Years of Machinery Navy and Watcher training shot Axis’s eyes open from a dreamless night at exactly one hour prior to sunrise. “Truminoff?” he asked to the room, raising up his neck. When no reply was immediately forthcoming, he loosed a frustrated groan, stretched, and looked down to the floor below. She was graciously nowhere to be seen. Axis ruffled his feathers and disassembled the rifle one last time before fluttering his way down, the gun’s parts clinking together in a makeshift sling of one of Pi’s capes. “Truminoff?” he asked again, this time louder.

“Washroom!” her muffled voice came from behind one of the closed doors at the back of the room. “I had a Palace servant uniform brought up! It’s there on one of the cushions!”

“Copy!” Axis yelled back upon spotting the neatly folded fabric of gray and navy blue. He was nearly done donning the uniform, affixing the Phoenix House pins to the vest’s shoulder pauldrons, when Katya exited the washroom already fully adorned in her matching uniform. She stopped upon seeing him and tutted.

“You’re not going to go wash?” she asked with no small amount incredulity.

“No?” he said.

“The Empress’ servants are held to a high standard, and I can see flecks of whatever planet you were on before still in between your scales,” Katya chided. “If we’re to do this quietly, wash.”

“This would have been good info before I went to bed last night,” Axis fired back. “Charlie will start the drill after the normal drill start hour to keep it looking genuine, but not long after. My dirty scales will have to do. We need to move.”

“Then play along if we’re questioned about it,” Katya said. “I have a sling here for the rifle.” She deposited a back sling on the ground into which Axis transferred the rifles parts, Pi’s cape and all. “Efficient,” Katya huffed but hefted the sling onto her shoulders without further comment. “Now, follow me and keep your lenses blank,” she said, opening the door and checking the hall for any observers. “Phoenix staff are expected to not need them to navigate around the Palace.”

“Not happening,” Axis hissed as they set off down the corridor toward the nearest tram boarding point. “Once I’m watching the evacuation, you’ll have more of my trust. Until then, you start steering me off course, I put a bolt in the back of your skull.”

“Then do us both a favor and keep it subtle,” Katya sniped back. “Too many stops and we won’t make this schedule of yours.”

“Just keep moving,” Axis said. Tower DelRose was a flurry of activity even so early in the morning, and more so once Axis and Katya exited what must have been a more private section of the tower. Servants adorned in both the Palace’s Phoenix colors like them mixed in with the pink and silver uniforms of House DelRose staff while slaves steered clear of the dragons in pathways marked specifically for them. Ladies-in-waiting also dotted the halls more sparsely, evidenced by their more elaborate and non-uniform dress and the way they parted the waves of servants by their mere approach. Each hall Katya and Axis traversed through gradually became less ornate and decorated and the ceilings moved from vaulted, multi-level affairs with beautiful hanging banners to more typical two or three leveled connecting halls.

The tram station leading out of DelRose Tower was significantly more open and far more utilitarian, though not for efforts to make it less so. The station was easily five stories high, with four times as many tram rails entering and exiting the tower in various directions. As the trams ran in circular routes, their ends were adorned with the colors and sigils of the House towers where they made their end stops while the individual cars were equally lavished in the heraldry of those House towers and Palace wings where the tram would make intermediate stops. Axis’s HUD flared with signage everywhere upon crossing into the tram station proper and it was with an irritated hiss that he hurriedly cut the display. Whether or not Katya heard him over the incessant whine of the trams’ electric motors was debatable, but she nevertheless swatted at his back leg with her tail before leading him to a bank of elevators taking them to the uppermost catwalks.

Just as the Tower itself had been, the elevators were jammed with activity, and it was with a fair amount of deliberate difficulty that Axis pinned himself between the rifle burdened sling and the next nearest dragon. He restrained an amused grin when it became apparent neither Katya nor the other dragon much appreciated his close proximity, albeit likely for different reasons. Katya practically jettisoned herself out of the elevator once it reached the fifth level, only pausing to wait for Axis when he allowed the remaining passengers to exit before him. “Are you completely incapable of drawing attention to yourself?” she snarled as they continued on to the tram gates.

“I’d rather someone look at me than too closely at that sling,” Axis replied.

“What part of ‘There are strict rules of protocol here that you must obey to go unnoticed’ do you not understand?” she asked, unrelenting.

“Look, Katya,” Axis said with a casual ease as they boarded the next tram, “you were a one man band, right?”

“That human phrase doesn’t translate to Drael very well, but yes, I think so if I understand correctly,” Katya said.

“Then I get that you need to things to be perfect while on the job,” Axis continued. “But in my experience, blending in isn’t in the perfection because no one is. It looks way less suspicious when you’re imperfect. That’s what everyone expects. So just, chill.”

“Tell that to the senior servant dressing you down across the car,” Katya replied tersely, having not once looked to the side.

“Oh, where?” Axis asked, swiveling his head in search, for which he earned Katya extending one of her rear talons into his foot just shy of slicing through his scales. “Unnecessary…” he hissed but kept his head straight.

“This tram will run a loop along the inside ring of the Palace,” Katya allowed herself to say as the tram shuddered into motion. “It stops only twice and the first stop is only for disembarking. The second stop is on the other side of the Palace in Beyen Tower. That’s us.”

“And?” Axis asked, still wincing lightly from Katya’s talon.

“And hopefully that senior servant gets off at the first stop and doesn’t bother us,” Katya said.

“If you’re that concerned about him I’ll just -”

“No, you will do nothing and let me handle it like I said I would before we left your sister’s room,” Katya overrode him with a firm finality. Axis merely grunted and tapped the floor as the tram exited the DelRose Tower, revealing the full glory of the Palace of the Loft at sunrise. The Palace’s center was dominated by a central tower with enough girth to be considered its own castle, a size larger than some entire towns in the wider Empire and even wider galaxy. This was the Loft of the Eternal Phoenix, the home of the Empress, Star Queen Hope Cellinni. It’s pearl white surface was broken in the sunlight by glinting specks along its surface, likely stained glass windows that at their present distance masked their likely cathedraline scale. The Loft of the Eternal Phoenix was surrounded by four smaller diameter towers: the Loft of the Duchery official headquarters of the Duchery; the Loft of the Sisterhood, center of governance in the Empire where the Empress held court with the sixty-seven Matriarchs; the Loft of the Admirality, where the Crown Princess and her admirals oversaw the broad governance of the Machinery Navy; and lastly the Tower of the Queen’s House, where the ruling Royal House conducted its business in lieu of its normal House tower while it’s Empress held the throne.

Beyond this cluster of five towers, three concentric rings of much smaller towers extended, the width of said rings exceeding the horizon line along their farthest edge. These were also finished in a pearl white, but gargantuan banners and flags of a dazzling array of colors hung and flew from them, indicating to which Royal House they belonged. Between all the many towers, including those at the Palace’s center, hundreds of connections were made. From the tiniest of maintenance causeways spanning mile on wind shaken mile, massive structural arches and platforms inside which many of the trams could travel, to the very support bracers which held the whole of the Palace together, it all managed to at no angle look like a well managed catastrophe. Every element of the Palace of the Loft appeared as part of some grander purpose, woven into that purpose so that the idea of ugly was not a thought for even the most utilitarian of components. And though Axis could not see them from where the tram rode among the towers, he knew the three weather regulation rings hovering over the Palace and the Ridley-class cruiser docking hangars extending immediately below the Loft of the Eternal Phoenix only served to complete the Palace’s image of complete dominance over the landscape and city below it.

It was a true marvel of Imperial power made all the more so, even in Axis’ mind, by the knowledge that for all its elegance and beauty, it was an impregnable fortress that had never once been breached, even in the eons before when it had rested on the ground below and the Loft had been a thriving, green planet. Axis made a sincere effort to spot any indication of the amount of Naval power on regular patrol, but the tram moved far too quickly between the towers and the many causeways linking them for Axis to see anything clearly. The entire car shuddered as they were engulfed in the darker artificial light of the tram’s first stop and the bustle of the occupants preparing to leave didn’t help it level out any faster. “He’s not leaving,” Katya hissed out the side of her mouth. “And he will come over to us when the tram moves again. I swear to the Progeny if you make even a ‘ling’s peep, you can kiss your schedule goodbye.”

“I can improvise if I have to,” Axis murmured. “But you go, do your thing. You’ve got me interested now anyway.” The car emptied almost completely before the doors closed and the tram hummed to life again, shooting back out into the glowing morning sun. True to Katya’s prediction, the senior servant briefly straightened his feathers and vest and made long purposeful strides in her and Axis’s direction. Katya kept her firm pose at attention, unflinching as he came ever closer. Axis mirrored her, but unsheathed a front talon ever so slowly. The claws were a hair’s breadth from full extension when the senior stopped, standing exactly behind Katya. She remained stoic and unmoving, almost calm, even as Axis, for his part, had every lunging muscle in his body tensed at maximum readiness. And without a word, the senior officer continued his walk, leaving the car entirely and moving on to the next.

While Axis visibly winced and strained, his body none to pleased having to gradually release so much explosive energy, Katya appeared none the worse for wear. She even shuffled her wings to straighten a stray down feather. “Finished?” she asked, her displeasure loud and clear.

“Ya know, that doesn’t always work out that way,” Axis grunted, cracking his neck. “Did you even have a plan if he said something?”

“Didn’t need one,” Katya quipped. “His vest stitching was in forest green, meaning he works for the lighting and plumbing division. Our vests are stitched with blue. General housekeeping. He may not have approved, which he definitely did not because of your love of dirt and grime, but we aren’t under his authority.” She paused and gave Axis the same single eyed glare from the night before then added, “I was more concerned with you keeping your mouth shut since even a sigh out of you would have been sufficient cause for him to pull us aside.”

“You hide the whole sweating bolts thing like a champ though,” Axis smirked, now making no effort for subtlety in retracting his talons with an audible metal scrape against scale.

“Thank you,” Katya sniffed with no addendum. The remainder of the tram ride they spent in silence, Axis more frequently checking the time and their location in his lenses until the tram flew into Beyen Tower. By the time it finally stopped and the doors opened, he guessed they had only fifteen minutes before Charlie would start the drill.

“We are running out of time,” he whispered to Katya as they exited onto the platform. “Let’s get a move on.”

“How much time?” she asked, stopping only to access her lenses to clear security permissions on a maintenance door.

“My guess is... one… five...” Axis said, now at full volume as he slammed the door shut behind them, but trailed off. “You’ve got to be shitting me, Truminoff,” he added, staring up what appeared to be an endless circular staircase.

“This takes us directly to one of your spots on a maintenance access gantry,” Katya said, unperturbed as she slipped past him and began running up the metal steps.

“Unreal…” Axis grumbled before bounding after her. The clank of their feet against metal became like perpetual white noise after only a few minutes of running as did the rhythmic beat of Axis’s heart as he settled into a steady pace. He pushed the imaginary sounds of the evacuation alarm out of his head, focusing on keeping his legs from tripping as the burning began to creep up into his shoulders and hindquarters.

“There!” Katya yelled, head pointed to a small exit maybe ten feet overhead. “That’s it!” She leapt up the last few steps, clearing security once again and flinging the door open. Roaring wind blasted through the stairwell like a funnel, and Axis swore as his inner eyelids closed reactively. He forced them open through fast gathering tears and nearly slammed into a motionless Katya as he shoved himself against the buffeting wind onto the gantry.

“Would you keep - ah…” Axis began to snipe at her only to see her concern: two maintenance drakes eyeing them suspiciously from halfway across the gantry.

“Ain’t no way two housekeepers have permission to get out here!” one of them yelled out over the wind. “What’re ya doin’!?”

“We were trying to get around some heavy traffic after missing a tram!” Katya yelled back.

“Not this high up you weren’t!” the other drake laughed. “Now c’mon, secret rendezvous or what?”

“Okay, guys, the ‘ness is bein’ mostly straight with ya,” Axis butted in, casually making his way toward them onto the gantry.

“Woah woah! Friend, don’t go farther out without a carabiner on the rail!” the first drake bolted up, severely worried.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, this is - !” Axis waved away their concerns, still closing the distance across the gantry until an overly loud clunk echoed across the entire Palace. Every exterior light switched from either off or its normal flashing color to solid, brilliant red powerful enough to cut through the morning light. And no sooner had all four dragons registered this fact than a distinct, ear-splitting, shrieking four tone alarm blasted out from every Palace loudspeaker, inside and out. The two maintenance drakes and even Katya initially cowered with the intensity of the unrelenting alarm. Axis winced but bolted across the remaining distance of the gantry, grabbing the first drake by the neck and rapping his head on the metal gantry rail and tackling the second head over tail before landing a solid head butt to his chest, driving the breath and consciousness out of him. Katya joined him moments later, silently loading the sling on the ground and scanning the skies as Axis assembled the rifle. To her credit, with the job now properly begun, she did not make any disapproving mention of his methods.

Helephants are arriving. The text flashed across his HUD, Katya not even attempting to yell over both the wind and the evacuation alarm. Don’t mount the rifle. Two Mongooses. Axis finished the assembly, but kept himself hunched over the sling, straining to hear the familiar crackle of Mongoose drives over the din. Go. He hadn’t heard them but didn’t waste time arguing, whipping the rifle onto the gantry rail and syncing its functions to his lenses. The gun’s mounting brace latched to the rail with one command of his lenses, he rested his weight into his hindquarters, adjusted his hold on the weapon, and initiated the rangefinder. His vision blurred past his normal, natural range in an instant, a disorienting and sometimes vomit inducing experience for an amateur but Axis was already dialing in the focus on the evacuation platform’s activity.

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Don’t move. Two more Mongooses. I’ll do what I can to block their view of you. The text registered to Axis but he paid it little mind as his zoomed vision scanned the platform. Seven Helephants were already on the platform, the crews beginning to ferry evacuees inside, but it was a sea of blue servant uniforms and red military fatigues. Panic, fear, and anxiety was affixed to nearly every face on the platform, even some of the Helephant crewdrakes. And still there were no signs of any Matriarchs. He felt Katya’s wing feathers brush against his back from side to side, and assumed the Mongoose fighters had passed. His grip on the rifle tightened but he kept his breath and focus steady. Time was both his ally and enemy and he would not give it undue advantage over him by rushing. One Helephant’s hatch cycled closed and the transport roared away, almost immediately replaced by another that had been waiting in the wings. He shifted back to the platform entrance and was gifted with fruit. Two dragons came rushing out, escorted by harnessed drakes and in full royal regalia that was opulent to such a degree they could only have been Matriarchs. He tracked onto their faces and his lenses stored the images. Two more shortly followed and Axis repeated the process.

There’s a patrolling Ridley coming around. We can’t hide from that. Axis would have given her a text reply, but his peripheral caught more unorthodox movement at the platform. But rather than a Matriarch with her armed escorts, a wave of servants, slaves, and ladies-in-waiting burst into view. They were a good five rows deep before their source showed herself. The Matriarch was just as regally clad as her counterparts had been but she was clearly shouting and her wings waved around, herding yet more dragons out of the Palace ahead of her. Axis made to zoom in to her face, intending to take the image and leave the gantry, but she whirled away just as he focused. A Helephant crewdrake had come up behind her and from what Axis could tell, she was verbally abusing him for having said something incompatible with her present situation. He stuttered away back toward his ship, and she finally turned back where Axis could see her face in clear profile. He recorded the image on reflex, but was locked to her visage.

This dragoness… He knew her. His body went completely numb. The roaring wind and screaming alarm faded into nothingness. The gathering acrid stench of burning ozone from so many active drives dissipated from his senses. Every ounce of his being was dedicated to that one Matriarch’s concerned but calm, commanding presence. He knew her.

He had known her name before he knew her face.

Axis.

He had kept a physical picture of her during his entrance exams for the Machinery Navy.

Axis. The Ridley.

That same picture had rested in a pocket with him through his tenure as a spec ops officer. It was still in that pocket in Pi’s room.

Axis we are out of time.

And there she was, haplessly in the open in perfect view and range of a rifle Axis was poised to fire. His lenses lit up with all of the gun’s rangefinding data. Reticle, wind speed and direction, elevation, tracking data. The shot was clean. Perfect. His talon drifted to the trigger.

And it was all gone, his senses assaulted as his body collapsed against the gantry rail while extreme vertigo gripped him. His vision was a rushing mess of swirling sky and towers until he slammed his eyes shut and killed his lens sync with the rifle that was now tumbling away from the gantry into empty space. He fell prone to the ground and screamed, opening his eyes as the vertigo really hit him and vomiting convulsions rippled in his stomach and neck. He was dimly aware of the rifle’s battery pack skidding across the ground just shy of his panting vision, and Katya yelling something and trying to lift him to his feet. His legs were shaky but he managed a wobbling walk across the gantry, Katya supporting him until they both collapsed inside the stairwell. Neither said anything, and for good measure as Axis vomited yet again over the side of the steps.

How long they stayed there, Axis wasn’t sure, but eventually the alarm ceased and the normal lights came back on, accompanied by a robotic loudspeaker announcement, “PALACE EVACUATION WAS A DRILL. RETURN TO YOUR ROUTINES.”

“Can you stand?” Katya asked through gritted teeth, clearly restraining something else more impassioned.

“Marley,” Axis answered through a hacking cough. “I need to see Marley Loftus.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Katya replied in heated resentment. “You aren’t going anywhere near anyone with even a hint of a royal name after that stunt you just pulled! Correct me if I’m wrong but, I don’t think you’d have the tiniest chance at a sponsorship after BLOWING A MATRIARCH HALF TO HELL!” She was screaming now, inches from his face, eyes practically aflame. “I SHOULD HAVE JUST LEFT YOU THERE SO THE RIDLEY COULD FINISH YOU OFF YOU INSANE PSYCHOPATH! IF I HAD ANY SENSE I’D THROW YOU OFF THIS STAIRWELL RIGHT NOW! WAS THAT THE PLAN?! HUH?! MURDER A MATRIARCH IN BROAD DAYLIGHT IN FRONT OF THE LARGEST DEFENSIVE INSTALLATION IN THE ENTIRE EMPIRE!? ANSWER ME AXIS MORTIMER YOU BASTARD!”

“Thank you,” he said, resting his head against the stairwell metal and staring blankly past her talons.

“What?” she asked, bending down and obstructing his vision with her still infuriated, shaking scowl.

“Thank you,” Axis repeated. “That wasn’t the plan, and you made sure it didn’t go that way. Have to say, ya did good.”

“Okay,” Katya paused, straining to resist another outburst and shaking her head, “I am now thoroughly bewildered.”

“You might wanna get back,” Axis said before twisting away and vomiting again when Katya didn’t oblige. He wiped the sickly residue from his mouth and managed to sit up, meeting Katya’s incensed eyes with shifting ones of his own. “I won’t expect you to understand, but since you did stop me from doing something suicidal, I owe you an explanation.”

“Oh so I’m going to actually get one of those?” Katya seethed. “It had better be a damn good one for giving up the public accolade of saving a Matriarch’s life.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Axis replied, his disinterested tone returning faster than she would have liked given the circumstances. “But not here.”

“Fine, c’mon,” Katya acquiesced after several intense breaths of indecision. “You aren’t going to faint on me are you?”

“I have no idea, actually,” Axis admitted, to which Katya silently replied by lifting a wing and offering her support to his still shaky stance. They were able to take the same tram route back to Pi’s room, albeit slower with Axis in the state he was. No dragons bothered them, especially as a few looked just as worse for wear after the drill as Axis.

Once they were back at the room, Axis stumbled in ahead of Katya, making his way directly to the bar. She rolled her eyes at first, but jumped in place when instead of guzzling a bottle, he turned a cold faucet on full blast and dunked his head beneath it, water spraying everywhere. He kept himself submerged for several long seconds before wordlessly making his way back to Katya and joining her on one of the oversized seating cushions. He tried sitting upright but rather quickly plopped down on his stomach. “So…” he started, “about that.”

“I’m listening,” she said. “Closely.”

“Like I said, I don’t expect you to understand,” Axis said, his words chosen much more slowly and carefully than his usually biting speed. “But I saw someone on that platform. Her name is Marley Loftus. Matriarch. The head of the Machinery Census.”

“I know who Matriarch Loftus is Axis,” Katya said.

“A good seven years ago, Marley Loftus made it her personal mission to ensure the Machine won a very important court case,” Axis continued. “Well… important to anyone outside the Machine anyway. And she must have been very convincing ‘cause the Machine won that case. See, thanks to Marley Loftus, I’m sittin’ here talking to you as a selectee of the Duchery and thanks to Marley Loftus, my sister is captain of a Ridley and madly in love with the Crown Princess of the Machine.”

“The Exodus Custody case…” Katya whispered, almost as if she were talking to herself. “That was you and your sister…”

“Let me ask you, Truminoff,” Axis pressed on, his weakened tone hardening viciously. “Have you ever carried with you the name and face of the one person you know beyond a shadow of a doubt is responsible for every ounce of misery and hate that you’ve born on your back for almost a decade only to suddenly be looking at her innocent face down the barrel of your gun?”

Katya stayed quiet briefly before seeming to snap back to the present moment. Her look became stony and placid as she answered, “Yes, Axis. Yes I have.”

“And?” Axis asked pointedly.

“I killed them,” she said blankly.

“Well… credit earned,” he gestured haplessly with his wings. “You do understand.”

“I do,” Katya affirmed. “And it ruined my life. And it would have ruined yours.”

“Oh shit, ya think,” Axis drolled. “I already thanked you.”

“I’m still not going to let you anywhere near her, doubly so now that I know all that,” Katya insisted.

“If I give you the pistols will that make you feel better?” Axis asked impatiently.

“Axis we both know you don’t need a gun to kill a dragoness like her,” Katya answered with flat denial.

“Well it’s a good thing I’m not going to kill her then, isn’t it?” Axis rebuffed with exaggerated lilt.

“What else in the Progeny’s name could you possibly want from the dragoness who you not only almost just shot in tunnel vision fury but admitted you hate more than any other creature in the entire galaxy?” Katya asked, eyes wide with exasperation.

“Well… it does sound pretty bad when you say it like that…” Axis admitted with a side nod. “But! I’m going to ask her to sponsor my selection.”

Axis was certain that the verbal onslaught he endured from Katya following his sponsorship statement was made bearable due exclusively to the musical quality of her voice and the fact she seemed wholly incapable or unwilling to get at all creative with her swearing. That had been five hours ago. They were once again stoutly ignoring one another, Axis on the upper level of his sister’s DelRose Tower room and Katya below enjoying something on the larger viewjector there. However, that she had lost interest in his person was firmly in the negative as she would instantly whip her head around and fix him with an icy glare if she even so much as suspected she heard him move to the edge of the glass platform. To Axis’ chagrin, he had to admit there would be no sneaking past or evading her. Adding insult to injury, such as it was, whatever training as an assassin she had would ensure she could stay awake and alert through the night, possibly multiple nights. And furthermore, while Axis had seen no indication of her fighting skill and was confident Watcher form would best her, she was still a Duchery selectee from outside the Navy. He was not particularly enthused about the idea of engaging her in combat with no prior knowledge of her skill and quickly quashed that notion as a viable alternative. As it stood, Katya Truminoff was not leaving his sister’s room and definitely not letting him leave it either.

This left Axis with little to occupy his mind and it was thusly invaded over and over and over again with the face of Marley Loftus. Already he had tried squelching the image from his mind’s eye and while it might leave him undisturbed for a while, it invariably returned. She had been so close, so real. Alive. Moving. With a low, frustrated growl, he snatched up his military vest from beside the nest cushion and opened a small pocket on its front. From inside he pulled a single, badly creased and water damaged physical picture. He had carried it with him ever since his initiation into the Machinery Navy. A stern, uncompromising reminder of why he stood where he did. It was a picture of Matriarch Loftus, but one so starkly different from the Matriarch he had been poised to kill on the platform it could have been a different dragon entirely. In his picture, she faced the photographer straight on in full court regalia. Gold bangles adorned each of her legs, her dark gray and navy blue scales had been polished until they reflected light like a mirror, her wings were half fanned, allowing the fullness of her cape to enhance the presence of her beautiful figure, and gold chandelier horn ornaments highlighted her deeper amber eyes. But for all the change her attire made, it paled in comparison to the difference in expression from what Axis had just seen.

He examined his picture of her like he never had before, not sure what he was hoping to find, if anything. On the paper in his talons, there was not an ounce of emotion that could be felt. Her visage was stony and intense, seemingly consumed by the magnitude of her station. She appeared as a cold, callous, imperator; and that impression had served only to validate Axis’s near obsessive hatred for her. He tried flattening the picture on the glass and reluctantly pulled the image he had snapped of her in his lenses, allowing him to see both Marley Loftuses side by side. Nothing aligned between them. The indifference from the picture was genuine concern in his lens. The radiating absolutism and power changed to compassion and selflessness. And in a moment of blinding righteous indignation, Axis had nearly obliterated that from existence without ever knowing which image was true. “Fuck!” he screamed to the room, paying no mind to Katya’s resultant hiss and whirling to his feet. His picture of Marley was sent drifting across the glass floor, and it was several deep, measured breaths before Axis gingerly returned it to the pocket in his fatigues. The how he would find an answer for, but beyond any shadow of doubt, he needed to speak to her. Needed to know who she was and who he was to her. Sponsorship or no sponsorship, reality had seen it fit to force him into a confrontation with an inner demon and, he would not be a Duke burdened by a lack of closure.

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Far above the surface of the Loft in a distant, drifting orbit, the Ridley-class cruiser ICS Invisible Ward seemed as a silent, keen observer. Within her decks, life was calm and routine, aggressive music echoing from beneath starships under repair and the occasional clang of a dropped tool beneath open maintenance hatches. Her bridge was a serene picture of discipline and order, a respectful blanket of quiet suppressing any desire for raised voices. Duke Samuel Rothbard-DelRose sat at his command dias overlooking the bridge stations unconcerned with monitoring his officers. They were each one of them his personal picks for their positions and needed no overbearing orders to ensure his ship was maintained to standards well above the Navy’s forgiving minimums. He occupied his attention instead with report updates on his last several insertions. Selection was his current priority, but it would conclude soon and he made a point to never succumb to absently wandering the far corners of the Empire in search of problems requiring the the involvement of a Duke. True threats did not tolerate such childish wanderlust.

“My Lord,” his communications officer, Grand Knight Merry Cathis, interrupted his scan of the reports. The Grand Knight approached the dias more closely after Sam had cleared the viewjectors of his work and continued in a discreet, lower tone, “Matriarch DelRose has requested you. She said it was urgent.”

“Face to face?” Sam asked, perplexed but already dismounting the dias.

“No my Lord,” Merry confirmed. “I transferred her to the main viewjector in your stateroom and informed her you would be with her immediately.”

“As I will,” Sam answered before raising his voice just enough to carry through the bridge. “Yoroff, you have the dias.”

“Aye, my Lord,” his first mate replied, snapping to attention and ascending the post as Rothbard exited into the short corridor aft of the Ward’s bridge. Every Ridley conveniently positioned the captain’s impressive stateroom directly behind his place at the helm of his vessel, and Rothbard had no time to stop in his washroom before presenting himself to his sponsor. He skirted the officer’s dining bench occupying the majority of the stateroom’s center and seated himself on the cushion behind his private desk. The Matriarch in the viewjector before him waited patiently as he made care to adjust the accolades adorning his military attire to their proper placement and inclined his neck to her in due deference.

“Has repeated failure in Duchery politics turned you into a daft jester, Samuel?” Matriarch DelRose immediately berated him with refined offense, her native accent only sharpening the cutting words.

“A clarification to your meaning, Sister?” Rothbard asked in sincerity.

“Samuel, you have brought great honor to your House, to me, and to our Empress,” Matriarch DelRose said, her tone softening ever so slightly. “You have done this even when I craved no greater renown for our name than what my daughter has given as Crown Princess of the Loft. And yet…” a long sigh escaped her and Sam began to form an idea of what subject vexed her enough to demand to speak with him. “In having yet to find a worthy candidate for selection these many years, you in apparent desperation, see fit to mock me by bringing forth the brother of my daughter’s soon betrothed! A brother, I do not feel you need reminding, harbors no great love for this great Empire! And furthermore, not only do you do this, you further insult me by allowing this knowledge to come to my attention by outside means rather than your own lips in a display of cowardice I did not think possible of you, Samuel!”

“Sister, if I may render my justifications?” Rothbard requested, to which he received a stiff nod. “Sister, as you say, I have done everything in my power to bring honor to our House in my service as Duke. To that end, I would never seek to damage our name by acting rashly for my own gratification. Axis earned the right to selection on his own merits, and were it not I to bring him up, another eventually would have. As for not informing you of this development, I will not offend your intelligence in reciting Duchery law on the matter of secrecy.”

“Be that as it may Samuel,” Matriarch DelRose answered tersely, “but you are too clever a drake to have made this decision absent any considerations at all of his tangential relations to our House.”

“I wished to give you an opportunity to bring both the brother and sister under our name,” Rothbard said. “I thought it wise to not potentially divide his loyalties and thus bring risk to the House.”

“Axis Mortimer’s loyalties lie with himself only,” the Matriarch said with swift decisiveness. “This is well evidenced. And what wisdom your foresight may have carried with it at first now sours as we speak. We are not the only House aware of his presence and purpose here.”

“Naturally,” Rothbard agreed. “It is the nature of the Palace of the Loft that hearsay spreads like fire. But I have received no communication informing me that he has secured sponsorship.”

“You speak truthfully, Samuel,” Matriarch DelRose said before her demeanor darkened, “but I learned of his being here not from my daughter nor my staff. Rumor abounds that she knows as well and is seeking to sponsor him as soon as she can locate him.”

“Then Sister,” Rothbard cautioned, his expression now mirroring her own, “you must move quickly. For his sake.”