The man approached with a casual gait, as if preferring not to draw attention. He failed. Admiralty staff did not reside on Aurelius.

  “Good day.” His voice cracked. “Angela Poussard?”

  He was young – likely no more than eighteen. Angela saw the tiny yellow bar beneath his crest; he was an apprentice.

  “My name since birth,” she said. “I assume the Admiralty sent you.”

  “If you will follow me, please.”

  “So you can take my statement and leave me with the illusion it will be viewed?”

  He didn’t flinch.

  “No, ma’am. I’m here to fetch you for an audience.”

  “Someone I know?”

  “I’m not allowed to say. If you please, Ms. Poussard.”

  Angela finished her juice but took her time about it.

  “Do you have an objection if I bring along my aide?”

  “Sorry. No one but you.”

  “Ah. It’s to be ‘he said, she said.’ Typical.”

  What choice did she have? Angela complied, telling Siobhan:

  “If you haven’t heard from me in an hour, notify the captain.”

  She followed the apprentice, offering a confident smile and a wink to her known allies. To the suspicious, she delivered the traditional Chancellor side nod.

  They took a lift to the ship’s bowels.

  “The landing bay?” She said. “Is he afraid to be seen among the masses? Or perhaps we’re meeting elsewhere?”

  “He’ll explain his position, ma’am. You’ll understand. I’m not at liberty to speak for him.”

  “How about a name?”

  The apprentice held a stoic pose and sewn lips as he led her out onto the Aurelius landing bay, which included one supply ship, three evacuation transports, and a blue Scramjet. The latter was an ancient model, with first-generation Carbedyne nacelles and ample scarring on the hull. It bore no markings and appeared right for scrap. Yet Angela was not surprised when the apprentice led her to it. The port-side egress slid open with a long sigh. She hadn’t seen a Scramjet without a pixelating bulwark in decades.

  The cabin was spartan save for a refurbished navigation cylinder and an office toward the stern. The apprentice directed her aft.

  Angela’s host studied a catalog of holos, most thrown open from his stream amp. His back was turned, but she knew him from the hair: Long, silver, and tied into a ponytail. Angela met him three years ago when she reached the fleet but never came closer than CVids thereafter.

  “Please, have a seat, Angela,” the man said. “I’m reviewing your reports. Homework, you see.”

  She took a swivel, separated by a wide thin desk. The apprentice approached the host.

  “Should we leave at once, sir?”

  “Ten minutes, Randolph. I want to see improvement in your exit maneuver. Your rotation technique was shoddy last time.”

  “I agree, sir. Ten minutes.”

  The host took one final look over the holos and tossed them away. He swiveled around and reached for his café. The beard was thicker than Angela remembered, the lines around his eyes deeper.

  “I like Randolph,” he said. “He’s the first of his descendancy not of the Guard. He used to carry it with shame. His parents died in the war. He lost his mother in Paris Dome and his father on the Horatio. Did you know them? The Townes?”

  “No.”

  “After their initial tours, they specialized as quartermasters. Well thought of. Highly efficient. I’m working with Randolph. He’s coming along, but he’s fragile.”

  Joakim Barter, organizer of the first fleet of Chancellor refugees and co-founder of the Splinter Alliance with Amayas Knight, grabbed a pot off his desk and poured a second cup of café.

  “How do you take yours?” He asked.

  “Black. Thank you. Mr. Barter, you surprise me. I’ve been trying to secure an audience with the Admiralty for weeks. I never imagined they’d send you. I wasn’t aware you were even in our system.”

  “The Admiralty does not send me anywhere. I send them. If you would, Angela, I prefer Joakim. I am not your supervisor. As for my location, suffice to say I travel often between fleets. It keeps me busy.”

  “You mean, to keep everyone in line?”

  He forced a grin. “More or less.”

  “Why did you slip me into your schedule?”

  “You have something interesting to say, Angela, and your past has left you in a rather peculiar position.”

  “I take responsibility for my decisions as Supreme Admiral. Do you consider me liable for our predicament, like so many?”

  He waved her off.

  “Not at all. High command is not for the faint of heart. You presided over the end of an empire. You did your best to choose between protecting your caste and saving humanity. No one person is qualified to be the final arbiter in such matters, yet the chain of command requires it. We fell into civil war and killed each other by the millions because it is our default position. I created this fleet to help Chancellors find a better way while maintaining the genetic purity of our caste. I regret many of my decisions; like you, I take responsibility.”

  “It’s falling apart, Joakim. Isn’t it?”

  Joakim flinched; he didn’t expect her to be so direct.

  “Fraying is a better word, Angela. Chancellors are impatient by instinct. Defeated Chancellors tend to place their individual needs before the caste.”

  She caught the inside reference to Dayton Romilius.

  “What of the Alliance? We’ve heard nothing official since the Inventor disappeared from Artemis Station. You funneled most of our personal wealth through him to organize the Alliance. If anyone knows his whereabouts, it should be you.”

  “A logical conclusion. Perhaps even correct. But not why I’m here. Angela, have you been given access to a Splinter?”

  “No. I’ve only heard stories.”

  “Then you won’t understand when I say this is not the time to discuss it. One long look through a Splinter will change your outlook on … well, everything, I suppose.”

  “Then can you at least tell me there is some definitive forward movement? Chancellors are many things, but we are not nomads.”

  “We are by necessity, Angela, but perhaps not for long. I wanted to speak with you today because your scheme poses a great danger to everything I’ve tried to build here. While I’m not risk-averse, nor do I consider myself the only Chancellor with vision, I do not want another internecine fight. Thirty-one thousand Chancellors are scattered across ten systems. I did this to give us the best opportunity for survival until we find safe harbor on a new world. Whatever our path forward, we must approach it with a unified voice and without generating enemies among the Alliance.”

  “You said new world. Does this mean you’re open to my notion about Aeterna?”

  He sipped café and shared a hand signal with Randolph Townes, the apprentice and pilot.

  “Time to leave.”

  “Where, Joakim?” She said.

  “To an audience, Angela. To make your presentation.”

  This was too simple.

  “Just like that? You haven’t heard the details of my plan, and you’re sending me before the Admiralty?”

  “Your voice will be heard in a public forum. As for the details, I know enough. You wish to recapture the warship called Scylla, steal the remaining warships under construction on Euphrates, jump into the Aeterna system, use the particle weapons to annihilate the Aeternan population, and claim that world as ours. I believe those are the broad strokes. Yes?”

  “A simplification, but the goal is accurate.”

  “No. Aeterna is not the goal. It’s an objective based on your need for vengeance. The goal is to build a new Chancellor society, insulated from the colonies, and then reach out the long arms of a reconstituted Unification Guard to shape a new empire forged by military conquest.”

  “You’re wrong, Joakim. I want Aeterna for the Chancellory to live in peace. Nothing more. Our imperial days are behind us.”

  “Yes. They are. I was not speaking of your goals. Rather, the generations that follow. They won’t live in peace, not with access to technology capable of defeating everyone in their collective path. They will read history, and their parents will tell them stories of the Collectorate and of the Fall. They will do everything to erase the shame of failure. Again, it is the default position of our caste. We build, we conquer, we pillage.”

  “In the past, yes. I know there are many in the Admiralty who want to take out our losses on the indigos, even though they had nothing to do with it. What I seek is surgical retribution against our true enemy. The Aeternans were the terrorists who brought us down. They killed millions of non-combatant Chancellors. The Aeternans delivered the graviton weapons to the Warner Alliance. Those weapons killed millions more of us. They are monsters and thieves. They deserve to die.”

  “Monsters and thieves. Yes. Who bio-engineered them? Chancellors, looking to breed a more highly evolved version of our caste. The great literature of pre-history is rife with stories of humans undone by their own savage creations. Who are we to blame in such circumstance? You wish to pour your hatred onto those children called Aeternans and wipe their memory from history.”

  “I do. They are abominations. The secrets to their engineering were destroyed, and their biology offers no clues to help our own. They can live forever with no consequence to their crimes.”

  Joakim studied Angela with passive indifference. He poured himself a second cup of café and stirred in a dollop of cream.

  “Your obsession centers on one man in particular. Yes?”

  “I won’t lie. I want nothing more than to kill Michael myself.”

  “Ah. Minister Michael Cooper. He humiliated you. Yes?”

  “He did. I saved both him and his wife on Earth when I ordered the occupation fleet to stand down. I gave him the opportunity to find his wife after she was taken by those terrorist bastards. I allowed him special exemption to join the Guard. He became a soldier because of me and led the fight against my rightful invasion of Aeterna. I surrendered to him, and he mocked me. He literally blew poltash smoke in my face and sent me home in shame.”

  “Once again, Angela, our savage creations rebel. Minister Cooper has become one of the most influential men in the galaxy. He has had eight years to fortify the Aeterna system, establish trade relations with worlds not in the Alliance, and yes, he is almost certainly the man who tipped the civil war to the Warner Alliance. He bears responsibility for millions of Chancellor dead, but this has earned him legendary status on many worlds. They say he is immortal but of another universe, not bio-engineered. They also say he has children and will kill anyone who threatens their lives. I do believe he made similar threats when last you met.”

  “He did, Joakim, but he was full of bluster.”

  “I reviewed the testimony from all those present at the surrender. Minister Cooper said if anyone associated with the Chancellory or its collaborators ever returned to Aeterna, they would be killed. He said if we developed wormhole travel and returned, he would kill us. He said if we ran the Nexus blockade, he would kill us. Nothing I have heard in the intervening years would suggest he has softened his position. Reports from colonial visitors concur: He rules an intensely secretive and militaristic society. His people possess new technologies harnessed from the same source which they used to obliterate your forces in less than an hour. And yet, your plan calls for us to attack this world though we have less soldiers and military vessels than the first time you tried.”

  “It won’t be simple.”

  “It sounds like the folly of the damned. Yet, many in this fleet have set their eye to its unique potential. A planet terraformed at an exceptional pace, with more unique ecosystems than any in the known expanse. A place apart from the indigos and the mixed races on Earth. Deadly. Certain to result in massive casualties. And still, I hear from the voices of those who say it cannot be dismissed. Though there are far better options for the Chancellory, we cannot afford another schism. We must be unified. Therefore, you will have an audience.”

  Angela’s heart fluttered. Was this actually going to happen?

  “After they hear my entire plan, I know the Admiralty will reconsider. We’ll have the support of the masses, too.”

  “Hmm. I trust you’ve been scheming of late, setting various and sundry pieces in motion?”

  “I have, Joakim. Everything I want to achieve is within our reach.”

  “We’ll see. First, you will have to convince a very tough audience.”

  “I know how to get through to the Admiral …”

  He wagged a finger.

  “Not them. First, we start with six-year-olds.”

  “What?”

  4

  J OAKIM BARTER WAS NOT KIDDING. After the Scramjet landed on the Cruiser Menelaus, he led Angela to the ship’s school for Tier I students. As they entered, twenty children from ages five to seven arranged holoscripts in advanced mathematics. Their teacher, a heavy man who appeared deathly bored of the affair, perked up and raced to Joakim to shake his hand.

  “I thought I’d never see the day,” the flabbergasted teacher said.

  “We’ve never met, Mr. Pewter, after all this time?”

  “I’ve moved about the fleet as duty called.”

  “I see. And the children? Are they adjusting?”

  The teacher rolled his eyes.

  “Honestly? They’re bored. They’re far too advanced for Tier I mathematics, but the Admiralty insists upon a traditional curriculum. Otherwise, I’d gladly move them ahead. These are games, you see.”

  “Ah. So, you would say they can process advanced concepts with reasonable cognitive speed?”

  “They’re from the best Guard families. Menelaus is known for the top schooling in the fleet.”

  “If you don’t mind, Mr. Pewter, I’d like to put their critical thinking skills to good use. Might we impose?”

  “Certainly. I welcome a healthy change.”

  “Good. Have them wrap up their games and assemble. My associate would like to make a proposition.”

  “Outstanding, Mr. Barter.”

  Joakim escorted Angela to a far corner of the classroom.

  “What sort of lunacy is this?” She asked. “I am not making my proposal to a group of Tier I’s.”

  “Yes, you are. You see, Angela, Chancellors tend to be dogmatic and their language insipid when justifying their vision. They rarely articulate their argument in moral terms. This style lacks humanity. To create unity among Chancellors, you must appeal to them at an emotional and moral level. In short, if you cannot articulate your vision to young children, do not expect consent from adults.”

  “No. The issue is too complex. There are many variables that …”

  “They are refugees from a war. Many lost family. That truth has never been hidden. Here is what I expect you to do, Angela:

  “Convince them of the rightness of your cause. Present them with an honest accounting. Speak of your failures. Speak of your anger. Speak of how the Aeternans came into being. Speak of how it is right to commit a genocide against thousands of children. Speak of the danger and potential casualties we will face if we invade Aeterna. Speak of the long-term benefits to taking the planet from the immortals. Leave nothing out. Answer all their questions with unvarnished honesty. In the end, if you gain their unanimous support, I will allow you to make your case across every Chancellor fleet.”

  Angela repelled the fury piling up behind her lips.

  “Joakim, I was Supreme Admiral of the Unification Guard. When word of this gets out, even my supporters will doubt me. The rest will laugh in my face.”

  “They might. But is it worse than the whispers and death threats? How often have you been prepared to take a blade from behind?”

  “But children?”

  “Honest to a fault. They haven’t been trained in the art of Chancellor manipulation or in tactics to acquire leverage. Win them over, or your proposal will disappear.”

  He left her alone in the corner to reach a decision. What kind of psychological gamesmanship was this? Did he bring her to this classroom to fail? Angela would not have been surprised if her presentation was recorded, that the “introduction” between Joakim and the teacher was staged. Why did she fall for it? Joakim was a master manipulator; how else would he have convinced so many Chancellors to abandon Earth and join his scattered fleet?

  Angela hated classrooms, though she always ranked at the top of her own. She never ventured near a school while Dante was growing up. Whenever he struggled, she left the encouragement and discipline to the administrators. How did one talk to a six-year-old? Was it considered condescending to lighten her voice and bare teeth through a golden smile?

  The teacher introduced Joakim, who most of the kids recognized.

  The fleet’s founder deflected attention with a simple question.

  “How many of you wish to grow old and die on the Menelaus?”

  No hands went up.

  “How many of you are willing to fight and die if the reward is life on a habitable planet not named Earth?”

  Four hands went up in an instant, but two pulled back when they noticed the feeble response. A girl posed the question all must have been asking:

  “Can’t we move someplace we won’t have to fight for?”

  “That is an excellent question.” Joakim turned to Angela and waved her over. “I’d like to introduce someone who can address your concern. Children, this woman is Angela Poussard. She served the Chancellory for thirty years, first as a soldier of the Guard. She rose to the very height of command. She was the last Supreme Admiral. She wants to speak to you today of victory and defeat and hope and glory. I wish you to give her your full attention. Ask whatever comes to mind. When she is finished, you will vote for or against her proposal. Questions?”

  One boy shot his hand high in the air.

  “Last Supreme Admiral? Did no one want the job after her?”

  “Now that is an intriguing question. Angela, I think this is precisely where you take over.”

  Angela forced the smile she thought Tier I’s might expect. Why was I patient? She thought. I should have given the go-ahead. Mark and Liston could have eliminated the opposition by now. You’ll pay for this, Joakim Barter.