassie, and we love you."

"I love you too," Cassie whispered, as the video froze.

"You've got the briefing, Lyra?" I do, her AI confirmed.

"Break it down into a summary for me, please," Cassie said. She was just about to play the video from her parents again when a knock came at her door.

"One moment!" Cassie called. It was probably Arc—and, unfortunately, he wasn't cleared to see her briefings, or to hear what her parents had said. Which was why she hadn't played the message on the flight to New Toledo. She'd felt a bit bad about it, since he'd let her see his parents, but he'd been kind enough not to say anything. She closed the file on her tablet, put it to sleep, and set it face down on top of the bed.

Then, she rolled to her feet, walked over to the door, and hesitated with her finger on the lock. Clear? she asked Jessica, in the private chat they maintained between their two sets of neural lace. Clear, Jessica confirmed. Cassie unlocked and opened the door. Lady Itzia Maria Montalban, who appeared to have grown several centimeters since Cassie had seen her last, stood in the hall shuffling her feet. The girl gave Cassie a nervous smile, raised one hand, and waved.

"Hello, Princess," she said.

"I wanted to make sure you weren't upset or anything. They've had clips of you all over the net." It was, in all honesty, too cute for words. Cassie smiled, stepped aside, and motioned for the Itzia to step in.

"Thank you for coming to see me," she said, and closed the door behind them. She crossed the room back to the bed, sat on it, and patted the mattress at her side. Itzia joined her with only a slight hesitation.

"I don't like it very much," Cassie admitted.

"But we made it, and we're here now, which means that we can relax a bit, I hope." The duke's daughter nodded.

"Of course! Papá won't let anyone inside the house to bother you," she promised.

"He hates when they skulk around trying to get pictures. Only I wondered –""What?" Cassie asked, and gently bumped the girl with her shoulder.

"You can ask."

"Are you frightened?" Itzia asked.

"That he's going to get hurt?"

"I'm more angry than I am afraid," Cassie admitted.

"This jerk –" she almost swore, and stopped herself, because Itzia was only twelve.

"—won't leave us alone. I'd rather fight him myself, but he kind of backed Arc into a corner."

"Why don't you just tell him to stop, then?" Itzia asked.

"I mean, you're a princess imperial. He'd have to listen, wouldn't he?" Cassie paused for a moment to gather her thoughts.

"You've learned about Imperial Rights and Obligations, haven't you, Itzia?" she asked.

"Your father and mother must have taught you." Itzia nodded eagerly.

"The emperor has ten Rights and three Obligations," she said, and Cassie got the impression that she was the sort of girl who liked to impress her teachers—possibly to the detriment of her classmates.

"But dukes only get six Rights and two Obligations."

"And do you know how many a princess has?" Cassie asked. She was curious. For her part, of course, all of this had been drilled into her head since she was old enough to talk; but she suspected that Itzia's education would have focused on how the Imperium worked from a duke's point of view, and that might have left gaps.

"Right of Election, of course," Itzia said.

"And Obligation of Espousal. But…" she winced.

"Past that, I'm not sure."

"I only have four other Rights," Cassie explained.

"Less than your father. The first is that I can make one recommendation each year, to each of the imperial academies. I have the Right to Service, and the Right of Support, which means…?"

"You draw an allowance from the Imperium," Itzia supplied, now more confident.

"And the last one is the Right of Impeachment," Cassie said.

"It hardly ever comes up, honestly. But if I found that the mayor of San Teodoro was accepting bribes or something like that, I could remove him from office, immediately, and have him arrested. I wouldn't ever do that, because if it actually happened the polite thing to do would be to talk to your father first and then let him handle it—but I could. Do any of those rights involve calling off a duel?"

"No. But—wouldn't most people do it anyway?"

"Most people would," Cassie agreed.

"Because they'd be thinking to themselves, 'someday, she could be empress. And if that happens, I want her to be my friend.' But I can't force anything. That's what we call soft power. And in this case—well, Fletcher Radecki has already shown that he doesn't care about what I want."

"I'm sorry," Itzia said.

"There's nothing for you to be sorry about," Cassie said.

"You didn't have anything to do with it." She reached her arm around the girl and squeezed her in a side-hug.

"Now, do you happen to know where my boyfriend's gotten to? I actually thought you were him, when you knocked on the door."

"He's in the cigar lounge with Uncle Esteban and Uncle Marcus," Itzia said, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

"I think my brother's in there, with them. They're probably talking about mechs."

"Probably." Cassie grinned, and bounced up off the mattress. She grabbed her tablet and pocketed it.

"Can you show me where it is?" Itzia could, of course, and she led Cassie through the halls and corridors of the palace without hesitation. Along the way, she pointed out paintings and sculptures, with a ready and near-encyclopedic knowledge of the artists that told Cassie the girl had given this tour before. What she wouldn't do, however, was enter the cigar room; and when Cassie pulled the door open, the billow of tobacco smoke that puffed out told her exactly why.

Not that it would hurt Cassie's over-engineered lungs.

"You can't possibly strap all that on a Tyro," Marcus Ajewọle was saying, from where all four men were clustered around a tablet. A lit cigar protruded from between two of his knuckles, half-forgotten.

"Ugh," Cassie groaned, waving one hand in front of her nose as she stepped in.

"You had better have a shower after this, Arc. I won't kiss you until you do."

"I'm not actually smoking," he protested, as all four of the men straightened up and turned to face her.

"It still sinks into your clothes," Cassie said.

"I'm not a princess about many things, but I will be about this. Lieutenant Commander Ajewọle has a point, though, and it reminds me of something. I seem to remember you all have a couple of F-2 Tagmas, don't you?"

"We do," Esteban confirmed.

"Good." Cassie nodded.

"It's not quite a Janissary, but close enough. I'd like you to let Arc practice in one over the next month, while we're here."

"Why?" Arc asked.

"The academy isn't going to give me a Janissary to fight in."

"No, they won't," Cassie agreed. She pulled her tablet out of her pocket, unfolded it, and pulled up a schematic.

"But take a look at this."