Elsewhere
Temera Amaluy sat on her ship and tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair. It was the only sign of her impatience. Even the tapping was an affectation, more pretense and practice than a reliable indicator. She had been too well-schooled for such obvious gestures, but sometimes it was helpful to make people think she felt a certain way. It had been a week since her queen dispatched her on this errand. Temera hadn’t been able to investigate the most likely source, as her queen’s intelligence assets had only speculated on the existence of the facility where they thought it might have come from. They didn’t know where it might be located and even Temera wouldn’t have dared try to infiltrate a place so utterly well-hidden. Well, she probably wouldn’t have tried. At least, not without a good six months of planning and laying in careful groundwork. Even then, she expected the odds of success would prove daunting.
With that option out of the way, she’d moved on to the people who seemed to be the source of the intel that highly sensitive data had gone running into the empty, free and clear for anyone fast enough to catch it. She didn’t expect it would be free. It would cost someone, either in credits or in blood. That kind of information always did, though she fervently hoped it would mean credits. Some of the people who operated in the nebulous spheres that she did liked the brutal, up-close and bloody work. Temera wasn’t one of them. It always struck her as an unnecessarily crude solution. Not that she shied away from killing, when necessary, but it usually wasn’t necessary. Easier maybe, but not necessary.
Temera liked to believe that kind of thinking was why she was the Queen’s favorite. She was only guessing, though. No one really knew the Queen’s mind. To her people, she was the benevolent mistress who generously funded charities, financed excellent schools, and saw to it that their lives were, by galactic standards, quite comfortable. She gave impassioned speeches about kindness and her undying duty to her people. It was masterful and, more importantly, effective. Her people loved her with an intensity that bordered on fanaticism. The gods help anyone that tried to a frontal assault on her palace. The surge of populist violence would be overwhelming.
Her political allies saw her as a somewhat dim debutante who never really grew up. It was a view she put as much work into maintaining as she did into securing the adoration of her people. She’d throw tantrums or make trivial demands of them. Temera had never seen that façade slip in public. Not once. Not in a decade of dedicated service. Those allies routinely underestimated her and were often left perplexed when their machinations for personal gain were mysteriously undercut from the shadows.
Her political enemies were equally mystified by how this petulant woman always came out ahead of them. They attributed her unusually secure rule to a set of unusually competent underlings covering for her. Temera had heard the rumblings from time to time that the queen’s internal security apparatus could use a good culling. She had dutifully reported these rumblings to her queen, as well as the original sources for those rumblings. Her enemies never knew that they were removed by the absolutely ruthless orders of their “petulant queen.”
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The personal self-mastery the queen demonstrated meant that Temera could never, ever, assume that she knew what the queen was thinking. For all Temera knew, the reason she was the queen’s favorite was that she succeeded far more often than not. She suspected the truth was something a bit more mundane. She was the queen’s friend, or as close to one as the queen would allow. It didn’t happen often, no more than once or twice a year, but the queen would send for her. For a few hours, they would just talk about whatever either of them thought of in the moment. Sometimes, it was the latest fashions at court. Sometimes, it was interstellar politics. One time, it was the relative merits of gold and silver jewelry. It turned out the queen favored silver, while Temera had no preference. She’d never owned any jewelry. She’d only ever worn it as part of a cover identity. In a rare moment of absolute emotional honesty, the queen had seemed appalled at the idea that Temera owned no jewelry.
“But, Temera, what do you wear when you aren’t working?” The Queen asked.
Temera had looked down at the jumpsuit she wore and shrugged. “This, mostly.”
The queen frowned at Temera and said, “I see.”
The subject was dropped after that. In the intervening years, though, a series of packages had arrived with small pieces of exquisitely made jewelry, always in silver, and an absurdly well-funded expense account at a local clothier was set up in her name. Temera never mentioned it to the queen, but she also never presented herself to the queen again without wearing at least one of those pieces of jewelry or tailored clothing. The queen never directly addressed the subject either, but almost never missed an opportunity to comment on how lovely a ring, necklace, or dress looked. It took Temera about two years to realize what subtle moves the queen was making. Without ever once disparaging gold jewelry, she shifted jewelry fashion in the court with her comments. Two birds, one stone.
Yet, Temera never wanted to take the queen’s good graces for granted. It’s why she worked so hard to never lose and almost never did. Unless he turned up. For a while, he’d just been a face working at cross purposes. Then, she’d found out his name. Temera snorted. Well, she’d found out a name that he answered to at least. Banjin Colle. There was a part of her that loathed him because he was so good at depriving her of victory. There was also a part of her that admired him because he was so very good. He’d been around less the last few years, though, only really turning up when something major was in play. Those were always the times when she’d wished so desperately that he wouldn’t show up. She suspected it was only a matter of time before he showed up now with sensitive files, shadow facilities, and the risk of massive political fallout in play. These things had Banjin Colle written all over them.
The problem was that catastrophe would ensue if he showed up. It always did. She was sure, just certain, that if they were both sent to simply keep a random flower safe on some docile planet somewhere, a full-fledged rebellion would break out and tanks would crush the flower. Or a rogue meteor would fall out of the sky and kill it. Or Ankala herself would step out of the afterlife and pick the stupid thing. Still, she hadn’t seen him yet, so maybe she was finally a few steps ahead of him for once. Or, she realized, he was at that shadow facility right now, doing the investigation that she couldn’t, and about to grab the files out of the ether. Damn you, Banjin Colle, she thought. You better steer clear this time. I won’t fail my queen again, even if it means I have to go through you.