Commodore (6 page)

My eyebrows rose. Neville was the Imperial Prince we'd taken prisoner aboard
Richard
. He was still rotting away on Geneva Station, though we knew from confidential sources that the New Genevans had offered his release as a form of apology for my "tragic" escape. Apparently, his Imperial father had decided, he was doing the family cause more good right where he was at. While we hadn't had enough time to locate and snatch all his personal papers during the capture, we'd gotten enough to be fairly certain that dear little Neville, who'd once been such an attractive and winning child, had grown up into an incompetent autocrat of epic proportions. At the time I'd surmised that the Imperial Navy had put him in command of a nearly-wrecked heavy cruiser crawling back home for repairs because that was the best way to get rid of him for the longest time possible without him losing face, and it turned out I'd hit the nail directly on the head. His diary was a long series of whines and complaints about the absence of luxuries, high society and leave-time in naval life, punctuated by sullen jabs against those superior officers who dared order him to keep better formation and the like. This was one of the key shortcomings of any hereditary leadership system—while some noble families such as that of Marcus seemed to produce an endless series of capable, effective men, they were the exception rather than the rule. Dukes and Lords gave birth to hopeless incompetents too, it seemed. Based on what we knew Neville wasn't capable of running a hamburger stand, much less a warship or (in the event of the death of his two elder brothers) an Empire. While his Imperial Majesty hadn't been able to bring himself to allow his beloved son to die when he frankly should've, well… That didn't mean he had faith in him as a potential heir, either. "Sir Jason is number four in line for the Imperial throne, then?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," Nestor confirmed. "And given recent events on our side of things, well… You can bet His Imperial Majesty has given considerable though to the matter of his own bench-depth. He's probably all in favor of more of it."

I nodded back. "So," I mused, leaning back in my chair. "This could be Jason's big chance to shine, eh?"

"To prove he's every bit as good as his cousins," Nestor agreed. "Who he just about has to be intensely jealous of. Seeing as how he was given such short shrift as a child, I mean."

I shook my head and sighed. Somehow that didn't seem entirely right. Yes, Jason had every right to be angry. But I'd met him when he was still young, and he hadn't struck me that way at all. Perhaps he was too intelligent to allow his emotions to rule him, was all? If that was the case, then he was even more formidable a foe than I'd given him credit for. "Perhaps," I replied. "But… It doesn't seem to fit what I remember."

Nestor shrugged. "I'm sorry, sir. It's the best that I can do with what I have."

"Of course," I replied with a smile. "Don't worry—you've done a truly excellent job. Now… How about Ambassador Kiril?"

My aide's eyes narrowed and his ears folded back flat. "He's a beast, sir. Pure and simple."

"How so?" I asked, somehow unsurprised. If one was going to send an inexperienced young officer off on an important independent mission, then from the Imperial point of view it'd be best to match him with a proven civil-service performer. And by Imperial standards, pretty much all "proven performers" would appear to us to be beasts.

"Lord Kiril is His Imperial Majesty's second cousin, sir. And, incidentally, third-cousin to the sitting Head of the House of Wilkes. He's actually in line for the job himself, though in the eleventh slot. Were he not disqualified by being an Imperial, I mean."

I blinked. "What an amazing coincidence, that he'd be the one sent out to negotiate for a prisoner exchange with the same House he's so closely linked to by blood!"

Nestor grinned. "Yes, sir! In any event, such negotiations are far below Kiril's paygrade. He's always served as an Imperial Governor before this, dating all the way back to when he was a young man." The little bunny looked down at the ground. "His specialty was pacifying newly-captured worlds, sir. Before the Emperor turned them over to their new Houses. He was most recently in charge of the occupation of Marcus Prime."

Suddenly my ears were down and my eyes narrow as well. "Really?"

Nestor nodded. "Yes, sir. It's the only world he's ever been in charge of that we've eventually gotten back. But he was the one who issued the worst of the occupational decrees, sir."

Up until this moment, I'd been having an all too rare pleasant evening despite the importance of the matters under discussion. But now… "All the hostages that were executed, all the pillaging, all the Rabbits shipped away as slaves…"
Freida
, I didn't add aloud.

"All under his orders, sir," Nestor agreed. "He'd have been declared a war criminal, but we last made peace on negotiated terms as you may recall. Terms that included both sides renouncing all claims of criminality against each other."

I nodded. Because the Empire had protested the legality of some of my own actions at Zombie Station I was more than passingly familiar with this provision of the treaty. Supposedly His Majesty had only agreed for pragmatic reasons—he was well aware that it was unlikely he'd ever be able to get his hands on Kiril and his ilk regardless.  "But he's still a beast."

"Absolutely, sir." Nestor licked his nose. "Personally, I suspect that his record as a governor is yet another implied threat to the Wilkes people. Sort of a good cop-bad cop thing."

I nodded. It made sense enough. "So, the Imperials may actually be scarier than I am."

Nestor shrugged. "You have a squadron right here, right now. But that's today, sir. What about tomorrow? Can we hold Wilkes space, in the long run?"

"In the long run, absolutely," I replied. "Once our new offensive-style war-plan kicks in, that is. When we begin deep-raiding Imperial space on a massive scale and set the times and places for the battles by attacking
them
, for a change, we won't even be
worried
about 'holding' anymore. We'll be actively expanding. In the short run, however… It depends on how badly the Empire wants the systems, I suppose."

"Yes, sir," Nestor agreed. "Though I don't pretend to be an expert I believe you—an offensive plan makes such perfect sense that I'm shocked no one's ever implemented one before. But…" He shook his head. "For many decades now, we've been slowly losing. You can't blame a front-line House like that of Wilkes for noticing that sort of little detail, sir. Not at all!"

10

From the very beginning our little dinner date with the Imperials was planned as an all-military affair; not only was this traditional in such matters but it freed up Sir Nicholas, our Royal Governor-without-portfolio, to go dirtside and begin undertaking our business with the House of Wilkes. We'd decided to keep his Governor's appointment up our sleeve for the moment; it'd only just been publicly revealed for the first time at Hashimoto Prime, and since my task force was almost certainly the fastest thing moving between here and there, well… It could remain our little secret for several weeks to come. Nicholas had been issued duplicate credentials as a special envoy with just this situation in mind, so it was "Ambassador" Vorsage who dined that night with Lord Randolph, the sitting Lord of the House of Wilkes.

I must say that it felt distinctly strange to find myself serenely floating across space towards an unresisting Imperial cruiser in
Javelin
's largest and best-appointed boat. Apparently, so did Heinrich. "I've never been so close to an Imperial ship, sir."

"Me either," I agreed. "Or at least not without them shooting at me."

"We ought to ignore the white flag and blow them out of the sky," Captain Harlowe muttered. "Not break bread with them." I scowled and met Jean's eye; he merely shrugged slightly. I didn't like bringing my entire upper command echelon into enemy territory with me, but circumstances had rendered it unavoidable. Heinrich had to come because he too was a past acquaintance of Sir Jason, and Jean's social rank dictated that he be included as well. Captain Harlowe could—and ordinarily should—have been left behind as my second-in-command, ready to carry on the mission in the event of treachery. But the fact was that I had so little trust in the man that I'd sooner have him captured with the rest of us and let things devolve to Commander Mane of the destroyer
Cataract
than leave him in charge. At least Mane would have the sense to realize that he was out of his league and obey his orders to fall back and preserve the force intact for another day. Or so I fervently hoped!

Since this was a military dinner, rank-precedence trumped social-precedence and therefore I was the first to step out of
Will of the People
's lock and onto her main receiving deck. "Tench…. Hut!" an Imperial sergeant of marines rasped out, and with a sound like thunder fifty or so pairs of booted heels crashed together as one. It was impressive even though I was expecting it—while shipboard marines were always capable fighters, it was in the nature of things that drill and parade-style discipline suffered aboard ship. This was no one's fault—scandalized sergeants had been decrying the tendency for millennia. The root problem was that there wasn't sufficient space aboard a typical man-of-war for enough in the way of square-bashing to keep everyone sharp. These men, however… I raised my Sword in salute by way of returning the courtesy. "Two!" the sergeant barked, and again there was thunder as half a hundred blaster-butts struck the deck a single blow.
Javelin
was the darling of the Royal Fleet; in some regards she could even be considered its flagship. And yet, I had to admit to myself, my own command couldn't hope to match such a display of rigid discipline.

"Greetings, Captain Birkenhead!" Sir Jason declared, his dozens of medals jangling as he stepped forward to grip my hand. I had to smile at that; by tradition the bearer of a Sword of Orion wore no lesser decorations, so my chest was completely bare save for the fire-lily emblem of the House of Marcus. In my opinion this was by far the more impressive look, and the fact made me feel at least a little better about the marines. Then one by one the others stepped through and were greeted, until last of all Nestor emerged blinking out into the bright lights, nose wriggling and carrying what for him was a rather large insulated box. No one paid him any attention, however, as he was wearing formal Marcus footbunny livery and had dyed himself coal-black for the occasion. He was also wearing black contact lenses, which were a special rush-job from sick-bay, and had teased his ear-fur for hours to make the appendages appear much fuller and longer than they actually were. The result was that even I wouldn't have recognized him save for the dead giveaway of his personal scent. "Ah!" Sir Jason said when he finally noticed my aide cowering behind Jean's legs. "This must be your personal chef?"

I nodded and smiled. "His name is Patrick. It's very kind of you to be so hospitable as to allow him to share your galley, sir," I said with a little bow. Then I clasped my stomach, frowned, and shook my head. "But ever since Zombie Station…"

He smiled and nodded, then grinned down at little Nestor. "Regardless of what form they might take, war wounds are always badges of honor in the Empire. I'm sure our own Rabbits will be glad to offer Patrick any assistance he may require." 

It was unusually nice, I decided about two hours later, to sit and openly eat so much Rabbit-style cuisine at a table full of humans. Back in my early days as a youth with the House of Marcus and then at the Academy, I'd been required to force down as much "normal" food as possible so as to fit in better, and in retrospect it was amazing how little fuss I'd made about it. No one had been so cruel as to try and ram a pork chop down my throat; it was understood that there were natural limits. But if everyone else was eating heavily-buttered peas or cheesy corn soufflé, well… in those days I'd been expected to make whatever effort it took to down my full portion no matter how awful it was for me. If I suffered endless stomach-cramps later, well… Antacids and laxatives were always available. I'd been trying my best to fit in at human-dominated dinner tables ever since, I suddenly realized as I chomped my delicious hay and downed a second helping of gently-steamed turnip greens. Even at my weekly captain's dinners, where I was the master of all I surveyed, I forced myself to eat all sorts of things I didn't like in order to cater to human social whims. Why was I still doing that, I asked myself as for once I downed nothing but delicious, healthy food in the company of humans? I looked furtively around the table; everyone else was totally absorbed in their lobsters, which apparently grew extra-large and tender in the clean seas of Imperious. They didn't seem to care that I wasn't downing what still looked to me like giant red spiders along with them. In fact, so far as I could tell it didn't matter to them in the least what I ate, though I supposed that once upon a time when I'd had more to prove it probably had. So who was I kidding, anyway? Why was I so ashamed to eat what Rabbits ate? Why had I never brought my own food along to one of these events before? Maybe next time I should abandon all pretext and openly do so again?

At any rate, so far as I could tell everything was going swimmingly. Nestor was acting as my personal footbunny on the pretext that only he knew how to properly serve Rabbit-dishes at a formal dinner, and my aide was mixing in beautifully with the rest of
Will of the People
's stewards and ship's boys. I allowed myself a slight smile at this—I'd spent enough time backstairs myself to be certain that my friend was going to come back home chock-full of juicy local bunny-gossip. Meanwhile, I was studying my dining companions and coming to my own conclusions. It was eminently clear that Captain Harlowe wasn't the only one who felt our little dinner was a terrible idea. Every last one of Sir Jason's officers seemed to agree with him, judging by their pinched expressions and clipped, monosyllabic conversation. There couldn't have been a sharper contrast between them and Jean, who was clearly relishing every moment of the unusual experience. Heinrich too was enjoying himself, though you had to know him well to realize it because he'd become such an introvert. He was consuming plate after plate of food, and I suddenly realized that for him this was a rare opportunity to enjoy the cuisine of his childhood. He'd been raised in upper-class Imperial circles to the age of eleven, so in some ways this was old-home week for him. It was affecting him more than he probably realized—on those rare occasions when he did speak, his vowels were every bit as broad as those of the Imperials sitting to his left and right. Indeed, from time to time our hosts exchanged odd glances after he spoke, though none were so gauche as to ask questions openly.