“You’re sure?” Emmerich asked, putting down the executive summary that has just ruined his morning, and possibly his digestion. The visitor, the spy, sat across the desk and looked uncomfortable, as if being out in daylight hours was an unnatural act.
“Sure is an improper term in my line of business, Admiral,” the man from Imperial Security replied in a carefully-neutral tone.
Everything about the man was carefully neutral, from his brownish hair, to average looks, to non-threatening stance.
Em suspected he had been a field agent once, before he got promoted to whatever rank a man like him held, to be the liaison with the Grand Admiral of the Fleet, Emperor Karl’s cousin and mailed right fist.
“Confidence?” Em replied. “Probability?”
The man actually shrugged, enough so that Em had to decide he wasn’t actually a robot in human guise, or some such thing.
“As close to a sure thing as one gets in this industry,” the spy said simply.
“Are we completely riddled with traitors and assassins, then?” Emmerich asked, aware of just how angry his voice sounded.
“My gut instinct is that a few bad apples have been allowed access to the very places that should have been secured from them,” was all the man would commit to.
“And your proposed solution?” Em asked. “How should I respond to a report that agents in Imperial Security itself are planning to have me assassinated?”
Besides having them all executed and starting with a blank piece of paper?
That was left unsaid, but the implications were obvious to both of them. The spy nodded.
“The Emperor has approved extraordinary methods in pursuing this investigation, Grand Admiral,” the spy said. “If I can’t promise you a safer personnel structure by the time you return, then quite possibly the entire edifice will need to be razed and rebuilt with new bricks.”
Extraordinary methods. Torture to make the ancients weep with envy. Psychological and chemical inducements that would break any man or woman in very short order. The remains barely human, assuming the poor wretch was exonerated and then chose to survive the affair.
Em had no doubt that his cousin had personally signed the papers to destroy the first half-dozen lives, men and women who probably thought of themselves as patriots, mixed in with various fools, anarchists, Chartists, and spies from Buran.
At least Aquitaine’s agents were keeping a much lower profile for the time being. And they had always been better behaved in any event.
This was a concerted effort to destabilize Fribourg at a time when the Empire was psychologically its weakest, needing unity so as to pivot and go after the ancient enemy.
Still, there was a way to handle this. Perhaps he had grown complacent, spending his days reorganizing the entire fleet to better handle the newest threat, shifting task forces and minds away from Aquitaine as Jessica Keller’s efforts bore fruit.
“Very good, Captain,” Em said neutrally. “Keep me posted.”
“Yes, sir.”
The man immediately departed, leaving Em alone in his office.
He keyed a comm line and leaned back in his chair.
“Hendrik, come to my office immediately,” he said when the other end answered, hanging up as soon as the man assented.
It took less than a minute.
Hendrik Baumgärtner, Imperial Flag Captain and Em’s right hand for more than twenty years. Every inch a recruiting poster with gray bristly hair and an erect carriage.
“Sir?” he asked, closing the door silently and coming to attention.
“Imperial Security was just here,” Em began.
“Yes, Admiral,” Hendrik replied. “I read the report. What’s your next move?”
“I was going to depart in a week to meet up with Jessica Keller and Lady Casey,” Em mused. “My courier ship would have been good enough to arrive early and wait. But whoever is behind this knows too much about too many things, and I need to throw them off-stride. Find me a shuttle to orbit right now, and a big-enough warship you can detach from whatever it is they thought they were doing. Override all their orders. I will use them as a personal transport there and back. You’ll speak with my authority until I return, or until the Emperor changes your orders. Questions?”
“Warship?” Hendrik asked, his eyes already on a distant horizon, calculating.
“Cruiser or better, Hendrik,” Em said. “These people have infiltrated everywhere, and were going to try to kill me here or in the palace. I don’t want them to decide to send something out to kill an unarmed fast courier in the middle of nowhere.”
“Firehawk’s just coming out of drydock,” Hendrik noted. “She was scheduled for a shakedown cruise and should be fully loaded and provisioned. Provst should be aboard her now.”
“Perfect,” Em said. “Let’s pretend I’m just going to lunch, and not tell anyone that I won’t be back for four weeks. You have the deck here, and I’ll call Freya from orbit.”
“Acknowledged, Admiral,” Hendrik said, already backing up and opening the door.
Em took a look around his desk and his office. Nothing that needed his attention today. He pulled a small satchel from a desk drawer and put half a dozen file folders in. And, just because it had been that kind of day, the personal sidearm he usually kept in the top drawer for sudden emergencies.
He rose, nodded to himself and the room, and left, looking for all the world like a man going to lunch.
The hatch opened onto a noisy shuttle bay. It was still clean, since a drydock session always included a good, hard steam-scrub to get things out of cracks that a polishing wheel couldn’t reach. In another month it would be as if nobody had ever tried to sanitize the place.
Em came down the steps to the sight of a Lieutenant Commander attempting quite unsuccessfully to conceal his utter shock and horror. To him, this probably seemed like the worst surprise inspection any officer had ever had in any nightmare.
Still, the man came to rigid attention and saluted as Em and his bodyguards emerged.
“Welcome aboard, Grand Admiral,” the man barely stuttered. “My apologies on behalf of myself, the captain, the admiral, and the crew. We were told only to expect a special courier.”
“And so I am, Lt. Commander,” Em returned the salute and sized the man up.
Recruiting poster blond, with broad shoulders and an athlete’s build and muscles. Looking like he really wanted to crawl back into a hole and die rather than suffer further embarrassment as the Grand Admiral of the Fleet walked through this messy bay, the crew in the process of unpacking supplies and moving them to long-term storage.
The young man did handle himself well.
“Rather than give them any warning, I would like to go surprise Provst and Kistler up on the bridge,” Em continued. “What say you? And what is your name?”
“Follow me, please, Grand Admiral,” the man said. “Lt. Commander Gunter Tifft, sir. Flight Deck Operations and Quartermaster section.”
“Well handled, Tifft,” Em said to put the man as much at ease as possible. “This will be a very special surprise for everyone.”
And hopefully, Freya wouldn’t kill him for missing the dinner party she had planned for the day after next.
“Grand Admiral on the deck,” Tifft bellowed as the hatch opened and he stepped in and to one side.
Em grinned as heads came around in confusion, replaced immediately by more shocked horror as he followed Tifft onto the bridge. A feral cat having a litter of kittens in the captain’s chair wouldn’t have gotten as much of a rise out of them.
Two seconds later, everyone not immediately flying the battleship was on their feet, awkwardly tucking in shirts and sucking in guts. Including Captain Kistler and Admiral of the White Tomas Provst.
Em made a note to pull surprise inspections like this more often. The humor it brought him was worth it alone, regardless of what it would do to keep his people sharp.
Provst recovered first. He had known Em the longest, having been the captain commanding Amsel during the Battle of Iger where Jessica Keller first came to Em’s attention.
He was a tall man, even a bit taller than Em, with a dark, swarthy complexion, eyes nearly black, and a close-trimmed beard starting to gray. He looked out over a beak of a nose, eyes narrowing.
“Are you the emergency mission, Admiral?” Provst asked.
“I am,” Em grinned. “I will need about an hour to handle some secure communications from your flag bridge, and then we will depart. I will provide coordinates at that point.”
“Acknowledged, Admiral,” Provst said, turning to the captain he had been speaking to when the day went sideways. “Kistler, make as much preparation as you can now, and we’ll finish it all up from JumpSpace.”
The captain nodded once, and Em followed Provst out of the hatchway and into the main corridor. Lt. Commander Tifft followed them at a discreet distance, preparing to return to his duties on the flight deck.
“Can you spare Tifft?” Em asked, all of a sudden. “I had to leave Hendrik behind and will need a spare pair of hands to do things.”
Em glanced over at the Lt. Commander just long enough to watch the blood drain out of the man’s otherwise impassive face. Provst looked at Tifft as well.
“Tifft, you’re on detached duty until otherwise ordered,” the Admiral of the White said. “I’ll square it with everyone.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said without his voice cracking. Much. “Thank you, Admirals.”
Em grinned. Good luck and good timing for the young man to be in the right place, and he had indeed handled himself exceptionally well so far, reacting to such a surprise. In a week, he might make his career. Or break it.
Best to find out now.
The flag bridge had only a skeleton crew. Provst hadn’t been planning to do more than run around the local system for a few days, making sure everything was working correctly before picking up his full team for a longer cruise.
Firehawk wasn’t scheduled to be on the line for another three months. And she was an older vessel, not one of the Paladin-class battleships under construction now. A sister of the Amsel they had both ridden to fame a decade ago.
Em took a station close to the door and powered it live. He hadn’t been behind a desk for so long that he didn’t know how to secure a comm line. Provst and Tifft made themselves busy and scarce as he worked.
Quickly, he had a secured line to the palace. Hendrik must have sent a message ahead, because Joh, His Imperial Majesty Karl VII, Emperor of Fribourg, was on the line in seconds. From the sweat pasting Joh’s shirt to his chest, Em assumed he was interrupting a weight-lifting session.
“You were never at that much risk, Em,” Joh began sarcastically. “There are light-years of difference between wanting to do a thing, and being able to do it.”
“Maybe,” Em hedged. “Who knows what they leaked to people who might be able to execute effectively. In any event. I’ll be at the rendezvous for an unknown period of time before Keller’s squadron shows up. Running’s nice, but I’d like to shoot back, this time.”
“You think Buran’s behind it?” the Emperor asked.
“Can you think of anybody else who would risk everything to try it?” Em fired back.
“Point taken,” Joh replied. “Give Casey my love and Keller my thanks. Tell them both I owe them a major celebration when they get back.”
“Will do, Joh,” Em said. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to call Freya and tell her the news?”
“Absolutely not,” Joh grinned. “If she decides to divorce you and hire competent assassins, I want to be on her good side.”
“Fine,” Em harrumphed. “I’ll be back in four or five weeks. At that point, I’ll know what to budget for next year, after we see what Yan Bedrov did with a blank piece of paper. Expect bureaucratic warfare.”
“Hendrik already warned me,” Joh said. “Oh, by the time you get back, I’ll have promoted him to Admiral of the White. If he’s going to be you, he needs to look the part.”
“Thank you, Joh,” Em said. “I was going ask for that as part of next year’s birthday honors.”
Joh winked and cut the line, leaving Em to draw a deep breath and begin entering a different comm code. Hendrik would most certainly have contacted the palace about the change of plans.
He would have never presumed to call Freya.
She answered quickly. Em just sat and stared at her for a few seconds, bathing in her beauty.
Those bright, green eyes narrowed as she gazed at the background over his shoulder.
“That doesn’t look like your office,” she observed in a knowing tone. “It looks remarkably like a flag bridge somewhere.”
Yes, he had never been able to fool this woman. And that was okay. He had never had to lie to or dissemble with her, either.
“Something has come up,” he said obliquely. Even a secured comm could be tapped with the proper tech. “I had to bump up my departure a week. But I’m taking Tomas Provst and Firehawk with me, instead of my courier.”
That got a perfectly-chiseled, blond eyebrow raised. His courier might be the fastest thing in space. But it was unarmed. Firehawk was a battleship, ready for the line.
Freya was aware of that.
“Will your return date change?” she asked.
“I don’t know at this point, love,” Em said. “Much of it depends on Keller.”
“Remind her that you’re supposed to be home more, now,” Freya said, grinning. “She gets the load and I get my husband back.”
“I will convey your opinion on the subject, Freya,” Em said.
She blew a kiss at the screen and cut the signal.
Em found himself grinning like a fool at a blank monitor. After a bit he flipped open his briefcase and located the paper he wanted.
Calling up a navigation function, Em typed it in by hand and waited for the nav computer to locate his target. He transmitted it to Tom Provst and to Tifft, turning to face them.
“This is where we are going,” Em announced.
Provst studied the screen for a second and looked up.
“Middle of bloody nowhere,” he replied.
“Yes,” Em agreed. “No inhabited systems anywhere close by. Not on any trade routes worth considering. Rather, the perfect spot to rendezvous with a battle squadron of Aquitaine vessels led by Jessica Keller, if we don’t want anybody watching.”
“And the reason you suddenly want a battleship handy?” Tom asked.
Em speared both men with a sharp look, and extended it to the other four men in the room.
“This does not leave this chamber,” Em said, waiting for everyone to nod silently. “A few bad apples in Imperial Security were planning to assassinate me, sometime in the next week or so. Before I could go meet Keller. And they knew my itinerary. I’d rather not be waiting there in an unarmed courier.”
“So you’re expecting trouble, Admiral?” Tom said, his face suddenly as angry as he had ever been, commanding Amsel in the old days.
“How quietly can you sneak up on them, if they are already there waiting?” Em challenged the man.
“Thief in the night, Grand Admiral,” was the reply.
“Good, because Keller’s next stop is Buran.”