The conversation hit a lull before Admiral Olan arrived, clad in the same nearly-black military tunic the rest of the Intel personnel had been wearing - with a rank plate that had been covered in symbols and designs, most of them colored in. His red fur had started turning silver some time ago, and he wore a visible scar on his cheek. The ear on the same side had been split with a cut running nearly the full length, as well. It was strange seeing scar tissue a shade of pale blue. Once again clear that while there were many similarities, they were running on a different physiology.
“Empress, good day. Princess Sorenson... Prince Sorenson, I am sorry that we meet under these circumstances.” He had an unusually deep voice for a Tsla’o, particularly for a male, nearly in the same register as a Human. The Admiral seemed very familiar with both the Empress and Carbon already, giving Alex a particularly formal bow before taking a seat beside Eleya. “Also, I must apologize for the actions of Lieutenant Nalen. His behavior was out of line. He was taken to the brig?”
“He was, and it is accepted. I didn’t think he was sent here with that outburst in mind. About his punishment... Empress, the Tsla’o people do have a conventional judicial system?” Should he have known that already? Maybe. When would he have stopped to ask about it, though? The last time he saw justice get meted out it was through the barrel of a gun, with Eleya as the judge and jury.
“There is, yes. Though if this line of questioning is going where I believe, he would appropriately end up in the military courts.” She gave him a little nod of approval.
Military courts. Well, the Lieutenant was still in the military. “All right. I am assuming that as he came after me, I would normally be allowed to choose his punishment? Being a Royal?”
Eleya gave him another little nod. “Correct. I took the initiative from you when dealing with your assassin and his accomplice, but you were both indisposed at the time.” She tipped her head at Carbon, who, by Neya’s explanation of things, hadn’t been in the right headspace to make that decision.
Alex was sure the outcome would have been the same, though as far as he knew Carbon didn’t already have blood on her hands. Eleya already had people executed for treason, she had taken lives herself. Had that ultimately been a move to keep Carbon away from making the decision to kill, or doing the killing?
“Alright. Then I would like him to be tried as though I were any other citizen.” Okay, that was a good start. Now he just has to say something that makes him actually sound like he’s taking this as seriously as Neya takes her job. “As I have no experience with the Tsla’o judicial system, military or otherwise, I think this would allow me an opportunity to grow that knowledge.”
“While it is unlikely you could truly separate your station from a trial, your request has merit.” Eleya definitely approved of this. She turned to the Admiral. “He is your soldier, Olan. Where the Prince is quick to forgive, the court may not act so casually.”
Right, they put heavier emphasis on the commanding officer being responsible for their soldiers. Alex had thought, until now, that Carbon had been exaggerating that because she had been ready to put Gladwell halfway out an airlock and cycle it. Something he was increasingly sure she would at least know how to do.
“They can review my communications until they can sleep on them, they will find nothing but echoes of your orders. Nothing that would have encouraged him to act like this.” He seemed pretty confident about that.
“Very well. I’ll put in a word, Prince, and you may familiarize yourself with the process.” She nodded, eyes closed, and that was that. “Now, the more pressing matter. Admiral, we seek your counsel on the matter of the Confederation spying using the Prince’s augments.”
He looked at everyone sitting at the table in turn and slid an unused tablet over to himself. “I have not been fully apprised of the situation. The last update I received was that the Prince’s Amp had stored recordings, and there was some question as to what should be done with them... I could use any other context that I have missed by not being present, as well.”
They got him up to speed. Mostly Alex, with Eleya chiming in on occasion. Carbon had turned inward again, too worried about whatever was going on in her mind to join in. Alex shifted in his chair, foot sliding over to hook her own, the movement unseen under the table. It got Carbon’s attention and her response was just as subtle, her face softening slightly with the briefest of glances over to him.
The Admiral was one surprise after the next for Alex. Cordial and attentive to everything he said, without a hint of the distance that most of the other Tsla’o wanted to keep him at. A consummate professional, and phenomenally easy to talk to. Of course he was. He was at the head of the Intelligence community, getting people too comfortable while chatting was probably half his resume. “If you would not mind it - may I view some of these recordings? I would like to see this passive sonar system in action, preferably in a variety of settings.”
“Ah, yeah, of course.” It was nice of him to ask, unlike someone else sitting at the table. Alex picked up his tablet and pulled up a file from earlier this morning, one without any confessions or other particularly private moments. Just a nice, busy hallway. He shared the feed with the rest of the table. “This was taken back near Engineering. Big crowd.”
Olan started it and watched intently, flicking the viewer around to investigate the scene as it played. He turned the volume up, the small speakers doing a passable job of communicating the noisy environment.
Alex gave it a watch, too, but didn’t bother with the audio. It had been a busy scene, almost chaotic with streams of Tsla’o going about their day in a main corridor, and the system seemed to have some issues with that. It only used his voice as the active transmitter, any time he wasn’t talking enough or there were too many other people making noise, the resolution and range would suffer. It had managed to keep track of nearly everyone consistently, so it probably used some passive markers too - though the flags marking the many individuals in the hallway only rarely had any information attached. Most interestingly, it had spotted and tagged that massive impeller press for identification. Great, they’d have to review everything now to see what else it was curious about.
“I am starting to see some limitations. Audio is excellent and tracks conversations well but does not appear to be able to filter them individually. In smaller, private settings I imagine it performs much better.” He closed the connection, looking back to Alex expectantly.
“Yeah, I have just the thing, actually. Same file, a few minutes later.” They hadn’t discussed anything of significance, which was perfect about now. A little talk about breakfast, mimosas, saying hello to the random waitress he had met, some supposition about what Eleya was doing with towns inserted into her supercarrier... Nothing really private. “Just let it keep rolling.”
“Oh.” Olan opened it and scrubbed forward a few minutes until they were seated in the back room in The Hammer’s Rest. He went through the same motions as before, intently inspecting everything the recording had caught. As expected, the quiet room allowed much finer details to emerge in false color. Their fairly banal conversation was caught perfectly, just like every other time.
Alex watched along, the sound of his own voice being piped out of the speakers across the table so utterly weird. Did he really sound like that? His private disgust was interrupted as Haraya arrived, his greeting in Tsla earning a surprised look from both Eleya and the Admiral.
He did find that kind of insulting. It was a single word, the most basic greeting! Of course he had learned that.
More upsetting was the fact that the ARGUS system had Haraya tracked as well. Just her name, though it listed Adana as a potential cousin. That was a literal child, maybe four years old by Carbon’s estimate. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the system was harvesting information on anything that looked alive, but seeing it in action turned his stomach.
“Ah, that is interesting.” He paused it, looking back up at everyone. “It performs as expected. One item of note is that when you turn your visual translation on, it seems to scrape that data too. I have some suspicions that I would like to have put to rest - would you allow me to take a file for more in depth inspection? Whichever you are most comfortable parting with. The ARGUS program itself as well, to help understand exactly how these are made.”
Alex rolled all the way back on the video - it started with him in the shower, which also played havoc on the system. A quick check found that ARGUS didn’t bother rendering him aside from arms. Again, a little insulting, but he was just the vehicle for the payload here. Scrolling it all the way forward, it ended with him forcing a hard stop in Lyshen’s office. Maybe a little more conjecture about what Eleya was doing than he necessarily wanted loose, but aside from that it was almost all in public and thus, nothing intensely personal. He reached over and nudged Carbon’s arm. “What do you think?”
Carbon glanced over at him and shrugged, just barely enough to move her shoulders. “Whatever you feel is appropriate.” She muttered quietly in Tsla.
Well. “This one will do. You can take the entire file. There is nothing very personal in it, and as we’ve seen, it’s got a variety of locations. The program as well - the way you said that makes me think you have something in mind?”
“Thank you.” He produced a small metal rectangle from his daman and placed it on the white spot next to the Codex. “It is early to say, but I believe we should be able to at least replace some of the more sensitive sections, if not falsify some of it outright. It would be a matter of making sure the edits are not detectable. Optimally, we’ll have the chance to let them carry a lot of dirt into their house.”
“I don’t quite get that idiom. Is that- Is it the AI thing? I thought we were doing that anyway?” Alex tapped away at the tablet, finding the Codex that Olan brought, but not being able to transfer anything. He leaned over to Carbon again, setting a hand on her arm. “It’s locked to you, I can’t move the files.”
She was roused from her melancholy with a soft grunt, as though he had startled her awake. Bright blue eyes darting his way with a commensurate amount of shock, totally unprepared for that fairly simple statement coming her way. Had she listened to anything they had talked about? “Oh, of course.” Carbon picked up her tablet and set to work on transferring everything on the Codex.
“Carbon.” Apparently not. He gave her arm a squeeze and she froze, tensing up under his fingers and looking back at him with fear. Alex smoothed his voice out, attempted to exude a calming presence. “Just the last recording and the ARGUS software.”
She nodded and narrowed down the file list, sending them on their way to the Admiral’s Codex.
Looking at the actual list of all the files and not just the ones she had made accessible to the table, he recognized the databases that it had compiled. “Admiral, do you think you will need the database used to keep the data it scrapes?” He should have learned a significant lesson about trusting Admirals that worked in the Intelligence field, but there was a distinct difference in this situation between Argueta and Olan - it was sitting right next to the Tsla’o Admiral.
The Empress had an investment to protect.
Olan’s tone had shifted slightly as well, a little less formal - kinder and more familiar. Grandpa mode. “It could be useful, yes. I hope that we will have at least soft emulation in the next few days, it would give us a head start on how they interact.”
“Could you-” Alex started, only to find that Carbon was already on it, having been at least partially drawn out of her funk. He patted her arm. “Thank you.”
Carbon gave him a brief nod, and stayed silent.
“To your question, the idiom means giving someone bad information that has them make a mess in their own domain. A little intelligence that seems real and actionable, but is entirely made up to make them waste time and effort.” He explained it like this was a very common question.
“Ah, yeah. I can see it.” It did raise a question for Alex. Why did they have people who were good at this kind of thing? How many enemies did the Empire have within itself? Was this all just kept on the back burner in case they had to go to war with the Confederation? “I know we had talked about getting into the counterintelligence injection earlier, Empress... But seeing that we will likely be reconvening to discuss the ARGUS and the work Olan’s people are doing on it, perhaps now would be a good time to break for the day?”
“I agree. I have a meeting over dinner that I did not cancel and I could use some time to refresh myself.” Eleya, at least, seemed to pick up what he was getting at. She gestured at the holo and the data storage devices still sitting on the table. “All of this is quite tiring.”
“Very well. Getting the data back to my teams is more important at this moment, the more time they have, the better.” The Admiral checked his tablet once more, ensuring the data had actually been transferred, and then shut it off and tucked his Codex back into his daman. “Unless there is anything else, Empress?”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
She gestured towards the door. “No, your assessment is correct. Make haste.”
Alex was sure that Eleya was just making that up. She hadn’t seemed tired in the least, and he had the impression that this kind of bullshit was where she thrived. He was sure she was just going to back to her quarters and scheme. “I think it would be best if we took our leave as well. Just have a quiet evening after all the excitement.”
“Agreed.” She waited until Olan had departed and stood as well, giving them both a bow that was probably deeper than necessary. “We will stay in touch, but you will have tonight.”
Alex bowed back from his seat and she gave him a very serious look and a nod at Carbon before departing. Carbon had gone back to staring through the tablet, just gripping it in her hands and not actually doing anything with it. He gently pulled it from her grasp and shut it down. “Come on, it’s time to go home.”
She was startled by this intrusion into whatever mental hole she had crawled into. “Oh, of course.” Carbon barely sounded like herself, her voice as distant as her gaze had been.
He slid his chair back and stood, holding a hand out to help her up. There was a frailty to her right now that was making the idea of retribution - or proper, disproportionate revenge - seem like a really good idea.
Standing, at least, brought her back around. After a stretch, her eyes were once more engaged with the here and now, though she still seemed very lost.
Alex picked up the Codex and hooked his arm into Carbon’s, pulled her out of the conference room into the workshop. The scent of ozone still lingered, perhaps a little too strongly for all of Eleya’s guard to have left with her. They had righted whichever table she had pitched over, though a bent stool sat next to a dented locker on the far side of the room. The hallway was empty. He had a pretty good idea of where to go. “You were pretty quiet in there. Sorta.”
“I was.” Carbon had strengthened slowly as they walked, talking to him in English again as the depression she had been in lifted as they walked. As it went, a low simmering anger took its place.
“I expected you to have a little more input. That’s our private life that Eleya wants to give away, even if Olan thinks they might be able to replace some of it.” He had expected her to keep up that table-flipping energy. They walked out into the common area and stopped in front of the blast doors, Alex toggled the controls and leaned in for the biometrics scan. As they started to pull apart, the growling of the machine moving the doors tipped him off to the fact that Eleya had left maybe a minute before them, but he hadn’t heard this sound. She was still there. “Even if Olan thinks they might be able to replace some of it. Or all of it.”
They passed back into the ship proper, walking in silence for some time as he tried to thread them back towards where the maglev should be. When Carbon spoke again there was the slimmest change in her demeanor, visually imperceptible. She exhaled slowly through her teeth, a protracted sigh brimming with stress. “I know."
“Dunno if you’ve noticed this about me,” Alex smiled and leaned against her, tilting his head to make eye contact. He wanted to get what was bothering her out, but he wouldn’t mind defusing her a little bit first. “But I’m pretty good at telling when you’re upset.”
“I expected that from her, and I am willing to give up more my privacy in exchange for whatever we might extract from them.” Her jaw flexed and she sucked in a breath, gripping his arm a little tighter. “I just... What we get back for this had better be worth the price.”
“I hope it is.” Once again the idea of revenge swam to the surface, but the lingering knowledge that the data cache could just get swallowed up into the apparatus that had set him up in the first place soured it this time. They could do all of this and there may still be nothing.
“Our electronic warfare specialists are well trained and have been working on human systems extensively for some time now.” There was a little hesitation in her voice, the knowledge that his implant might be recording everything still very close to the surface. “I do not doubt our ability to pry secrets from their machines.”
There that was again. Their machines. Pulled further into the fold, moved further from who he had been. “Has this been a problem before?”
“Spying?” She asked, turning to look at him with a little shake of her head. “If it has been, I have not heard about it. Certainly nothing this bold.”
“Well, yeah, but I specifically mean breaking into Human computer networks.” Now he was doing it. Great. “Isn’t that spying as well? Violating treaties?”
“No.” Carbon shook her head again. “I have recently become aware that we have purchased sizable amounts of Human communication and computer equipment in the past.”
That did explain the rather jank looking computer in Lyshen’s office, the Berkmann, and all the tchotchkes in Amara’s office. “How sizable are we talking here?”
She sighed and clicked her teeth, just annoyed this time. “I am told we have gotten enough to build a small interstellar communication network for training and evaluation.”
“Huh.” He walked in silence, mulling that over. Acquisition of competing technology - be it legitimate or unlawful means - was common in Human history. Not surprising that the Tsla’o would do the same to keep tabs on Humanity. “Find out anything interesting?”
“I do not know.” She shrugged, indifferent to this line of conversation. "As I said, I have only just learned about this myself."
An unexpected form of delight surged through Alex, her lack of knowledge catching him off guard. For once, they both hadn’t known something. Before he could tamp it down, he chuckled under his breath, a strangely earnest smile crossing his face.
Carbon took it the wrong way. Her eyes narrowed, brow drawn tight above a thin frown. "What is that supposed to mean?" She snapped.
"I-" He sighed and tipped his head back, watching the structural ribs pass overhead while he organized his thoughts. "I got surprised when you didn’t know something that I didn’t know either. Something was news to both of us. It made me feel like we're equal again, and that was nice."
Carbon came to a complete stop, dumbfounded. "I do not understand. How could you not feel that we are equal?"
"I've been the third wheel in every situation since I came on board? Except when we're alone... Sometimes even then, too." He was still on the fence in regards to Neya. She was unequivocally useful, and seemed to be a good person. Alex still found himself ambivalent about that early morning confession, and the discussion it was bound to bring. “It’s nothing you’ve done, you know, I just get pulled around in your wash because I don’t have a choice in the matter.”
“You have-” Her mouth snapped shut with a click of her teeth and a low grumble. “I see, I believe. You are not properly prepared for your new duties and authority?”
“Yeah, that’s part of it.” Alex started walking again, turning down a passage to follow the sign for the maglev station. “But it’s not all of it. I guess there’s stuff I’m expected to do, responsibility I allegedly have now. I both do not want it, and also do not see it. It’s like... Schrodinger's responsibility. I show up and people act like they take me seriously, but aside from you, am I really anything other than a mascot? Look how nice and civilized the Humans are! Please use the things they sent us.”
Carbon was silent, contemplative as they approached the station. The evening crowd filled it up for the commute to and from home. More than a few eyes turned their way. The combination of slightly disheveled Human wearing a traditional Tsla’o jacket, carrying a stone obelisk, escorted in a very cozy manner by a regular old maintenance worker was understandably odd. Plenty of them realized who they were looking at, based on the split between people who kept gawking or immediately looked away.
They still queued up like anyone else.
Alex saw a couple of people take pictures as they waited, he was sure. While he acclimated himself to the scent of a crowd of Tsla’o, which was remarkably similar to waiting for the funicular back in Berkley during commute time. A little more of what he would identify as shampoo in the air. This was fine until ozone caught his attention, a primal fear about being followed spiking in the back of his head. “Do you smell that?” He asked, voice low so that only the ones who were obviously eavesdropping would hear.
“Yes.” Carbon replied in kind, but she did not appear as bothered by this. “You are carrying something important.”
“Fair.” He still didn’t like it. Unseen security following at a distance was basically indistinguishable from an unseen assailant doing the same thing. They came from the same group of aliens. This one just had a cloak, which was worse. “You trust them, right?”
“The guard? Yes.” There was no hesitation in her reply.
The maglev arrived, a few dozen people dispersing from it before everyone started to file in, nice and orderly. Standing room only, and very little commotion when their temporary security detail got made by someone bumping into them. Just something to be expected when you’re in the same car as a Royal, apparently.
Alex actually enjoyed the experience, despite everything. Another flash of normalcy, just standing on the train with nearly everyone doing their best to not acknowledge another soul. It wasn’t until they had left the maglev and their station behind that Carbon started up again.
“I do not know how to make you feel your station. It is... Just something that is there.” She actually had some difficulty articulating that. She did have decades of experience with a title being ‘there’ for her, though it was not something she had pondered how to explain.
All that got out of him was a shrug. “I don’t know how to do that, either. I’ve never had a station to feel, the closest thing I had to a title before now was Mister. That was mostly for when I was in trouble, or somebody was trying to sell me something.”
“Are you sure about that, Pilot?” There was a hint of humor in her voice for the first time in hours, a faint smile on her lips.
“Yeah, yeah. You and Ed were about the only people who called me that with any consistency.” He couldn’t stifle the wistful sigh that came with that memory. Being a Scoutship Pilot was all he had ever wanted to do, and look where it got him. “You think I could convince anyone on board to call me that?”
“Yes, but only until the Empress found out, Prince.” Carbon laughed softly and hugged his arm tight against her. “Is there anything that you think will help you acclimate?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even understand what I’m supposed to be doing in relation to that title.” The very concept was so nebulous that he couldn’t get his head around how he would even begin to fit into it. “So... Haraya’s experience is mine. I’ve only seen royalty through the lens of fiction. Princes are a concept more than a concrete idea, and the portrayal ranges from comically useless all the way to ruthless villain. The reality of it seems to be wearing fancy clothes and attending state dinners?”
“Ah.” That gave her something to chew on as they arrived at the cabin, Carbon opening the door this time. “So far there has been little in the way of actual responsibility. You have scarcely had the time to do anything. I fear you may be right - at the moment you are a mascot as far as the Empire is concerned. Do not think for a moment that you are anything less than *my* Prince to me.”
“Alright, I won’t.” He stepped in and set the obelisk on the little stool to doff his jacket. “I don’t particularly like having that validated, but at least someone else sees it.”
Carbon waited until the door closed, shrugging her work jacket off as well. “If you were able to see some responsibilities, to refine a concept into something more real - do you think that would help?”
“I assume it would.” He spent more time than he would ever admit just staring as she did that and hung her jacket up. She still seemed more confident wearing that utilitarian work gear, and he found that as desirable as his recent discovery of exposed midriff. Alex cleared his throat as she caught him watching. “I just want to be able to do something other than get played, even if it’s not something I’ve ever wanted to do. You know?”
That got a little laugh out of her, with a smile to match. “I believe I am familiar with that feeling. You said the Empress had attached Sergeant Zenshen to you as a liaison, correct?”
“Yeah, I’m supposed to take a command, I guess.” He hadn’t really thought about what the Sergeant had meant by that. He had inquired for more details, but had been more focused on the adrenaline in his system at the time. Something about being a proper member of the Royal family?
“Royals are expected to have a connection to the military. I already do, so you are being given a dedicated military unit to command. I think Princes usually have a battalion, but I would expect a smaller detachment as you are new and we are on a carrier.” Carbon nodded as she moved the Codex and took a seat, starting to work her boots off. “Does that make things more concrete?”
“No, but it feels like a direction to travel in.” How big was a battalion? That sounded like it should be a lot of soldiers, and he was perfectly fine with having less people under his command. Preferably none, but if he was being pressed into this anyway... “She said she was mostly there to keep me from offending anyone, but she should have some experience with leadership. Right?”
Carbon mulled it over as she set her boots aside, stretching her toes out. “Kaen said he often uses her as a personal representative. Given his standards, I should imagine she is able to provide sound advice.”
“That will have to do.” To his surprise, he didn’t hate the idea of having a command. It did make him nervous, yes, in theory they were putting lives in his hands and he was having a hard enough time with his own life right now. Having a specific direction to focus in was already making everything feel like less of a charade.
Carbon stood, a smile that was more than a little mischievous on her muzzle. “I think it would help if you were to throw yourself fully into adaptation. I found my English proficiency increased massively when I came aboard the *Haultain* and was immersed in the language. I am sure that my understanding of your culture would have improved as well.”
Maybe it would help him to shed that assistance for now, get a feel for what is actually going on around him and how to operate in Tsla’o society. “Sure. That’s a good idea. As long as I can still get help when I ask.”
“That takes the fun out of it.” Carbon slid an arm around his waist and leaned against him, an obvious smile in her voice as she rested her head on his chest.
“Oh does it?” He asked, pulling her into a hug properly.
“Indeed, Prince.” She pushed away, just far enough so she could lean up and kiss him. “Now, what should we have for dinner?”
“Hang on, before we get into that.” Alex inhaled deeply, not wanting to broach the subject at all, but also knowing that putting it off would not improve the situation. “There’s something we all need to talk about.”