Amala was happy that protocol demanded that the Buran admiral and her aide precede her into the next chamber. The woman was utterly seething. For good reason, since Amala had found a chink in her armor already and drawn first blood. Twice, even. All those lessons and meetings with Keller’s legal team had paid off. Plus, a lifetime serving under Alber’.
And she had no doubt that the day would get bloody before it was done. Hopefully, it would only be metaphorical. In the three months she had been here, she had come to like and respect the Khan. Yuur Ul reminded her of one of her favorite uncles.
But she had a mission, and it was a dangerous one.
Thankfully, First-Rate-Spacer Vibol Harmaajärvi had surpassed even his own impossible standards today. She could see that in the ways that so many faces studied her chest and her hips, rather than her face.
Amala Bhattacharya, the plain line marine with a nose too big, was suddenly an object of lust. It was a weird feeling. Especially when even the Khan looked at her that way.
But she needed every edge if she was to get out of this one alive. Push the navy folks, but do it on Buran’s terms. Diplomatic ones. Score points with the Khan and his Scholars by making the barbarian from the distant frontiers come off as more civilized than his own folks. Make Keller look good by extension.
Amala had no idea what Keller and her team had in mind for the tactical situation, but the Red Admiral had brought Alber’ d’Maine and Tomas Kigali to the dance.
That did not suggest High Tea by anybody’s concept of the term.
Amazingly, the same interior decorator appeared to have done this conference room, as did the primary briefing chamber aboard VI Victrix. Maybe they all ordered from the same catalog or something.
Boring, sand-colored carpet, where the hall they had just left had been stone tile floors. Probably better at hiding stains, although much harder to just wipe them up. Trade-offs.
Polished-surface, wooden conference table, vaguely oval, where Alber’ had the squared-off version back home, but it might have been the same wood finished with the same stain.
Water-color beachscapes. Amala could swear her oldest sister had the exact same print hung in the entry hallway in her flat, however many light-centuries away, culturally and physically.
Black chairs on roller wheels. With complicated, mechanical handles on the sides to make them do things, or make them stop.
Standing silver urn that would be filled with the local definition of coffee on a side table. A collection of fruit and a platter of those amazingly-scrumptious butterhorns she had discovered at a hole-in-the-wall bakery four blocks over from the Hall of Government.
Gan Ve must have whispered her secret in somebody’s ear. Hopefully, the owner would forgive her for bringing him to the attention of voracious bureaucrats.
The Khan took a seat at the obvious head of the table. The Director and her assistant were seated on the far side. Scholar Ve put Amala alone on the near side and moved to stand behind the Khan.
Two on one wasn’t exactly fair, but would have to do, unless she determined that she needed to bring Vibol with her to the next meeting and let his fussiness and obvious disdain for their plain clothing disrupt their train of thought.
He could probably do that. Might be worth pursuing if they turned into shits on this one.
Director Xi was practically vibrating with rage, across the table, but her assistant was paying sharper attention. Unlike the rest, he didn’t come out of the cookie-cutter mold. And he looked more like an Imperial, with brown hair instead of black, and rounder eyes.
She immediately assumed he was a spook and categorized him accordingly.
Amala turned to the Khan and put on her most innocent smile. She had practiced that one since she was eight and needed to blame something on one of her siblings. It had usually worked.
“Director, Ambassador, thank you for joining me today,” the Khan opened the meeting. “I will remind you both that this is a civilized culture and that you will be on your best behavior while you attend me.”
In other words, she had gotten a sly one in early, and nobody else was going to. Amala could live with that.
The woman across the table leaned forward. She didn’t put any weight on the surface, but Amala could tell she wanted to.
“Why are you here?” she hissed.
Amala smiled. Yuur Ul had been right. Repeat everything, possibly verbatim. She was sorry he and his staff would have to sit through it a second time.
“The Emperor of Fribourg, Karl VII, has decreed that all of Buran is now a legitimate military target,” she replied, letting her voice wander off into that sing-song rote of a ten-year-old repeating a school lesson. Anything to further irritate this woman. “Red Admiral Keller is planning demonstrations across the entire sector, and possibly across the gulf into the area you refer to as Altai. And beyond. We are not, however, barbarians, so it became incumbent upon the admiral to provide ample warning to any civilians who may become caught up in the chaos of war, that they may prepare accordingly.”
Amala hadn’t been with Alber’ during Keller’s Raid, but the old-timers had made a point of breaking in the newbies with tales of psychological warfare and legendary practical jokes thought up by Moirrey Kermode.
This was just the latest iteration. Maybe the meanest one.
“Where is she now?” Xi demanded.
Amala grinned and cocked her head, like she had just heard the stupidest thing she would encounter all week. Might be, at that.
“I spent the last month in transit here buried in language lessons and intelligence summaries,” Amala said. “And I have been here for three months after she left. She may have attacked Ninagirsu by now, for all I know.”
Okay, technically a low blow. Probably would get her wrist smacked by the Khan later, after the diplomacy was done. The way everyone’s eyes got a little bigger was a dead giveaway that they might have forgotten there was a war going on.
Samara was always the Imperial target of choice, because the Imperials were too linear. Break open the frontier and then roll up the lines both ways. Two-dimensional thinking, when JumpSpace let you come out anywhere you had food and fuel to reach.
It was weird, being a Scholar instead of a combat goon. Playing chess with someone across the table instead of Greco-Roman wrestling on a mat. This just might become a fun second career. Probably safer than carrying a pulse pistol every day, too.
“Why are you here, then, Bhattacharya?” the guy she flagged as a spy decided to step into the conversation, before his boss lost her shit.
Which was imminent.
“Red Admiral Keller would know the people of Buran better,” Amala lied with a facile tongue about her sister sneaking into the cookie jar. “Trusski was remote enough from all the other colonies on this side of M’Hanii that she could deliver an Ambassador, along with a message box.”
“A message box?” asked the spy
The Khan leaned forward and broke the line of conversation, apparently with his telepathic powers he hadn’t mentioned before. All heads rotated towards him in absolute synch.
“The Red Admiral delivered a personal message,” he said. “Scholar Bhattacharya could be considered the Empire’s Fetial.”
He turned just enough to the right to get his assistant’s attention.
“Scholar Ve, you will cause the guard to retrieve the declaration of war and present it.”
Apparently, there was no love lost between the locals and the folks on that side of the table. She could see the angriness floating around, like thought bubbles in a kids’ cartoon. And they were scarlet right now.
Everyone kind of sat back and relaxed while they waited for things to move.
A few minutes later, the door opened and Ve entered first, followed by a man carrying Kermode’s javelin like a flag-pole, tip up and with the two feathers Moirrey had attached to the crossbar, just behind the head.
And apparently, a nurse had drawn Keller’s blood in a lab ahead of time, just so she could smear it on the blade. The locals had left it there, along with the dirt that had stuck when it fell the last hundred meters and stuck point-down in the soil. Probably afraid of all the bad ju-ju it carried.
Alber’ might be a hard-case, but Keller was in her own league.
The man set it down with a thump next to the Khan, who reached out a hand to hold it himself. He focused his intent on Amala.
“Technically, a case could be made that Keller also bombarded a civilian world,” he observed dryly. “Since the automated vehicle that dropped this in my garden continued its glide beyond the city and eventually crashed in a farmer’s field. No sheep were injured. Frightened, but not injured.”
Amala suppressed a grin. She could see one in his eyes, but the navy people had lost all sense of humor.
She turned back to them.
“A declaration of war,” Amala said with deadly conviction. “Taken according to well-established historic and legal principles and codes that Keller follows. Grand Admiral Wachturm has placed her in command of forces on this border.”
Director Xi turned to the Khan with an ugly snarl on her face.
“And you will continue to grant Ambassadorial Privilege to this person?” she rasped, right at the edge now.
“I am the Khan of this system,” he rebuked her with a soft snap to his voice. “Your job is to provide security. Since Bhattacharya and her entire embassy number less than ten, I do not feel personally threatened by her. And Keller did not threaten Trusski, only your fleet. Scholar Bhattacharya will remain.”
Amala figured that things were about to get wound up at this point. Hours and hours of pointed questions she either ignored or lied answers to. Keller had specifically left her in the dark on anything operational. As she should have.
Xi surprised everyone by sliding the chair back, standing, and bowing shallowly to her across the table, and then deeply to the Khan.
“You are correct, my Khan,” she said formally. “I forget myself. My place is in orbit, defending The Holding. I will leave the scholarly tasks in your capable hands.”
And then she and her spy were gone in a whirlwind of activity, stomping out with half the attendants and Scholar Ve with them.
“Was that wise?” Amala asked. “My other job was to obfuscate and mislead your naval forces, but you were not required to assist.”
“Scholar Bhattacharya,” he said with a weary smile. “Amala. Trusski would barely notice a naval blockade on trade. If Keller truly refuses to bombard us from orbit then we might not even notice the war, as we have not in all the generations since the first colonists landed. The Eldest has a plan for all humanity that will bring universal peace and stability, once enough barbarian realms are civilized. But that plan will take many more centuries to effect. Millennia. There is no call for personal rudeness, nor to hand you over for torture, for secrets you probably don’t possess.”
Okay, this man was playing a much deeper game than she realized.
She had been paying attention to the strong, kindly man who was Khan. The one that reminded her of a favorite uncle. She had forgotten what he must have been and done to get there.
He rose and released a deep sigh.
“There is time before lunch,” he said, out of the blue. “Would you care to join me in feeding and entertaining the ducks?”
Ducks?
Amala rose, aware that during that speech, he had used her given name to address her for the first time since she arrived. She had moved into a different circle of relationship with the man.
“It would be an honor to assist you, my Khan,” she smiled.
Amala wondered what his attitude would be when Keller and the fleet returned.