It were a thing of utter beauty t’behold.
And totally precise, which were the hardest part. Moirrey knowed ’zactly how much work it’d been t’lathe a bar of titanium inta the right ever’thin’, by hand, no less, an’ then open up spaces’n’gaps with a laser console so’s bone’n’stuff’d grow into the holes. Would still take years to be total solid, but Cap’n Wald had himself a pirate leg like no other ’n’the universe.
With flames etched right inta the shaft, ’natch.
Not that anyone’d see them, most days. The good captain were always dressed fer navy-ing, even when he were off-duty. Not that th’man were ever off-duty.
Kinda like her sister.
It were a good match.
Probably.
Moirrey watched Captain Wald in his gray shorts and shirt be put through his paces by the new doc, Mahmud Astrauskas, Doc Samara finally havin’ retired to a life of country club widows, which were apparently way easier ta deals with th’n burns, fractures, and exposure cases. An’ all the strange bugses pilots picked up on shore leave.
New doc were tall’n’skinny. Forged o’barbed wire and attitude problem, which were prolly what Auberon’s hard-headed crew needed, most days.
And ain’t none of them were willin’ to keep up with the Doc when he got onto the track fer one of his ultra-marathons.
How many laps about deck seventeen? Nothankyouverymuch.
Nope, today were easy. Cap’n Wald on an inclining treadmill, dragging his metal leg along with his meat one ’til he cried uncle.
Moirrey coulda tol’ Doc Astrauskas that the machine were gonna surrender afore Wald, but he dinna wanna listen.
Still, ya hadta measure this. She’d already hadta adjust the ankle and knee mechanisms twice, but no more than a combined one and a half millimeters, which weren’t bad, as tall as the Cap’n were. Today dinna look like anythin’ were needed.
Er rather, all the mechanicalin’ stuff were within tolerance.
Emotional stuff still hadda be sorted out.
“Is there any pain, Captain?” Doc Astrauskas asked finally.
Wald had been gruntin’ and sweatin’ sometin fierce, but no more’n’anyone other than maybe Vo, ya puts the damned thing at a twenty-five degree upwards slants and turn it to a fast walk.
Vo’s legs were too long, anyway. Damned hill giants.
“Negative, Doctor,” Wald replied through grittin’ teeth. “Or rather, none more than would be expected at this speed and incline.”
“Good enough,” the doc replied, pressing a button that caused the infernal machine to beep like a bomb ’bouts to boom. “I already had you two notches beyond what would be a normal test for this sort of surgery. You should be able to walk and run normally from here out. I would caution against any sorts of motions that would cause you to twist on that leg, such as dancing and most martial arts, at least for another six to twelve months. At that point, the implant should have fused to the point that it will hold better than the rest of your leg.”
Moirrey watched the machine-front of the gadget slowly descend ta levels. And slow down so’s the Cap’n dinna whomp himself silly against nothin’.
“Centurion zu Kermode?” the doc turned to her, black eyes all squinty with devilishness, like he knew she were up to no good and gauging the collateral damage.
“Is good,” she chirped. “Have technical questions fer the Cap’n, but nothin’ medical. All kinesthetics at this point.”
“Then he’s your patient,” the doc said, picking up a board an’ addin’ notes with a stylus as he headed fer the hatch.
Nobody else were in the small gym. Jes’th’two o’them.
Wald grabbed a handy towel and stuck his face’n’head in it to dry off, emergin’ a sec later like a killer whale broaching.
He t’weren’t fooled, neither.
As he shouldna be.
Man wants a play in this league gots to unnerstan’ that occasionally, peeples hafta play a mite rough. And he were a big boy, or he’d’a no made it this far.
He did surprise her by steppin’ off’n the treadmill and aroun’ to one side, leaning over an’ puttin’ his weight on the guide rails like he were tired, er somethin’. Dinna put his head at her level, but closer. Certainlies not parade rest stuffff.
Yup, green eyes full of piss’n’vinegar.
He smiled at her from across the small space and the treadmill like an orca smiles at tuna.
She smiled back. Friendly, even.
This weren’t no threatenin’ meeting. That’s t’come later.
Well, okay, maybe a little.
The silence stretched.
Patient man. Good.
Game of patience. Of knowin’ your place isn’t in the center’o’thin’s.
Of gettin’ over bein’ an Imperial Gentleman.
This is Aquitaine, bubbles. We does it diff’r’nt here.
He had lively eyebrows.
Communicative, even, dancing and wriggling ta indicate humor, and questions, and self-confidence like gravity.
Yeah, you might do.
He smiled.
“I wondered when you would come for me,” he began suddenly.
Like they’d been talkin’ fer minutes already, which they kinda had.
“Oh?” she kinda managed to volley back at him, lobbin’ the ball barely across the net and kinda softly right inta the middle of the court fer a nasty bit o’spike.
“All of the Fleet Centurion’s people are protective of her,” he continued. “You, she treats almost like a sister. I’m a stranger thrust suddenly into your midst, even more so than being assigned to Lady Casey, at least for another few days.”
“And what do we expect happens in a week, Captain?” Moirrey couldna help herself. Stress brought precision to her language.
“We’ll rendezvous with the Grand Admiral,” Wald said simply. “He’ll have a chance to update my orders for the first time in nearly a year.”
“What were those orders, Wald?” Moirrey probed, impersonatin’ her favorite detective character from the latest season of Anameleck: Beyond the Dragon Gates.
“I was assigned to support Lady Casey as a staff economist, zu Kermode,” he said in a flat, almost-emotionless tone. “Anything else was on my personal time.”
Yup, orca. The bitey kind. ’Course, tuna swim fast.
Moirrey took a moment to look down and study the titanium rod emerging from the healed stump of his left leg, watched it glide down into a complex knee assembly with some range of rotation. The shin with all sorts of twistability. The ankle that could do anythin’ a human’s could, and wouldna rupture near so easy. Even the toes, flexible but grippy on carpet, as needed.
“You chose the simple solution, rather than the one that would get you closest to the man you used to be,” Moirrey observed, looking back up at those dangerous eyes.
It were obvious what Jess saw in the man, looking at that face right now. Hard, but not cruel.
Tough sum’bitch.
“I chose to retain the most options, Lady Moirrey,” he countered, tones growing red now, slowly, but deliberately. “I can always go home after this, if it turns out I have made a mistake here. I am not bereft or forlorn. Nor dependent. I can risk stepping off a cliff, because the Emperor will always welcome me back to service.”
“And do you wish to return to Imperial service, Captain Wald?” zu Kermode was feeling her oats, too, ya know.
“This is Imperial service, zu Kermode,” he snapped. “My personal time is just that. Personal.”
Moirrey nodded and took a breath. Too easy to gets inta a shoutin’ match right now.
Bad. And wrong. And he were right. Were personal.
Was why they was here.
“Yes,” she finally agreed, letting some of the steam blow off. “Personal. And yes, she is my sister. So I gets to say something’ none of the boys’d have the guts to do. She’s kin. Clan. If you break her heart, I’ll have yours on a plate, bucko.”
“Lady Moirrey, if I do that, you have my permission,” he countered.
That bounced her back. Hard. Staggered a mental step.
He were serious business. Dangerous. Marrying kind. Like when Digger’d finally gotten down on one knee all formal-like and threatened to make an honest woman of her.
Honest-enough, anyway.
“You’re ready for a mission that might never take you home, Captain Wald?” she finally managed to sputter.
“I volunteered to be here, Lady Moirrey,” he said. “The Grand Admiral inquired. He did not order it.”
Oh.
OH.
Wow.
Yup. Serious business.
Like, maybe another brother-in-law-soon kind of serious.
“And if something goes wrong and the war a’tween Fribourg and Aquitaine starts up again?” she reached out to the worstest-case-scenario she could see.
“Right this second?” he asked to her nod. “Resign my commission and look for a job teaching economics someplace like Anameleck Prime. Join the civilian merchant fleet. Paint. Something. But it would be on this side of that border until she tells me to leave. She has that prerogative, Lady Moirrey. Nobody else, including the two Emperors. Is that clear enough for you?”
“Her da’s still alive, you know,” Moirrey grinned. “Yer gonna hafta ask him, at some point.”
Wald grinned back at her.
“Yan Bedrov already warned me that Slava and Miguel would be pushovers, compared to Alber’, Denis, Robbie, and you.”
“You go right on believin’ that, Cap’n.”
“Besides,” the grin gentled into a smile, perhaps even melancholied a bits. “I haven’t even kissed her yet. All I know is that she hasn’t sent me packing.”
Really? No? Not once?
Huh.
’Course, fer as Moirrey knowed, Jess had only kissed one other man in the last decade, and he were dead nows. And that wouldsa been serious business as well.
Prolly need to make sure the cap’n don’ gets hisself killed out here.
“You ready for an adventure, Torsten Wald?” Moirrey asked, finding her seriousness bubbling up ’gain.
In Fribourg culture, you only ever used first names with close folks. Good friends. Kith and kin.
Imperial economists with dangerous dreams.
“Can you top this?” he volleyed back at her, gesturing at the room around them.
She could, but that were just bad men with guns.
Torsten Wald might be serious.