Chapter 57: A Pacific Pattern

Rudy watched the Kyrillos men-at-arms and servants and family – and Chloe – file into the dark semicircular viewing chamber. No one invited him in, but no one challenged his presence outside the door, either.

No one had challenged him, not even spoken a word to him, since Chloe walked in on him and Milissa. It was like some bizarre dream, like everyone around him was a ghost. Or like he was.

It was colder than the New Kyrillopolis winter and nastier than a blood-mad bandersnatch.

He wasn't being entirely truthful. Milissa had tried to talk, but he wasn't about to listen to her. Even she'd given up after the third time he'd told her to.

He tried to meet Chloe's eyes as she passed him. Her mouth fixed in a tight little line when she looked at him, but for all the reaction in her stratosphere blues, she might have been exchanging glances with a perfect stranger.

He'd have rather had her hate than... nothing.

Chloe passed through the door at Stephan's side.

Milissa was next. She hesitated as she passed Rudy, glanced up at him. "You can come in," she whispered. Then she rushed after her brother.

Rudy didn't feel like wandering the halls alone while they did whatever they got up to in there. He'd feel even more like a ghost. Besides, he was curious. He'd never seen the whole household assembled at once before.

The estate's occupants didn't come close to filling the room, but they did their best, spreading into the concentric semicircles of chairs in front of a wall-spanning screen. Kyrilloses and Chloe took the bottom level, Slava and the senior men-at-arms sat above them, lower-ranking retainers and the handful of civilian servants in the upper rings.

Rudy wondered what the occasion was.

Probably Stephan announcing his engagement, he thought with a scowl. After that crap with Milissa and whatever Stephan told Chloe about Otto and her parents, he had to have her wrapped all the way around his little finger.

Not that Rudy expected Stephan to wait for a little thing like Chloe’s agreement before he announced what was gonna happen.

Rudy slipped in among the senior men-at-arms. The mechaneers didn't seem to know what his status with the household was. Those who seemed inclined to bar his progress, he elbowed out of the way. He took the chair offset behind Chloe's and Stephan's.

Chloe didn't even glance over her shoulder. Stephan did, but even Rudy had to credit him for the skill with which he hid his smirk.

"If everyone will please take a seat," Stephan said. "All of you need to pay close attention to what you're about to see."

Rudy rolled his eyes.

"Quinn," Stephan said, "play the transmission."

Transmission? Apparently Steph wasn't announcing any wedding plans.

Rudy wondered if the nobs had decided to throw their hats in with the Oligarchy after all. The thought of kicking Fed ass gave him the closest thing to a smile he'd had in a month.

But instead of the seal of one of the surviving aristocratic naval commanders or the logo of Algreil Aerospace, the screen displayed the Ouroboros blazon of the Federal Senate: a golden serpent in the shape of an infinity symbol, devouring its tail against a dark green field.

Rudy gripped the arms of his chair to keep from surging from it. From the commotion around him, most of the Kyrillos men shared his confusion. Even Chloe and Milissa looked suddenly to Stephan.

Stephan let the transmission answer the unspoken questions.

The Ouroboros dissolved into a wide-angle shot of the Federal Senate chamber. A hollow sphere big enough to be a small moon, its bottom half filled by an amphitheater where each 'seat' was an enclosed senatorial box bigger than a transport. Thin strands of nanopaste formed walkways to a central sphere, the office of Rhetta Ferrill, President of the Federal Senate.

As Rudy watched, the boxes' domed roofs unfolded, shunting invisibly into the senate chamber's reactive gel structure.

The camera focused on the central sphere. The lower boxes only folded back enough to show the senators and aides on the top floors. President Ferrill's opened almost entirely, displaying a dozen layers. The president herself sat behind her wooden desk on the uppermost floor, Marcel Avalon standing at one shoulder and a balding man in a gray-green groundling-style suit at the other.

It took Rudy a moment to recognize the latter as Georg Marchess, Oligarch of the United Shipping Magnate.

Otto's father-in-law.

The hell?

Another, quieter commotion rippled through the Kyrillos chamber. Aside from Stephan and Quinn, who'd obviously seen this already, only Slava and a couple of the communications men seemed to know who Georg was.

Had the Oligarchy already won?

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Rudy figured not, seeing as how the on-screen Georg Marchess dipped his head to Ferrill and stepped back, same as Marcel.

The President of the Federal Senate rose and faced the camera. Rudy had met her at the fifth anniversary of the Battle of Etemenos, though he'd been just a kid and she, the Junior Senator from the Raypoint system. At the time, she’d all but disappeared into the crowd of politicos. Despite her position and the camera’s focus, she still seemed to. She seemed far too small, too unassuming, to be the focal point of a galaxy.

She’d been too small, too unassuming, for her political opponents to block her ascension. How many times had she been the compromise candidate? How many politicians had figured they could use her as a disposable springboard for their own careers and ended up fodder for hers?

Ferrill raised a hand for silence. Rudy hadn't even noticed the applause until she muted it.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate," she said, "citizens of the Federated Stars. I come before you today with joyous news for the peace and equality of our galaxy."

Ferrill's harsh Raypoint accent hid behind a bland Etemenos patois. Rudy wasn't sure if the traces of colonial twang she permitted were her natural tones or an affectation. She'd spoken the same way a decade before.

He liked the contents of her speech even less than the delivery. He had a bad feeling he knew what she intended to say.

"One week ago," Ferrill said, sweeping her right hand dramatically as a holographic display appeared before her, "Operation: Equalization, the Federal Navy's suppression of the traitorous Oligarchs, concluded principle hostilities."

Rudy's mouth went dry.

Within the Senatorial hologram, capital ships whirled their stately dance through deep space, lit by explosions and the reflected glow of some distant star.

"Admiral Marcel Avalon outmaneuvered the insurgents and dealt them a crippling blow, and the assistance of loyal citizens who flew to his aid ensured that his strike would not be in vain." Ferrill nodded first to Marcel, then to Georg Marchess. “Justice would have prevailed in any case, but thanks to Chairman Marchess's patriotism, victory did not have to carry a terrible toll. Both these men deserve the gratitude of all who fought in Operation: Equalization, even their foes.”

That son of a bitch!

Rudy could understand why the Marchess family would want to stab Otto in the back. Otto's treatment of Alarie, sure – but more than that, they probably stood to control Algreil Aerospace.

Dammit!

Rudy dragged his gaze from Georg Marchess's smirking face. He looked to the lower tiers of the presidential sphere. They had also unfolded, and although neither the lights nor the camera focused on them, Rudy could make out at least two of the people shackled by the nanomachines of the floor.

One was a tall, burly blonde man, lantern-jawed, broken-nosed, muscular beneath a red and blue flight suit. The other, shorter and leaner, strawberry-blonde and olive-skinned and wearing a matching suit.

Jack Hughes and Otto Algreil.

Dammit!

"Due to our swift and overwhelming victory," Ferrill was saying, "more than eighty percent of the vessels in the rebel fleet were taken intact, their crews unharmed. These men have committed no crime greater than doing their jobs. I am glad they did not lose their lives in war and will fight to ensure they lose nothing in peace.”

Rudy could see Chloe straighten up at Ferrill's words. He could imagine the hope trying to etch a smile onto her face.

It near to broke his heart, because he could see exactly where Ferrill was leading.

“With this in mind,” she said, “I have asked the Senate to approve an extension to the Treaty of Etemenos war crimes stipulations.”

Rudy winced even though he'd expected it.

“As the treaty extended blanket amnesty to liegemen fighting for the aristocracy,” Ferrill said, “so too do I believe we should show mercy to enlisted employees and junior officers now.

“As for the driving forces of this insurgency, however...”

As she spoke, the military hologram faded, and light played on the levels below hers. Over a hundred Oligarchical officers advanced, no doubt at the command of unseen captors. Mechaneer aces and capital ship skippers. Rudy recognized most of them. Former colleagues, former rivals. Not to mention nine full-fledged oligarchs.

The camera zoomed in on them.

Chloe gasped as the view panned over her father. Stephan reached over to squeeze her shoulder, but she shrank from him and into her chair.

Ferrill's voice overlaid the slow pan over Oligarchs, their commanders and their aces. "I can think of no better demonstration of the fairness and justice of our great nation than to try these men, who attempted to place themselves above their fellow citizens with money and power, in the same manner we would any ordinary criminals.

“But these are no ordinary criminals,” she continued. “They stand accused of high crimes, the highest we have, and even this does not encompass the full import of their actions. Treason we know, and the sedition and conspiracy leading up to it. Too, they might stand for murder if we were so inclined to charge them, for surely the deaths in this senseless war are due to their ambitions.”

Rudy could've punched the smarmy bitch. Maybe you forgot about the part where you started it, Madame President.

Or had she?

Shit, was she right, at least as far as Otto was concerned? It wasn't like Rudy hadn't heard how bad the Feds were from his brother often enough to tune out the message. And Rudy needed no one to tell him that Otto was less than a stand-up guy.

Didn't change the fact that Errard Zelph had been sniffing after Chloe, though. If he hadn't, none of the fighting would have happened, or at least wouldn't have happened yet.

Otto might have picked the battlefield. He hadn't started the fight.

"Perhaps," Ferrill said, "you will find it within yourselves to show mercy on some of these men. If that is your judgment under the law, it speaks to the generosity I know you possess. Nonetheless, generosity must be tempered with prudence, mercy with justice. You will have ample time to consider the matter, as those whose peers find them guilty of high treason will pay for this most heinous of crimes following the conclusion of the Etemenos Cup."

Four months, Rudy thought. Why the delay? It wasn't like the Feds were waiting long enough to pretend the trials would be fair or impartial or even necessary. Hell, everyone knew the Oligarchical prisoners had fought against the Federal Navy. Did the delay tie into Ferrill's politicking somehow?

"People of the Federated Stars," Ferrill said, as the camera returned to her podium, "you may – no, you must – enjoy the tradition of the Etemenos Cup as ever you would. Enjoy it secure in the knowledge that no one will take your right to do so, secure in the knowledge that the will of the people has again triumphed over the forces of tyranny and privilege, secure, above all else, in the peace and equality of our galaxy.

"Thank you, and may the Principle grant a pacific pattern to your days."