Jessica considered the view through the wall-to-ceiling port. Darkness as far as the eye could see, punctured in only a few places where the clouds of cold gas grew thin enough for the passage of starlight.
If there were lines in galactic warfare, she and her team were deep behind them, nearly a tenth of the way across that dark gulf separating Trusski from Ninagirsu. Hopefully, nobody would think to look here for an Imperial operating base. Even a mobile one like this.
She considered her companion, standing close enough that she could feel his warmth in the dim light, but not touching her. Always the perfect gentleman, even in those times when she might have preferred him to be less of one.
“You are an impossibly stubborn man, Torsten Wald,” she offered in a quiet voice.
They had the observation deck to themselves, apparently by arrangements he had made with Arott’s crew, and following a quiet meal in a suspiciously-deserted wardroom.
“You are not the first person to make that observation, madam,” he replied with a grin. “Anybody else would most likely have surrendered by now.”
“And yet I get the feeling you would wait forever,” she replied, turning to face him now, the breadth of the darkness forgotten behind her.
“Maybe not forever, Jessica,” he said, voice dropping down to a low murmur.
They were alone on the deck, yes, but both Marcelle and Willow were never far away. It was one of the costs of being Jessica Keller, that she could never just escape from everything for more than a few hours. At some point, some decisions would need to be made, if not by her immediately, then at least approved by her before they could be put into practice.
“How long?” she asked. “There are likely many years on this frontier before I plan to retire.”
“Who said anything about retiring, Fleet Centurion?” he replied. “I continue to serve, even as I have little to do out here besides be on your staff and provide a liaison back to Admiral Wachturm. A position which colors everything you do with an official imprimatur.”
“Have you ever considered going back into line command?” Jessica hesitated to ask, but this felt like an evening when some levels of barriers were coming down, at least around her.
Six years was long enough to mourn, wasn’t it?
“I have,” he said. “But my skills these days are much better suited to number-crunching. It’s what got me onto the Imperial Staff. Karl is very much driven by a solid understanding of economics. And it got me an invitation to a very elite party on St. Legier.”
“So you went for the express purpose of meeting me?” Jessica asked, focusing on his face.
“I wanted to see the person behind the numbers,” Torsten told her in a simple admission. “I saw what you did with The Long Raid. Watched the psychological trauma impact and blight an entire Imperial sector, despite everything the Grand Admiral did to try to stop you.”
“Not many people would have been brave enough to actually walk up and talk to me that night,” Jessica teased. “I know, because I was playing my own little game with them, watching them maneuver around my party, trying not to be infected with whatever it was that I carried. And then you stepped across that chasm.”
“You have no idea how intimidating you are in person, Jessica,” Torsten said. “Especially not when what one knows about you are only the stories of the barbarian queen who has suddenly struck deep into the heart of the Empire.”
“Thuringwell was never that important,” Jessica retorted.
“No, it wasn’t,” he said. “And yet look at what happened. The panic you induced was so great that Karl prevailed over the hotheads to offer the first true peace treaty in a generation that wasn’t just a period of armed calm before the next sneak attack somewhere.”
“You were winning the war,” Jessica said. “I won’t say a desperate measure was necessary, but a grand one certainly was.”
“We would have won in another twenty-five to forty years, Fleet Centurion,” Torsten said. “I’m an econometricist. I’ve done the studies. In another ten to fifteen, Aquitaine would have lost so much ground on so many fronts that it might have imploded of its own weight. But then you came along. 2218 Svati Prime.”
“What did you see?” Jessica leaned forward. They were not touching, quite, but he was breathing on her now, and she him.
“The Empire convulsed,” Torsten said, his green eyes losing focus as his head tilted back and he looked inward.
She liked the smell of the aftershave he was wearing tonight. And she could taste the fresh apple pie from dessert on his breath.
“Confidence in the fleet faltered,” Torsten continued. “Even the reputation of the Red Admiral wavered. Gross Imperial Product dropped four-tenths of a percent in the year after your attack, controlling for all other factors. And I did that in my research.”
He paused to look down, focusing on her again.
“And then the Battles of Petron and Ballard,” he continued. “The shocks: political, psychological, and economic, were all devastating. Fleet Command had to rotate a number of squadrons in from outer frontiers suddenly, the better to protect worlds that had previously been considered safe. Nobody knew where you would strike next.”
“Thuringwell,” she whispered with carefully-suppressed glee.
Torsten was an econometricist. There were not many people in the galaxy that would have been able to understand her logic, the devastation, the impact of losing an Imperial world to Aquitaine, especially one that hadn’t previously been a Republic world.
“Thuringwell,” he agreed. “I had to meet you in the flesh. See what it was that all the commanders, all the spies had missed. So I finagled my way into that reception by trading favors with someone I knew in the palace, screwed up my courage, and walked up to meet you.”
“And did you find it?” Jessica asked. “That thing you sought?”
“No,” he said. “Nobody would have. You run too deep for anyone to see what goes on inside that head.”
“Oh?”
“But I watched you move when Dittmar rolled his dice,” Torsten said, remaining perfectly still as he realized how close she had gotten. Any other time, he might have withdrawn, even just a centimeter, when her hand came to rest on his forearm, as it suddenly had. “You had no immediate plan of action, but it took you all of about five minutes to spin up an entire campaign and put it into action.”
“Who did you talk to?” Jessica asked, surprised at his acute understanding. He was exactly correct.
“Everyone alive afterwards,” he admitted. “The Grand Admiral needed someone to put together a report, someone that he trusted not to be in Dittmar’s faction, or one of the other ones, as they started cleaning house. I had already impressed him enough to write reports for the Emperor, so he tapped me.”
“Everyone?” Jessica probed sharply.
“Including Desianna, Marcelle, Willow Dolen, Arlo, Lady Moirrey, and Lady Casey,” he admitted. “I might have gone a shade beyond my original writ, but I was also more than a little smitten by that point.”
“Nobody told me any of this,” Jessica said, tensing across her shoulder blades.
“Everybody probably still thought I was harmless at that point.”
“At that point?”
“More recently, I have been personally threatened by Denis Jež, Robbie Aeliaes, Tomas Kigali, Nils Kasum, Marcelle, and Lady Moirrey. Specifically, not to break your heart. Or they would come for me.”
“I’m surprised the list is that short,” Jessica teased, relaxing again.
This man relaxed her. She hadn’t had that around anyone since…
Since Warlock.
“Neither Arlo nor d’Maine are the type to give any warning before they strike,” Torsten noted.
“Point taken,” Jessica replied. “Although Marcelle is probably still more hazardous.”
“Oh, no,” Torsten grinned. “Lady Moirrey and Lady Casey are the ones to fear.”
Jessica found herself close enough to kiss him. She hadn’t, to date; always unconsciously wondering when he would leave her.
Widow her once more.
The look in his eyes right now promised never.
She leaned into his chest, looked up, and kissed him. It was not passionate. Neither of them did that level of emotion, at least in public.
It was promise.
A promise of never, however unspoken.
She broke it, just enough to turn both of them to face the stars again.
Leaned her weight into him. Felt one arm slip around her back to rest on her hip. Not possessive, just contact.
Promise.