The old guard, p.19
The Old Guard, page 19
Which made her mistake all the more obvious. There had never been a chance for help from Earth that wouldn’t have cost more than Adamant could afford. They saw their power, their infiltration and exploitation, as the natural way of things.
That was what Patenaude had tried to warn her about the first night on Earth.
“Pentarch?” Shiratori prodded, though Lorraine knew she’d only been quiet for thirty seconds at most.
“I apologize, Em Shiratori,” she said. “I was not expecting this meeting to be quite so clear, I suppose. I need to consider the possibilities.”
“I understand, but I have limited time here,” the MicroStar executive noted. “I have a meeting with the rest of the Special Projects Committee at midnight local time. If we are to proceed, I’m afraid I must have a decision before we part ways.”
Thanks to her link, Lorraine had a perfect knowledge of time. They had a twenty-five minute slot with Shiratori, and they’d burned through almost twenty minutes of it. Five minutes left.
Five minutes to decide the fate of her world. She had no real backup plan beyond a vague thought of grand theft starship. No other choices.
Only whether she would allow her uncle to sell the Kingdom of Adamant out to a Terran megacorp… or sell the Kingdom out herself.
“If you must have a decision now, then I suppose that is the answer,” Lorraine said steadily, surprised at her own calm as she realized Shiratori had just made a mistake.
Our House. Our Realm. Our Will. Adamant.
If there was one thing her House was known for, it was being stubborn beyond all reason.
“I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me and to assemble this proposal,” she continued. “But my uncle has already sold the Kingdom of Adamant to one megacorporation. If I were to make a similar decision, then this would become solely a dynastic conflict with no higher cause.
“I will not subject the people of my Kingdom to that. I’m afraid that, generous as your offer is, I must decline.”
She rose, bowing slightly to the woman.
“Thank you, Em Shiratori.”
The silence seemed to stretch into eternity before the other three rose as well.
“I can appreciate the strength of your convictions, Pentarch Adamant,” Shiratori said, her tone frigidly undermining her words. “An assistant will be here momentarily to see you out.”
The Executive Vice President for Special Operations for MicroStar was too controlled to stalk out of the gazebo, but she left without another word.
Rothbauer paused before following his boss, meeting Lorraine’s gaze for a few seconds. Then he braced to attention and saluted crisply, a gesture that would have made any of her drill instructors proud, and wordlessly left the gazebo himself.
Leaving Lorraine Adamant alone with her boyfriend and her Sisyphean task.
THIRTY-ONE
The trip to the car passed in silence. They were over halfway back to the Dignitaries Complex before Alastair Devine said anything—and he was pale as a ghost by the time he finally spoke.
“Why?” he asked. “MicroStar was handing you everything you wanted at a fire-sale price. You won’t find a better option.”
“I know.”
That silenced him for a moment, then he repeated his question.
“Why?”
“I told Shiratori why. You were there,” Lorraine told her boyfriend grimly. “I won’t fight a civil war over which fucking corporate leech gets to suck us dry!”
She was shouting by the time she swore, surprised at her own anger.
“You’re part of this machine,” she told Devine, forcing her tone to moderate. “I’m not. I won’t feed my people into it if I can avoid it—and if they’re getting fed into it anyway, I won’t get thousands or more of them killed to decide which label goes on the meat grinder eating us alive.”
He was somehow even paler, leaning away from her in surprise, his lips parted like there were words dying on them.
“I know the deal they offered was good,” she said. “But it’s still selling out my Kingdom’s future so that I’m in charge. If I take that deal, I am no better than my uncle and I have no moral ground to fight him from.”
“You… don’t know what that meeting cost,” Devine finally said, his voice hoarse. “There are… consequences for calling in the kinds of favors I spent to get you in a room with Shiratori Ayano.”
“Then you should have talked to me before you did,” Lorraine snapped. “We won’t be here for much longer, Alastair. I don’t think I’m your responsibility anymore, either way.”
“I didn’t call in personal favors for my job,” he whispered. “I called them in for you. If… if you’re leaving, I’m going with you. If you’ll take me.”
“And what about that job?” she asked, his admission surprising her.
“The Fund was driving me nuts,” he admitted, a forced smile crossing his face. “And UWESC… The Corps got what they were owed a long time ago. I’m with you, Lorraine, wherever you go from here.”
“Be careful what you promise,” she warned. “I’m apparently a bit unpredictable.”
“I should have asked,” Alastair conceded. “I’m…” He paused. “I may need to leave now. I misjudged a few players here, not just you.”
“You’re welcome with me,” Lorraine promised. She wasn’t going quite so far as to plan for him as Prince Consort… but she had no problems with keeping him around. And that the thought of such planning had just crossed her mind was telling in itself… “I don’t know where that ends yet, but you can come with us.”
She smiled.
“I might still be counting on you to get us through Charon. I don’t know what the next step is, Alastair, but it’s not here.”
That thought gave her a pause. She had to admit, to herself at least, that one of the best options remaining to her was to take the money from the Exodus Protocols, pay out the crew of Goldenrod and buy a house and investments on Earth.
Her mother’s emergency plans had left her with the resources to be a very wealthy expat, a long way from home and safe from her uncle’s machinations. Cutting a deal would take time, but she suspected she could negotiate for Humphrey’s safety in exchange for her commitment to never come near the Kingdom again.
It was the safest option, the easy option. The one that didn’t drag out or expand a civil war her brother couldn’t win alone. It would leave Nikola to his death—she could try to negotiate safe passage to Earth, but distance would render it impossible.
She’d live in comfort for her entire life, and her people would be spared a wider civil war.
But.
Our Realm. Our House. Our Will. Adamant.
Lorraine Adamant could no more give up than she could accept Shiratori’s deal. There weren’t many options left, but she had to give them a shot.
“You can’t go home with just one frigate,” Jarret noted, her bodyguard silent until now. “We need something, Lorraine.”
“We’ll have something,” she promised. “Because I have an idea, Vigo. I need to do some more research and I need to make sure our crew buy in for the impossible, but there’s still one option left.”
The Old Guard.
If the United Worlds wouldn’t lend her a fleet on fair terms, then she would take one they’d decided they didn’t want!
THIRTY-TWO
A human walked the sterile decks. It wasn’t the proper cycle and that should have triggered a thousand alerts and checks—but the lockdown endured. The ship’s mind slumbered.
The external damage was repaired, but the officer stalked the decks, looking for signs of internal damage the drones had missed. Their journey ended at the main computer core, where they checked first hardware and then software interlocks.
What slumbered at the ship’s heart could not be killed without destroying the ship itself. The awareness there slept fitfully, alarms and systems that should have awoken it poking at its edges until the overrides shut it down.
For hours, the officer pored through the systems in the computer center. Hours more they spent stalking the hull, checking key locations, confirming that the interlocks and overrides remained.
They didn’t find whatever they feared. The ship’s minor damage from the solar flare was repaired, inside and out, and a box was checked off before the officer returned to their shuttle.
They knew the truth of their duty but even the shuttle pilot didn’t. And the ship itself simply slept, long lost to its state and reality.
Barring catastrophe, that was how UWNS Valkyrie was meant to end her days.
THIRTY-THREE
“What’s Goldenrod’s status?” Lorraine asked a virtual meeting of her key people the next morning. She’d left the frigate’s crew unbothered for too long, she knew, swamped with the demands of the desperate attempt to win a vote in the Grand Assembly
The failed attempt.
“Between our pause in Tavastar and the time here in Earth orbit, we’ve fixed up everything we possibly can,” Stephson reported. “We don’t have any more weapons than we had, but everything we have left is sparkling clean and operating at one hundred percent.
“We’ve let the crew take leave in shifts, so everyone’s had at least a full day off since we arrived,” she continued. “I believe Roman coordinated some rumormongering to serve the main objective?”
“He did and it worked,” Lorraine confirmed. “It didn’t turn the Assembly vote the way we wanted, but I think it helped start a process that’s going to make FBIT sorry they got involved in our mess.”
She sighed.
“It strikes me as the type of thing to take a long time to get anywhere,” she noted, “but I can’t regret sticking a spoke in their wheels.”
Lorraine glanced around the hologram. She had Stephson, Jarret, Savege, Chevrolet—even Cheng Cortez. The Cheng was giving Jarret a familiar look, clearly not too worried about concealing that new complication from anyone in this conversation.
“We spent a lot of effort getting here, people,” Lorraine finally said. “I know it feels wasted now, but we’ve learned a lot we wouldn’t have anywhere else. There aren’t many options in front of us, but there are options.”
“Crew morale took a hit when the news broke,” Savege noted, the XO looking more fatigued than a week of “rest” should have caused. “If we can give them some idea of what comes next, it will help.”
“We’re not done yet, if that’s what people are fearing,” she told the ship’s crew. “But the next step could be complicated. I’m going to need to talk to our key people in person, with absolute security.
“Goldenrod seems the best option, unless the locals have even better intrusion tools than I think. Vigo?” She glanced at the Guard. If anyone could give her an accurate sense of whether she could have a truly confidential discussion with her people, it was him.
“Klement’s been doing some research and acquisition,” Jarret said slowly. Lieutenant Major Avital Klement headed up the electronics-and-overwatch section of Lorraine’s Guard Detail.
“I think we can arrange something on Goldenrod, but I’ll check with her. What did you have in mind?”
“This evening,” Lorraine said. “Everyone in the Six Cities will come back aboard. Devine will be coming too… this time as my personal guest, instead of as an asset.”
No one appeared even slightly surprised by that.
“I’m also going to talk to the Ambassador and see if I can convince him to join us,” she continued. “I don’t expect him to be coming with us, but he has put himself in some danger helping me, and I think he can help with the next part.”
“And you won’t tell us what that next part is until we’re secure aboard Goldenrod?” Stephson asked, the Captain sounding more amused than anything else. “If it gives us a chance to put a stick in the Black Regent’s eye, I think most of the crew will be on board.”
“I hope so,” Lorraine murmured. “The job in front of us certainly hasn’t grown any easier, my friends. We may need to work out a way to give people an out before we pull them in too deep.
“Keep that in mind as we plan for this evening’s discussions. The vote was a letdown, yes, but the work has just begun.
“Our Kingdom needs us. I am determined to see justice done and our constitution restored. But the risks and the costs start going up from here,” she warned. “That out applies to the officers as well.”
“Suicide mission?” Savege asked. “No chance of survival? Into the valley of death?”
“Something along those lines,” Lorraine agreed.
“I think I speak for all of the senior officers when I say we’re with you to the end,” the XO told her. “Whether that’s a fiery grave in deep space or umbrella’d drinks on a beach somewhere.”
“If we take the next step, I think umbrellas in beach drinks are going to be off the table, going forward.”
“That’s fine,” Cortez said. “To my parents’ great disappointment, it turns out I’m allergic to tequila, anyway.”
“You are leaving, then,” Humphrey replied when Lorraine told him she was heading into orbit. “You’ll forgive me some curiosity about your next steps. Part of me expected you to stay—there are few better places to be a wealthy expat than Earth, and I have some concept of the resources you command at this moment.”
“Those resources were placed at my disposal for a purpose,” she told him. “I still have a mission to complete, and I’m realizing Earth may never have been the answer I thought it was.”
“There was always risk if you convinced the United Worlds to assist,” the Ambassador agreed. “I had to assume you were aware of it.”
“I was, but I wonder if I underestimated it,” Lorraine admitted. “Nonetheless, I’m not heading out yet. For now, I’m returning aboard Goldenrod, where the Guard control my environment and I can be… more secure.”
“Ah.” A single arched eyebrow spoke volumes. A face-to-face link conversation was about as secure as anything could be, but the moment any telecommunication infrastructure or ranged transmission was involved, the security of the conversation went downhill.
The call between the Kingdom of Adamant Embassy and the Dignitaries Complex was as secure as any such thing could be, with a private encryption key only the two of them shared. Lorraine could rely on it not being faked but not on it being un-intercepted.
And anything that was captured could be decoded, given time.
“I would appreciate it, Tamir, if you would join me aboard Goldenrod for further discussions this evening,” she told him, using his first name with care. “I don’t believe my task is done yet, and I could use your knowledge and advice as I prepare to go forward.”
“You may overestimate the value of both at this point, Your Highness,” he said with a chuckle. “We both know the orders relieving me are already on their way. It’s only a question of when the courier arrives.”
They also both knew that he’d be lucky if the orders were just relieving him. Everything Lorraine had seen suggested that Benjamin Adamant would find it easier to relay a contracted assassination through the shadow channels available to FBIT than to deliver official orders through proper channels.
That was the risk Humphrey faced, hardly helped by his clearly stepping onto her side of the scales. The only repayment she could offer was to pull him out with her.
“I’m not asking for you to turn the powers of your position to my service once more, Ambassador,” she told him. “Just to let us pick your brain on everything you’ve seen in a decade on Earth.”
“What I can do for House Adamant and our Kingdom, I shall always do,” he assured her. “I will be there as you ask.”
“Thank you. We have work to do, but the shape of it is still… vague,” Lorraine warned. “But if I can gather the best minds available to me, that vagueness will fade.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Goldenrod was in an active orbit of Earth, following an assigned course that allowed her to maintain point-six gravities and create a solid sense of down for her crew and passengers. Even from the outside, there was no sign of the damage she’d taken anymore.
It was a false impression, one easily disproven by comparing her current state to her schematics and realizing she was missing everything from engines to turrets, but the crew had smoothed over the gaps.
Standing on her decks under that false gravity, Lorraine felt like she’d come home again. The frigate had been her solid rock for months now. The crew were more loyal than she deserved and the ship more… everything than she had any right to ask of mere steel.
The main conference room was large enough for the senior officers of both the ship and the Adamant Guard’s Archangel Detail, plus two extras: Alastair Devine and Tamir Humphrey.
Stephson was joined by Savege, Chevrolet and Cortez again, plus Leonard Roman, Paris, Yildiz and Vince: the senior noncom, Tactical Officer, Navigator and Coms Officer, respectively.
Those seven officers and one NCO represented the brain trust the Royal Kingdom of Adamant Navy was contributing to Lorraine’s meeting.
Jarret had brought his two surviving Section Heads: Priskilla Blau and Avital Klement. Lieutenant Major Patriksson, the original Third Section CO, was dead, and Jarret could speak for the Guard shuttle crews himself.
Humphrey and Devine both looked a bit out of place, the only people in the room not in a uniform now Lorraine had returned to the insignia-less shipsuit of her Pentarch position.
“Thank you, everyone,” she told them all. “We find ourselves at a turning point. Klement—is this space secure?”
“Second Section has been working with Commander Savege to make certain Goldenrod overall is secure against the penetration tools available here,” the Guard officer said with a smile on her lips. “Some of what we’ve installed aboard the ship is of questionable legality, of course, but as a consular ship, the sovereignty of the Kingdom shields us from too many questions.
