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Empire of Night Ch29
Serra straightened Alex’s cloak, turning him this way and that. She wanted to make sure everything was in order. They were terribly late in this introduction, and she wanted everything to be perfect.
He smiled at her. “Serra, it will be fine; I’m sure we’ll get along well enough.”
Lisril laid a hand on her shoulder. “He’s right; there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Of course.” Serra took a deep breath, steadying herself. “You’re right.”
Rosslln shifted, clearing her throat. “Maybe I-”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lisril said, “you’ve every right to be here. Now, enough stalling.”
Serra nodded, knocked on the door, and they waited a moment before her mother appeared.
“Serra,” her mother said, stepping aside for them. “Come in, I’ve heard there’s to be a duel. How exciting.”
“It’s a small thing,” Lisril said, “just a bit of a disagreement between her Magnificence and a couple of parliamentarians.”
“So long as it’s nothing serious.” Her mother led them to the fireplace and sat them around the hearth, where her father was already sitting. He smiled at them but hadn’t been addressed and so remained silent.
“Is it just you and Papa?” Serra asked?”
“No,” Mama said, “two of your sisters, but I’ve arranged separate accommodations for them this evening. Your aunts are maintaining the garrison."
“Quite sensible,” Serra said, “we’ll have to come back again and introduce Alex.”
“Speaking of,” her mother said.
Serra nodded. “Papa,” she said, “this is Alex, my fiance.”
Alex smiled and offered his hand to her father. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
Her father hesitated and gingerly placed his hand into Alex’s, who, for his part, seized the offered hand and gave one vigorous shake before releasing him.
“A pleasure, sir,” her father said, retreating from the handshake, looking almost scared as he did.
Either oblivious or ignoring the other man’s discomfort, Alex turned to her mother. “Nice to see you again, ma’am. I’m sorry for all the consternation.”
“You can hardly be blamed,” the older woman said, “for the actions of a group of separatists.”
“I suppose,” Alex said, “still, I wish the circumstances were better.”
“Don’t we all, regardless, let’s not allow a group of traitors to spoil our evening.”
“Indeed.” Serra took his hand and gave a squeeze. “We’re all hale and healthy, thank the Lady. Relatedly, Mama, Papa, you know Lisril, and this.” She gestured to Rosslln. “Is Rosslln.”
The young, purple-skinned woman bowed her head. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Good to finally be properly introduced,” her mother said, “I’ve heard you’re quite the hero.”
“Me?” Rosslln shook her head. “No, I haven’t done anything special.”
“Is that so? Perhaps I’m misinformed, then. I’ve also been passed some rather outlandish claims that her Magnificence escorted an exceptionally tall lord to town some days past and that when accosted, he appointed himself well in battle.”
“You keep your ear to the ground,” Alex said.
Mama smirked at him. “Knowledge is power, young man. And though I’ve heard the boasts of the excellence of Dyrantoro soldiery, I suspect there’s more to you than meets the eye.”
He smiled. “I hope so,” he said and drew Serra's finger to his lips. “Your daughter deserves exceptional.”
Her mother chuckled at that. “I can see why she’s smitten.”
Serra squeezed his hand and drew it to her breast, pressing it to her heart. “He’s an excellent man, of many extraordinary talents.”
“Acuity with Dyrantoro weapons amongst them,” Mama said. “I’ve spoken to her Magnificence, and a mister Callahan, I believe it was. I understand that your military leadership is here, but that involving them in our affairs would create inconvenient political hurdles.”
He nodded. “Sounds about right. What did you have in mind?”
“Mister Calahan expressed that you were skilled in the use of a longbow?”
Alex frowned. “Well, I had my sniper tab way back when. But that’s not what you want to see.”
Her mother’s brow winged up, and she looked at him expectantly. “Oh?”
“Well,” he said, “maybe you want to see, but I don’t intend to show you. Frankly, ma’am, your whole civilization's infantry tactics are obsolete, and they’re going to get God only knows how many women killed. A demonstration of marksmanship isn’t going to move the needle. You and your people need to see that the era of swords and cavalry charges is truly over.”
As he spoke, Serra watched a frown crease her mother’s brow and her father begin to squirm in his seat.
“Then what do you suggest?”
Mama kept her voice even, he was still a man, and chivalry demanded patience. Besides, Lisril was sitting among them, and Serra didn’t doubt it would come to blows should her mother become too aggressive with him.
“I happen to have one of my machine guns here,” he said, “give me a hill and a reasonable facsimile of an army, and I’ll show you what human weapons can do.”
Mama’s chin came up; she wasn’t one to shrink from a challenge. “Very well,” she said, “I shall reconvene with her Magnificence.”
Alex nodded. “One day, you’ll have to come to Earth; I’ll show you real heavy weaponry; unfortunately, we can’t transport any of the really fun toys yet.”
Her mother raised a brow. “Is that so?”
“Oh yeah,” Alex said, “you’re in for a treat the first time you see a ground attack aircraft buzz overhead.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” she said, “a shame we won’t have the opportunity to enjoy a comprehensive demonstration.”
He nodded. “I’m sure the army will arrange training for you ladies sooner or later. The state takes a while to get moving, though.”
“Is that so?”
“I’m sure right now they’re picking the committee to select the committee to allocate the budget for the lunches of the committee to determine the military resources we’re going to allocate to Nyx.”
Lisril laughed, but Serra’s mother just frowned. “This hardly sounds an efficacious state of affairs.”
Alex shrugged. “It’s a big organization, lots of moving parts. But you’re right, there’s a reckoning coming, a lot of fat that needs trimming.”
Mama snorted. “Hardly a surprise; a military run by men hardly sounds fearsome.”
“That so?” Alex asked. “Ma’am, our military could crack this planet in half as soon as look at it, has men stationed across four dozen planet in three systesm, to say nothing of men on man made stations, and until recently had no way to communicate with many of them on a time scale measured in less than years. I’d like to see how your military holds up under that kind of strain.”
“If we wanted, we could kill every living thing on this planet by sending men down to rip up individual blades of grass. Now, that’s not so many men as you think, considering each one would come down with semi-autonomous self-replicating drones that would happily turn your whole planet into weapons to destroy you, if we let them.”
Alex and her mother stared each other down.
Silence prevailed, and lisril filled it with a dry chuckle. “My man has a fire burning in his belly, don’t you agree?”
“Clearly,” her mother said tersely. “You make some bold claims.”
“We’ve been an interplanetary civilization for centuries,” he said, “the scale of our civilization is simply different.”
She pursed her lips. “Perhaps, it’s an impressive mobilization.”
“Mobilization?” he asked. “We haven’t begun to mobilize.”
“Sir,” she scoffed, “there’s no need to boast.”
He shook his head. “It’d be hard to show you,” he said, “especially since we’re still retrofitting our transports for FTL. But imagine a strong, unified empire. Try to envision the force that would have to be raised to assault that empire, the entire planet. Then consider that our enemies, obviously, have more than one planet, and their worlds are even harder to assault. We’re realistically considering multile simultaneous planetary invasions.”
He shook his head. “But we’re still solidifying our hold on Earth. Then, it will be a matter of raising that army.”
“Why wait?” Rosslln asked.
He shrugged. “Not my call, but if I had to guess, I’d say a build-up might look like taking an aggressive stance. Make it less likely people would fall in line willingly.”
Mama laughed. “Yet they don’t find your standing army intimidating?”
He snorted. “It is a bit sillily. But most of our forces are off-world. Not secret, but out of sight.”
Her mother frowned. “I want to see your empire, your fortresses, and garrisons.”
He chewed on that for a moment. “I’m the wrong person to ask. But you’re in luck; the joint chiefs happen to be visiting. Talk to Eli; she can probably get you a meeting.”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed just slightly, one brow twitching up. “I suppose she could. Enough business. Or rather, enough of mine. I understand that you have engaged yourself in industry.”
He nodded. “Something like that. I run an aerospace company affiliated with the Federation’s defense apparatus. Currently, we’re in talks with Saber Space Industries; they’re the dominant industrial muscle in the vicinity of Earth. They made the particle accelerator we use to make antimatter.”
“I see,” Mama said, “and what is it you produce?”
“Starship drives,” he said, “primarily. I’ve been considering getting into weapons manufacturing.”
“Is that so?”
“Dyrantisa ladies have different requirements than human men. Bigger fingers. There’s money to be made producing weapons for the empire.”
Her mother smiled at that. “An excellent use of time. Especially if your boasts can be believed.”
Lisril took his arm. “You’ll find my husband quite reliable.”
“I’ll take you at your word,” the older woman said. “How do you find Nyx, sir?”
“Cold.”
Mama choked on a bark of laughter. “I suppose I might have expected that response. Our capitol’s unfortunate climate notwithstanding….”
He smiled. “It’s been exciting.”
Mama snorted. “Perhaps a different topic.”
“No,” Alex said, shaking his head. “Sorry, everything aside. I’ve lovely, and.” He looked around at his women. “The women have been welcoming.”
Serra smiled, drew his fingers to her lips. “We’re fortunate to have you.”
He leaned against her, head resting on her shoulder, and looked up at her with those gorgeous eyes.
“I’d like to see more of the empire,” he said, “if I ever get the chance.” He turned his eyes back to her mother. “I’d love to see where Serra grew up.”
“I think I should be happy to show you,” Mama said. “And perhaps take the opportunity to show you we ladies aren’t so hopeless as you presume.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said, “we’ll get you up to speed. Eli and I have agreed to work together on your industrial capacity; you’ll be shocked how quickly things come on line.”
“Why don’t you give me an idea? How did it come about in your country?”
“Oh,” he said, scratching his head, “well, we had to go the slow boat way.”
“Still,” Mama said, “I’d like to know more.”
He shrugged, “it really started with China. They had a young man problem.”
“A what?”
“Too many men, not enough women to go around. Not good for national unity. So they decided to join the grand tradition of nations with too many young men and started a worthless, bloody war for no real purpose other than getting people killed.”
“That’s-” Mama shook her head. “That’s horrendous!”
He shrugged and reached into his jacket, hesitated, met her mother’s eyes. “You mind if I smoke?”
“Smoke?”
“Go ahead,” Lisril said, “and I’ll take one too.”
He drew a case from his jacket and withdrew two long, dark rolls. Cutting the tips off, he handed one to Lisril. Then, returning the case to his jacket, he lit Lisril’s as she gently turned it and puffed on the opposite end before lighting up himself.
“Sir!” Mama’s eyes widened. “That’s-”
“Sorry,” he said, “did you want a cigar?”
Mama glanced at Papa. “No, thank you.”
He shrugged and puffed on his light, blowing a cloud of smoke up toward the ceiling. “The war didn’t really accomplish anything either way. Ground taken, ground lost, end of the day, it all ended pretty much where it started, only with a lot of sore feelings and bad blood. Couple less people, too.”
He contemplated the burning ash at his cigar’s foot. “Then those idiots in Europe decided what the world really needed was some touchy-feely group project to work on. That was the ring, a big international project, it was supposed to unify the world and end all war, and everyone would join hands and sing kumbaya, and the second it was finished, Europe collapsed into civil war.”
“It was a long time coming.” He puffed on his cigar. “No one in Europe was really comfortable with a burgeoning European superstate. But we had had enough. Back then, we weren’t the federation yet, and collectively, the American people threw their hands up and said, fine, fuck you, we’re going to space.”
“To which the world said, ‘wait, hold on, there’s a war going on, you can’t use that ring.’”
He blew a cloud of blue-grey smoke. “We had paid for that project. The rest of the world was smashed to pieces in the war, and America wasn’t in amazing financial straights itself. We had been sold this ring as a path toward economic recovery and world peace. So we looked at the world, and we said, ‘who’s going to stop us?’ And just took it.”
“No one was in a position to contest our claim. The east was out of people; the west was busy with its internal conflict and crippled by EMP attacks. Africa and South America were and are irrelevant.”
“So we went to space, built our empire, ignored the categorically inferior philosophies of the people who had held heaven in the palm of their hands, and threw it away over petty bickering, and became great.”
Lisril was grinning ear to ear, and Serra began to see how he’d attracted her. Physical beauty and facility with violence aside, this was the sort of rhetoric that was sure to inflame Lisril’s passions.
Her mother seemed pleased with the sentiment as well.
“Well,” Mama said, “I pray we can grow into even greater glory together.”
