Admiral Stonefist was up early, preparing for the day's meeting with the Council of Admiralty. He shaved and donned his uniform, pressing it and donning it carefully, as though he were armoring up for battle.
The ISS Swordheart was already at the rendezvous. This quarter's meeting of the Council would be held on the Swordheart. They rotated whose flagship hosted the meeting. Not there was much of a home field advantage.
Grimthorn paused at the door to his quarters-- on the other side was the world of bureaucracy, waiting to reclaim him. He'd had a couple forays into actual work again-- saving people, destroying pirates-- and now it was time to pay for it.
He blew air through his nose, his mouth tight. It shouldn't be this way.
He took a moment to control his temper. He wasn't even in the meeting yet and already he was angry.
But perhaps... perhaps everybody would just be calm today. Perhaps they could just get through the paperwork and everyone could go home happy. Perhaps.
With little hope, he opened the door.
Kinnit was waiting in the hallway outside his quarters. She saluted as the door opened.
And now this problem, he thought.
"Assistant, what are you doing in front of my quarters?"
"I brought the reports and documents you'll need for your meeting, sir. Given the hour, I believed you'd want to go to the meeting directly from your quarters instead of stopping by your office."
She held out a pocket drive and a stasis mug.
"I also brought you some coffee. It's from the mess hall, so it's not... Kobold-made."
His mouth automatically opened to thank her, and he froze. He couldn't let up. She had to be away from here, and if he slipped at all, if he let her ever think that there was a path up, or away from the relentless grind of the job, she might try to fight through it.
He carefully screwed his mouth shut. He took the drive and the coffee.
"Don't hang out in front of my quarters," he said. "It's creepy. Not that I'd expect an SS to understand."
He felt almost as though he were standing outside his own body, watching himself say these awful things. In his mind, he screamed imprecations at himself, furious. It was wrong. It was unjust. But it was necessary.
He must drive her out.
By the time they arrived at the meeting chamber, he was a mess of emotions: upset, worry, and sadness, but above all a towering fury.
His face was perfectly still, betraying nothing.
"Wait here with the other Assistants," he said to Kinnit. He handed her the half-empty stasis mug. "The Council is private."
"Understood, sir."
He tried to gather the energy to throw another dig at her, but he didn't have it in him. Not now.
He looked at the other Admiral's Assistants gathered there. None of the other Assistants were SS. Most of them were actual officers, lieutenants. He turned away.
He strode into the meeting chamber, hat under one arm, scanner in his off hand. Everyone else was already seated, Admiral Dermot Lander on the left, Admiral Cora Din on the right, and old Admiral Balia directly across.
"Tardy, as usual," Dermot said, his trademark sneer curling his lip already. His bulk overflowed the conference chair.
"I am precisely on time," Grimthorn said, without even checking his scanner.
"To fail to be early is to be late," said Cora Din in her nasally, drawn-out voice. She was ghastly thin with a long nose and a protuberant dorsal hump.
Admiral Stonefist ignored all this and saluted.
"Admiral Balia," he said. "Good to see you again."
Admiral Balia looked at him with rheumy eyes, his mouth open and no sign of comprehension on his face.
Grimthorn's mouth tightened. Some days, Balia was more lucid, almost like his old self, and would help rein in some of the stupidity of this meeting.
Today, it seemed, was not one of those days.
Admiral Stonefist seated himself. There was a round of requisite meeting administrivia, then they began.
"To begin," said Cora Din, "I want to bring up a matter of concern that has been brought to my attention."
"Me, too," said Dermot Lander. "But I will yield to Admiral Din."
She nodded with faux graciousness.
"Admiral Stonefist," Din continued, "an anonymous grievance has been filed over your handling of the Stone Pirates."
"And?"
"Are you not curious to hear the grievance?"
"Not especially. There are many grievances in the Imperium. Is the purpose of this Council to address each one individually?"
She folded her hands together and leaned over the table.
"It is precisely this utter lack of introspection that concerns me, Admiral."
"Then you must have a pleasant life, Admiral Din, if this minor matter is your greatest concern."
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She frowned deeply and hard, with a face long used to deep frowns. She cleared her throat theatrically.
"The grievance concerns your handling of the pirates. Apparently they tried to surrender, but you opened fire on them anyway. Is this correct?"
"Did the workers of Yellow Dog sector have the opportunity to surrender?"
"That is irrelevant to the grievance."
Admiral Stonefist took a moment to keep his temper under control.
"If the Swordheart had not arrived in time, the outpost at Yellow Dog sector would have been completely destroyed. Every citizen there now would be dead. And you feel this is not... relevant?"
"To the grievance, no. Let's stick to the facts of the Stone Pirates, and not fall into speculation about what might have happened to a bunch of posties if you had not gone white-knighting after them."
"I dealt with the pirates as the Imperium has always dealt with the pirates. Thoroughly."
"Admiral Stonefist," she said, "you cannot simply do what you like. You are not some Wild West cowboy. The Ninth Fleet is not your rootin' tootin' revolver out on the wild frontier. You are a military man. And you should act like it."
Admiral Stonefist sat silent, his face immobile.
"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?"
His temper flared visibly.
"Say for myself? My mandate is to protect the Imperium. I did so. What do you have to say for yourself, that you seem to have a problem with that?"
She bristled.
"Admiral, I'm going to file for a formal censure of your office."
"Oh no, you're going to file paperwork at me. Whatever shall I do?"
Admiral Lander cut in.
"Let's not be snide, Admiral Stonefist. Actually, I also wanted to discuss recent events."
"Do tell."
"I wanted to ask about this so-called 'rescue' in Yellow Dog sector. According to the reports, you detonated an ion shell within a half a kilometer of your own ship?"
"No. I detonated twelve ion shells within a half a kilometer of my own ship. Simultaneously."
Dermot's jowls jiggled as he shook his head.
"You seem to think this is some kind of joke, or a contest of manliness. I don't see that. What I see is a reckless cowboy, to borrow Admiral Din's analogy, who put every life on his ship in danger for a misguided attempt to play the hero."
"Then tell me, Admiral Lander," Grimthorn said in the careful tones of a man who was clinging to his self-control with his fingernails, "how would you have defeated so large fleet of fighters?"
Dermot rolled back in his chair.
"Very simple. I would have waited for the rest of the fleet. Overwhelming force to wipe them out."
"Every soul on that outpost would have been well dead by the time the fleet arrived."
Admiral Lander spread his hands.
"That's the way it is, sometimes. It's not worth risking an entire ship and crew for a few workers."
"Wrong!" Admiral Stonefist bolted to his feet. "Every man in the Navy of the Imperium swore an oath to protect the Imperium and her citizens. Including you. Every man in my fleet knows that it is his job to die to protect them." Grimthorn gesticulated firmly. "What use are our pretty ships and fancy uniforms if we protect them at the expense of those who depend on us? Yours are the words of a rank coward!"
"Now, now see here," sputtered Dermot.
"I will not sit here be lectured about how to run away from danger, just to keep my shiny ship and medals. Protecting the Imperium is my oath and my honor."
He silently seethed, looking down at the shocked faces around the table.
"Admiral Balia, have you anything to add?" Grimthorn asked.
"Eh? What'd he say?"
"Then I take my leave."
Admiral Stonefist turned and strode out of the meeting chamber, cold fury in every line of movement.
He exited the chamber and paused, struggling to regain control of his temper.
"I have your coffee, sir," said Kinnit. The other Assistants stood together a small distance away, smirking as though they'd shared a nasty joke.
Admiral Stonefist ignored her.
"Do you have something to share, Lieutenant?" Grimthorn asked one of the other Assistants.
"You might want to train your goblin better," one of them said. "She walked in on a private staff meeting."
The other Assistants snickered.
"I'm sorry, sir," Kinnit said quietly. "They told me I was expected to serve coffee in the other meetings while I was waiting for you. So I did."
"A real Assistant would have known better," the Lieutenant said. "But what else could you expect from an SS?"
Before his brain could engage, Grimthorn turned and punched the man so hard that he flew ten feet before he hit the ground.
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A few days later, Lieutenant Dol lingered outside one of the disused inter-ship conduits, chuckling darkly as he paged through the ship's gossip comm on his scanner. He actually giggle-snorted at the graphic description that was circulating of Admiral Stonefist punching another admiral's Assistant.
Early retirement, indeed. Stonefist was well on his way. Lieutenant Dol had done his part, and the shadowy figure had done theirs.
And now, this last duty for Dol. He lounged around the conduit, trying to look innocent, but he would be hard-pressed to explain what he was doing way back here at the cargo-loading end of the ship. Even if they were docked for supplies.
He peered around. He looked so suspicious that he would almost certainly have been reported if there had been anyone around to see.
A faint rapping came from the other side of the conduit hatch, in a specific pattern. With one last look around, Dol punched in the generic cargo loader access code. The hatch hissed open, and a cloaked figure darted through, barely even pausing to glance at Lieutenant Dol. The figure disappeared down a service hall.
Dol gasped. The figure had been too cloaked and his presence too brief to make out an identity, or even a species. But that glance had revealed to the young Lieutenant eyes that were totally black, with what looked like a sprinkling of stars scattered through them.
Lieutenant Dol pressed the button to close the hatch again, deeply unsettled. He felt, for the first time, that he'd been swimming in waters far deeper than he'd realized.
He shook his head. That couldn't have been... surely not. After all, the Qhall were just fairy tales.
Weren't they?
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Kinnit sat on the edge of her bed in her quarters, turning things over in her mind. An adventure novel was open on the scanner in her hands, but she was staring through it, lost in thought.
She was trying to understand what had been going on lately. Admiral Stonefist had seemed to be warming up to her, but just recently became so cold and rude and always needling her about being an SS. And then today, he'd punched one of the other Assistant's lights out for saying almost the exact same thing the admiral had been saying to her for days.
Not that she minded the punching, such as it was. Watching that twerp sail through the air, and seeing the shocked faces of the other Assistants had been so intensely gratifying. She giggled a little again, remembering.
But now Admiral Stonefist was in a disciplinary hearing, and the Assistant he hit was in a healing pod, and there was bound to be more fallout. So why did he do that? Was he disappointed that she was a SS or not?
Filled with questions that had no answer, she sat in her bunk and brooded.
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Attn: Lieutenant Voth, read the message.
I am writing to formally express my sincere apologies for the violence you experienced at my hands this Tuesday. My actions were inexcusable, and I am deeply sorry for my behavior. My office will cover all medical and lost-time expenses relating to this incident. Please accept my deepest apologies and sincerest wishes for your recovery. Sincerely, Adm. Grimthorn Stonefist, Ninth Fleet. P.S. For your own safety, do not speak to my Assistant again.
Admiral Stonefist leaned back in his chair. This kind of formal missive was not his strong suit. He felt that it probably needed more work to sound appropriately apologetic. Especially since he didn't feel very apologetic at all.
He frowned. This was exactly the kind of thing he needed Kinnit for.
His thoughts all ran away as soon as she appeared in his mind. He had to acknowledge that his plan had failed. Whether his efforts to drive her out of the Navy were working on her, they were certainly working on him. It took too heavy of an emotional toll on him to keep it up.
Unless Lieutenant Voth was willing to volunteer to get punched every couple days. The thought made Grimthorn smile thinly.
But his humor faded as he considered the problem in front of him.
He needed to sit down and have a real talk with Kinnit.