Chapter 11
“Every blade culture was at one time an honor culture…”
Legacy Mandate by Emperor Yung I
Inga and Saef entered the sumptuous suite of the White Swan Hotel, the badly dented dumb-mech trotting along behind. Inga’s hair was now nearly black, her eyebrows matching, and the suite leased under the name Natasha Keene. Apparently Inga’s UI somehow supplied the correct identification and payment info to match the Natasha identity, for neither the hotel Intelligence nor the manager did anything the least inhospitable.
As soon as the suite door closed, Saef made a thorough walk-through of both adjoining rooms, then stopped beside Inga, who scrolled through a quaintly old-fashioned room service holo-menu.
“Okay, Cousin,” Saef said. “We’ve changed skimcars a half-dozen times, sat in the damned funicular for hours, gone all over the city. Now I want some words.”
Inga continued scrolling through the menu but glanced at Saef with a sly smile, her altered eyes and hair jarring Saef all over again. “I daresay you do, Commander. But, here’s my thought: first, we order room service. They have real, non-fab food! Then shower, then I’ll give you all manner of words.… How’s that?”
“I’m guessing that’s about as good as I’ll get, Maru.”
“And in the meantime,” Inga went on, blithely ignoring Saef’s surliness, “perhaps you can contact your QE friends and let them know about the ambush. Perhaps they’ll have some line on the shooters.”
“I’ve thought about that, but I’m not keen on anyone knowing where we are,” Saef said.
“If they ask, just say we’re on the move, or something of that elusive nature.”
“It seems,” Saef said, eyeing Inga with a frown, “you have altogether too much familiarity with elusive words.”
Inga’s smile slowly widened. “You know, when you scowl like that it makes your appearance so forbidding.”
“I am generally accounted a forbidding person.”
“Perhaps, but with a rather nice face,” Inga said. “It’s a shame to clutter it.”
Saef felt momentarily nonplussed at this, so he moved on. “Do you recall the name of that Fleet clerk who set us up? I can’t, shifty devil, and I should like to get my hands on him.”
Inga nodded, and Saef saw the flash of a line-of-sight push from her UI. The picture of the clerk appeared in Saef’s UI, the nervous smile now blaring like an alarm. The clerk’s ident glowed within the frame, highlighted.
“Well done, Maru,” Saef said, impressed at her presence of mind. “A vidcapture.”
As Saef studied the image Inga removed her cloak for the first time since they left the Goose, revealing all the munitions stowed upon her slender person. The submachine gun clung like a limpet to her right side, the slender buttstock against her armpit, and the stubby barrel just below her waistline. One her left side she wore a sword somewhat shorter than average, and beside it a pouch containing the solid mass of a grenade. The knife at the small of her back and two magazine pouches completed the ensemble.… Well, one magazine pouch, Saef realized as Inga pulled a food bar from the other pouch. “Almost ran out,” Inga said.
Saef could only guess where she might have stowed that body pistol that she mentioned.
“The ‘silent hand,’ indeed,” Saef commented, lifting the QE comm from the dumb-mech’s capacious boot.
Inga laughed, tapping out room service selections on the old-fashioned menu. “I raided the armory at Lykeios while I was there. What a truly lovely place!”
Saef smiled as he set up the comm. “I thought I recognized that sub-gun. That’s one of those Krishnas, isn’t it?”
Inga finished her extensive room service order and turned, looking down at the gun under her arm. She held up her right hand and the sub-gun released from its magnetic holster, dangling from its buttstock harness attachment. She detached it and walked toward the bathroom, gun in hand. “Had the House fab whip one up when we were there. Very nice.”
“You’re going to shower with a submachine gun? Really?”
“If they’ve some means of tracking us through Nets access, we could get a visit. So, yes, I am.”
Saef felt shocked at the very possibility. “Gods, you really think they have that level of access?”
“No, it’s just a ‘pessimistic estimation of the possible,’ in the words of old Devlin.” She disappeared.
Saef shook his head, turning back to the QE comm. He composed a message in terse terms, explaining the ambush and its location. He sent the message, and the response came back almost instantly: WONDERED IF THAT WAS YOU. STATUS AND LOCATION?
Saef thought about Inga’s suggested language, and wrote two short sentences: STATUS IS NOMINAL. LOCATION: IMPERIAL CITY, ON THE MOVE.
Once again, the response across the quantum-entangled comm came back almost instantly: GOOD. ADMIRALTY APPOINTMENT MOVED UP TO TOMORROW. REQUEST THE LIGHT FRIGATE DART. DON’T BE LATE.
Saef folded the QE comm and replaced it in the dumb-mech’s clutch, seeing the bullet dents once again. He stared. The heavy assault weapons used by the ambushers threw two-piece slugs centered on a tungsten core penetrator. Even shooting through an intervening wall they should have punched through the soft alloy of a dumb-mech…perhaps the hotel’s outer walls were more substantial than they appeared.
Saef thought of his QE comm orders, turning away from the dumb-mech. A light frigate? Success, it seemed, stood close at hand. He checked the Nets for info on Dart, and found a very promising seven-thousand-ton vessel with a smart-alloy hull, only twenty-two years old; all the latest advancements. It called for a minimum crew of forty and accommodated up to two full platoons of Marines. Beyond a strong assortment of offensive weaponry and point defenses, the Dart shipped a reasonably large, advanced crystal computer bank and a Shaper fab unit. Saef figured it must stand as one of the most expensive ships, per ton, in Fleet. Crewing her would be simplicity. Officers and ratings would flock to a ship as new and potentially profitable as Dart, with all her modern conveniences.
Unlike most military forces of the previous eras, built upon the “peasant conscript” model, the Imperial Fleet employed only Vested Citizens—volunteers all—and unlike the Imperial Legions and most System Guard forces, Fleet officers existed under a letter of marque–style command structure. System Guard forces served as feeders for Fleet, providing continual crops of experienced officers for potential Fleet selection. They enjoyed a degree of personal choice that would seem quite shocking to admirals from bygone days, but captains financially invested in each float, or they failed. Thus, quality ships and popular captains filled their ranks with handpicked crews, while the least popular ratings and least popular ships generally found each other by default. Fleet officers and ratings needed to find ships, if they were to receive their full pay, any chance of advancement, and a shot at efficiency bonuses, investments, and prize money. And, of course, even the oldest tug or intrasystem cutter needed officers and ratings, which rarely became a problem, with a general excess of ratings and too few ships.
A vessel like Dart might even attract officers more readily than a new battleship or cruiser. With a smaller, more efficient ship and an economical captain, cruise bonuses could add up for every officer and rating. During the centuries of peace efficiency bonuses represented a rare path to some degree of wealth.
As Saef mused over the frigate’s information, Inga emerged in comfortable-looking black pajamas. Her short hair, now completely black, too, was scattered in damp disarray. The gun slung from her shoulder remained a rather blunt fashion accessory.
The serving mech arrived just then with Inga’s diverse room service order, which she proceeded to scatter about the room. When the mech shuffled out the door, Inga settled on the floor, cross-legged with a bowl of fruit, the sub-gun on the floor beside her.
Before he could frame the first of many questions, Inga said, “Do you swim? This place has an amazing pool, I’ve heard. Elaborate water effects, floral islands, wave pools, that sort of thing.”
“Do I swim?” Saef repeated as Inga popped fruit into her mouth, gazing intently at him. “Well, certainly I swim. Underwater. I’m negatively buoyant…too much bone density from all the high-gee time.”
“I believe that’s called sinking,” she said.
Saef felt himself smiling against his will. “Well, I make skilled paddling motions as I sink.”
She took another bite then asked, “Did your Imperials reply?”
“Yes. Admiralty appointment is set for tomorrow now. They tell me to request the light frigate Dart.” He shrugged. “Sounds like they’re already on that ambush site. That’s about the length of it.”
Inga’s brows gathered as she chewed, her eyes flicked as she sifted data in her UI. “Request Dart…Interesting.”
“There are so many interesting things to discuss, Maru,” Saef said. Her eyes focused on him and her broad smile arose. “We can dance all about, Maru, the way you seem to enjoy, or we can cut right to the chase.”
“By all means, Commander, begin chase-cutting as you see fit.”
Saef stared at her for a moment of silence as she munched away without apparent concern. “How are you so fast, Maru? I presume it must be some Shaper tech trick.”
“Would you believe it is the result of hard work and a well-balanced diet?”
“I wouldn’t,” Saef said. “You may know that the Family juvenile treatments improve reflex speed, so all of us are tested. And you are far too fast. Faster than any of us, Maru. That means faster than nature provides.”
“You mean that I’m a bit quicker than you.”
“It is one and the same. And you are far beyond me. So, is it Shaper tech?”
Inga shrugged, her smile faltering just a little. “It’s mostly biotech, with a Shaper component.”
Saef felt the shock register in his expression. “Family biotech? Developed in the Family labs?”
“At Hawksgaard, yes.”
Saef leaned back. “Something odd about this, Maru. If we’ve developed biotech that can speed a person up so much, our Family financial problems are at an end.”
“Not odd. Every new therapy has its little…bugs…to work out.”
“Bugs? Problems?”
“S-sure,” Inga said, looking away and popping a grape into her mouth. “You know how it is: the first attempt or two are utter failures, but by the twentieth whack at it, things begin to look promising.”
Saef stared hard at her, his jaw tightening. “What has Bess done to you?”
Her smile flickered and she looked down at her food. “Done to me? She’s given me the chance at everything I ever wanted.”
“At what cost, Maru?” Saef heard his voice rising. “Gods. You’re her lab animal.”
Inga’s smile disappeared and she looked up, into his eyes. “You are unkind.”
Saef suddenly perceived Inga in an entirely new light. Instead of a bizarre, unflappable sprite, she became a flickering candle: burning brightly, but tenuous, fragile. Saef stared into those dark eyes that should have been blue, seeing hints of pain and mystery. “My…my apologies, Maru. It was a damned stupid thing to say.”
Her smile trembled into hesitant life. “Forget it.”
Saef tried to match her smile, but the lingering impression of her essence left him off balance.
“So, you’ve been dosed with some magic concoction that speeds you up, allows you to change your eyes and hair—and what? Detect psychic vibrations?” Saef asked in a light tone. “I seem to recall that you could see our enemies through walls without access to any Nets.”
Inga set aside the depleted fruit tray, and grabbed a plate of what appeared to be slices of cheese. “It all works off Shaper tech, one way or another,” she said, taking a delicate slice and offering the plate to Saef. “There’s a new, secret style of implant. It can be hacked to interact with biological systems and hardware. You just need the systems in place to interpret all the calls this implant can generate.”
“A secret Shaper implant?” Saef asked, surprised.
“Yes,” Inga said, nibbling from the cheese, her eyes cast down. “The Family got their hands on two. I carry one. They say the hardware is only subtly different, but the system architecture is at least a thousand times more complex than the standard implant.”
Saef shook his head, uncomprehending. “What did the Shapers create that for? And why aren’t they in circulation?”
“Hard to know,” Inga said, nudging the plate of cheese toward Saef; he finally sampled a slice. “The best guess at Hawksgaard is that they’re withheld by the Emperor, maybe for security services only.”
“So, the security services agents are all psychics with lightning reflexes now?”
Inga laughed. “No, no. This really is a Family advancement, or a perfect junction between Family biotech and Shaper tech, I suppose. The new implant allows for more inputs, far more customized interactions, and a much more powerful processor than we thought possible.”
“So onboard Nets hacking tools, a dynamic UI like Fleet command UI, and what?”
“For Imperial security? Who can guess? Analytics, maybe.” Inga nibbled a morsel and looked up. “This implant can execute thousands of custom strings from the UI, and at Hawksgaard they’re still sifting through the layers, trying to figure out what all the potential really means.”
“But they figured out enough to let one loose on you?”
Inga shrugged. “This hardware is exactly what the biotech program needed, if we can ever secure more of them. Your cousin Kai already had the biotech working in the lab with a crystal computer stack calling the directions at the cellular level. The program just needed that kind of computation power implanted, to take over for the crystal stack.”
Saef took another slice from the plate. “And this implant does the trick.”
“Yes,” Inga said. “Direct calls to custom biologics manipulates pigments among other things. You can imagine how direct electrical reflex signals outpace normal chemical processes.”
“Imagine, Maru? I saw you,” Saef said. “But that still leaves us with your remarkable clairvoyance, or does the amazing implant come equipped with long-range sensors of some kind?”
Inga shook her head and waved a slice of cheese toward the dumb-mech. “No. The dumb-mech does, though. Then my implant links to the mech for sensor feeds.”
Saef stared at the dumb-mech for a moment, chewing. “A not-so-dumb-mech, then, I take it?”
“It’s got a micro-crystal stack, a fractional Intelligence, and a great sensor suite. So, I daresay you’re right. Not so dumb.”
“I daresay,” Saef repeated, thinking of the clear violation of the Thinking Machine Protocols. Dumb-mechs were dumb for a reason, and the Imperial Protocols required the separation: low intelligence with high motility and capability, or high intelligence with low motility and capability. The Family risked a sizeable fine with this gambit, but Saef shrugged. More risk on his shoulders when it seemed he already carried the weight of the entire Family.
They sat in companionable silence for some minutes, snacking from the varied treats of Inga’s room service order.
“The Family risked even more on this command gambit than I thought,” Saef said at last. “It’s a rather sobering level of responsibility.”
“Don’t fall into dismals about it,” Inga replied as she examined a dainty little pastry. “Bess kills at least three birds with one stone here.” She bit off a piece of the pastry. “Mmm, this thing’s amazing. Try one.”
Saef eyed the pastries without much interest. “Three birds?”
“Four, really,” Inga said as she took another small bite. “Bess drops you into this snakepit and gets the Family back on the Emperor’s radar. Then she obtained items from the Shapers’ shopping list. That’s two birds right there.”
“Okay,” Saef said. “Then my captaincy is bird number three. What’s bird number four?”
“They field-test the latest version of the enhancement biotech in me. Old Fido over there”—Inga nodded toward the not-so-dumb-mech—“stores all the performance metrics and feeds them to Kai and Bess.”
“Fido?” Saef looked at the six-legged luggage.
“The fractional Intelligence in the dumb-mech. Useful for a few of our purposes, as you’ve seen, but really here for the benefit of Hawksgaard.”
Saef shook his head at last. “How very odd.”
Inga sampled another intricate appetizer. “What? The mech?”
Saef stood to his feet, stretching wearily. “All of it. I am a straightforward fellow, and this is all far from straightforward.” He stopped short of saying even more, the anxiety of mounting responsibility being his alone.
Inga shrugged and started in on another piece of fruit. “Once you get your ship, I’m tolerably sure everything will be more to your liking.” She eyed him critically for a moment. “You look tired. Maybe you should sleep.”
“While you look as fresh as can be, Maru,” Saef returned. “When will you sleep?”
“Perhaps tomorrow…if I am fortunate.”
Saef stared at her. “What?”
She waved a hand and looked away from his eyes. “One of the…bugs…with the biotech. I don’t sleep much.” She bit into another piece of fruit.
“I see,” Saef said, staring at her, trying to think of some word to say that would not express his dismay. “At least it doesn’t seem to affect your appetite.”
Inga shook her head, swallowing the bite. “No. It always affects my appetite.” At Saef’s look of confusion she continued. “Another…bug in the biotech. I eat all the time…or the bug eats me.”
Saef closed his eyes, aghast, his mind flashing back to the wary little girl he remembered. “Maru, my god, what have we done to—”
“Commander,” Inga interrupted, her broad smile pinned in place, “since I’ll likely be up all night, is there anything I can work on? It helps pass the time. You know how I hate empty time, and while everyone sleeps I find myself with so very much of it.”