Nils had been planning to have lunch here anyway, so he had a reservation already. Thirty seconds after Princess Kasimira had dropped her bomb on the Committee, he had sent a text update that he would need a larger table, possibly the entire room. The reply had been almost instant.
Someone had probably gotten bumped to a different room, a less prestigious one. A First Lord, he could do that. Not that he liked to wield such authority recklessly, but today it was necessary.
And so Nils found himself seated in the Marquette Room, tucked clear at the back of Fleet Headquarters, a twenty-minute walk from where the Lords of the Fleet had been entertaining the Committee. Tad, Jessica, Judit, and the Princess had joined him.
There were others that might be needed later. Captain Wald, from the Princess’s staff, and Yan Bedrov, for instance, and Moirrey, one of these days as well, but momentous decisions would rest with the people right here.
Nils found it amusing how often the future of the Navy, and the Republic itself, had played out in this room. Important decisions made over wine and good antipasti plates. He made a note to check if any historian had ever made that connection, and written up a history of the room itself. It certainly needed one. He might have to suggest it to someone. A First Lord could do that, too.
They had added a leaf to the booth, extending it, and added a chair. As host, Nils had taken that, seating Tad and Jessica on his right and Judit and the Princess on his left. The wine came from one of Tad’s estates, a sweet merlot that would sit well with freshly-baked sourdough bread.
Nils smiled at Tad’s grumpiness. The man never liked losing control of his hearings, and he had certainly underestimated Lady Casey. Once. Most likely the last and only time that would happen.
Nils had warned him. At least Senator Nalani had not suffered a serious medical event, although the corpsmen medics had eventually convinced him to go to the fleet hospital for observation.
Nothing more of any use likely to be accomplished, Nils had suggested lunch, although he had been afraid Tad would break his gavel, pounding the table so angrily to get everyone to shut up.
So he made sure the first glass poured went to the Chairman, followed by Judit. And that the cheese plate landed at that end of the table.
“Better?” Nils asked his friend, who had only much later become his boss.
“Scamp,” Tad replied around his glass. He turned his attention to the Princess. “And that, young lady, was certainly an interesting way to make sure you were on the evening vidcasts.”
Nils watched the Princess affect a surprised look that fooled nobody, followed by a slight, mischievous smile.
“Whatever do you mean, Senator?” she asked lightly, tilting her head just the slightest bit. “I was given to understand this was to have been a secret hearing.”
Nils laughed out loud.
“I can think of at least a half dozen people probably already leaking the good bits to friendly reporters,” Nils said. “Not the parts that would get them prosecuted, mind you, but Buran as a lurid monster from the depths of history. Too good to let someone else get the headline.”
“No doubt,” Tad agreed. “Judit, how will this impact the elections?”
Nils let a little sourness color his face. The Senate sat at will, but it also had a fixed duration. One that was fast approaching. Elections would be required in a little over six months. Already, people were sharpening their pencils and their knives.
And Tad and Judit represented different parties. They still went to the opera on double-dates with their spouses, but that was after hours. The business of the Senate was beginning to turn from governance to politics, like the progression of the seasons on the planet below them.
Judit shrugged.
“Assuming I don’t call a snap election late in the game, we should have time to negotiate a deal, all parties being interested,” she said. “I suspect that it will then become a major campaign theme.”
Tad nodded sagely.
Nils could already see the spin forming into little vortices. The Peace was popular. At the same time, sending a fleet off to fight in one of Fribourg’s wars might not be, regardless of the public’s fascination with Jessica. And the press would fall utterly in love with Princess Kasimira.
Casey.
She preferred to be Lady Casey, or zu Wiegand, since this was official business as a Ritter, a Knight representing the Imperial government, and not her role as the youngest daughter of the Imperial family.
Nils compared the woman to his own daughters when they had been that age. Anaïs, the elder, might have been up to the technical aspects of the task, but Estelle would have brought Casey’s panache to it. Still, he could see his granddaughters growing up in a world colored by Jessica Keller and Lady Casey.
Interesting times, indeed.
Nils decided to break the ice wide open with a sledgehammer. With the elections coming, nothing less would do. And they wouldn’t have the luxury of time on this one.
“Brass tacks, Lady Casey,” he said, addressing himself to the woman as if she were one of his prize students, back in his teaching days. A younger Jessica Keller, perhaps. Not necessarily all that far off from the truth, from everything he had heard so far. “Assuming our government supports you in this task, what is your budget?”
He was amused by the way Casey slowly turned her head to face him, like she was lining up a turret for a shot. Measured, methodical, deadly.
“Based on the last set of notes from Captain Wald, First Lord?” she said to his nod. “The two cruisers in their current design incarnations take us to roughly seventy-eight percent, with construction contingencies built in. Four escorts on top push us to roughly ninety-seven percent. The alternative would have been to ask you to build a brand new Star Controller from scratch, using either plan seven or number nine, either of which would have been over ninety percent of the total budget allocated themselves.”
Nils nodded but kept his surprise to himself. He hadn’t really expected that honest nor that technical of an answer from the girl.
No. Woman. Grown woman who had personally seen off a coup attempt that would have resulted in her death. Lady Casey might give Jessica most of the credit, but Nils had skimmed Jessica’s full report within eighteen hours of their arrival in-system three weeks ago.
Woman. Very much a young Jessica Keller, if she desired. Even at eighteen, Nils could see the same fire underneath.
Nils was impressed that she had the numbers at her fingertips. This was not a helpless princess on a photo op or a lark.
“And what do you actually propose to do with such a revised First Expeditionary Fleet?” Nils asked.
He could see the questions Tad and Judit wanted to ask, but they were probably going to let him drive this, being the expert. And this might be a nice way to finally ease into his retirement. Build this fleet and then take off the uniform so he could take up politics. Or raise cattle.
Nils was looking forward to being the sort of pain in Petra’s ass that Tad usually was in his. Grumpy old senators who used to be Fleet Lords were the worst kind.
It would be tremendous fun.
Lady Casey studied his face for several seconds before she answered.
“Why should Aquitaine help Fribourg conquer the galaxy, First Lord?” she asked. “Is that the real question you want answered?”
“Your words, Lady Casey,” he replied solemnly. “But yes. Why? Why should I, we, help our fiercest enemy when we might take the opportunity to reclaim a number of worlds that used to be part of the Republic? And perhaps more?”
“Fribourg is a militant culture, First Lord,” she said in a calm, heavy voice. “It has been thus since the Founding, and before. We were not forged on a trade compact, as Aquitaine was by Henri Baudin. Father believes that Fribourg can be forced to change. Slowly. Painfully. Fretfully. But eventually successfully. Ekke, my brother, feels the same. They think that with fifty years to work at the project, two full Imperial generations, it can be done.”
She paused to take a sip of wine and study the other faces before returning to him.
“But if we do not stop Buran, now, the beast will consume the Empire entirely before then. And you will be next.”
“And Jessica Keller and First Expeditionary can prevent that?” Nils asked, careful to conceal the sarcasm that wanted to escape. She would misread it as mockery.
“Fribourg is also a very conservative society, First Lord,” Lady Casey said. “Fleet tactics are based on a slow, methodical strategy, one that cannot quickly adapt to radical, newly-changed circumstances. Uncle Em, Emmerich Wachturm, could probably manage to drive them back, but he cannot be two places at once, and the hands that held the fleet’s reins at St. Legier were not trustworthy. Sigmund Dittmar died during the coup. Artur Marquering was executed afterwards for treason. Kunibert Marquering was retired in semi-disgrace. We will be a generation rebuilding.”
“And Jessica?” Nils pressed.
“Uncle Em considers her to be the best commander in the field today, First Lord,” she explained. “Better than him, and at least as good as he was on his best day. His words, First Lord.”
Jessica blushed furiously as everyone turned to look at her, but remained silent. Her debrief had taken three days, and there were still details to go through, as well as mountains of reports and logs to read.
Nils watched Lady Casey’s head suddenly come up and look around the room. Her eyes settled on the woman tending the bar across the room, fierce, but not angry. At least, not that he could tell.
He turned to look, and noted the bartender grinning as she worked. A cat with a canary.
It was Lady Casey’s turn to blush as he turned his attention back to her. She gestured to the ceiling.
Nils became aware of music that was playing, low and steady. A full string section slowly winding themselves up to lift the rafters, but still poised just at the verge of a dead gallop. A wave of cavalry building to a canter in the morning fog.
Half a league onward…
“That’s the opening to my second symphony,” she murmured by way of explanation, blushing ever so slightly.
Second? Symphony?
Nils made a note to go back and re-read this woman’s dossier much closer. And perhaps purchase her musical catalog. You could learn a great deal about someone from their art.
“So we defeat Buran,” Tad suddenly growled. He was still fuming, but coming back to control with a little wine. “Then what, Lady Casey?”
“Then I will be ten or twenty years older, and ready to retire, Tad,” Jessica suddenly injected into the conversation. “And the future will be safe from the demons of the past. Trade and culture will cross back and forth and we won’t have to fight. I swore an oath, ladies and gentlemen. To end the war with Fribourg. This is one way to do it. The next generation will be left with the task of holding that peace, but I intend to deliver them the option.”
Nils fixed his attention on his favorite student now.
“We were on the brink of pushing them all the way back, Jessica,” he said. “You were. Winning back everything that had been lost. Possibly even destroying them, given enough time. Why should we give that up? Why hold the Peace, if Fribourg cannot stop us?”
“Emmerich Wachturm asked me that same question, Nils,” she replied. “On the flight deck of Amsel, when he took me out to show me his brand new battleship. He told me that I held the balance of power in my own hands. That I could get the Senate to break the treaty, if I set my mind to it.”
Jessica stopped to take a drink of wine and a deep breath.
“I have thought long and hard on that topic in the six months since,” she said, turning her head to include everyone, even if the conversation really was just between the two. “In the heat of the moment, I reacted to protect Casey, and then to drive that son of a bitch Dittmar into the ground. Killing the Buran raider was just a lucky break. On my head, on my conscience, there can be a generation of peace, or a generation of war. Not for me. I will be at war for the rest of my life, I expect, but there are trillions of people out there who will have a chance to know a different galaxy, due to the choices we make, I make, today.”
She fixed him with a cold stare that he felt all the way to his soul.
“Buran must be stopped,” she whispered. “If I have to go fight them alone, I will, but I have the best team in the galaxy available. I would like your blessing to use them.”
Nils felt cold death reach out a hand and just brush it across the back of his neck.
Jessica was serious. Enough so that she might actually resign everything if she had to. Fleet Centurion. Queen of the Pirates. Give up everything, like Yan Bedrov had, in order to face this new future.
And if she did, how many of the men and women of First Expeditionary, of the entire fleet, would do the same, just so they could follow this woman into the gates of hell?
Tad’s face had closed. But that was a good sign. It meant he understood how closely balanced the stakes were, and would let Nils talk. Judit had a fierce grin on her otherwise silent face. No doubt, this would be on a campaign poster, one way or the other, since Judit had largely built the Peace on Jessica’s work and words.
Even Lady Casey had a wry smile on her face. But this was an Imperial Princess, and she should be expected to be something of an expert on politics as the art of the possible.
The decision was really rather easy. Like Jessica, Nils had given his entire life to the war effort. He could see the sun starting to rise in the distant, dark east.
Nils speared Tad with a smile.
“I’m going to need a new Fourth Lord if you’re serious about doing this,” he said simply. “A friendlier one.”
Tad nodded.
“Pity we can’t hire Bedrov,” the Chairman mused, his face softening. “But I have a candidate in mind. Which reminds me. Bedrov was discussing a third investor in his mad scheme when all hell broke loose back there. Without him present, are the two of you willing to discuss the topic?”
Nils watched Jessica and Lady Casey communicate with a few quick shrugs and nods. They really had turned into a team over the last half year. What did that imply?
Jessica tapped a finger on the tabletop.
“No further than this room,” she said. “And this group.”
She waited for the rest to nod.
“Yan’s a crazy genius,” Jessica continued. “I knew it before. I learned even better on the flight home. He wants to approach the President herself, but as a private citizen. He figures that to be the single highest vote of confidence he can get anywhere.”
“That’s boy’s got brass,” Tad observed. “Let me chat her up privately and see what she thinks.”
Judit’s nod was the critical one, the one that sealed the deal.
A moment of tension passed.
Tad turned a beaming look on the princess.
“With that concluded, I have one last thought. Lady Casey. I used to be a Command Centurion, in my younger days,” he rumbled, an angry bear about to chase a smaller rival off from a favorite berry bush. “Yours and Bedrov’s plan has only one flaw that I can see, but also one I think we can fix, as soon as Arott Whughy gets back with Auberon.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
Nils could hear the edge of reserve under her words, the challenge, like a knife hidden in folds of cloth.
“You didn’t dream nearly big enough,” Tad replied with an evil grin.