"Now they say that Penthesileia was the last of the Amazons to win distinction for bravery and that for the future the race diminished more and more and then lost all its strength; consequently in later times, whenever any writers recount their prowess, men consider the ancient stories about the Amazons to be fictitious tales."
-Diodorus Siculus
26 April, 2178
"Ada'ren says she has full power to the Tannhauser Drive and we are tracking with the universal targeting mechanism. Predicted destination is slotted between EM-5 and FHI-8 and.. Coordinate lock, Tisara," Dhirisma bubbled with enthusiasm at the scientific marvel building before them.
"By all means, lock onto the universe and tell the Senior Engineering Executive that she is clear to engage the Tannhauser drive as the coordinate lock directs!" It was the only excitement so far in Tisara of Urami's new assignment as the commanding Admiral of the Special Projects Group, conducting secret, independent-of-the-IUCEC backup research to the IUCEC agreements and interuniversal gate manufacturing.
It was a posting on the extreme end of the Empire, the Great Carina nebula, which stood as a bulwark, an impassible wasted space of immense levels of radiation which required the shields to be continuously active, and provided a natural barrier in space between the Talorans and their coreward enemies. But it was also sufficiently impregnable as to be the perfect location for these secret and illegal tests which would give the Empire final and total security in the era of the Grand Cosmos.
The Tannhauser drive on the Zohan BattleCarrier flared into life in its interuniversal transfer mode for the second time in its history, and this time, it was aimed for a specific destination. A destination which, as the huge tunnel through space formed and was held open by the 1 gigatonne dry-weight tonnage mobile platform that was a BattleCarrier, now was clearly achieved:
"Senior Engineering Executive Ada'ren confirms that we've locked on the targeted universe!"
"Send through a probe," Tisara answered confidently, "and let's see if the Tannhauser effect remains stable, and the other side is clear for us to begin exploring."
Dhirisma, just for the hell of it, activated the controls manually. It was a bit, she supposed, like masturbation, but the novelty of the holodeck installation, as lavish as Tisara had promised, hadn't yet quite worn off.
From the back of the bridge, Ysalha laughed softly at her, relaxed and at peace again, and then all eyes followed the probe to a new universe....
Daughters of Penthesilea (TGG)
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Voyager989
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Re: Daughters of Penthesilea (TGG)
26 April, 2178
"Boringly standard binary, Your Serene Grace...." Dhirisma reported as the probe began sending back data. "Looks good for us to go through."
"Send the scouting squadrons through," Tisara ordered calmly.... "Condition One, shields up." The bridge lights flared as the usual precautions of entering a new universe were effected, and Dhirisma brazenly lead eight dreadnoughts, eight battlecruisers, four fleet carriers, and close to two hundred escorts and support ships--half of the ships under her control--through the tannhauser gate in close, good order.
"Understood, Admiral." Captain Ilahmbh turned away to her small staff of command specialists who formed the only crew of the automated, eight-point-two million tonne Dhirisma, anti-matter powered with the acceleration of a destroyer and the engines and shields of a dreadnought. So far, everything was going normal, and of course the decision to make the jump in the enormously dense and completely uninhabitable Carina Nebula meant that the chance of any unexpected first contact was certainly nonexistent.
It was really a quite boring first four hours or so. Ysalha went to take a nap in her quarters, with Dhirisma cradling her as they held position in the nebula. Tisara remained on the flagbridge, drumming her fingers and waiting for a chance to do something. It came to her soon enough, as Dhirisma popped another hologram of herself up on the bridge--the first was still taking care of Ysalha down in their opulent quarters--and saluted cheekily to Tisara. "Admiral, I am afraid to say that we have a major crisis." And the way she said it meant that she had realized that Tisara wanted something to go wrong.
"What do you have for me?" Tisara was vaguely away she was falling for something; she didn't care.
Without verbally answering, Dhirisma cued Tisara in on the comms conversation she was in the middle of.
"Thank the gods! This is the Iulius Felix, we have been badly damaged by rebel forces, and are separated from our convoy. We have no functional navigation inside this accursed nebula, and our FTL drive is damaged. Can you provide assistance... Taloran Empire Ship Dhirisma?" The voice was male, and slightly panicky.
"Yes. We will be dispatching another ship in the squadron to secure your vessel. Please stand by," Dhirisma answered, and sent HSMS Ghiyuika of the battle-squadron forward. A dreadnought had plenty of armour if it was a trap to absorb the blows of the enemy and pull back while the rest of the squadron fought in support of her extrication, after all. And would overawe the natives in the freighter and make them more apt to provide information to her forces. Tisara planned it and directed the operation through Dhirisma as though it was quite normal, and it was. "Latin," she murmured aloud, though. "We always run into old tongues."
"Thank you, our government will provide you compensation for the trouble, we promise you..." The freighter had visible damage, with the fire being directed to what appeared to be light weapons mounts (disabled) and the ship's engines and command area (both damaged, the first more than the last), as she slowed further, trying to match velocity with her fusion torch engines. She was long, about three quarters of a kilometer or so, with a series of standardized cargo pods along her length, none of which showed signs of damage. Blocky with many straight edges, she was a freighter, through and through.
Once the freighter was in position, the Ghiyuika snagged her with a tractor beam. "Freighter Iulius Felix," the translated voice--and they'd doubtless dismiss the slightly female tone to the voice precisely because it was such an obvious machine rendered translation--"Please stand by. You are in a gravitic tractor-repulsor field. We are commencing towing back to the fleet secured zone to conduct repairs. You will be boarded by repair parties after a meeting between Captain commanding Ghiyuika and your own commander, over."
"Understood, Ghiuika, Sol Invictus bless you for this. We are in your debt. Felix clear."
In the process, however, it wouldn't be the Ghiyuika's Captain who would be waiting--well, Jhikalia Saviput would be there--but Ysalha took an assault shuttle over from Dhirisma to be waiting so that Tisara could have one of her own command staff there to talk to their first communication with the universe... A party of Talorans waiting with armoured marines armed in the docking bays as they used universal connectors to drive home and lock together the dreadnought and the freighter and equalized pressure, noting the Earth standard atmosphere and letting them deal with their own high-sulphur but still survivable variant thereof.
There was a side party of their own waiting, five men, four dressed in civilian uniform, complete with kilts, and one youngish sort in a more military bent. All stiffened sharply at the strange smell of sulphur in shipboard air, but managed to mostly restrain their expressions of shock at seeing true aliens in the flesh; widening eyes were the most common, though the youngest had his mouth drop halfway open before he recovered. They managed to flounder into bows, blinking at the riotous colour on display. The eldest stiffened, guessing and just floundering forwards. "Our thanks, noble spacers, I am Captain Titus Velleius Triarius, and my crew is in your debt." There was another bow at the end of the greeting from all of them, stiff-necked as could be.
"I am Captain Ysalha Armenbhat," the amber-eyed and beautifully tall, lusciously blue haired Taloran stepped forward drawn up ornately in her uniform to the twitch of a half-cybernetic brain, skin a gray-tinted alabaster and eyes lined with kohl, a locket around her neck. "I am the Chief of Operations of this squadron and I have been sent by the Admiral to speak to you with Captain Jhikalia Saviput," a gesture to the redhead with brilliant purple eyes, "who is my subordinate. You will defer to me in all cases and we expect to begin the inspection of your ship shortly unless you presume to demonstrate a reasonable claim to this area of space. Please, come this way, and we will provide refreshments appropriate for humans. We have encountered your species before."
"Of course, Captain." The captain nodded, gesturing for his subordinates to fall in, hints of an internal nervousness showing through. "Your people... are the first non-humans we have ever encountered. I suppose that we are not the furthest out, then, and there must be someone further beyond the nebula. We'll be happy to submit our people's claim to this area of space and our supporting documentation, of course." God, they're like a bunch of catamites in how they dress... "We are carrying a chartered military cargo, as such, I will register a protest at the searching of the ship's holds on the grounds of security, though our manifest will be presented for inspection."
"We will hold off on the search until we have reviewed your claim," Ysalha murmured softly. "The Empire reserves the right to secure this territory should it be insufficient. We need the necessary trade outposts, but something can be worked out if your people are interested in peaceful and open trade with the Taloran Empire. Our interests are only in the conduct of fair trade and the propagation of the faith of the Prophet Eibermon in the Lord of Justice."
Oh shit, that sounds bad. "Of... course, Captain. Fair trade strengthens everyone, though I do warn you that there is currently a large rebellion raging in the area coreward of the Carina, and the traitors care little for niceties. The Kingdom of Herculea, however, would likely welcome free trade, and all religions that stand in the Sun's light are able to co-exist." He licked suddenly dry lips, feeling his head pound, trying to stay calm and learn as much as he could; Central Command needed to know about this, an expansive alien species on the far side of the nebula? It could be an utter disaster... unless they were ready and played their cards right. He still smiled, though it came off a bit off due to his culture and raising, all of the merchant officers holding reserve commissions and watching everything around them in the same sort of light.
She paused, stared at the wall blankly for a moment, almost skipped a step, and then led them into the conference room, the two Captains standing with an adjutant behind them. "You're carrying troops, Captain?"
"Some, yes." He said, very grudgingly, having paused a moment at the question. "Not many, but some of our cargo needs constant guard."
"I see. Well, do you have the documentation for us to review your claims to this sector? In the meanwhile, we'd appreciate some details on the Kingdom of Herculaneum..."
"Of course... we can transmit it to the ship, then?" Some subvocal communication later, and the... somewhat edited history file would arrive, showing an original claim to the area, as claimed by Herculea in turn, years of exploration, beacons, and so on. "Well, Captain, Herculea... he's our father.in the person of the Principes and Rex. We were one of the last colonial movements to leave Earth before it was destroyed, and we traveled far out to be away from the struggles of Old Space. It didn't work out that way, alas. There was a revolt amongst the colonists, the poorer ones who demanded a greater share of the wealth than anyone reasonable would agree to; we were starting to manage to put it down when the Second Galactic War erupted; the Romans sent a squadron out to smash all the colonies so we couldn't gain too much strength in their weaknesses. We almost managed to finally re-unify our nation in the interim, but a new religious cult blew up amongst the rebels and the war dragged on and on... they threw us off the planet with the mass use of bioweapons, captain. They killed their entire male population in the process of trying to get us in some mad idea of amazon supremacy that their entire society's been based on since. We've done well keeping their so-called Otreran Empire contained over the centuries, and we think we will soon finally manage to put down the revolt, divine willing. We believe in strength, honour, and virtue combined with the buttressing of tradition and a band of brothers fighting as one; it's how we've succeeded as much as we have in the face of all their underhanded attacks."
"So we're in a very complex situation with a sustained rebel presence resisting the validity of your rule--which means this was territory claimed by the rebel Empire before you conquered it. I would have to say with some regret that until we can confirm that your universe's powers generally recognize your assumption of the rebels' claims to their territory, we will neither extend our own claim nor recognize yours, based on our normative customs. The ship will be searched, though since it is deep space you have my word of honour as a Taloran noble not to seize anything aboard," Ysalha answered shortly, in constant communication with Tisara over the situation... And Tisara wanted to see what these prisoners they were guarding were.
"I will then be forced to register a formal protest according to my terms of contract with the Royal Navy, Captain." came Titus' response. "I can not stop you from searching the ship, though if you do, please do be careful, they are rebels and traitors on their way to their trials aboard, and they will not hesitate to attack for the slightest chance of escaping justice." He gave a firm look to the senior military officer, who nodded imperceptibly at the order to swallow his pride and try to spin things as best as possible.
"Of course. Some refreshments while we proceed, then? I understand the difference of opinion, but let us not make it too serious of a breach...."
"Of course, Captain..."
And a rather heavily armoured group of Taloran Marines would be heading over very promptly..... To start searching, in all due politeness, but never removing their power-armoured suits.
There were another ten crewmembers and another ten Herculanean marines aboard, who would escort the Talorans through, eying them coldly behind their own darkly tinted visors in their unpowered armour. The damage was as described, and so was the manifest, weapons, supplies... The hatch to the cargo bays rolled open at the touch of a security chip, and the smell of far too many humans crammed together for too long rolled out, along with inadequate sanitation and hygiene facilities, harsh white light revealing what was probably four thousand women crammed together in a way that would be not out of place on what another universe would know as a Japanese hell-ship, dressed in tatters of uniform with beaten-down eyes that flared when the hatch rolled open; a flying wedge of desperate souls in better shape than their sisters close to the door would form quickly out of those with enough energy and spirit remaining, expecting the sight of new figures to be, well, the start of something horrible again, and with the thunk of docking having been interpreted as them arriving at their destination, animalistic screams tore from desperate throats and a few managed a weak sounding "Autokrateria i Autokratoria!"
Tisara had inspired a certain style in her troops, one might say, as the commander of the unit..... Just stood there, impassively recording through her helmet as her stomach nearly retched as the pictures were sent back to Tisara, to Ysalha, to Dhirisma...
That's utterly barbaric.
The "assault" as it were soon died away, the hatch having rolled closed behind them, as did the screams, hands and feet beaten bloody in many cases, others having strained muscles in desperate attempts to drag down a Taloran woman in powered armour with unaugmented human strength, thousands of eyes watching the group of marines, the group that had attacked them edging backwards with naked terror in their eyes, almost all murmuring softly in Koine to each other, some falling to their knees and just looking at mirrored visors with despairing resignation, as soft crying started from almost everywhere at once, the women coming together into clumps, and hugging each other.
Some screamed out; "Just kill us already, you bastards, if you've got the balls!" or other variants on the theme, as the group seemed to try to rally, some near-skeletons being the focus of clustered groups of healthier girls around them.
Yes, it is.
Tisara looked out at the ship for a moment from Dhirisma's bridge on the holoplot displays.
There's nobody around, is there?
No, there's not, Admiral. Nothing on sensors.
Brilliant. We'll get both sides of the story and plausible deniability if we still want to trade with these bastards.
Those are typical conditions on a slaver, are they not? Ysalha added as she watched the unknowing men across from her.
Yes. They would certainly claim to be transporting rebels, Dhirisma answered.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," Ysalha spoke aloud. "We received a report from our search party. Do you consider the rebel captives to be slaves?"
"Just trying to decide if we should classify them as cargo, gentlemen, it's nothing major." She added a moment later.
The captain paused a moment, considering the question before he replied in a neutral fashion; "Not currently, no. They have not been convicted of treason and rebellion yet, after all."
"That's a typical punishment among your people? We prefer the lash and the cane."
"Only for the most heinous of crimes, of course, given the gravity of the issue. Corporal punishment and fines are, of course, far more common." Not for those like them, granted...
Ysalha nodded lightly.
What, if I may, is your people's view? If it is a problem, of course, it is something we can negotiate..." Captain Titus asked, rather daringly. "As of now, no, not slaves, they are presumed to be criminals captured in the act of committing their crime. We do have laws, we are not barbarians, after all."
Back in the cargo hold, the women were starting to reform, some sort of discipline starting to come together from the groups further back in the bunks, working themselves up into another effort to try and force the new marines to start shooting.
Tisara slumped down on the bridge. Could she bring herself to do it? Even Terrible Tizzy thought twice before randomly butchering the civilian merchant crew of an undiscovered foreign power...... But what they were doing to those poor women was a horror beyond measure. A war crime that the Alliance would find just as offensive and would be just as liable to punish harshly.
Admiral, you went to war with the Cylons on less evidence than this. Dhirisma pointedly spoke to her, and it made the Archduchess tense, slump back into her chair once again, and steeple her gloves.
She broke her immobile pose after a long, tense moment with a single lightning-quick move of her hand to virtually slap the button to the open intercom line to the marine commander. "Major, give me that ship--and I want prisoners!"
The Major turned around and personally used her close range plasma discharger on the nearest of the Herculeanean marines as the integral support railgun spat out an automatic stream of supersonic accelerated rounds with a terrifying sound of hundreds of sonic booms as the armoured troops turned on the Herculeanean crewmen and marines in unison, the detachments through the ship moving with terrifying precision to seize the bridge and engineering as vibro-blades snapped into position on the suits for very close range and flechette grenades from launchers were used with cool abandon. They were professionals, hardened veterans, and after what they just seen--the order to take prisoners was taken with great reluctance.
The Herculanean officers went white and leaped to their feet aboard the Taloran ship as their comm implants crackled to life, while the escort parties of marines were mostly caught flat-footed, one or two high-velocity sabot rounds cracking out, one managing to put a series of blasts into the stomach of one of the Talorans on his way down in a death spasm; there weren't many, not on a freighter with only a small guard detachment, and the crewmen had only their less advanced charge pistols, sending the slugs of pistol rounds cracking downrange and deflecting off the Talorans' armour. Prisoners would only be taken amongst those too wounded to further resist; when cornered, suicide or, turning the pistol on vital equipment was the usual response amongst those with the wits to do so - the last officer on the bridge, for his part, first slammed the activation for the fire suppression system in the prisoner's hold, before, as the Talorans came onto the bridge, he emptied his clip on automatic into the cockpit-like windows on the bridge, causing explosive decompression alarms to sound throughout the ship. The single duty engineer, for his part, was gunned down as he was preparing to take a plasma torch to the magnetic field generators for the reactor. Resistance, while disorganized and relatively ineffective from second-line troops and reservists, was fanatical.
"You asked us what we think of slavery? We legislate the end of slavery, gentlemen. With our guns." And the guards in the room leveled theirs. "That the divine law commands that all, no matter how mean, should receive pay for the work of their hands, is absolute."
Faces were white and veins bulging with rage as the officers glared hatefully around them, not daring to move with so many guns leveled. "Humanity will never let you get away with this..." one, not the captain, a younger man with black hair cut short said in a hot-headed tone.
For the slaves, the one thing that saved them was the small fact that the Talorans had jammed open the access to that cargo container with the damage they'd inflicted on it, rather intentionally. Which meant they'd start decompressing the entire ship too, which would be.... interesting, rather interesting indeed.
"Humanity, gentlemen? We conquered humanity in our home universe."
Eyes went wide at that, one strangled gasp coming from the legionary in the room... and on the freighter, well, civilian ships had relatively short lifespans and were designed accordingly. The combination of the two meant that there was, currently, a massive air leak far exceeding the life support system's ability to deal with it as... a lot more alarms went off.
"Where's the air venting on the freighter?" Ysalha snapped out in High Taloran without translation.
"Z-0.2 X-4," the dreadnought’s captain answered as she consulted her cybernetics references to the bridge, pushing herself up. "Roll the freighter to bring it to bear on the tractor and switch an emitter to repulsor, Baroness?"
"Yes, get to it."
The Captain of the ship stepped out, as Ysalha, standing, regarded the men coolly.
There was some twitching at the foreign language, but with that many guns and them not being armed themselves, the situation was... dicey enough not to risk it. The maneouvre, while similar to the boy with his finger in the dyke, would stabilize the atmosphere in the ship at a lower level, the much-abused POWs now... even more confused, battered around, and now oxygen-deprived on top of all that, as they tried to take stock and recover their order.
"We, I think, are of a higher calibre, Captain. Your people will be sticking their hand into a hornet's nest when word of this gets out..."
"The Heir of the Sword of God rules seventy thousand planets, gentlemen," Ysalha answered, and stepped out of the room contemptuously.
On the freighter, the Talorans would clean up the remaining resistance as the commander of the boarding group stepped back into the hold, frowning as she did and still in her suit since she was excluded from the atmosphere, then. "We need you to evacuate the bay so we can seal it off," the suit spat out, translated into Latin. "Form up in an orderly fashion, we can't evacuate the ship with our current measures enacted, so this cargo pod must be evacuated. That is a directive."
There was... a lot of blank staring from the women close to her, then a visible, and almost cute passing from person to person of what she had said back down the line to the prone figures that still had clusters around them, which caused, after word went in a similar fashion in the opposite direction, a stocky Sinic bosun to climb up on a bunk stack and yell out in Koine; "Sisters will form up and prepare to depart the bay!" Shuffling around would start, weaker being supported by stronger, in the back, some crashing as bunks were torn apart and formed into make-shift stretchers for some of the more injured, others, the walking skeletons in the back being carefully supported with women on each side and led hesitantly forwards, till in about two minutes, they had managed, in the narrow corridors, to have achieved some form of assembly in neat, if interrupted, parade-ground ranks. They... looked much less like rebels, in their dirty abbreviated tunics, or the luckier, scraps of uniform.
The major looked over them quietly, as she waited, and finally: "We'll remain here until you've all passed into the ship proper. Please commence." While, on the comms line: "Do I have a translation of their language yet? "
"We're working on it. It's some kind of variant of Greek," the familiar but still unusual-to-hear voice of the sapient computer of the Dhirisma answered back in a placating tone. "Promise, Major. It's just taking some effort to translate the variations in what you're recording. Very well preserved, though."
One of the weaker and, at this range, a bit older looking women, held up her hand and gestured forwards, as if one would when holding a sword, and by division, in a shuffling sort of step, the Otrerans marched out of their prison hold into something... very different, some stumbling and being held up; they were only making something like half-time at best, to allow the ones being half-carried to keep place, filing out past the Taloran marines, some showing sign of old bandaged wounds, slings, and so on.
They moved out, those women, many in stretchers, gesturing about with soft commands, arranging their commands into neat lines along the sides of the corridors, where with soft commands, the files in groups of twenty or so would sink gratefully to the deck, exhausted from even that little after this long of starvation rations.
The Talorans then proceeded to thoroughly sweep the space to make sure nobody was left behind who wasn't already dead, and then sealed it in their wake so that they could step back and work on unjamming the blast door... Which finally snapped shut and let them re-dock with the dreadnought in fairly short order, silently until the clanging of contact would sound again. Silent that is except for the ship's oxygen systems getting a handle on it, re-pressurizing fully..... Which meant that Jhataka Ripartui, the marine Major, at last snapped her outer helmet off, an incredible cascade of electric blue hair flipping out and long down her back as she kept the lower half on with the translation software, brilliantly bright green eyes looking with a stern bit of sympathy across the ranks before her as Dhirisma triumphantly sent her the rough translation algorithms.
"Can I speak with your ranking officer, please?"
There were... wide-eyed gasps, pointing and whispering, much different from the original Herculanean reaction, one girl even daringly stretching her hand out to see if she could touch that incredibly vibrant hair, before the women on either side urgently pulled her back. The request was passed down... down some more... and down more. It would be about five minutes after she asked before four women carrying one of the improvised stretchers would come towards the major, a very thin figure indeed under a blanket as she was carefully laid down before the Taloran woman, her eyes brightly inquisitive as she was helped up by her bearers, one sitting cross-legged behind her to give her something to lean on and allow to sit up, at least. "You asked for our senior officer, I am told. I am Rear-Admiral of the Blue the Baroness Gwyna of Tiabhal. To who am I speaking and for what purpose, if you may tell me?". Her voice was soft, and her form ravaged, red hair cascading over her pillow, pale celtic skin showing veins and bones through, the lines of tattoos visible on her shoulders and going downwards. She was tense, expecting to be shot, at best, but it would be better than the certainty that had seemed to be her future.
".... Your Ladyship." Jhataka knelt at Gwyna's side impulsively, and whipped out a vibro-blade from her utility belt, a long dagger not integral to the suit, pulled it out, flicked it on for a moment over her..... then turned it off, slipped it back into the sheath, and slipped it down into the woman's hands. "Forgive me, foreign noblewoman, Lady Gwyna, but I have no sword on my person to offer; let it succor a little, at least, this blade, the indignity of how you have been confined....." Her hair draped down across the floor as her ears drooped to the sides in what even the Otrerans might have some inkling of as dejection.
There was... a hushed silence in the corridor as the Otrerans stared. Gwyna almost dropped the blade but kept hold of it, a small smile spreading her face. "Your name, then, my saviour, that I may properly thank she who gave me a blade of honour after that which I had was taken as a trophy. Take heart, then, if it ease your heart, that ye have done well, and that I shall not forget this kindness to one in such a pitiful state." It was florid, rising to meet the occasion; then again, Otrerans could be quite expert at rapidly getting so with little provocation. "Given what you have saved me from, you should indeed feel no regrets, woman and sister of a strange star!" She blushed after a moment. "... Assuming your species uses two sexes with congruent genders and you are, in fact, a woman as humans define it."
"We are women, as you would see it, for we have a womb and give birth with great pain," she answered shortly, and her ears perked. "I am Major Jhataka Ripartui, a gentrywoman of Her Serene Majesty's Drop Marines of the Imperial Confederacy of Talora."
"Oh thank merciful Arzadokh in all her incarnations, an Empress with women in her military... I thought we were going to be forever alone until the Romans finally snuffed us out..." She grinned, forcing herself up and a bit forwards to manage to, with some help from the woman behind her, hug the Taloran major. "Bless you. The first aliens humanity has met, and you aren't like all the men of the universe..."
She turned her head and called out in a weak, wavering voice; "Hey! Lakshmi! She's a drop trooper too!"
Part of it was being deliberately over-friendly for the sake of her girls, who were still incredibly nervous, the other was the massive emotional release that swamped her mental reserve, coming from what seemed to be a liberation, even if they were intending to eat her... which didn't seem likely with how nicely the woman was acting.
"You have fallen on hard times I see.... My commanders want to speak to you, though they'll do it under medical supervision, Your Ladyship. You will get to rest quite a lot, fear not. There's enough space in the fleet.... We've got eight of the Wall here, plus battlecruisers and carriers, so don't feel concerned about any threat toward us."
The other Talorans were easing their helmets off, too, and was essentially the case in the Marines, something like seventy percent were female. All the tall ones. And they were incredibly tall. "It is true, for our people, that women are the dominant sex, and make up... Oh, about seven out of ten of those in the boarding party, I'd wager."
"I... don't think it's likely your men will trigger post-trauma in the girls, but will they be careful, please?" The Baroness asked in a hushed whisper. "It was... bad before they put us aboard ship. We need food and water, baths and medical attention, I think everyone does. It... it's good to hear that, Major. I'll refrain from how many of the wall we have... um... where are we?"
“It's sort of hard to tell males and females of our species apart, for what it's worth, by human standards. We don't have a lot of sexual differentiation short of primary characteristics. You're in the Great Carina Nebula," she added. "We've never contacted your people before."
"Oh... then we're in Otreran space, Arzadokh be praised... yes, your squadron will be safe here, heavy units cannot get here from coreward unless Otrera herself falls."
"I fear to say that your captors seemed to be giving us the impression that the war was already concluded.... Though maybe they were just putting on a brave front to us to hide their potential weakness, I may say."
The ship clanged as docking was re-achieved above them... This time to a port closer to the cargo facilities to start extricating people faster.
There was ducking, starting, and a lot of nervous looks in that direction, but no panic or exclamations. "We... are prisoners from the Empire of Otrera, under Regent the Archduchess Theodora Slattara of the Altiplano, taken over the last year, and being transferred to Herculea proper to be sold. I believe one of our squadrons attacked the convoy and did some damage." She frowned as she processed what had been said. "I do not think the war has ended. Too many would have died. The Silver Sun may not fly much longer, but we will damned well make the Herks and Romans choke on us on the way down."
"I see. Well, please hold on, we'll.... Ah, here." The first of the medical parties was arriving--every single female medic, corpswoman, doctor, crewer with medical training and so on... all female and all of them being sent in to assist with emergency stabilization as the fleet started closing around the two ships, and the Major knelt, standing close by the Baroness.... Until Ysalha arrived, in her ridiculously ornate uniform with fore and aft hat, the outrageous jewelry and kohl lined eyes and that beautiful countenance of blue hair and yellow eyes, the Major rising to salute.
"Captain Your Ladyship. I present Admiral Her Ladyship Gwyna of Tiabhal, the ranking officer of these abused prisoners."
"Thank you Major, your command will be in for a commendation, that's a quote from Her Serene Grace," Ysalha smiled grandly, and moved to sit delicately at the woman's side as a medic checked her out, and whispered,
"Stable, Your Ladyship, you can speak to her and we'll haul her up and aboard shortly."
"Thank you." Her eyes glanced down to the Barones...."Ah, forgive me, but I am Admiral Tisara the Archduchess Urami's Chief of Operations for the fleet, Captain Ysalha Armenbhat the Baroness of Titangirt."
Gwyna nodded her head. "A most sincere pleasure, Captain. You were listening to the Major's conversation with I? I fear I can't tell if she was transmitting, they slagged my nanocomp and everything plugged into it when they grabbed me. I will answer any questions you have if I can, or if I am allowed to... and my compliments on your cover, if you give me leave to comment. I thought we were the only people ever to use that style, though ours are much more... subdued."
Ysalha giggled pleasantly. "It's our sexual characteristics, Baroness; Hair, eyes, skin, the curve of the face, these things are what's important to us, not the breasts and hips of humans. You care about shape; we care about plumage. So of course we are a gaudy sort. Tell me--I get rather... distracted, often--tell me, why do they do this to you? What was the course of your rebellion against them, if indeed it ever existed?"
"Rebellion? Why, those..." She visibly calmed, snapping her intended words off. "Captain - they're the descendants of the original ship crews and hired security forces from the colonization. Otrera was founded by a group of daring, like-minded women to escape the inherent enslavement we faced in our home cultures, to give ourselves a place where we could be equal. They disagreed and raped the government to death then enslaved the entire planet. Our foremothers revolted within three years into two bandit queendoms that eventually restored the whole of Otrera to freedom. We've been at war ever since, with periods of truce or balance of terror. That's more than two thousand years. Herks, well. The rest of space didn't get better from when we left. The worst of them sell captured Otrerans to clubs on their homeworld where their more depraved sorts get pleasure from slowly killing us. We're not human to them, and they expect brutality to eventually break us. Because we cannot escape what they still see us as. This is normal to them. They do it to their own women too, those that get out of their place."
Ysalha closed her eyes for a moment, ears folding back. "We will not allow that to happen those refugees we have picked up here. And we will talk to your Regent. Greatly, and at length, if she still lives. Now, the stretcher-bearers have come for you.... You'll have a bed, probably not in sickbay but in one of the habitation cabins.... And the Admiral will come and speak to you herself, and plan something out, though she is hearing our entire conversation continuously right now. I will accompany you the whole way, if it shall be better...."
"Please, I shall not impose. She likely has duties for you... that, and, though I do not wish to admit it, I am growing rather sleepy from being awake this long with so much activity."
"Then she will be by to visit you when you have healed."
"That... should only require a nap, I hope. If she will permit, I will be in a state to receive her in two hours or so, I believe..." At that, her head sagged, and it was but a few moments before she passed out into sleep.
"Boringly standard binary, Your Serene Grace...." Dhirisma reported as the probe began sending back data. "Looks good for us to go through."
"Send the scouting squadrons through," Tisara ordered calmly.... "Condition One, shields up." The bridge lights flared as the usual precautions of entering a new universe were effected, and Dhirisma brazenly lead eight dreadnoughts, eight battlecruisers, four fleet carriers, and close to two hundred escorts and support ships--half of the ships under her control--through the tannhauser gate in close, good order.
"Understood, Admiral." Captain Ilahmbh turned away to her small staff of command specialists who formed the only crew of the automated, eight-point-two million tonne Dhirisma, anti-matter powered with the acceleration of a destroyer and the engines and shields of a dreadnought. So far, everything was going normal, and of course the decision to make the jump in the enormously dense and completely uninhabitable Carina Nebula meant that the chance of any unexpected first contact was certainly nonexistent.
It was really a quite boring first four hours or so. Ysalha went to take a nap in her quarters, with Dhirisma cradling her as they held position in the nebula. Tisara remained on the flagbridge, drumming her fingers and waiting for a chance to do something. It came to her soon enough, as Dhirisma popped another hologram of herself up on the bridge--the first was still taking care of Ysalha down in their opulent quarters--and saluted cheekily to Tisara. "Admiral, I am afraid to say that we have a major crisis." And the way she said it meant that she had realized that Tisara wanted something to go wrong.
"What do you have for me?" Tisara was vaguely away she was falling for something; she didn't care.
Without verbally answering, Dhirisma cued Tisara in on the comms conversation she was in the middle of.
"Thank the gods! This is the Iulius Felix, we have been badly damaged by rebel forces, and are separated from our convoy. We have no functional navigation inside this accursed nebula, and our FTL drive is damaged. Can you provide assistance... Taloran Empire Ship Dhirisma?" The voice was male, and slightly panicky.
"Yes. We will be dispatching another ship in the squadron to secure your vessel. Please stand by," Dhirisma answered, and sent HSMS Ghiyuika of the battle-squadron forward. A dreadnought had plenty of armour if it was a trap to absorb the blows of the enemy and pull back while the rest of the squadron fought in support of her extrication, after all. And would overawe the natives in the freighter and make them more apt to provide information to her forces. Tisara planned it and directed the operation through Dhirisma as though it was quite normal, and it was. "Latin," she murmured aloud, though. "We always run into old tongues."
"Thank you, our government will provide you compensation for the trouble, we promise you..." The freighter had visible damage, with the fire being directed to what appeared to be light weapons mounts (disabled) and the ship's engines and command area (both damaged, the first more than the last), as she slowed further, trying to match velocity with her fusion torch engines. She was long, about three quarters of a kilometer or so, with a series of standardized cargo pods along her length, none of which showed signs of damage. Blocky with many straight edges, she was a freighter, through and through.
Once the freighter was in position, the Ghiyuika snagged her with a tractor beam. "Freighter Iulius Felix," the translated voice--and they'd doubtless dismiss the slightly female tone to the voice precisely because it was such an obvious machine rendered translation--"Please stand by. You are in a gravitic tractor-repulsor field. We are commencing towing back to the fleet secured zone to conduct repairs. You will be boarded by repair parties after a meeting between Captain commanding Ghiyuika and your own commander, over."
"Understood, Ghiuika, Sol Invictus bless you for this. We are in your debt. Felix clear."
In the process, however, it wouldn't be the Ghiyuika's Captain who would be waiting--well, Jhikalia Saviput would be there--but Ysalha took an assault shuttle over from Dhirisma to be waiting so that Tisara could have one of her own command staff there to talk to their first communication with the universe... A party of Talorans waiting with armoured marines armed in the docking bays as they used universal connectors to drive home and lock together the dreadnought and the freighter and equalized pressure, noting the Earth standard atmosphere and letting them deal with their own high-sulphur but still survivable variant thereof.
There was a side party of their own waiting, five men, four dressed in civilian uniform, complete with kilts, and one youngish sort in a more military bent. All stiffened sharply at the strange smell of sulphur in shipboard air, but managed to mostly restrain their expressions of shock at seeing true aliens in the flesh; widening eyes were the most common, though the youngest had his mouth drop halfway open before he recovered. They managed to flounder into bows, blinking at the riotous colour on display. The eldest stiffened, guessing and just floundering forwards. "Our thanks, noble spacers, I am Captain Titus Velleius Triarius, and my crew is in your debt." There was another bow at the end of the greeting from all of them, stiff-necked as could be.
"I am Captain Ysalha Armenbhat," the amber-eyed and beautifully tall, lusciously blue haired Taloran stepped forward drawn up ornately in her uniform to the twitch of a half-cybernetic brain, skin a gray-tinted alabaster and eyes lined with kohl, a locket around her neck. "I am the Chief of Operations of this squadron and I have been sent by the Admiral to speak to you with Captain Jhikalia Saviput," a gesture to the redhead with brilliant purple eyes, "who is my subordinate. You will defer to me in all cases and we expect to begin the inspection of your ship shortly unless you presume to demonstrate a reasonable claim to this area of space. Please, come this way, and we will provide refreshments appropriate for humans. We have encountered your species before."
"Of course, Captain." The captain nodded, gesturing for his subordinates to fall in, hints of an internal nervousness showing through. "Your people... are the first non-humans we have ever encountered. I suppose that we are not the furthest out, then, and there must be someone further beyond the nebula. We'll be happy to submit our people's claim to this area of space and our supporting documentation, of course." God, they're like a bunch of catamites in how they dress... "We are carrying a chartered military cargo, as such, I will register a protest at the searching of the ship's holds on the grounds of security, though our manifest will be presented for inspection."
"We will hold off on the search until we have reviewed your claim," Ysalha murmured softly. "The Empire reserves the right to secure this territory should it be insufficient. We need the necessary trade outposts, but something can be worked out if your people are interested in peaceful and open trade with the Taloran Empire. Our interests are only in the conduct of fair trade and the propagation of the faith of the Prophet Eibermon in the Lord of Justice."
Oh shit, that sounds bad. "Of... course, Captain. Fair trade strengthens everyone, though I do warn you that there is currently a large rebellion raging in the area coreward of the Carina, and the traitors care little for niceties. The Kingdom of Herculea, however, would likely welcome free trade, and all religions that stand in the Sun's light are able to co-exist." He licked suddenly dry lips, feeling his head pound, trying to stay calm and learn as much as he could; Central Command needed to know about this, an expansive alien species on the far side of the nebula? It could be an utter disaster... unless they were ready and played their cards right. He still smiled, though it came off a bit off due to his culture and raising, all of the merchant officers holding reserve commissions and watching everything around them in the same sort of light.
She paused, stared at the wall blankly for a moment, almost skipped a step, and then led them into the conference room, the two Captains standing with an adjutant behind them. "You're carrying troops, Captain?"
"Some, yes." He said, very grudgingly, having paused a moment at the question. "Not many, but some of our cargo needs constant guard."
"I see. Well, do you have the documentation for us to review your claims to this sector? In the meanwhile, we'd appreciate some details on the Kingdom of Herculaneum..."
"Of course... we can transmit it to the ship, then?" Some subvocal communication later, and the... somewhat edited history file would arrive, showing an original claim to the area, as claimed by Herculea in turn, years of exploration, beacons, and so on. "Well, Captain, Herculea... he's our father.in the person of the Principes and Rex. We were one of the last colonial movements to leave Earth before it was destroyed, and we traveled far out to be away from the struggles of Old Space. It didn't work out that way, alas. There was a revolt amongst the colonists, the poorer ones who demanded a greater share of the wealth than anyone reasonable would agree to; we were starting to manage to put it down when the Second Galactic War erupted; the Romans sent a squadron out to smash all the colonies so we couldn't gain too much strength in their weaknesses. We almost managed to finally re-unify our nation in the interim, but a new religious cult blew up amongst the rebels and the war dragged on and on... they threw us off the planet with the mass use of bioweapons, captain. They killed their entire male population in the process of trying to get us in some mad idea of amazon supremacy that their entire society's been based on since. We've done well keeping their so-called Otreran Empire contained over the centuries, and we think we will soon finally manage to put down the revolt, divine willing. We believe in strength, honour, and virtue combined with the buttressing of tradition and a band of brothers fighting as one; it's how we've succeeded as much as we have in the face of all their underhanded attacks."
"So we're in a very complex situation with a sustained rebel presence resisting the validity of your rule--which means this was territory claimed by the rebel Empire before you conquered it. I would have to say with some regret that until we can confirm that your universe's powers generally recognize your assumption of the rebels' claims to their territory, we will neither extend our own claim nor recognize yours, based on our normative customs. The ship will be searched, though since it is deep space you have my word of honour as a Taloran noble not to seize anything aboard," Ysalha answered shortly, in constant communication with Tisara over the situation... And Tisara wanted to see what these prisoners they were guarding were.
"I will then be forced to register a formal protest according to my terms of contract with the Royal Navy, Captain." came Titus' response. "I can not stop you from searching the ship, though if you do, please do be careful, they are rebels and traitors on their way to their trials aboard, and they will not hesitate to attack for the slightest chance of escaping justice." He gave a firm look to the senior military officer, who nodded imperceptibly at the order to swallow his pride and try to spin things as best as possible.
"Of course. Some refreshments while we proceed, then? I understand the difference of opinion, but let us not make it too serious of a breach...."
"Of course, Captain..."
And a rather heavily armoured group of Taloran Marines would be heading over very promptly..... To start searching, in all due politeness, but never removing their power-armoured suits.
There were another ten crewmembers and another ten Herculanean marines aboard, who would escort the Talorans through, eying them coldly behind their own darkly tinted visors in their unpowered armour. The damage was as described, and so was the manifest, weapons, supplies... The hatch to the cargo bays rolled open at the touch of a security chip, and the smell of far too many humans crammed together for too long rolled out, along with inadequate sanitation and hygiene facilities, harsh white light revealing what was probably four thousand women crammed together in a way that would be not out of place on what another universe would know as a Japanese hell-ship, dressed in tatters of uniform with beaten-down eyes that flared when the hatch rolled open; a flying wedge of desperate souls in better shape than their sisters close to the door would form quickly out of those with enough energy and spirit remaining, expecting the sight of new figures to be, well, the start of something horrible again, and with the thunk of docking having been interpreted as them arriving at their destination, animalistic screams tore from desperate throats and a few managed a weak sounding "Autokrateria i Autokratoria!"
Tisara had inspired a certain style in her troops, one might say, as the commander of the unit..... Just stood there, impassively recording through her helmet as her stomach nearly retched as the pictures were sent back to Tisara, to Ysalha, to Dhirisma...
That's utterly barbaric.
The "assault" as it were soon died away, the hatch having rolled closed behind them, as did the screams, hands and feet beaten bloody in many cases, others having strained muscles in desperate attempts to drag down a Taloran woman in powered armour with unaugmented human strength, thousands of eyes watching the group of marines, the group that had attacked them edging backwards with naked terror in their eyes, almost all murmuring softly in Koine to each other, some falling to their knees and just looking at mirrored visors with despairing resignation, as soft crying started from almost everywhere at once, the women coming together into clumps, and hugging each other.
Some screamed out; "Just kill us already, you bastards, if you've got the balls!" or other variants on the theme, as the group seemed to try to rally, some near-skeletons being the focus of clustered groups of healthier girls around them.
Yes, it is.
Tisara looked out at the ship for a moment from Dhirisma's bridge on the holoplot displays.
There's nobody around, is there?
No, there's not, Admiral. Nothing on sensors.
Brilliant. We'll get both sides of the story and plausible deniability if we still want to trade with these bastards.
Those are typical conditions on a slaver, are they not? Ysalha added as she watched the unknowing men across from her.
Yes. They would certainly claim to be transporting rebels, Dhirisma answered.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," Ysalha spoke aloud. "We received a report from our search party. Do you consider the rebel captives to be slaves?"
"Just trying to decide if we should classify them as cargo, gentlemen, it's nothing major." She added a moment later.
The captain paused a moment, considering the question before he replied in a neutral fashion; "Not currently, no. They have not been convicted of treason and rebellion yet, after all."
"That's a typical punishment among your people? We prefer the lash and the cane."
"Only for the most heinous of crimes, of course, given the gravity of the issue. Corporal punishment and fines are, of course, far more common." Not for those like them, granted...
Ysalha nodded lightly.
What, if I may, is your people's view? If it is a problem, of course, it is something we can negotiate..." Captain Titus asked, rather daringly. "As of now, no, not slaves, they are presumed to be criminals captured in the act of committing their crime. We do have laws, we are not barbarians, after all."
Back in the cargo hold, the women were starting to reform, some sort of discipline starting to come together from the groups further back in the bunks, working themselves up into another effort to try and force the new marines to start shooting.
Tisara slumped down on the bridge. Could she bring herself to do it? Even Terrible Tizzy thought twice before randomly butchering the civilian merchant crew of an undiscovered foreign power...... But what they were doing to those poor women was a horror beyond measure. A war crime that the Alliance would find just as offensive and would be just as liable to punish harshly.
Admiral, you went to war with the Cylons on less evidence than this. Dhirisma pointedly spoke to her, and it made the Archduchess tense, slump back into her chair once again, and steeple her gloves.
She broke her immobile pose after a long, tense moment with a single lightning-quick move of her hand to virtually slap the button to the open intercom line to the marine commander. "Major, give me that ship--and I want prisoners!"
The Major turned around and personally used her close range plasma discharger on the nearest of the Herculeanean marines as the integral support railgun spat out an automatic stream of supersonic accelerated rounds with a terrifying sound of hundreds of sonic booms as the armoured troops turned on the Herculeanean crewmen and marines in unison, the detachments through the ship moving with terrifying precision to seize the bridge and engineering as vibro-blades snapped into position on the suits for very close range and flechette grenades from launchers were used with cool abandon. They were professionals, hardened veterans, and after what they just seen--the order to take prisoners was taken with great reluctance.
The Herculanean officers went white and leaped to their feet aboard the Taloran ship as their comm implants crackled to life, while the escort parties of marines were mostly caught flat-footed, one or two high-velocity sabot rounds cracking out, one managing to put a series of blasts into the stomach of one of the Talorans on his way down in a death spasm; there weren't many, not on a freighter with only a small guard detachment, and the crewmen had only their less advanced charge pistols, sending the slugs of pistol rounds cracking downrange and deflecting off the Talorans' armour. Prisoners would only be taken amongst those too wounded to further resist; when cornered, suicide or, turning the pistol on vital equipment was the usual response amongst those with the wits to do so - the last officer on the bridge, for his part, first slammed the activation for the fire suppression system in the prisoner's hold, before, as the Talorans came onto the bridge, he emptied his clip on automatic into the cockpit-like windows on the bridge, causing explosive decompression alarms to sound throughout the ship. The single duty engineer, for his part, was gunned down as he was preparing to take a plasma torch to the magnetic field generators for the reactor. Resistance, while disorganized and relatively ineffective from second-line troops and reservists, was fanatical.
"You asked us what we think of slavery? We legislate the end of slavery, gentlemen. With our guns." And the guards in the room leveled theirs. "That the divine law commands that all, no matter how mean, should receive pay for the work of their hands, is absolute."
Faces were white and veins bulging with rage as the officers glared hatefully around them, not daring to move with so many guns leveled. "Humanity will never let you get away with this..." one, not the captain, a younger man with black hair cut short said in a hot-headed tone.
For the slaves, the one thing that saved them was the small fact that the Talorans had jammed open the access to that cargo container with the damage they'd inflicted on it, rather intentionally. Which meant they'd start decompressing the entire ship too, which would be.... interesting, rather interesting indeed.
"Humanity, gentlemen? We conquered humanity in our home universe."
Eyes went wide at that, one strangled gasp coming from the legionary in the room... and on the freighter, well, civilian ships had relatively short lifespans and were designed accordingly. The combination of the two meant that there was, currently, a massive air leak far exceeding the life support system's ability to deal with it as... a lot more alarms went off.
"Where's the air venting on the freighter?" Ysalha snapped out in High Taloran without translation.
"Z-0.2 X-4," the dreadnought’s captain answered as she consulted her cybernetics references to the bridge, pushing herself up. "Roll the freighter to bring it to bear on the tractor and switch an emitter to repulsor, Baroness?"
"Yes, get to it."
The Captain of the ship stepped out, as Ysalha, standing, regarded the men coolly.
There was some twitching at the foreign language, but with that many guns and them not being armed themselves, the situation was... dicey enough not to risk it. The maneouvre, while similar to the boy with his finger in the dyke, would stabilize the atmosphere in the ship at a lower level, the much-abused POWs now... even more confused, battered around, and now oxygen-deprived on top of all that, as they tried to take stock and recover their order.
"We, I think, are of a higher calibre, Captain. Your people will be sticking their hand into a hornet's nest when word of this gets out..."
"The Heir of the Sword of God rules seventy thousand planets, gentlemen," Ysalha answered, and stepped out of the room contemptuously.
On the freighter, the Talorans would clean up the remaining resistance as the commander of the boarding group stepped back into the hold, frowning as she did and still in her suit since she was excluded from the atmosphere, then. "We need you to evacuate the bay so we can seal it off," the suit spat out, translated into Latin. "Form up in an orderly fashion, we can't evacuate the ship with our current measures enacted, so this cargo pod must be evacuated. That is a directive."
There was... a lot of blank staring from the women close to her, then a visible, and almost cute passing from person to person of what she had said back down the line to the prone figures that still had clusters around them, which caused, after word went in a similar fashion in the opposite direction, a stocky Sinic bosun to climb up on a bunk stack and yell out in Koine; "Sisters will form up and prepare to depart the bay!" Shuffling around would start, weaker being supported by stronger, in the back, some crashing as bunks were torn apart and formed into make-shift stretchers for some of the more injured, others, the walking skeletons in the back being carefully supported with women on each side and led hesitantly forwards, till in about two minutes, they had managed, in the narrow corridors, to have achieved some form of assembly in neat, if interrupted, parade-ground ranks. They... looked much less like rebels, in their dirty abbreviated tunics, or the luckier, scraps of uniform.
The major looked over them quietly, as she waited, and finally: "We'll remain here until you've all passed into the ship proper. Please commence." While, on the comms line: "Do I have a translation of their language yet? "
"We're working on it. It's some kind of variant of Greek," the familiar but still unusual-to-hear voice of the sapient computer of the Dhirisma answered back in a placating tone. "Promise, Major. It's just taking some effort to translate the variations in what you're recording. Very well preserved, though."
One of the weaker and, at this range, a bit older looking women, held up her hand and gestured forwards, as if one would when holding a sword, and by division, in a shuffling sort of step, the Otrerans marched out of their prison hold into something... very different, some stumbling and being held up; they were only making something like half-time at best, to allow the ones being half-carried to keep place, filing out past the Taloran marines, some showing sign of old bandaged wounds, slings, and so on.
They moved out, those women, many in stretchers, gesturing about with soft commands, arranging their commands into neat lines along the sides of the corridors, where with soft commands, the files in groups of twenty or so would sink gratefully to the deck, exhausted from even that little after this long of starvation rations.
The Talorans then proceeded to thoroughly sweep the space to make sure nobody was left behind who wasn't already dead, and then sealed it in their wake so that they could step back and work on unjamming the blast door... Which finally snapped shut and let them re-dock with the dreadnought in fairly short order, silently until the clanging of contact would sound again. Silent that is except for the ship's oxygen systems getting a handle on it, re-pressurizing fully..... Which meant that Jhataka Ripartui, the marine Major, at last snapped her outer helmet off, an incredible cascade of electric blue hair flipping out and long down her back as she kept the lower half on with the translation software, brilliantly bright green eyes looking with a stern bit of sympathy across the ranks before her as Dhirisma triumphantly sent her the rough translation algorithms.
"Can I speak with your ranking officer, please?"
There were... wide-eyed gasps, pointing and whispering, much different from the original Herculanean reaction, one girl even daringly stretching her hand out to see if she could touch that incredibly vibrant hair, before the women on either side urgently pulled her back. The request was passed down... down some more... and down more. It would be about five minutes after she asked before four women carrying one of the improvised stretchers would come towards the major, a very thin figure indeed under a blanket as she was carefully laid down before the Taloran woman, her eyes brightly inquisitive as she was helped up by her bearers, one sitting cross-legged behind her to give her something to lean on and allow to sit up, at least. "You asked for our senior officer, I am told. I am Rear-Admiral of the Blue the Baroness Gwyna of Tiabhal. To who am I speaking and for what purpose, if you may tell me?". Her voice was soft, and her form ravaged, red hair cascading over her pillow, pale celtic skin showing veins and bones through, the lines of tattoos visible on her shoulders and going downwards. She was tense, expecting to be shot, at best, but it would be better than the certainty that had seemed to be her future.
".... Your Ladyship." Jhataka knelt at Gwyna's side impulsively, and whipped out a vibro-blade from her utility belt, a long dagger not integral to the suit, pulled it out, flicked it on for a moment over her..... then turned it off, slipped it back into the sheath, and slipped it down into the woman's hands. "Forgive me, foreign noblewoman, Lady Gwyna, but I have no sword on my person to offer; let it succor a little, at least, this blade, the indignity of how you have been confined....." Her hair draped down across the floor as her ears drooped to the sides in what even the Otrerans might have some inkling of as dejection.
There was... a hushed silence in the corridor as the Otrerans stared. Gwyna almost dropped the blade but kept hold of it, a small smile spreading her face. "Your name, then, my saviour, that I may properly thank she who gave me a blade of honour after that which I had was taken as a trophy. Take heart, then, if it ease your heart, that ye have done well, and that I shall not forget this kindness to one in such a pitiful state." It was florid, rising to meet the occasion; then again, Otrerans could be quite expert at rapidly getting so with little provocation. "Given what you have saved me from, you should indeed feel no regrets, woman and sister of a strange star!" She blushed after a moment. "... Assuming your species uses two sexes with congruent genders and you are, in fact, a woman as humans define it."
"We are women, as you would see it, for we have a womb and give birth with great pain," she answered shortly, and her ears perked. "I am Major Jhataka Ripartui, a gentrywoman of Her Serene Majesty's Drop Marines of the Imperial Confederacy of Talora."
"Oh thank merciful Arzadokh in all her incarnations, an Empress with women in her military... I thought we were going to be forever alone until the Romans finally snuffed us out..." She grinned, forcing herself up and a bit forwards to manage to, with some help from the woman behind her, hug the Taloran major. "Bless you. The first aliens humanity has met, and you aren't like all the men of the universe..."
She turned her head and called out in a weak, wavering voice; "Hey! Lakshmi! She's a drop trooper too!"
Part of it was being deliberately over-friendly for the sake of her girls, who were still incredibly nervous, the other was the massive emotional release that swamped her mental reserve, coming from what seemed to be a liberation, even if they were intending to eat her... which didn't seem likely with how nicely the woman was acting.
"You have fallen on hard times I see.... My commanders want to speak to you, though they'll do it under medical supervision, Your Ladyship. You will get to rest quite a lot, fear not. There's enough space in the fleet.... We've got eight of the Wall here, plus battlecruisers and carriers, so don't feel concerned about any threat toward us."
The other Talorans were easing their helmets off, too, and was essentially the case in the Marines, something like seventy percent were female. All the tall ones. And they were incredibly tall. "It is true, for our people, that women are the dominant sex, and make up... Oh, about seven out of ten of those in the boarding party, I'd wager."
"I... don't think it's likely your men will trigger post-trauma in the girls, but will they be careful, please?" The Baroness asked in a hushed whisper. "It was... bad before they put us aboard ship. We need food and water, baths and medical attention, I think everyone does. It... it's good to hear that, Major. I'll refrain from how many of the wall we have... um... where are we?"
“It's sort of hard to tell males and females of our species apart, for what it's worth, by human standards. We don't have a lot of sexual differentiation short of primary characteristics. You're in the Great Carina Nebula," she added. "We've never contacted your people before."
"Oh... then we're in Otreran space, Arzadokh be praised... yes, your squadron will be safe here, heavy units cannot get here from coreward unless Otrera herself falls."
"I fear to say that your captors seemed to be giving us the impression that the war was already concluded.... Though maybe they were just putting on a brave front to us to hide their potential weakness, I may say."
The ship clanged as docking was re-achieved above them... This time to a port closer to the cargo facilities to start extricating people faster.
There was ducking, starting, and a lot of nervous looks in that direction, but no panic or exclamations. "We... are prisoners from the Empire of Otrera, under Regent the Archduchess Theodora Slattara of the Altiplano, taken over the last year, and being transferred to Herculea proper to be sold. I believe one of our squadrons attacked the convoy and did some damage." She frowned as she processed what had been said. "I do not think the war has ended. Too many would have died. The Silver Sun may not fly much longer, but we will damned well make the Herks and Romans choke on us on the way down."
"I see. Well, please hold on, we'll.... Ah, here." The first of the medical parties was arriving--every single female medic, corpswoman, doctor, crewer with medical training and so on... all female and all of them being sent in to assist with emergency stabilization as the fleet started closing around the two ships, and the Major knelt, standing close by the Baroness.... Until Ysalha arrived, in her ridiculously ornate uniform with fore and aft hat, the outrageous jewelry and kohl lined eyes and that beautiful countenance of blue hair and yellow eyes, the Major rising to salute.
"Captain Your Ladyship. I present Admiral Her Ladyship Gwyna of Tiabhal, the ranking officer of these abused prisoners."
"Thank you Major, your command will be in for a commendation, that's a quote from Her Serene Grace," Ysalha smiled grandly, and moved to sit delicately at the woman's side as a medic checked her out, and whispered,
"Stable, Your Ladyship, you can speak to her and we'll haul her up and aboard shortly."
"Thank you." Her eyes glanced down to the Barones...."Ah, forgive me, but I am Admiral Tisara the Archduchess Urami's Chief of Operations for the fleet, Captain Ysalha Armenbhat the Baroness of Titangirt."
Gwyna nodded her head. "A most sincere pleasure, Captain. You were listening to the Major's conversation with I? I fear I can't tell if she was transmitting, they slagged my nanocomp and everything plugged into it when they grabbed me. I will answer any questions you have if I can, or if I am allowed to... and my compliments on your cover, if you give me leave to comment. I thought we were the only people ever to use that style, though ours are much more... subdued."
Ysalha giggled pleasantly. "It's our sexual characteristics, Baroness; Hair, eyes, skin, the curve of the face, these things are what's important to us, not the breasts and hips of humans. You care about shape; we care about plumage. So of course we are a gaudy sort. Tell me--I get rather... distracted, often--tell me, why do they do this to you? What was the course of your rebellion against them, if indeed it ever existed?"
"Rebellion? Why, those..." She visibly calmed, snapping her intended words off. "Captain - they're the descendants of the original ship crews and hired security forces from the colonization. Otrera was founded by a group of daring, like-minded women to escape the inherent enslavement we faced in our home cultures, to give ourselves a place where we could be equal. They disagreed and raped the government to death then enslaved the entire planet. Our foremothers revolted within three years into two bandit queendoms that eventually restored the whole of Otrera to freedom. We've been at war ever since, with periods of truce or balance of terror. That's more than two thousand years. Herks, well. The rest of space didn't get better from when we left. The worst of them sell captured Otrerans to clubs on their homeworld where their more depraved sorts get pleasure from slowly killing us. We're not human to them, and they expect brutality to eventually break us. Because we cannot escape what they still see us as. This is normal to them. They do it to their own women too, those that get out of their place."
Ysalha closed her eyes for a moment, ears folding back. "We will not allow that to happen those refugees we have picked up here. And we will talk to your Regent. Greatly, and at length, if she still lives. Now, the stretcher-bearers have come for you.... You'll have a bed, probably not in sickbay but in one of the habitation cabins.... And the Admiral will come and speak to you herself, and plan something out, though she is hearing our entire conversation continuously right now. I will accompany you the whole way, if it shall be better...."
"Please, I shall not impose. She likely has duties for you... that, and, though I do not wish to admit it, I am growing rather sleepy from being awake this long with so much activity."
"Then she will be by to visit you when you have healed."
"That... should only require a nap, I hope. If she will permit, I will be in a state to receive her in two hours or so, I believe..." At that, her head sagged, and it was but a few moments before she passed out into sleep.
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Voyager989
- Redshirt
- Posts: 40
- Joined: 2010-01-19 07:56am
Re: Daughters of Penthesilea (TGG)
If we give them the least hold over us, 'tis all up! their audacity will know no bounds! We shall see them building ships, and fighting sea-fights, like Artemisia; nay, if they want to mount and ride as cavalry, we had best cashier the knights, for indeed women excel in riding, and have a fine. firm seat for the gallop. Just think of all those squadrons of Amazons Micon has painted for us engaged in hand-to-hand combat with men. Come then, we must e'en fit collars to all these willing necks.
-Aristophanes
"Greetings. I'm Captain Dhirisma Armenbhat," a more gray-skinned woman approached her with purple hair and blue eyes. "And you were transferred over to the flagship while you slept, as distributing the sheer quantity of survivors we have through all of the ships of the fleet was necessary for proper care. You're under the care of Doctor Ghimalia, but she's busy with other patients right now, Your Ladyship. Her Serene Grace will be over momentarily."
Still blinking sleep from her eyes, the Otreran admiral nodded. "Understood, Captain. Again, thank you... your people have been most kind to us; we are in your debt."
"..It's a moral obligation of the civilized to rescue people in such states."
"Well, yes, of course. Most nations here hold themselves to a different standard, I fear, but.... well, my wife would kill me, for one, beyond the Goddess' disapproval. Gwyna shook her head slightly. "Romans or Qin would have killed the crew and took us to sell, I would wager, if the bounty we offer on our own heads was insufficient.”
"This universe is terrible!" Dhirisma squawked girlishly.
"Yes it rather is," another voice joined in, and this one seemed to actually speak the language quite passably well, just like Dhirisma's... and was definitely not a translated voice as such. The owner of that voice came walking in, calmly, short by Taloran standards but not as short as the males... barely. One might say a bit androgynous because of the lack of height, but the whole room seemed to stiffen from that hideous crisscross of scars across her face; the jewelry softened it. Seaweed green hair and the sharp mismatch of red and blue eyes as she approached in by far the most dazzlingly ornate uniform yet, and stood with her hands thrust into the pockets of a greatcoat draped over it all as she looked down to the Baroness' hospital bed. "Still, it's somewhat impolite to say. Ahhh... I am Tisara Valeria, the Archduchess Urami."
"Your Highness." came Gwyna's immediate, reflexive, and deferential response. "Your people and yourself have my thanks, again, for we can offer nothing else, I fear." The scarring was... odd, and the admiral stiffened a bit, frowning internally, wondering just why the scars hadn't been healed. A badge of honour? Some of our foes are that way... She stiffened up onto her pillows reflexively, trying to look more presentable, her eyes still getting lost in the dizzying mass of medals and coloured fabric.
"Oh, it's no matter. It's truly no matter. We're only interested in enforcing certain bits of universal morality about things so reprehensible we feel a certain degree of need to respond to them no matter if it causes a war... Slavery is one of them. I want to talk to your people, Baroness. We came here to trade, but we do not trade with slavers and will never trade with slavers."
"... Then we are almost certainly your only trading partner in the known galaxy, Your Highness." Gwyna said rather simply, which made it more than slightly clear just how bad things here were from the viewpoint of the Otrerans, at least. “The only enslaving we ever did was to castrate prisoners and send them to work in the mines before ransoming them. We haven't done that for centuries now. Now we just take them for exchange; Rome gets upset and won't let us do anything to them, but nobody stops the Herks from doing things to our sisters..."
"Well, you have a Regent. Where can I find her, exactly?" Tisara asked airily, as if the details of being at odds with the whole universe were... A triviality, really. And frankly to Tisara that was exactly what they were. Exactly what they were, that, and even her whole command.
"... I'm not sure, as I was taken some months ago, but I expect on Otrera itself. It's both the front lines and our home system, with the most industry and population, and the strongest defences."
"Are you willing to give us the coordinates, Baroness?" Her ears seemed to flex diffidently, though the eyes were.... ever so very aware and calculating.
"If this is a most elaborate scheme... it is a very good one. Yes, I believe I am so willing, if we arrive far enough out to not trigger an invasion alert." She caught the ears and was trying to process it, but... well, to humans un-used to them, Talorans had great poker faces.
“We can arrange that. Well. We might as well be on it, so that I actually get there and find someone to negotiate with rather than merely a war to fight, which would be rather unpleasant, though hardly an impossibility. Should I send for the squadron of dreadnoughts on the other side of the portal we traveled through? That would bring the Wall up to sixteen in strength, which is not a trivial force to be so easily trifled with”
"That would bring your strength to half ours, Your Highness." was the soft response from the woman in the bed. "Coordinates are... one zero dash four five dash zero eight point five by negative five nine by five two by zero four, relative to galactic centre." She rattled off the coordinates without much effort, well able to locate the star by memory and expecting the jump scouting to soon begin to follow the unknown – to the Talorans – local jump point network to the coordinates.
"Dhirisma, send signals in my name to spin up the fleet's jump drives for the first leap. Link those to our parsec standard via the captured maps from that freighter, convert them and confirm that there's a system with a habitable planet there, and then prepare the fleet coordinates for the moment the reinforcements arrive."
"Already transmitting and preparing," The Captain answered shortly. "Ysalha's up on the bridge if anyone asks...."
"Oh, they never do by now. Let's get the prize crew on that tub headed through the gate, then...." She looked down to the Baroness. "It shouldn't take us long at all, for what it is worth."
"... You already have the jump network mapped? Goddess, you were well-prepared, Highness. They never had a chance when they stumbled into you... which is good for me, so I will not complain about that. You are a very well-drilled command team, my compliments, if I can be so bold..."
Tisara snorted. "More like a highly integrated one." She seemed... Very amused. "Only Ilahmbh is highly drilled, and you have not met her yet; she has to be, to stand my darlings, Baroness... As for what-ever jump drive you use, I don't know what it is, but it sounds quite different than ours. Our ships jump through warp folds to distances of about seventy light-years at a time, maximum, recharge, and jump again at will. Among other capabilities."
"... Oh. Our maximum distance is unlimited, but we must travel from point-to-point, through system Lagrange points. They link to an L-point in another system and take at most, about five minutes of travel. It is a most... interesting if dangerous experience. Your FTL drive sounds far more versatile than ours... and far more less likely to result in a fleet slamming at full speed into a cerametal and neutronium point blocker." Darlings? I am so not asking.
"That would be correct. No points required. If you'll excuse me. I have become a very busy woman. Good day, Baroness--and heal quickly. Your people will need you."
-Aristophanes
"Greetings. I'm Captain Dhirisma Armenbhat," a more gray-skinned woman approached her with purple hair and blue eyes. "And you were transferred over to the flagship while you slept, as distributing the sheer quantity of survivors we have through all of the ships of the fleet was necessary for proper care. You're under the care of Doctor Ghimalia, but she's busy with other patients right now, Your Ladyship. Her Serene Grace will be over momentarily."
Still blinking sleep from her eyes, the Otreran admiral nodded. "Understood, Captain. Again, thank you... your people have been most kind to us; we are in your debt."
"..It's a moral obligation of the civilized to rescue people in such states."
"Well, yes, of course. Most nations here hold themselves to a different standard, I fear, but.... well, my wife would kill me, for one, beyond the Goddess' disapproval. Gwyna shook her head slightly. "Romans or Qin would have killed the crew and took us to sell, I would wager, if the bounty we offer on our own heads was insufficient.”
"This universe is terrible!" Dhirisma squawked girlishly.
"Yes it rather is," another voice joined in, and this one seemed to actually speak the language quite passably well, just like Dhirisma's... and was definitely not a translated voice as such. The owner of that voice came walking in, calmly, short by Taloran standards but not as short as the males... barely. One might say a bit androgynous because of the lack of height, but the whole room seemed to stiffen from that hideous crisscross of scars across her face; the jewelry softened it. Seaweed green hair and the sharp mismatch of red and blue eyes as she approached in by far the most dazzlingly ornate uniform yet, and stood with her hands thrust into the pockets of a greatcoat draped over it all as she looked down to the Baroness' hospital bed. "Still, it's somewhat impolite to say. Ahhh... I am Tisara Valeria, the Archduchess Urami."
"Your Highness." came Gwyna's immediate, reflexive, and deferential response. "Your people and yourself have my thanks, again, for we can offer nothing else, I fear." The scarring was... odd, and the admiral stiffened a bit, frowning internally, wondering just why the scars hadn't been healed. A badge of honour? Some of our foes are that way... She stiffened up onto her pillows reflexively, trying to look more presentable, her eyes still getting lost in the dizzying mass of medals and coloured fabric.
"Oh, it's no matter. It's truly no matter. We're only interested in enforcing certain bits of universal morality about things so reprehensible we feel a certain degree of need to respond to them no matter if it causes a war... Slavery is one of them. I want to talk to your people, Baroness. We came here to trade, but we do not trade with slavers and will never trade with slavers."
"... Then we are almost certainly your only trading partner in the known galaxy, Your Highness." Gwyna said rather simply, which made it more than slightly clear just how bad things here were from the viewpoint of the Otrerans, at least. “The only enslaving we ever did was to castrate prisoners and send them to work in the mines before ransoming them. We haven't done that for centuries now. Now we just take them for exchange; Rome gets upset and won't let us do anything to them, but nobody stops the Herks from doing things to our sisters..."
"Well, you have a Regent. Where can I find her, exactly?" Tisara asked airily, as if the details of being at odds with the whole universe were... A triviality, really. And frankly to Tisara that was exactly what they were. Exactly what they were, that, and even her whole command.
"... I'm not sure, as I was taken some months ago, but I expect on Otrera itself. It's both the front lines and our home system, with the most industry and population, and the strongest defences."
"Are you willing to give us the coordinates, Baroness?" Her ears seemed to flex diffidently, though the eyes were.... ever so very aware and calculating.
"If this is a most elaborate scheme... it is a very good one. Yes, I believe I am so willing, if we arrive far enough out to not trigger an invasion alert." She caught the ears and was trying to process it, but... well, to humans un-used to them, Talorans had great poker faces.
“We can arrange that. Well. We might as well be on it, so that I actually get there and find someone to negotiate with rather than merely a war to fight, which would be rather unpleasant, though hardly an impossibility. Should I send for the squadron of dreadnoughts on the other side of the portal we traveled through? That would bring the Wall up to sixteen in strength, which is not a trivial force to be so easily trifled with”
"That would bring your strength to half ours, Your Highness." was the soft response from the woman in the bed. "Coordinates are... one zero dash four five dash zero eight point five by negative five nine by five two by zero four, relative to galactic centre." She rattled off the coordinates without much effort, well able to locate the star by memory and expecting the jump scouting to soon begin to follow the unknown – to the Talorans – local jump point network to the coordinates.
"Dhirisma, send signals in my name to spin up the fleet's jump drives for the first leap. Link those to our parsec standard via the captured maps from that freighter, convert them and confirm that there's a system with a habitable planet there, and then prepare the fleet coordinates for the moment the reinforcements arrive."
"Already transmitting and preparing," The Captain answered shortly. "Ysalha's up on the bridge if anyone asks...."
"Oh, they never do by now. Let's get the prize crew on that tub headed through the gate, then...." She looked down to the Baroness. "It shouldn't take us long at all, for what it is worth."
"... You already have the jump network mapped? Goddess, you were well-prepared, Highness. They never had a chance when they stumbled into you... which is good for me, so I will not complain about that. You are a very well-drilled command team, my compliments, if I can be so bold..."
Tisara snorted. "More like a highly integrated one." She seemed... Very amused. "Only Ilahmbh is highly drilled, and you have not met her yet; she has to be, to stand my darlings, Baroness... As for what-ever jump drive you use, I don't know what it is, but it sounds quite different than ours. Our ships jump through warp folds to distances of about seventy light-years at a time, maximum, recharge, and jump again at will. Among other capabilities."
"... Oh. Our maximum distance is unlimited, but we must travel from point-to-point, through system Lagrange points. They link to an L-point in another system and take at most, about five minutes of travel. It is a most... interesting if dangerous experience. Your FTL drive sounds far more versatile than ours... and far more less likely to result in a fleet slamming at full speed into a cerametal and neutronium point blocker." Darlings? I am so not asking.
"That would be correct. No points required. If you'll excuse me. I have become a very busy woman. Good day, Baroness--and heal quickly. Your people will need you."
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The Duchess of Zeon
- Gözde
- Posts: 14566
- Joined: 2002-09-18 01:06am
- Location: Exiled in the Pale of Settlement.
Re: Daughters of Penthesilea (TGG)
It's wonderful to see this finally being posted!
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
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Voyager989
- Redshirt
- Posts: 40
- Joined: 2010-01-19 07:56am
Re: Daughters of Penthesilea (TGG)
Stay, stay thy hands! thou art an Amazon
And fightest with the sword of Deborah.
-William Shakespeare
29 April, 2178
The Otrera system: With a burning Class A star at the heart, the six planets of the place, all inhabited, formed a string of pearls, out into the icy blackness of the outer system. Active chatter from shipping filled the airwaves as liners, freighters, bulk cargo ships, all traveling about on the courses, unaware of what was about to make today anything but ordinary. In the inner system, near Otrera III, sat the great shipyards of the Otreran Imperial Navy; within sat the hulks of dozens upon dozens of massive ships, the battle-line. They swarmed with activity, as they had not in living memory, yard craft flitting around them and slowly applying the dark matte black of their wartime finishes, wiping out the white checkerboard gun-decks of peacetime. Full crews were aboard too, another change from before. No matter the cost, the fleet was ready; though they did not cruise, they stood ready with their older cousins, the older, smaller, but heavily modernised battleships, all clustered around the docking arms of their mother-station, and their sister Hestia's comforting embrace. The skeletons of two superdreadnought sisters were taking shape in their midst, one just a keel and not much else, the other visibly starting to come together and become a ship. The smaller yards for combatants elsewhere in the system were busier, taking in the old flotillas of corvettes, destroyers and cruisers, refurbishing and modernizing them, with low-rate construction of newer classes continuing apace. Belts of defensive satellites and stations floated around the planets, the thickest belt by far around the third and the L-points leading from Herculanean-controlled space. A convoy was forming up, carrying more defensive equipment for the colonies. In the face of public disbelief that the threat could be so bad and the shock that the government was so utterly battered, only "reasonable" measures had been able to gain public support, though since the death of the Duchess Ekata almost two years ago, things had slowly been starting to improve. It was this that the Taloran ships would see from a distance, the calm before the threatening storm.
For a moment, the Taloran fleet hung... Suspended before they started accelerating from their free-standing velocity, the fleet perfectly coordinated. The dreadnoughts might be only 80% the size of their Otreran counterparts but lower-massed and graceful - meant for long-range operations, twelve battlecruisers fanning out ahead of them and escorting eight of the slim and heavily armed fleet carriers with neigh-on two hundred and fifty light ships fanning out and a cluster of auxiliaries to the rear of the arrowhead formation with the dreadnoughts in four divisions at the lead, and nestled just right back from them, Dhirisma, with the Baroness Gwyna brought up to the bridge at that moment. Dhrisima, Ysalha, Ilamhbh, the strange staff of the scarred Admiral and she might be getting, by now, some evidence of their mutual interwoven relationships with the lesser staff so timid around them as Tisara sat, looking as the holographic projections were continuously updated.
The response of that many ships appearing on the long-range sensors, too far as to tell who they were, was similar to a kicked over anthill. Civilian traffic started scattering and running for the shelter of defensive stations or planets, warships started burning all over the system to meet up with each other, and sirens began to wail discordantly on planets below as a defensive plan was kicked into action near-automatically. The flicker of local shielding on the planets could be seen as they pushed closer; the Otrerans saw exactly what they thought they would, and their response showed it. Gwyna, on the other hand, saw what she wanted to, as she breathed out a sigh of relief and murmured a prayer of thanks. " Bless you, merciful Arzadokh, you preserve us still..."
She grasped some strangeness in the atmosphere around her, it was no Otreran bridge to be sure, but she had no intention of commenting, not with this many ships, and not with their discipline so perfect... and not with her own navy currently racing to throw itself together into battle formation over their mother-world.
"Will you go ahead and contact them for us, Lady Gwyna?" Tisara crossed her legs and glanced over, ears tracking to the woman. "That would be most preferable, I think, though there's no reason to hurry it along when they're getting a very good exercise in, don't you think?" A dry humour.
"The dreadnoughts are so expensive to run they're almost never active like this, Your Highness, not more than the usual one week fleet exercise a year, though that was changing when I was taken." came the soft response as she waited for a channel to be set up, watching the wall form, smaller ships taking up their positions smartly, and the bulk of the battle-line holding position between the Talorans and Otrera, before taking in a soft breath and speaking. "Channel. Six-Zero-Three-Zero-One-Two. Tiabhal. Alpha-Rho-Omega-Sigma; Ma'am, if you can hear me, this fleet isn't hostile. They rescued me and four thousand other souls. They're bringing us home."
On the Otreran flagship Semiramis, the bridge crew was gaping in shock at their admiral, who had gone bone white as her comm unit crackled, and she hurriedly patched a message through to the woman she'd left in charge on the ground, much to her chagrin. Her red hair was around the crown of her head in a braid to allow a vac-suit helmet to go over it, and skin tanned by the high-altitude life of her demense under the harsh blue-white light of that star was pulled tightly over a strongly prominent bone structure. Brown eyes blinked without seeing as she keyed her internal nanocomputer. Tria, this is Theodora. I've gotten a message from that fleet under Baroness Tiabhal's codes. She says they rescued her and are bringing her home. What's your read on the situation? I'm tempted to let them approach but keep them under my guns; their ECM isn't anything we've seen, nor their sensors. The redheaded woman frowned at her own sensors, as her staff bustled about around her, at least the parts she still needed and trusted. 'Rami, let your sisters know, if you haven't already. We'll make this a good drill for your crews if it's nothing, and a hell of a fight if it's something. Just like we practiced... "Baroness Tiabhal, please inform your hosts to conform to vector two six two by zero zero three relative and prepare to slow into a lunar orbit track orbit opposite the Atropos moon, if you would."
Try to close the distance with them. Get visuals on those ships... The Herculeaneans couldn't have built a fleet like that in secret to look like non-Herculeanean ships, probably not even the Romans or Qin could, so the visual codes will decide it. Approach ready for war Tria, the head of the coordinated intelligence agencies of Otrera replied very crisply.
In the meantime, with the codecs from the Herculeaneans and codes that the rescued Otrerans had provided... Tisara signed off on Dhirisma trying to open visual communications.
It would be a bit, before the Otrerans responded to the hail; the face that appeared was in the midnight black of an Otreran officer, fore and aft, rank insignia on her lapels, and a coolly pleasant Semitic face, dark of skin with black hair pulled back into a tight braided ponytail, pouty lips and liquidly expressive chocolate brown eyes which registered a hint of surprise at what she saw. "Oh dear me!" was the sudden startlement, at the same time she pinged Theo, they aren't human! which, which made Admiral Slattara jump a bit, before she cautioned Easy, 'Rami, they just might be using a ruse. Or they might have mind-controlled the Baroness. No way to be sure...
"I am Flag Captain Dhirisma Armenbhat," the figure standing on the bridge spoke, and gestured to the sitting and frail Baroness at her side. "Your countrywoman is present with us as our guest and uninjured. This fleet is under the direction of Her Serene Grace the Archduchess Tisara of Urami and we have come to establish peaceful relations and repatriate your countrywomen on behalf of Her Serene Majesty the Empress of all Talora."
"Greetings, Fleet Captain. I am Fleet Captain Semiramis, and we wish you greeting on behalf of the government and people of Otrera. Hello Baroness, it is..." her voice hitched for a moment "... a Goddess-given pleasure to see you again." Gwyna replied, in a shaky voice "And you, Semiramis, and you..." The Otreran officer's eyes turned back to Dhirisma. "You have the thanks of the Regent of Otrera and her people, and our thanks is extended as well to Her Serene Majesty, Her Serene Grace and all others that have aided our countrywomen." She bowed her head, slightly, in a gesture of profound respect. "The fleet will escort you to orbit, if your commander is willing."
"Yes, we will remain stood down, trusting your graces," Dhirisma replied pleasantly. "The operation to transfer those rescued will not take long, but Her Serene Grace will wish to stay for negotiations. We very much come with the intent of peace..."
There was a flicker across her face for a moment, and Semiramis nodded. "Her Royal Highness is willing to meet with Her Serene Grace to discuss matters, then. Welcome to Otrera, and bless you for bringing our sisters home. Oh, and, Rear-Admiral? It'll be good to have you guarding my flanks again." "It'll be good to be there again, Semiramis."
Dhirisma smiled cutely at the exchange. "We'll be staying in regular touch, Captain, and Her Serene Grace will meet with the Regent at Her convenience."
"Of course. We will be happy to welcome her once we arrive in our orbit. Shall we send a gig, or will you provide?" It was cautiously cagey, keeping them clear of the planet and not seeing the ground; behind them, a few casualty receiving ships were warming up to meet them in orbit. Theodora gasped once the visuals finally got a lock, mentally fluttering about and bouncing it down-planet with a sharp; Tria, they're nothing we've ever seen before . And she wants to meet with me. Ground or starside, you think? Despite everything that had happened in her life recently, the Archduchess still leaned heavily on people around her, though she knew that too many of them did not have her best interests at heart. Tria was one of the ones she leaned on; Theodora knew she was a cynical sort, but she had been close to her wife Zoe, and that meant she was reliable. Just as the platoon of Hypaspists and Altiplano girls that followed her everywhere was.
The fleet slowly would fall in with Theodora's own Otreran forces and quite docilely be guided into orbit, the peaceful intentions sincere, and Tisara quite secure in the fact that she had a very unexpected card to play should she have to fight her way out, that the existence of their ability to manipulate gravity into limited superlight travel in real-space was certainly unknown to the people of this universe.
There would be a hail then, from the same woman as before; "Fleet Captain Armenbhat? We are ready to receive Her Serene Grace aboard, if she is content with that arrangement." And this way they can't see the ground... thought Theodora as she was in her cabin, pinning her medals on and making her uniform a 'dress' one, rather than the 'working' simple one. Signet ring, Order of Valor, Wings of Liberation, Star of Otrera... a very long career, she thought, sighing in the mirror. Not that it got me anything but a widow's pension and a few trinkets to hang on my jacket.
With a last look at the highly polished metal, Theodora headed down to the docking bay, her batgirl jogging up as she got into the lift. "Kelila, you're late." she said, mock seriously, though the girl started suddenly and stammered; "It'll never happen again, m'lady!" "Easy, Kelila, you're in the navy now, not back home." The girl was new, from one of the Jewish families that had served with her family for quite some time; she'd finally given in and gotten a batgirl after she'd lost Zee... there just wasn't time anymore to do everything herself like she preferred to. Never enough time for anything at all, now...
The shuttle was approaching, then, and when the docking was completed the Talorans would board. There was a very small staff, with two Captains and a few lieutenants.... And striding at the head, cape billowing, was the Admiral. A scarred and cruel looking woman and yet ornately beautiful with that seaweed hair and incredibly mismatched sharp eyes, vibrant, even with the sickly tinge to the skin, and in a uniform that seemed fit from top to bottom for plumage and that the whole thing was a slightly comic resplendentness of an alien people for whom plumage and their wickedly long hair was the most perfect of ways they could maintain their bodies...
Theodora's staff had two commanders, four lieutenant commanders and several lieutenants, along with the batgirl. No fleet captain, however. Theodora was... tall. Over two meters, and most Taloran that way, with a well-worn hilt to the simple straight cavalry sword at her side. The other women there all had identical issue smallswords in place; Theodora had the closest thing to plumage, with the glittering gems on the gorget around her neck and the great blue gem of the star pinned to her breast under the silver wings. She straightened, watching the Talorans approach, steady and well-schooled to impassivity.
Internally, however, there was a bit of a start, Theodora stiffening up a tad. Goddess, she's beautiful... even with the scars... Goddess, but I think I am falling in love with her at first sight! By Arzadokh, that shouldn't even be possible...
Theodora Slattara, stop acting like a Slattara this instant.
"A pleasure, my Noble Sister," Tisara spoke smoothly in Greek, and composed herself before Theodora, looking up with a wry smile, and the kohl-lined eyes of Ysalha following her as the taller Taloran stayed close by her lover's side, and Tisara dipped her ears politely to Theodora in her own style. "I am Tisara of Urami, of course, and I bring you the greetings of my Sovereign, Her Serene Majesty Saverana the Second, the Heir of the Sword of God."
"And long may She reign if her domains produce noble hearts as yourself." Theodora offered quietly, dipping her head in return to the ear gesture. “I wish only that I had a Sovereign of my own to offer greetings on behalf of, instead, on behalf of the Government of Otrera, I bid you greetings and welcome." It was a an impressive level of diplomatic speech from the military woman, whose eyes were locked on the mismatched ones of Tisara. "Welcome aboard Semiramis. Shall we adjourn, then, to begin our conversations?"
"By all means, madame."
She turned, then, nodding to her staff, and gesturing for the other Archduchess to follow. "I confess a certain excitement that we are among the first to meet non-human life in this galaxy, assuming you are in fact from it. It makes a refreshing break from my usual duties, as the Baroness may have told you some of - if it is permissable, We would wish to show our appreciation to those directly involved in the rescue."
"Show your appreciation? I am not certain, quite, that I follow; and no, we are not from this galaxy, but another, and came here on a mission of exploration and trade, in fact, from an entire different reality or cosmos through new technology we are prototyping," Tisara smiled, a forced gesture to a Taloran, but sincere. "We intended for that to be known, as it would be hard to hide as our peoples mingle freely."
Theodora almost missed a step at that, nodding jerkily. "Ah, that is to say, the wings I am wearing are a decoration for those involved directly in operations that free slaves; I would wish those to receive them, if possible, along with a knighthood for the unit commander and monies for the others; we... attempt to encourage such behavior, though you will be the first non-Otrerans who seem to have a culture amenable to the gaining. If such is forbidden, however, I understand." She took a breath, walking along with a giddy sort of nervousness. "If you have such technology, then you truly are a wondrous people... tell others of us, then, please, so our name does not fade when we do?"
“Lady Regent, I am not precisely sure to say why you think your people will fade," Tisara spoke softly, in a very measured term, never blinking. "Please elucidate, that you seem to think we have met the dying moments of your culture.... It seems vibrant, those poor, brave and proud girls we rescued as the highest evidence of your own ability to survive."
"Our culture? Our culture is healthy. Our nation... we exist only as long as the sufferance of Rome remains, and it is only a matter of time before they join with the Herculaneans. When that happens, we will fight. And then we will die." There was a slight, fatalistic shrug. "Or there will be a miracle. Tell your people to be careful, I have reason to believe enemy agents are operating throughout the Empire, though they have thus far proven impossible to find. They killed all my colleagues and my Empress - I am sure of it. They will eventually succeed at killing me, or the invasion will come before then. Either way, I intend to die as my foremothers have, in the defence of Otrera. The Romans outmatch us massively, and the Qin have withdrawn their guarantee of our independence. I expect them to support Herculea once the spoils are properly apportioned amongst them."
Another shrug, this time with a small, almost hopeful smile. "Or, perhaps I am mistaken and something else will happen. You and your people, for instance, were not part of the scenario until now."
"If your power is respectable enough with only thirty-two dreadnoughts.... I think to say that the Empire I represent badly overwhelms your opponents in numbers?
"That... may be possible, Your Serene Grace. Here we are." She led the way into a faux-wood paneled conference room for the use of the ship's officers, rather spartanly furnished with signs where things had been removed from the walls, the ship's creature comforts visibly stripped for action. "Please, sit. Is there anything we can get for you? This all feels slightly unreal, I confess... what can your people consume of human food and drink, if anything? To lead off, if you are looking to open trade relations, as long as your empire, which sounds much larger than ours, will not destroy our economy in the process, give me the text, I'll sign it before tomorrow's out for what you've done..."
"Nothing spicy. We do wish to open relations; this experiment was at great cost to us," Tisara answered back, steadily thoughtful. "Nothing spicy, and fish is always fine. We have enzyme supplements and such we can take to functionally digest human food, considering we have met before. In general, ah, I am given to say that--I should tell you that Talorans are naturally a far more acidic species, in a literal sense, and the air we breathe and our blood and tissue tends to be much higher in sulphur content than humans. We still have DNA and RNA, though only about sixty percent is similar--in our universe the Space Seed theory is universally accepted as correct, and there are areas of planets settled by the same space-originated bacteria. So at the bacterial level, life on Earth and Talora Prime share a common ancestor. Beyond that, my knowledge of comparative biology is very much a failure."
"I confess only knowing the basics as well, Your Serene Grace." Theodora replied, tossing a request off to the officer's mess via her implanted microcomputer. "We do not have other species in our galaxy I am aware of, certainly not sapient ones, though I believe some bacteria and lichens have been found... though that is something for scientists."
Theodora lifted her gaze with a smile as her batgirl came in, sari over her uniform and the unadorned cap of an enlisted woman atop her head, gently lowering a pitcher of water and two glasses on a platter to the table, curtsying to Tisara and asking politely "Does the Lady from the stars wish water, and if so, does she wish it iced?"
"Just water, without ice, my dear girl," Tisara answered softly and confidently as she looked over to Theodora and resumed paying attention to her. Rather intensely so. "We trade in anything we build, Your Royal Highness. Including ships. Many of our private construction firms build vessels through heavy cruisers on speculation, and battleships and dreadnoughts for our smaller component feudatories which are allowed to maintain their own fleets, but their needs are not great and they can be easily persuaded to sell them and the reorder and pocket the difference as profits in the state coffers. You might find yourself with four dreadnoughts and eight or ten battleships, twice as many cruisers, that way if you can pay in bullion... That would be one thing, at least, that could certainly be done to improve your defences if you sign a treaty of free and open trade with us."
"The cruisers you have here certainly seem faster than even our swiftest destroyer, I will grant." Theodora replied, as the batgirl finished pouring Tisara's water and set it before her, then did the same to Theodora, before quietly withdrawing from the room. It was taken advantage of by the archduchess to avert her gaze - Tisara's was intense, and disconcerting as well, for it seemed somehow damnably familiar for some reason – like she'd known the woman her entire life, and merely been separated for a bit.
The Otreran continued speaking, then, having recovered some of her poise, with "Depending on the details - for we will have reservations to protect our strategic industries, as I am sure you do as well." Not that you would need any except with a peer competitor. "Perhaps advisers and mercenaries, though I hesitate to say such things. I am but a Regent, not an Empress, and I do not wish to unduly constrain whomever will be my successor. I am still willing, however, to study and sign such a treaty, though it will be partially in abeyance 'till a new Empress is chosen."
"How do you plan to choose a new Empress, m'lady? I understand you have elections, but you also speak of the twilight of your culture and loss of most of your government. It would seem the situation demands much more urgent measures than you propose. If you have money, spend it to arm yourselves while you have the chance....."
"I swore an oath to my Empress before those... men killed her - I will not break it. When I find the right woman, the Soter who is to come, I will choose her and happily stand aside from this role I never wished... at the least, show me your terms. They are kinder than any we would receive from our peers here. The situation is dark and desperate, it is true, but... four dreadnoughts would not be enough, nowhere near so." She speaks truth... so, so much to do, as terrifying as it is, I wish Ekata was still alive! At least then it would not be only I remaining.
"Free and open trade in everything except agricultural products between our two States, with the right of both States to provide subsidies to crucial military industries as that State chooses to designate as well. Tariffs and excises may be retained around all agricultural products, not around crucial military supplies--but the government may directly subsidize the supply chain for those. Otherwise open trade, and as well, open travel between our societies, and the freedom of the missionaries of Farzbardor, of the religion of the one God the Lord of Justice and His Sword, Valera, the foundress of my clan's long line, to preach within your lands and do good works for charity. And the right of our commercial shipping to enter your ports for international trade with the same duties as your ships receive for internal trade. This right will also be extended to your ships that come to our ports. We will exchange amabassadors in our capitals, and agree to acknowledge the decisions of each others courts in regards to our citizens. Is this an agreeable basic frame to the treaty? If so I can produce a detailed version for you to review. And hopefully get it taken care of sooner rather than later. I am a soldier by preference." Her ears stuck up a bit and she offered a forced grin for the human woman's sake.
"Well, I can... agree to the issues of tariffs and excises and subsidies and duties, all those points are agreed, as is the exchange of ambassadors, the lack of demand of extraterritoriality... I will have to place the question to Conclave of the Sisterhood on the issue of missionaries, I fear. One of the defining and stabilising features of Otrera is a belief in the Queen of Heaven in her many guises through the ages, and our own church already performs many of the good works your missionaries would as well." Theodora replied, with an internal frown at the including of a religious term in a trade treaty.
"I will let you speak with some priestesses.... Women and men are fully equal in Farzianism, and the very incarnate Sword of God is our Ancestress, Your Royal Highness. The relationships of women amongst themselves are openly accepted, and you have nothing to fear from our doctrines," Tisara answered. "It would be better, after all, to make the arrangements swiftly."
"No, I think there no need - your points are logical, and the unspoken threat noted. Give me a copy of your holy book and I will take it to the Conclave." Theodora replied with an exhausted look in her eyes, looking past Tisara with unfocused eyes for a moment. "I will sign the treaty with that clause held in abeyance pending the Conclave's ratification and review - to do otherwise would be to violate laws I am sworn to uphold. Is that acceptable, Your Serene Grace?"
"That will be acceptable. We'll transfer a data-file version... Instantaneously, really." Tisara settled down a little at that. "Thank you. We will try to find some sort of way to aid you with my fleet, perhaps join this war against you, though I push the boundaries of what even I may say in doing so."
"That is... more than gracious. Might I invite the officer's of your fleet to the Palace of the Silver Dawn in Landing, then, to celebrate this opening of relations, two nights hence? I can arrange planetside leave for your crews as well, if you wish. It... is truly a new feeling, not to be alone. Do not worry about promising me aid you cannot give - your Empress will give what she wishes, when she wishes."
..Tisara laughed softly. "Yes, we accept, the officers of the fleet will make arrangements and....." A nervous pause. "...I'd ask that you introduce the Baroness Titangirt, my Chief of Staff, as my consort. Our affair is not approved of in the capital and we are exiles out here, and I would deeply appreciate the consideration. She is a very distant woman from this world, being more machine than Taloran these days, but she is the light and heart of my life and soul and we have long been banned from court as improper, for reasons I would rather wish to not explain; they are very culturally local."
That... seemed to strike a chord on the Otreran woman's face, her expression for a moment slipped to one of shock and sympathy, before she nodded with a very deep sadness. "Do not worry, I will make the arrangements. We... are used to the treatment during our rare diplomatic journeys to the old empires to coreward. It is truly, the least I can do, and my..." There was a pause, as she seemed to be thinking better of something. "... mentress's daughter would likely think poorly if me if I did otherwise."
Inside her head came a bemused You're damned right I would.
"They call me Terrible Tisara back home. There's a reason that the daughter of the second most powerful woman in the Empire hasn't seen her home in a century; but I won't bore you with it. I am happy with Ysalha and Dhirisma, and that is more than can be said for any situation back at home."
The woman across the table from her nodded, a stab of an old pain barely visible. "That... is truly all that matters, to many of our philosophers. Alas for duty, that it often stands in the way - I am glad, Your Serene Grace, you have found some way of making th-wait, isn't your ship named Dhirisma?"
".....Yes."
"Without her," Tisara added very defensively, "Ysalha would be dead."
"Let me explain an old war story, perhaps?"
"If you'll allow it, after we've eaten, that is..."
"If you wish to, certainly, but..." Theodora seemed to be suddenly full of mirth as she looked towards the ceiling for a moment, and... a holo materialised beside her with a captain's insignia on her shoulders, as the archduchess gave way to a brilliant, happy, somewhat teasing grin. "I thought I was the only Admiral with one. Your Serene Grace, may I present Fleet Captain Semiramis bat Atarah?"
Tisara laughed softly. "A pleasure, Captain. You have been in touch with Dhirisma before already, I believe?"
"Yes, Your Serene Grace." Semiramis curtsied slightly in greeting. "I am Her Royal Highness' flag captain and flagship. I confess sharing the Admiral's excitement - we are the only ones with women like us in this universe we know of. My step-mother will be so pleased to meet a distant cousin, if you will permit."
"That is Dhirisma's decision. Her position is unusual--well, let me tell the story? You're welcome as a guest for it, Captain bat Atarah."
"Thank you, Your Serene Grace." was the response, as Theodora reflexively rolled a chair out of the way for Semiramis to generate her own and sit, a soft chime sounding as Theodora looked up, two mess stewards coming in with plates for the two of them. A salad, of chickpeas, olive oil, vinegar, chopped onion, chopped green pepper, olives, ground pepper and crumbled feta was the first course, with a singular platter of rather simple kabobs - tomato, onion, green pepper and marinated chicken, with naan on the side and a bowl of fresh strawberries.
"My apologies, Your Serene Grace, for the plainness of the food, but on the short notice, I believe this is from the officer's mess for this evening." A carafe of coffee, along with one of hot water and a selection of teas was placed on the table as well, with another glass jar placed close by Theodora. "I would hear the story if you wish to tell it after dinner, yes."
"Thank you." And the first cultural custom that followed to be learned was the complete if polite silence in which Tisara only answered questions promptly and simply if asked during the whole of the main course and focused purely on savouring the food; she would perk up, her ears attentive, as dessert was eaten, and smile. "Shall I begin now, then, my fellow officers of a foreign star?"
The Otrerans followed her lead after realising it, and Theodora nodded with a smile, her flag captain folding her hands on the table attentively. "Surely so - the story that brings you here promises to be utterly fascinating."
And fightest with the sword of Deborah.
-William Shakespeare
29 April, 2178
The Otrera system: With a burning Class A star at the heart, the six planets of the place, all inhabited, formed a string of pearls, out into the icy blackness of the outer system. Active chatter from shipping filled the airwaves as liners, freighters, bulk cargo ships, all traveling about on the courses, unaware of what was about to make today anything but ordinary. In the inner system, near Otrera III, sat the great shipyards of the Otreran Imperial Navy; within sat the hulks of dozens upon dozens of massive ships, the battle-line. They swarmed with activity, as they had not in living memory, yard craft flitting around them and slowly applying the dark matte black of their wartime finishes, wiping out the white checkerboard gun-decks of peacetime. Full crews were aboard too, another change from before. No matter the cost, the fleet was ready; though they did not cruise, they stood ready with their older cousins, the older, smaller, but heavily modernised battleships, all clustered around the docking arms of their mother-station, and their sister Hestia's comforting embrace. The skeletons of two superdreadnought sisters were taking shape in their midst, one just a keel and not much else, the other visibly starting to come together and become a ship. The smaller yards for combatants elsewhere in the system were busier, taking in the old flotillas of corvettes, destroyers and cruisers, refurbishing and modernizing them, with low-rate construction of newer classes continuing apace. Belts of defensive satellites and stations floated around the planets, the thickest belt by far around the third and the L-points leading from Herculanean-controlled space. A convoy was forming up, carrying more defensive equipment for the colonies. In the face of public disbelief that the threat could be so bad and the shock that the government was so utterly battered, only "reasonable" measures had been able to gain public support, though since the death of the Duchess Ekata almost two years ago, things had slowly been starting to improve. It was this that the Taloran ships would see from a distance, the calm before the threatening storm.
For a moment, the Taloran fleet hung... Suspended before they started accelerating from their free-standing velocity, the fleet perfectly coordinated. The dreadnoughts might be only 80% the size of their Otreran counterparts but lower-massed and graceful - meant for long-range operations, twelve battlecruisers fanning out ahead of them and escorting eight of the slim and heavily armed fleet carriers with neigh-on two hundred and fifty light ships fanning out and a cluster of auxiliaries to the rear of the arrowhead formation with the dreadnoughts in four divisions at the lead, and nestled just right back from them, Dhirisma, with the Baroness Gwyna brought up to the bridge at that moment. Dhrisima, Ysalha, Ilamhbh, the strange staff of the scarred Admiral and she might be getting, by now, some evidence of their mutual interwoven relationships with the lesser staff so timid around them as Tisara sat, looking as the holographic projections were continuously updated.
The response of that many ships appearing on the long-range sensors, too far as to tell who they were, was similar to a kicked over anthill. Civilian traffic started scattering and running for the shelter of defensive stations or planets, warships started burning all over the system to meet up with each other, and sirens began to wail discordantly on planets below as a defensive plan was kicked into action near-automatically. The flicker of local shielding on the planets could be seen as they pushed closer; the Otrerans saw exactly what they thought they would, and their response showed it. Gwyna, on the other hand, saw what she wanted to, as she breathed out a sigh of relief and murmured a prayer of thanks. " Bless you, merciful Arzadokh, you preserve us still..."
She grasped some strangeness in the atmosphere around her, it was no Otreran bridge to be sure, but she had no intention of commenting, not with this many ships, and not with their discipline so perfect... and not with her own navy currently racing to throw itself together into battle formation over their mother-world.
"Will you go ahead and contact them for us, Lady Gwyna?" Tisara crossed her legs and glanced over, ears tracking to the woman. "That would be most preferable, I think, though there's no reason to hurry it along when they're getting a very good exercise in, don't you think?" A dry humour.
"The dreadnoughts are so expensive to run they're almost never active like this, Your Highness, not more than the usual one week fleet exercise a year, though that was changing when I was taken." came the soft response as she waited for a channel to be set up, watching the wall form, smaller ships taking up their positions smartly, and the bulk of the battle-line holding position between the Talorans and Otrera, before taking in a soft breath and speaking. "Channel. Six-Zero-Three-Zero-One-Two. Tiabhal. Alpha-Rho-Omega-Sigma; Ma'am, if you can hear me, this fleet isn't hostile. They rescued me and four thousand other souls. They're bringing us home."
On the Otreran flagship Semiramis, the bridge crew was gaping in shock at their admiral, who had gone bone white as her comm unit crackled, and she hurriedly patched a message through to the woman she'd left in charge on the ground, much to her chagrin. Her red hair was around the crown of her head in a braid to allow a vac-suit helmet to go over it, and skin tanned by the high-altitude life of her demense under the harsh blue-white light of that star was pulled tightly over a strongly prominent bone structure. Brown eyes blinked without seeing as she keyed her internal nanocomputer. Tria, this is Theodora. I've gotten a message from that fleet under Baroness Tiabhal's codes. She says they rescued her and are bringing her home. What's your read on the situation? I'm tempted to let them approach but keep them under my guns; their ECM isn't anything we've seen, nor their sensors. The redheaded woman frowned at her own sensors, as her staff bustled about around her, at least the parts she still needed and trusted. 'Rami, let your sisters know, if you haven't already. We'll make this a good drill for your crews if it's nothing, and a hell of a fight if it's something. Just like we practiced... "Baroness Tiabhal, please inform your hosts to conform to vector two six two by zero zero three relative and prepare to slow into a lunar orbit track orbit opposite the Atropos moon, if you would."
Try to close the distance with them. Get visuals on those ships... The Herculeaneans couldn't have built a fleet like that in secret to look like non-Herculeanean ships, probably not even the Romans or Qin could, so the visual codes will decide it. Approach ready for war Tria, the head of the coordinated intelligence agencies of Otrera replied very crisply.
In the meantime, with the codecs from the Herculeaneans and codes that the rescued Otrerans had provided... Tisara signed off on Dhirisma trying to open visual communications.
It would be a bit, before the Otrerans responded to the hail; the face that appeared was in the midnight black of an Otreran officer, fore and aft, rank insignia on her lapels, and a coolly pleasant Semitic face, dark of skin with black hair pulled back into a tight braided ponytail, pouty lips and liquidly expressive chocolate brown eyes which registered a hint of surprise at what she saw. "Oh dear me!" was the sudden startlement, at the same time she pinged Theo, they aren't human! which, which made Admiral Slattara jump a bit, before she cautioned Easy, 'Rami, they just might be using a ruse. Or they might have mind-controlled the Baroness. No way to be sure...
"I am Flag Captain Dhirisma Armenbhat," the figure standing on the bridge spoke, and gestured to the sitting and frail Baroness at her side. "Your countrywoman is present with us as our guest and uninjured. This fleet is under the direction of Her Serene Grace the Archduchess Tisara of Urami and we have come to establish peaceful relations and repatriate your countrywomen on behalf of Her Serene Majesty the Empress of all Talora."
"Greetings, Fleet Captain. I am Fleet Captain Semiramis, and we wish you greeting on behalf of the government and people of Otrera. Hello Baroness, it is..." her voice hitched for a moment "... a Goddess-given pleasure to see you again." Gwyna replied, in a shaky voice "And you, Semiramis, and you..." The Otreran officer's eyes turned back to Dhirisma. "You have the thanks of the Regent of Otrera and her people, and our thanks is extended as well to Her Serene Majesty, Her Serene Grace and all others that have aided our countrywomen." She bowed her head, slightly, in a gesture of profound respect. "The fleet will escort you to orbit, if your commander is willing."
"Yes, we will remain stood down, trusting your graces," Dhirisma replied pleasantly. "The operation to transfer those rescued will not take long, but Her Serene Grace will wish to stay for negotiations. We very much come with the intent of peace..."
There was a flicker across her face for a moment, and Semiramis nodded. "Her Royal Highness is willing to meet with Her Serene Grace to discuss matters, then. Welcome to Otrera, and bless you for bringing our sisters home. Oh, and, Rear-Admiral? It'll be good to have you guarding my flanks again." "It'll be good to be there again, Semiramis."
Dhirisma smiled cutely at the exchange. "We'll be staying in regular touch, Captain, and Her Serene Grace will meet with the Regent at Her convenience."
"Of course. We will be happy to welcome her once we arrive in our orbit. Shall we send a gig, or will you provide?" It was cautiously cagey, keeping them clear of the planet and not seeing the ground; behind them, a few casualty receiving ships were warming up to meet them in orbit. Theodora gasped once the visuals finally got a lock, mentally fluttering about and bouncing it down-planet with a sharp; Tria, they're nothing we've ever seen before . And she wants to meet with me. Ground or starside, you think? Despite everything that had happened in her life recently, the Archduchess still leaned heavily on people around her, though she knew that too many of them did not have her best interests at heart. Tria was one of the ones she leaned on; Theodora knew she was a cynical sort, but she had been close to her wife Zoe, and that meant she was reliable. Just as the platoon of Hypaspists and Altiplano girls that followed her everywhere was.
The fleet slowly would fall in with Theodora's own Otreran forces and quite docilely be guided into orbit, the peaceful intentions sincere, and Tisara quite secure in the fact that she had a very unexpected card to play should she have to fight her way out, that the existence of their ability to manipulate gravity into limited superlight travel in real-space was certainly unknown to the people of this universe.
There would be a hail then, from the same woman as before; "Fleet Captain Armenbhat? We are ready to receive Her Serene Grace aboard, if she is content with that arrangement." And this way they can't see the ground... thought Theodora as she was in her cabin, pinning her medals on and making her uniform a 'dress' one, rather than the 'working' simple one. Signet ring, Order of Valor, Wings of Liberation, Star of Otrera... a very long career, she thought, sighing in the mirror. Not that it got me anything but a widow's pension and a few trinkets to hang on my jacket.
With a last look at the highly polished metal, Theodora headed down to the docking bay, her batgirl jogging up as she got into the lift. "Kelila, you're late." she said, mock seriously, though the girl started suddenly and stammered; "It'll never happen again, m'lady!" "Easy, Kelila, you're in the navy now, not back home." The girl was new, from one of the Jewish families that had served with her family for quite some time; she'd finally given in and gotten a batgirl after she'd lost Zee... there just wasn't time anymore to do everything herself like she preferred to. Never enough time for anything at all, now...
The shuttle was approaching, then, and when the docking was completed the Talorans would board. There was a very small staff, with two Captains and a few lieutenants.... And striding at the head, cape billowing, was the Admiral. A scarred and cruel looking woman and yet ornately beautiful with that seaweed hair and incredibly mismatched sharp eyes, vibrant, even with the sickly tinge to the skin, and in a uniform that seemed fit from top to bottom for plumage and that the whole thing was a slightly comic resplendentness of an alien people for whom plumage and their wickedly long hair was the most perfect of ways they could maintain their bodies...
Theodora's staff had two commanders, four lieutenant commanders and several lieutenants, along with the batgirl. No fleet captain, however. Theodora was... tall. Over two meters, and most Taloran that way, with a well-worn hilt to the simple straight cavalry sword at her side. The other women there all had identical issue smallswords in place; Theodora had the closest thing to plumage, with the glittering gems on the gorget around her neck and the great blue gem of the star pinned to her breast under the silver wings. She straightened, watching the Talorans approach, steady and well-schooled to impassivity.
Internally, however, there was a bit of a start, Theodora stiffening up a tad. Goddess, she's beautiful... even with the scars... Goddess, but I think I am falling in love with her at first sight! By Arzadokh, that shouldn't even be possible...
Theodora Slattara, stop acting like a Slattara this instant.
"A pleasure, my Noble Sister," Tisara spoke smoothly in Greek, and composed herself before Theodora, looking up with a wry smile, and the kohl-lined eyes of Ysalha following her as the taller Taloran stayed close by her lover's side, and Tisara dipped her ears politely to Theodora in her own style. "I am Tisara of Urami, of course, and I bring you the greetings of my Sovereign, Her Serene Majesty Saverana the Second, the Heir of the Sword of God."
"And long may She reign if her domains produce noble hearts as yourself." Theodora offered quietly, dipping her head in return to the ear gesture. “I wish only that I had a Sovereign of my own to offer greetings on behalf of, instead, on behalf of the Government of Otrera, I bid you greetings and welcome." It was a an impressive level of diplomatic speech from the military woman, whose eyes were locked on the mismatched ones of Tisara. "Welcome aboard Semiramis. Shall we adjourn, then, to begin our conversations?"
"By all means, madame."
She turned, then, nodding to her staff, and gesturing for the other Archduchess to follow. "I confess a certain excitement that we are among the first to meet non-human life in this galaxy, assuming you are in fact from it. It makes a refreshing break from my usual duties, as the Baroness may have told you some of - if it is permissable, We would wish to show our appreciation to those directly involved in the rescue."
"Show your appreciation? I am not certain, quite, that I follow; and no, we are not from this galaxy, but another, and came here on a mission of exploration and trade, in fact, from an entire different reality or cosmos through new technology we are prototyping," Tisara smiled, a forced gesture to a Taloran, but sincere. "We intended for that to be known, as it would be hard to hide as our peoples mingle freely."
Theodora almost missed a step at that, nodding jerkily. "Ah, that is to say, the wings I am wearing are a decoration for those involved directly in operations that free slaves; I would wish those to receive them, if possible, along with a knighthood for the unit commander and monies for the others; we... attempt to encourage such behavior, though you will be the first non-Otrerans who seem to have a culture amenable to the gaining. If such is forbidden, however, I understand." She took a breath, walking along with a giddy sort of nervousness. "If you have such technology, then you truly are a wondrous people... tell others of us, then, please, so our name does not fade when we do?"
“Lady Regent, I am not precisely sure to say why you think your people will fade," Tisara spoke softly, in a very measured term, never blinking. "Please elucidate, that you seem to think we have met the dying moments of your culture.... It seems vibrant, those poor, brave and proud girls we rescued as the highest evidence of your own ability to survive."
"Our culture? Our culture is healthy. Our nation... we exist only as long as the sufferance of Rome remains, and it is only a matter of time before they join with the Herculaneans. When that happens, we will fight. And then we will die." There was a slight, fatalistic shrug. "Or there will be a miracle. Tell your people to be careful, I have reason to believe enemy agents are operating throughout the Empire, though they have thus far proven impossible to find. They killed all my colleagues and my Empress - I am sure of it. They will eventually succeed at killing me, or the invasion will come before then. Either way, I intend to die as my foremothers have, in the defence of Otrera. The Romans outmatch us massively, and the Qin have withdrawn their guarantee of our independence. I expect them to support Herculea once the spoils are properly apportioned amongst them."
Another shrug, this time with a small, almost hopeful smile. "Or, perhaps I am mistaken and something else will happen. You and your people, for instance, were not part of the scenario until now."
"If your power is respectable enough with only thirty-two dreadnoughts.... I think to say that the Empire I represent badly overwhelms your opponents in numbers?
"That... may be possible, Your Serene Grace. Here we are." She led the way into a faux-wood paneled conference room for the use of the ship's officers, rather spartanly furnished with signs where things had been removed from the walls, the ship's creature comforts visibly stripped for action. "Please, sit. Is there anything we can get for you? This all feels slightly unreal, I confess... what can your people consume of human food and drink, if anything? To lead off, if you are looking to open trade relations, as long as your empire, which sounds much larger than ours, will not destroy our economy in the process, give me the text, I'll sign it before tomorrow's out for what you've done..."
"Nothing spicy. We do wish to open relations; this experiment was at great cost to us," Tisara answered back, steadily thoughtful. "Nothing spicy, and fish is always fine. We have enzyme supplements and such we can take to functionally digest human food, considering we have met before. In general, ah, I am given to say that--I should tell you that Talorans are naturally a far more acidic species, in a literal sense, and the air we breathe and our blood and tissue tends to be much higher in sulphur content than humans. We still have DNA and RNA, though only about sixty percent is similar--in our universe the Space Seed theory is universally accepted as correct, and there are areas of planets settled by the same space-originated bacteria. So at the bacterial level, life on Earth and Talora Prime share a common ancestor. Beyond that, my knowledge of comparative biology is very much a failure."
"I confess only knowing the basics as well, Your Serene Grace." Theodora replied, tossing a request off to the officer's mess via her implanted microcomputer. "We do not have other species in our galaxy I am aware of, certainly not sapient ones, though I believe some bacteria and lichens have been found... though that is something for scientists."
Theodora lifted her gaze with a smile as her batgirl came in, sari over her uniform and the unadorned cap of an enlisted woman atop her head, gently lowering a pitcher of water and two glasses on a platter to the table, curtsying to Tisara and asking politely "Does the Lady from the stars wish water, and if so, does she wish it iced?"
"Just water, without ice, my dear girl," Tisara answered softly and confidently as she looked over to Theodora and resumed paying attention to her. Rather intensely so. "We trade in anything we build, Your Royal Highness. Including ships. Many of our private construction firms build vessels through heavy cruisers on speculation, and battleships and dreadnoughts for our smaller component feudatories which are allowed to maintain their own fleets, but their needs are not great and they can be easily persuaded to sell them and the reorder and pocket the difference as profits in the state coffers. You might find yourself with four dreadnoughts and eight or ten battleships, twice as many cruisers, that way if you can pay in bullion... That would be one thing, at least, that could certainly be done to improve your defences if you sign a treaty of free and open trade with us."
"The cruisers you have here certainly seem faster than even our swiftest destroyer, I will grant." Theodora replied, as the batgirl finished pouring Tisara's water and set it before her, then did the same to Theodora, before quietly withdrawing from the room. It was taken advantage of by the archduchess to avert her gaze - Tisara's was intense, and disconcerting as well, for it seemed somehow damnably familiar for some reason – like she'd known the woman her entire life, and merely been separated for a bit.
The Otreran continued speaking, then, having recovered some of her poise, with "Depending on the details - for we will have reservations to protect our strategic industries, as I am sure you do as well." Not that you would need any except with a peer competitor. "Perhaps advisers and mercenaries, though I hesitate to say such things. I am but a Regent, not an Empress, and I do not wish to unduly constrain whomever will be my successor. I am still willing, however, to study and sign such a treaty, though it will be partially in abeyance 'till a new Empress is chosen."
"How do you plan to choose a new Empress, m'lady? I understand you have elections, but you also speak of the twilight of your culture and loss of most of your government. It would seem the situation demands much more urgent measures than you propose. If you have money, spend it to arm yourselves while you have the chance....."
"I swore an oath to my Empress before those... men killed her - I will not break it. When I find the right woman, the Soter who is to come, I will choose her and happily stand aside from this role I never wished... at the least, show me your terms. They are kinder than any we would receive from our peers here. The situation is dark and desperate, it is true, but... four dreadnoughts would not be enough, nowhere near so." She speaks truth... so, so much to do, as terrifying as it is, I wish Ekata was still alive! At least then it would not be only I remaining.
"Free and open trade in everything except agricultural products between our two States, with the right of both States to provide subsidies to crucial military industries as that State chooses to designate as well. Tariffs and excises may be retained around all agricultural products, not around crucial military supplies--but the government may directly subsidize the supply chain for those. Otherwise open trade, and as well, open travel between our societies, and the freedom of the missionaries of Farzbardor, of the religion of the one God the Lord of Justice and His Sword, Valera, the foundress of my clan's long line, to preach within your lands and do good works for charity. And the right of our commercial shipping to enter your ports for international trade with the same duties as your ships receive for internal trade. This right will also be extended to your ships that come to our ports. We will exchange amabassadors in our capitals, and agree to acknowledge the decisions of each others courts in regards to our citizens. Is this an agreeable basic frame to the treaty? If so I can produce a detailed version for you to review. And hopefully get it taken care of sooner rather than later. I am a soldier by preference." Her ears stuck up a bit and she offered a forced grin for the human woman's sake.
"Well, I can... agree to the issues of tariffs and excises and subsidies and duties, all those points are agreed, as is the exchange of ambassadors, the lack of demand of extraterritoriality... I will have to place the question to Conclave of the Sisterhood on the issue of missionaries, I fear. One of the defining and stabilising features of Otrera is a belief in the Queen of Heaven in her many guises through the ages, and our own church already performs many of the good works your missionaries would as well." Theodora replied, with an internal frown at the including of a religious term in a trade treaty.
"I will let you speak with some priestesses.... Women and men are fully equal in Farzianism, and the very incarnate Sword of God is our Ancestress, Your Royal Highness. The relationships of women amongst themselves are openly accepted, and you have nothing to fear from our doctrines," Tisara answered. "It would be better, after all, to make the arrangements swiftly."
"No, I think there no need - your points are logical, and the unspoken threat noted. Give me a copy of your holy book and I will take it to the Conclave." Theodora replied with an exhausted look in her eyes, looking past Tisara with unfocused eyes for a moment. "I will sign the treaty with that clause held in abeyance pending the Conclave's ratification and review - to do otherwise would be to violate laws I am sworn to uphold. Is that acceptable, Your Serene Grace?"
"That will be acceptable. We'll transfer a data-file version... Instantaneously, really." Tisara settled down a little at that. "Thank you. We will try to find some sort of way to aid you with my fleet, perhaps join this war against you, though I push the boundaries of what even I may say in doing so."
"That is... more than gracious. Might I invite the officer's of your fleet to the Palace of the Silver Dawn in Landing, then, to celebrate this opening of relations, two nights hence? I can arrange planetside leave for your crews as well, if you wish. It... is truly a new feeling, not to be alone. Do not worry about promising me aid you cannot give - your Empress will give what she wishes, when she wishes."
..Tisara laughed softly. "Yes, we accept, the officers of the fleet will make arrangements and....." A nervous pause. "...I'd ask that you introduce the Baroness Titangirt, my Chief of Staff, as my consort. Our affair is not approved of in the capital and we are exiles out here, and I would deeply appreciate the consideration. She is a very distant woman from this world, being more machine than Taloran these days, but she is the light and heart of my life and soul and we have long been banned from court as improper, for reasons I would rather wish to not explain; they are very culturally local."
That... seemed to strike a chord on the Otreran woman's face, her expression for a moment slipped to one of shock and sympathy, before she nodded with a very deep sadness. "Do not worry, I will make the arrangements. We... are used to the treatment during our rare diplomatic journeys to the old empires to coreward. It is truly, the least I can do, and my..." There was a pause, as she seemed to be thinking better of something. "... mentress's daughter would likely think poorly if me if I did otherwise."
Inside her head came a bemused You're damned right I would.
"They call me Terrible Tisara back home. There's a reason that the daughter of the second most powerful woman in the Empire hasn't seen her home in a century; but I won't bore you with it. I am happy with Ysalha and Dhirisma, and that is more than can be said for any situation back at home."
The woman across the table from her nodded, a stab of an old pain barely visible. "That... is truly all that matters, to many of our philosophers. Alas for duty, that it often stands in the way - I am glad, Your Serene Grace, you have found some way of making th-wait, isn't your ship named Dhirisma?"
".....Yes."
"Without her," Tisara added very defensively, "Ysalha would be dead."
"Let me explain an old war story, perhaps?"
"If you'll allow it, after we've eaten, that is..."
"If you wish to, certainly, but..." Theodora seemed to be suddenly full of mirth as she looked towards the ceiling for a moment, and... a holo materialised beside her with a captain's insignia on her shoulders, as the archduchess gave way to a brilliant, happy, somewhat teasing grin. "I thought I was the only Admiral with one. Your Serene Grace, may I present Fleet Captain Semiramis bat Atarah?"
Tisara laughed softly. "A pleasure, Captain. You have been in touch with Dhirisma before already, I believe?"
"Yes, Your Serene Grace." Semiramis curtsied slightly in greeting. "I am Her Royal Highness' flag captain and flagship. I confess sharing the Admiral's excitement - we are the only ones with women like us in this universe we know of. My step-mother will be so pleased to meet a distant cousin, if you will permit."
"That is Dhirisma's decision. Her position is unusual--well, let me tell the story? You're welcome as a guest for it, Captain bat Atarah."
"Thank you, Your Serene Grace." was the response, as Theodora reflexively rolled a chair out of the way for Semiramis to generate her own and sit, a soft chime sounding as Theodora looked up, two mess stewards coming in with plates for the two of them. A salad, of chickpeas, olive oil, vinegar, chopped onion, chopped green pepper, olives, ground pepper and crumbled feta was the first course, with a singular platter of rather simple kabobs - tomato, onion, green pepper and marinated chicken, with naan on the side and a bowl of fresh strawberries.
"My apologies, Your Serene Grace, for the plainness of the food, but on the short notice, I believe this is from the officer's mess for this evening." A carafe of coffee, along with one of hot water and a selection of teas was placed on the table as well, with another glass jar placed close by Theodora. "I would hear the story if you wish to tell it after dinner, yes."
"Thank you." And the first cultural custom that followed to be learned was the complete if polite silence in which Tisara only answered questions promptly and simply if asked during the whole of the main course and focused purely on savouring the food; she would perk up, her ears attentive, as dessert was eaten, and smile. "Shall I begin now, then, my fellow officers of a foreign star?"
The Otrerans followed her lead after realising it, and Theodora nodded with a smile, her flag captain folding her hands on the table attentively. "Surely so - the story that brings you here promises to be utterly fascinating."
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Voyager989
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Re: Daughters of Penthesilea (TGG)
So surged the wild thoughts in her; but the Gods ordained it otherwise. Even now rushed on in terrible anger Peleus' son: he thrust with sudden spear, and on its shaft impaled the body of her tempest-footed steed . . . So that death-ravening spear of Peleus' son clear through the goodly steed rushed on, and pierced Penthesileia. Straightway fell she down into the dust of earth, the arms of death, in grace and comeliness fell, for naught of shame dishonoured her fair form. Face down she lay on the long spear outgasping her last breath, stretched upon that fleet horse as on a couch . . . So from the once fleet steed low fallen lay Penthesileia, all her shattered strength brought down to this, and all her loveliness.
-Quintus Smyrnaeus
Ninth day of Skirophorion waning, first year of the three-hundred forty-ninth Olympiad
Three days. It's been three days. The Archduchess No, it's Queen now... Theodora Eponina Tayybeh Slattara stared blankly at the richly decorated roof in the suite reserved for the scion of the Altiplano in the Palace of the Silver Dawn, the richly decorated and domed palace of stone atop the Acropolis in Landing, the capital of Otrera, and she was a prisoner to her own thoughts. There was still dried blood on her hands and the richly embroidered clothing she had been wearing since... Since they killed Zoe. My wife. My Empress. And... I couldn't do anything. I couldn't do anything at all... anything but watch her die before they could even get a cryokit. She couldn't even count the number of times she'd looked down at her hands and seen her failure there – but it was better than going outside, where there would be the black-shrouded portraits. The image, unbidden, of Zoe of Arbela came back in a rush – that long rich brown hair, going past her waist, the olive skin of her Iranian heritage, those liquidly expressive brown eyes that only her closest friends got to see unguarded – and it brought renewed sobs. They passed, as they always did, and a knock sounded at the door, with Theodora curled tightly around her wife's pillow – one of the few things she had taken from the Imperial chambers before ordering them sealed.
“Go away.” she managed in a hoarse tone of voice, not even raising her head.
“Your Highness, there's a woman here to see you, and she is most insistent...” came the voice of her servant, Devorah.
Bless her heart, she's been trying so hard... “I said I don't want to be bothered, Devorah...”
The sound of the door unlocking with a sharp sound brought her jerking up – a pistol coming out of her robes to be leveled at the door, and the woman who came fearlessly through it.
The black dressed, short, swarthy - she was half Turkic and half Parthian by most estimates, though it scarcely mattered these days - Tria Parthanukhat – Zoe's spymistress... stepped in – as she controlled the guards, she of course admitted herself where she pleased, though she was kind about it. “First: We both know who killed your wife, but neither the constabulary or the intelligence services have any leads, other than that it was a high-grade military explosive. I have the written updates for you, as well, if you wish them.” She continued forward, heedless of the pistol that was still in Theodora's hand, if no longer pointed at her. “She named you Regent in her will, Theodora. That means you need to get up – her funeral is tonight, after all – and get yourself together. You don't have to keep yourself composed, nobody will expect that, but they will expect you to be there, and I will shame you into going if I must – you know that.
Theodora gave a venom-filled look at that, though her heart was not really in it, and she put down the gun, slowly getting up out of bed and standing to her full height. “I know it's hard, Theodora, but Otrera needs you... your girl, Devorah, is it? Come in here, sister, and give me a hand.”
The two of them working together got the still mentally benumbed Queen and Regent into the bath, and thence out of it into a layered outfit of black cotton and silk, skirts around her ankles, sleeves closed with cuffs at her wrists, and a high collar buttoned in place. A black veil went over the white silk band that marked her queenship, covering her red hair, which was braided by Devorah's deft fingers to fit underneath it. She ate the rich Altiplano stew that was placed before her without comment, as her eyes flitted over the dataslate that Tria had brought for her to review. Numb, but she was functioning, as she looked up to the other noblewoman's eyes. “They've something. Some way in that they're using. With the Hypaspists... and the Silver Shields? They have to have gotten a observation team on-world or something. This is too many, too much. How few of us on the Council are left now, hm?”
"Yourself, Porbandar, the old ladies," by that she meant the Duchesses Isca and Sabratha, both well into their sixth century and with mental faculties well into fading, "and Narayandri. With six heirs betwixt the five of you, considering the recent strange," the word was terrifically sarcastic, "deaths of Isca and Sabratha's daughters. Yes, they have infiltrated Otrera, though I haven't knowledge of how, yet. I would suspect naval intelligence, to be quite frank, if it wasn't for the fact that the idea is blatantly ridiculous. Porbandar is going to nominate her wife for the Imperial throne, by the way. Yes, she is that heartless, tactless, and clueless, to already be plotting it."
“That bitch!” The royal before her nearly exploded. “Why in all the unholy reasons of the world would she try that this soon?! My wife isn't even in the cold stone yet and she already wants to put her blonde toy on the throne?!” Well, now, that's not quite fair. Her wife is more reasonable than she is – and an excellent swordswoman by repute. But her as Empress? I won't stand for it. Not this soon, and not when I know her so poorly.. “Then we both know Isca and Sabratha will cancel each other out, which means I need to talk with Narayandri. Quickly, before Ekata of Porbandar pours any honeyed words of poison into her ear.”
The antipathy between Theodora of the Altiplano and Ekata of Porbandar had been something of a thing of legend on the governing council of the high nobility of Otrera for years now – One, leader of the “Amazonist” faction, hard-liners supporting large military buildups and a very aggressive foreign policy, and the other the “Realist” faction, which supported the status quo, and encouraged negotiation to ease the military burdens on the state. The Slattara dynasty of the Altiplano had been Amazonist since before the term was coined – and Ekata had quickly risen to be head of the opposing side by virtue of being the highest ranking supporter thereof – and she could usually count on Odete of Narayandri's support. Here... Theodora would have to either convince Odete to vote against her usual inclinations... or convince Ekata's wife to refuse the nomination. ... At least I have four more days of official mourning before I have to worry about her forcing a meeting of the council...
With a deep breath, Theodora asked her friend; “Tria. If you can, please let me know whether or not Odete is in favour of this. I will meet with her in two days if she is, to try and convince her otherwise. If that fails... then I will have to meet with Lady Andrea directly, for I cannot precisely veto this imminent disaster. She sighed. “... Get me some anti-anxiety and combat drugs, I don't care what kind, I can't afford anything but tonight to mourn.”
And with an attitude like that, Theodora Slattara, we just might hold things together... Tria thought to herself as she nodded. “Of course, Lady Regent. I'll try to find out within the next three days so that you can act. Things are very difficult, but, well, who would I be not to support you after forcing you to act? You'll have an answer one way or another, Lady Regent.”
“... Thank you, Tria. Carry on.” The regent murmured as she moved to the window, to stare out at the blue-white sun through the polarized glass as it started to move lower in the sky. Somehow, Zee... I won't let you down. Though, if you could perhaps on occasion nudge me in the right direction from Heaven, that would be much appreciated... and divine Arzadokh, grant me strength of mind and strength of will, that I may stand in righteousness throughout this trial... for I think I need all the help you will grant.
-Quintus Smyrnaeus
Ninth day of Skirophorion waning, first year of the three-hundred forty-ninth Olympiad
Three days. It's been three days. The Archduchess No, it's Queen now... Theodora Eponina Tayybeh Slattara stared blankly at the richly decorated roof in the suite reserved for the scion of the Altiplano in the Palace of the Silver Dawn, the richly decorated and domed palace of stone atop the Acropolis in Landing, the capital of Otrera, and she was a prisoner to her own thoughts. There was still dried blood on her hands and the richly embroidered clothing she had been wearing since... Since they killed Zoe. My wife. My Empress. And... I couldn't do anything. I couldn't do anything at all... anything but watch her die before they could even get a cryokit. She couldn't even count the number of times she'd looked down at her hands and seen her failure there – but it was better than going outside, where there would be the black-shrouded portraits. The image, unbidden, of Zoe of Arbela came back in a rush – that long rich brown hair, going past her waist, the olive skin of her Iranian heritage, those liquidly expressive brown eyes that only her closest friends got to see unguarded – and it brought renewed sobs. They passed, as they always did, and a knock sounded at the door, with Theodora curled tightly around her wife's pillow – one of the few things she had taken from the Imperial chambers before ordering them sealed.
“Go away.” she managed in a hoarse tone of voice, not even raising her head.
“Your Highness, there's a woman here to see you, and she is most insistent...” came the voice of her servant, Devorah.
Bless her heart, she's been trying so hard... “I said I don't want to be bothered, Devorah...”
The sound of the door unlocking with a sharp sound brought her jerking up – a pistol coming out of her robes to be leveled at the door, and the woman who came fearlessly through it.
The black dressed, short, swarthy - she was half Turkic and half Parthian by most estimates, though it scarcely mattered these days - Tria Parthanukhat – Zoe's spymistress... stepped in – as she controlled the guards, she of course admitted herself where she pleased, though she was kind about it. “First: We both know who killed your wife, but neither the constabulary or the intelligence services have any leads, other than that it was a high-grade military explosive. I have the written updates for you, as well, if you wish them.” She continued forward, heedless of the pistol that was still in Theodora's hand, if no longer pointed at her. “She named you Regent in her will, Theodora. That means you need to get up – her funeral is tonight, after all – and get yourself together. You don't have to keep yourself composed, nobody will expect that, but they will expect you to be there, and I will shame you into going if I must – you know that.
Theodora gave a venom-filled look at that, though her heart was not really in it, and she put down the gun, slowly getting up out of bed and standing to her full height. “I know it's hard, Theodora, but Otrera needs you... your girl, Devorah, is it? Come in here, sister, and give me a hand.”
The two of them working together got the still mentally benumbed Queen and Regent into the bath, and thence out of it into a layered outfit of black cotton and silk, skirts around her ankles, sleeves closed with cuffs at her wrists, and a high collar buttoned in place. A black veil went over the white silk band that marked her queenship, covering her red hair, which was braided by Devorah's deft fingers to fit underneath it. She ate the rich Altiplano stew that was placed before her without comment, as her eyes flitted over the dataslate that Tria had brought for her to review. Numb, but she was functioning, as she looked up to the other noblewoman's eyes. “They've something. Some way in that they're using. With the Hypaspists... and the Silver Shields? They have to have gotten a observation team on-world or something. This is too many, too much. How few of us on the Council are left now, hm?”
"Yourself, Porbandar, the old ladies," by that she meant the Duchesses Isca and Sabratha, both well into their sixth century and with mental faculties well into fading, "and Narayandri. With six heirs betwixt the five of you, considering the recent strange," the word was terrifically sarcastic, "deaths of Isca and Sabratha's daughters. Yes, they have infiltrated Otrera, though I haven't knowledge of how, yet. I would suspect naval intelligence, to be quite frank, if it wasn't for the fact that the idea is blatantly ridiculous. Porbandar is going to nominate her wife for the Imperial throne, by the way. Yes, she is that heartless, tactless, and clueless, to already be plotting it."
“That bitch!” The royal before her nearly exploded. “Why in all the unholy reasons of the world would she try that this soon?! My wife isn't even in the cold stone yet and she already wants to put her blonde toy on the throne?!” Well, now, that's not quite fair. Her wife is more reasonable than she is – and an excellent swordswoman by repute. But her as Empress? I won't stand for it. Not this soon, and not when I know her so poorly.. “Then we both know Isca and Sabratha will cancel each other out, which means I need to talk with Narayandri. Quickly, before Ekata of Porbandar pours any honeyed words of poison into her ear.”
The antipathy between Theodora of the Altiplano and Ekata of Porbandar had been something of a thing of legend on the governing council of the high nobility of Otrera for years now – One, leader of the “Amazonist” faction, hard-liners supporting large military buildups and a very aggressive foreign policy, and the other the “Realist” faction, which supported the status quo, and encouraged negotiation to ease the military burdens on the state. The Slattara dynasty of the Altiplano had been Amazonist since before the term was coined – and Ekata had quickly risen to be head of the opposing side by virtue of being the highest ranking supporter thereof – and she could usually count on Odete of Narayandri's support. Here... Theodora would have to either convince Odete to vote against her usual inclinations... or convince Ekata's wife to refuse the nomination. ... At least I have four more days of official mourning before I have to worry about her forcing a meeting of the council...
With a deep breath, Theodora asked her friend; “Tria. If you can, please let me know whether or not Odete is in favour of this. I will meet with her in two days if she is, to try and convince her otherwise. If that fails... then I will have to meet with Lady Andrea directly, for I cannot precisely veto this imminent disaster. She sighed. “... Get me some anti-anxiety and combat drugs, I don't care what kind, I can't afford anything but tonight to mourn.”
And with an attitude like that, Theodora Slattara, we just might hold things together... Tria thought to herself as she nodded. “Of course, Lady Regent. I'll try to find out within the next three days so that you can act. Things are very difficult, but, well, who would I be not to support you after forcing you to act? You'll have an answer one way or another, Lady Regent.”
“... Thank you, Tria. Carry on.” The regent murmured as she moved to the window, to stare out at the blue-white sun through the polarized glass as it started to move lower in the sky. Somehow, Zee... I won't let you down. Though, if you could perhaps on occasion nudge me in the right direction from Heaven, that would be much appreciated... and divine Arzadokh, grant me strength of mind and strength of will, that I may stand in righteousness throughout this trial... for I think I need all the help you will grant.
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Voyager989
- Redshirt
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Re: Daughters of Penthesilea (TGG)
Several hours later, Theodora stood alone – with the unadorned sarcophagus, deep in the crypt of the Empresses below the Silver Dawn – the other mourners had left with the hours of deep night, but with a small oil lantern flickering, she kept vigil. “Zee, I... I'm sorry. Arzadokh forgive me, Zee, please! Why... why did you leave me alone like this? We'd always been there for each other, since we were little girls...” Morosely, the older woman slumped against the cold stone that held the body of her childhood friend and wife, and felt the tears come again, and again, and again... Her servants would find her curled on the floor beside the sarcophagus in the morning, asleep. When gently shaken awake, however, she would give no sign of what had happened the night before – striding out of the palace to her family's townhouse in the city, after giving sharp orders to have her things removed from the palace. For her, the next two days would pass in a flurry of activity – being the regent of Otrera was once described as 'All the responsibility of being Empress without a crown or palace.'
Seventh day of Skirophorion waning, first year of the three-hundred forty-ninth Olympiad
And such is indeed the truth... The Queen sighed as she looked over the dataslate with her evening briefing – ever helpful Tria! - and wished it was somehow more... cheery. The afternoon meeting with the Qin ambassador had been... terrifying. He had not come out and said so, but her gentle attempt to ascertain where the level of support for the Empire was, versus the Roman for the Herculaneans had... come up short of war. Indeed, she got the impression that the Qin had written Otrera off as a lost cause, and that was... terrifying. In the world of great power politics in their galaxy, the Otrerans had always been able to count on Qin support, ever since the faction amongst the crew that had opposed the Roman-leaning sorts had been crushed between the rebels and their former brothers-in-arms. And without that support... we are in trouble. Big trouble. Only chance is to keep the Herks from finding out... and Ekata. Ah... but this is going to be unpleasant.
Tomorrow promised to stretch her admittedly inadequate diplomatic skills to the limit, as she had gotten word that Odete was considering voting for Andrea as Empress – which would see the end of Theodora's regency, and when Ekata found out that the Qin support was gone... Finis Otrera. She'd sign away all our foremothers had fought and died for to keep the peace. But what, by all the graces, do I do about it?
She sighed, and turned off the lamp on her standing desk, calling it a night. Seven hours later, the communications terminal beside her desk urgently chirped, shaking her into sudden, unpleasant wakefulness; with a groan, she rolled over and hit the glowing key to answer; “Go, Tria.” she mumbled out, cued by the colour of the illumination as to who it would be.
“... Theodora, Odete's dead. Her wife and children too, an aircar crash they're calling it, though we both know that's not what it fucking is. I've got my people out – hell, I sent some Hypaspists to scare people, but they report the scene's been cleaned up too much for any sign of foul play. I'm trying to piece together what happened, but... it'll be the same as usual. I don't want you going anywhere without at least a full squad of Echephyle's girls on your ass, woman, even to the baths, do you understand?”
The Slattara woman's face had gone bone white, and though Tria couldn't see it, she nodded shakily. “I... I understand. I'll leave you to it, Tria. Send me a brief when you have it – I'll be awake.” Oh Arzadokh, they got Odete... now it's just me and Ekata...[/i] For a moment, she felt the thrill – the forbidden desire to just send her Altiplano girls over to murder the damnable snake, but If you do, her people will use it to destroy the legitimacy of any opinion you ever offered. With a helpless snarl, she glared at the comms unit, using her internal nanocomp to 'dial' the call. A click of picking up was heard, and then the tone of the scramblers synchronizing. “Echephyle, this is Theodora. Tria probably already briefed you, and I won't fight it. Come on over – I know you're not sleeping after this either – and we'll go over security arrangements for the four of us that are left. We've got to be missing something.
From the other end came a quiet; “Of course, Your Royal Highness. About an hour.”
“That's more than sufficient, Sister Echephyle... and thank you.”
Seventh day of Skirophorion waning, first year of the three-hundred forty-ninth Olympiad
And such is indeed the truth... The Queen sighed as she looked over the dataslate with her evening briefing – ever helpful Tria! - and wished it was somehow more... cheery. The afternoon meeting with the Qin ambassador had been... terrifying. He had not come out and said so, but her gentle attempt to ascertain where the level of support for the Empire was, versus the Roman for the Herculaneans had... come up short of war. Indeed, she got the impression that the Qin had written Otrera off as a lost cause, and that was... terrifying. In the world of great power politics in their galaxy, the Otrerans had always been able to count on Qin support, ever since the faction amongst the crew that had opposed the Roman-leaning sorts had been crushed between the rebels and their former brothers-in-arms. And without that support... we are in trouble. Big trouble. Only chance is to keep the Herks from finding out... and Ekata. Ah... but this is going to be unpleasant.
Tomorrow promised to stretch her admittedly inadequate diplomatic skills to the limit, as she had gotten word that Odete was considering voting for Andrea as Empress – which would see the end of Theodora's regency, and when Ekata found out that the Qin support was gone... Finis Otrera. She'd sign away all our foremothers had fought and died for to keep the peace. But what, by all the graces, do I do about it?
She sighed, and turned off the lamp on her standing desk, calling it a night. Seven hours later, the communications terminal beside her desk urgently chirped, shaking her into sudden, unpleasant wakefulness; with a groan, she rolled over and hit the glowing key to answer; “Go, Tria.” she mumbled out, cued by the colour of the illumination as to who it would be.
“... Theodora, Odete's dead. Her wife and children too, an aircar crash they're calling it, though we both know that's not what it fucking is. I've got my people out – hell, I sent some Hypaspists to scare people, but they report the scene's been cleaned up too much for any sign of foul play. I'm trying to piece together what happened, but... it'll be the same as usual. I don't want you going anywhere without at least a full squad of Echephyle's girls on your ass, woman, even to the baths, do you understand?”
The Slattara woman's face had gone bone white, and though Tria couldn't see it, she nodded shakily. “I... I understand. I'll leave you to it, Tria. Send me a brief when you have it – I'll be awake.” Oh Arzadokh, they got Odete... now it's just me and Ekata...[/i] For a moment, she felt the thrill – the forbidden desire to just send her Altiplano girls over to murder the damnable snake, but If you do, her people will use it to destroy the legitimacy of any opinion you ever offered. With a helpless snarl, she glared at the comms unit, using her internal nanocomp to 'dial' the call. A click of picking up was heard, and then the tone of the scramblers synchronizing. “Echephyle, this is Theodora. Tria probably already briefed you, and I won't fight it. Come on over – I know you're not sleeping after this either – and we'll go over security arrangements for the four of us that are left. We've got to be missing something.
From the other end came a quiet; “Of course, Your Royal Highness. About an hour.”
“That's more than sufficient, Sister Echephyle... and thank you.”
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Voyager989
- Redshirt
- Posts: 40
- Joined: 2010-01-19 07:56am
Re: Daughters of Penthesilea (TGG)
"Bluntly, Theodora, we have to assume anyone without a family history of service to your family who isn't a Hypaspist is a threat. I know it doesn't make sense, and I can't figure out how, but I have to be paranoid if I am going to keep you alive." The woman speaking from the chair that was barely large enough for her was dressed in a dark red uniform, patterned on the usual universal Otreran style. Dark skin, like that of the Maghreb set off straight black hair that came down near to the small of her back, but such was not what got most people's attention first - that was her being two and an eighth meters tall and near to a hundred forty kilograms. The voice that came out of the massive woman was surprisingly gentle - but that had been one of the goals of the women who had created her and her sisters.
"... Well, if you can manage keeping the last Slattara breathing and functional, Echephyle, I'll forgive any overzealousness as long as nobody gets killed." Theodora sipped her tea, frowning. "You can work with the girls of the family regiment to put something together - I hate how everyone's mildly scared of you because of how you and your sisters look, but I think Zoe was right to go through with the programme - and... well, thank you for staying with me. I know it couldn't be easy, but we've got to get through all this together, without her." Somehow. "Now... how are we going to protect Ekata and her wife and children?"
Echephyle winced at the question. "Your Highness, she won't let us into any of her estates, especially after Narayandri was killed. I can't blame her for the paranoia, but it makes our job quite difficult. If you could perhaps talk with her about it, we should stand a better chance at putting something together that will keep them alive. ... Okay, yes, Theodora, I know I am asking you to talk with Ekata, but, I don't know, her wife mayhaps? We need better access to them to be able to protect them, or you are going to be the only woman on that Council."
"... That's not an option. It's hard enough being the Lady Regent, much less a Regent without a Council... even if a much attenuated one. Then I'd have to pick an Empress by myself, and that's a sort of challenge to the legitimacy of the system that I shudder to think if I picked anyone who wasn't perfect."
"Then talk with them, Theodora - or we are going to be rapidly running out of options on how to avoid ending up a completely headless state."
"... Well, if you can manage keeping the last Slattara breathing and functional, Echephyle, I'll forgive any overzealousness as long as nobody gets killed." Theodora sipped her tea, frowning. "You can work with the girls of the family regiment to put something together - I hate how everyone's mildly scared of you because of how you and your sisters look, but I think Zoe was right to go through with the programme - and... well, thank you for staying with me. I know it couldn't be easy, but we've got to get through all this together, without her." Somehow. "Now... how are we going to protect Ekata and her wife and children?"
Echephyle winced at the question. "Your Highness, she won't let us into any of her estates, especially after Narayandri was killed. I can't blame her for the paranoia, but it makes our job quite difficult. If you could perhaps talk with her about it, we should stand a better chance at putting something together that will keep them alive. ... Okay, yes, Theodora, I know I am asking you to talk with Ekata, but, I don't know, her wife mayhaps? We need better access to them to be able to protect them, or you are going to be the only woman on that Council."
"... That's not an option. It's hard enough being the Lady Regent, much less a Regent without a Council... even if a much attenuated one. Then I'd have to pick an Empress by myself, and that's a sort of challenge to the legitimacy of the system that I shudder to think if I picked anyone who wasn't perfect."
"Then talk with them, Theodora - or we are going to be rapidly running out of options on how to avoid ending up a completely headless state."
-
Voyager989
- Redshirt
- Posts: 40
- Joined: 2010-01-19 07:56am
Re: Daughters of Penthesilea (TGG)
Eighth day of Skirophorion waning, first year of the three-hundred forty-ninth Olympiad
The woman who came to the Imperial Palace was tall like Theodora was tall, if still slightly shorter; strong, muscular, but in an elegant sort of whipcord way, that nonetheless did not deny enough curves to decisively establish her femininity, dark, dirty, ash-blonde hair and a delicately perfect face. Ever since she had been revealed as courting the Duchess of Porbandar, the immigrant woman had gotten lots of attention, most of it amazed with how reticient, withdrawn Ekata, so far from the dating culture of the Otreran capital or her own homeland, could have succeeded in getting in a relationship with such a ravishingly pretty woman. And Andrea, dressed finely in civilian clothes, played the part to the limit. With Ekata a mother of two daughters with her genes, and known as a vivaciously aggressive swordswoman, Andrea more often than not served as the far more charming and enticing and assertive public face of the reclusive last of the Porbandars. And she knew in that why the invitation had quite explicitly given her the chance to show up instead of Ekata, and was not made ill at ease by it. Security must in fact be discussed, of that, we don't have much choice. The Herculeanean government has made the Otreran situation, at this point, completely untenable. Though I wish Ekata wouldn't talk of putting me on the throne. That would not be a role that Andrea would ever relish, as much as she never relished, either, the need to talk to Theodora Slattara, a woman she respected, and also suspected to hold hidden depths that only a strange sort of neurotic insecurity had held in check.
The red-headed Lady Regent would rise when she entered the room, and step over to greet her politely, not standing on formality or forcing acknowledgment of her rank; "Lady Andrea. I wish I could say it was a pleasure, but... Tea? Coffee? Chocolate? Something else?" She looked tired, with dark spots under her eyes and a palpable air of tension, wisps hair slightly out of place from her braid. "Certainly this should hopefully be short and productive, as I know how you dislike being separated from Duchess Porbandar."
"Oh, chocolate. I am so guiltily in love with it in all possible quantities, and only my exercise keeps me from paying a penalty. How could one survive being a mommy without it? We must thank the Mayan a thousand times for it. Don't worry, though, Ekata is busy with our daughters and understands if you are to keep me busy for a long while going over these matters, and hearing our concerns. We certainly live in the most intensely trying time imaginable, and I am really deeply sorry for you, Your Royal Highness, that you must deal with the affairs of state while you would surely rather be mourning."
The other woman's voice was intensely dry as she replied with a murmured. "Quite. If I mourn, however, the State will be in mortal peril. Once that is past, I can allow myself to weep. I... thank you for your consideration, however. Please, sit." She turned, gesturing to a close pair of cushions on the floor. "My primary considerations at this point are reduced to a bare few. The most primary of which is keeping the government functioning, and that is why... Lady Andrea, for the sake of your daughters, please, I am begging you, let me assign some Hypaspists to protect your family... I am not going to be glib - I believe that if you refuse this, it is your family's death." She had gotten straight to the point, which was different than her usual circular, indirect approach, and laid the point out flatly.
"Oh, Theodora." She sighed, as she settled into the cushions, and a servant would bring her the cocoa before retreating. Eyes closing, she folded up her legs and shook her head for a moment. "I.... Honestly, I agree with you. But I am not the lady of Porbandar, Ekata is, Theodora. And you know that she opposed the creation of the Hypaspists with her heart and soul, and has never reconciled to the Empress Zoe, bless her heart, having outmaneouvred her. I wish I could accept that protection on her behalf, but I absolutely cannot. So we must find some other compromise position--I am willing to accept protection from other source, just not a group whom Ekata opposed the very existence of."
"Goddess-damn it, woman!" Theodora almost exploded, and her fist slammed into the floor beside her as her voice rose sharply. "I don't give a damn about her politics! They're the best we have, and I don't want to lose Ekata, yourself, or your daughters! I've seen too many of our nobility die already, and the only others I dare trust are my household troops! Please, don't let her do this! If she wants some consideration in turn, I'll give it! I don't want to see any more die, can't you see...?"
"Theodora, if Ekata herself doesn't trust them, how can they effectively guard her?" Andrea sighed heavily, clutching her mug rather than drinking from it in consternation as her eyes flared whilst she looked at Theodora. "Your Royal Highness, please. How about--I know her, she's my wife, I know how far she can go. The fleet is like your child, surely the Navy is loyal? What about a picked infiltration and rescue team from the Office of Naval Intelligence?"
"I... I don't know if that's enough, Lady Andrea." The other woman looked across at Andrea with a haunted look in her eyes. "If she wants them, of course, she can have them... but all the others had their own picked security teams, and it didn't save them either. If... I can't force her to accept anything, I know. Will she take anything in addition? I... I truly worry. I truly worry that one of us is next, 'till there are no more, and our government... dies, and thence... the deluge." Blinking, the woman returned from her momentary reverie. "Please, you can see just how serious this is, can you not?"
"We'll mobilize an entire brigade of the local militia to guard the outer ring of the palace grounds and supplement it with a detachment of fortress corps military policewomen to patrol them for disloyalty, so that our guard is made of people from three different service backgrounds, in addition to the exist private House bodyguards we have whom the ONI team will be guarding us with directly in our household, which we will ban anyone else from entering. We will accept hypaspist escort when leaving the palace grounds at any time, as long as you agree that they will not enter the palace grounds and intrude upon our privacy. I cannot guarantee that Ekata will agree to all of this, but it is the absolute most I think I have even a chance of getting her to agree with."
"Then I will take it." came her reply without hesitation. "I will take it, and I will pray to Arzadokh it is sufficient, for I can do nothing else, can I? Ekata is my peer, and I... respect that. We... need to somehow move past our glaring differences. There are so few of us left, that... what else can I do, Andrea? What can I do to assure her of my intent? We need to stand together as the sisters we should be! Not squabble as they pick us off like this..."
"Theodora, I...." Andrea frowned and folded her hands together. She looked contemplative; then she drank her hot chocolate, and stilled herself, and decided in its spicy taste to speak her mind, to give Theodora good advice, and damn all the political and strategic considerations. "To be quite honest, I am not sure if any of us will be alive in a year. You must make preparations for the whole of the government to fall, and for something to take its place that will defend Otrera. I do not know if my wife is capable of living in the Otrera without the old nobility, in the Otrera that survives by brutality and strength so that there is at least some hope for womankind in the future. But I would rather that Otrera exist, than there be no Otrera at all anymore."
"... Lady Andrea, please remember my wife. I am no fool." She looked levelly across, and sipped her own tea, finally picking it up. "I would prefer to save our current system - the legacy of our foremothers, of course. If, however, it fails? I am not leaving my sisters adrift. Of course I have a contingency plan. If Herculea wants to come, then may well the common woman make them choke on steel and blood." Eyes glittering, the noblewoman gestured sharply with her hand. "I am a Slattara, heir to the line of Adele, and I will be damned if I did not at least leave my people the ability to resist if I fell. What sort of Altiplano noble would I be then? How would I face my foremothers if I helplessly let the darkness fall again? If I die, I die, but I will not helplessly await events. Nor will I let them depend on me..." She trailed off, and looked down forlornly as her face fell. "That... was my wife's one weakness, I have come to believe. No woman can allow herself to be indispensable to Otrera..." Even if, I grant, it... took losing Zee to force me into seeing that. Goddess please give me enough time to finish putting such contingencies into place...
"Good. And I will take that knowledge with me, even to the grave, if necessary. Ekata doesn't need to hear it," Andrea smiled tightly. "Promise. I say that of my own volition. She has her own vision of Otrera... But I am starting to fear that no vision of Otrera is good enough anymore. Please keep yourself safe, also. We will get by all right; I sleep with a pistol, these days."
"I wish I could believe that, Lady Andrea... I truly wish I could." Queen Theodora had an intensely maudlin look on her face as she said so, and shook her head lightly. "Still. I will pray for you - all of you. Be safe, please, and I hope your team will be enough."
"I'll get her to agree to everything I promised... Somehow. Thank you. I wish I could offer more."
"It will have to do, Lady Andrea... it will have to do." She sighed, and thence looked up. "I... hear you are something of a swordswoman. My apologies for the non sequitur, but..." She took a deep breath, and seemed to steel herself. "Would you perhaps like to spar sometime? I understand if not - Ekata would perhaps be upset of it, but... ah, well, if I intend to repair my relations with her, I must start somewhere."
Andrea blinked sharply, and then smiled. "You will me rather a challenge. I was a source of bemusement in Roman lands, once upon a time, but to survive that, you still had to be very, very good. I would be honoured."
"... Well, good. If you beat me into the ground, I think Ekata will be insufferably pleased with you." came the reply from the woman, and she laughed softly, before she sobered. "I... well. They had you fight for your life. I never have, not with the blade, and I would very much hope that I never do... and that I do well enough to ensure you never will have to again. Thank you, Lady Andrea. It is sometimes very... lonely, nowadays. Even if I end up on the ground wondering what the number of the maglev train that hit me was... it will still be a good time for me, I think."
Andrea smiled. "Thank you, Sister Theodora. I will be so very honoured, come what may of it. You can be in touch with my personal secretary about a date."
"Thank you. You've my leave, and I hope... we can have meetings on more pleasant things. I will see if I can arrange some Altiplano drinking chocolate to be delivered - it has a rather different taste than the low-land version. Thank you for the call, Lady Andrea. Fare well." And let's hope you live to our next meeting...
The woman who came to the Imperial Palace was tall like Theodora was tall, if still slightly shorter; strong, muscular, but in an elegant sort of whipcord way, that nonetheless did not deny enough curves to decisively establish her femininity, dark, dirty, ash-blonde hair and a delicately perfect face. Ever since she had been revealed as courting the Duchess of Porbandar, the immigrant woman had gotten lots of attention, most of it amazed with how reticient, withdrawn Ekata, so far from the dating culture of the Otreran capital or her own homeland, could have succeeded in getting in a relationship with such a ravishingly pretty woman. And Andrea, dressed finely in civilian clothes, played the part to the limit. With Ekata a mother of two daughters with her genes, and known as a vivaciously aggressive swordswoman, Andrea more often than not served as the far more charming and enticing and assertive public face of the reclusive last of the Porbandars. And she knew in that why the invitation had quite explicitly given her the chance to show up instead of Ekata, and was not made ill at ease by it. Security must in fact be discussed, of that, we don't have much choice. The Herculeanean government has made the Otreran situation, at this point, completely untenable. Though I wish Ekata wouldn't talk of putting me on the throne. That would not be a role that Andrea would ever relish, as much as she never relished, either, the need to talk to Theodora Slattara, a woman she respected, and also suspected to hold hidden depths that only a strange sort of neurotic insecurity had held in check.
The red-headed Lady Regent would rise when she entered the room, and step over to greet her politely, not standing on formality or forcing acknowledgment of her rank; "Lady Andrea. I wish I could say it was a pleasure, but... Tea? Coffee? Chocolate? Something else?" She looked tired, with dark spots under her eyes and a palpable air of tension, wisps hair slightly out of place from her braid. "Certainly this should hopefully be short and productive, as I know how you dislike being separated from Duchess Porbandar."
"Oh, chocolate. I am so guiltily in love with it in all possible quantities, and only my exercise keeps me from paying a penalty. How could one survive being a mommy without it? We must thank the Mayan a thousand times for it. Don't worry, though, Ekata is busy with our daughters and understands if you are to keep me busy for a long while going over these matters, and hearing our concerns. We certainly live in the most intensely trying time imaginable, and I am really deeply sorry for you, Your Royal Highness, that you must deal with the affairs of state while you would surely rather be mourning."
The other woman's voice was intensely dry as she replied with a murmured. "Quite. If I mourn, however, the State will be in mortal peril. Once that is past, I can allow myself to weep. I... thank you for your consideration, however. Please, sit." She turned, gesturing to a close pair of cushions on the floor. "My primary considerations at this point are reduced to a bare few. The most primary of which is keeping the government functioning, and that is why... Lady Andrea, for the sake of your daughters, please, I am begging you, let me assign some Hypaspists to protect your family... I am not going to be glib - I believe that if you refuse this, it is your family's death." She had gotten straight to the point, which was different than her usual circular, indirect approach, and laid the point out flatly.
"Oh, Theodora." She sighed, as she settled into the cushions, and a servant would bring her the cocoa before retreating. Eyes closing, she folded up her legs and shook her head for a moment. "I.... Honestly, I agree with you. But I am not the lady of Porbandar, Ekata is, Theodora. And you know that she opposed the creation of the Hypaspists with her heart and soul, and has never reconciled to the Empress Zoe, bless her heart, having outmaneouvred her. I wish I could accept that protection on her behalf, but I absolutely cannot. So we must find some other compromise position--I am willing to accept protection from other source, just not a group whom Ekata opposed the very existence of."
"Goddess-damn it, woman!" Theodora almost exploded, and her fist slammed into the floor beside her as her voice rose sharply. "I don't give a damn about her politics! They're the best we have, and I don't want to lose Ekata, yourself, or your daughters! I've seen too many of our nobility die already, and the only others I dare trust are my household troops! Please, don't let her do this! If she wants some consideration in turn, I'll give it! I don't want to see any more die, can't you see...?"
"Theodora, if Ekata herself doesn't trust them, how can they effectively guard her?" Andrea sighed heavily, clutching her mug rather than drinking from it in consternation as her eyes flared whilst she looked at Theodora. "Your Royal Highness, please. How about--I know her, she's my wife, I know how far she can go. The fleet is like your child, surely the Navy is loyal? What about a picked infiltration and rescue team from the Office of Naval Intelligence?"
"I... I don't know if that's enough, Lady Andrea." The other woman looked across at Andrea with a haunted look in her eyes. "If she wants them, of course, she can have them... but all the others had their own picked security teams, and it didn't save them either. If... I can't force her to accept anything, I know. Will she take anything in addition? I... I truly worry. I truly worry that one of us is next, 'till there are no more, and our government... dies, and thence... the deluge." Blinking, the woman returned from her momentary reverie. "Please, you can see just how serious this is, can you not?"
"We'll mobilize an entire brigade of the local militia to guard the outer ring of the palace grounds and supplement it with a detachment of fortress corps military policewomen to patrol them for disloyalty, so that our guard is made of people from three different service backgrounds, in addition to the exist private House bodyguards we have whom the ONI team will be guarding us with directly in our household, which we will ban anyone else from entering. We will accept hypaspist escort when leaving the palace grounds at any time, as long as you agree that they will not enter the palace grounds and intrude upon our privacy. I cannot guarantee that Ekata will agree to all of this, but it is the absolute most I think I have even a chance of getting her to agree with."
"Then I will take it." came her reply without hesitation. "I will take it, and I will pray to Arzadokh it is sufficient, for I can do nothing else, can I? Ekata is my peer, and I... respect that. We... need to somehow move past our glaring differences. There are so few of us left, that... what else can I do, Andrea? What can I do to assure her of my intent? We need to stand together as the sisters we should be! Not squabble as they pick us off like this..."
"Theodora, I...." Andrea frowned and folded her hands together. She looked contemplative; then she drank her hot chocolate, and stilled herself, and decided in its spicy taste to speak her mind, to give Theodora good advice, and damn all the political and strategic considerations. "To be quite honest, I am not sure if any of us will be alive in a year. You must make preparations for the whole of the government to fall, and for something to take its place that will defend Otrera. I do not know if my wife is capable of living in the Otrera without the old nobility, in the Otrera that survives by brutality and strength so that there is at least some hope for womankind in the future. But I would rather that Otrera exist, than there be no Otrera at all anymore."
"... Lady Andrea, please remember my wife. I am no fool." She looked levelly across, and sipped her own tea, finally picking it up. "I would prefer to save our current system - the legacy of our foremothers, of course. If, however, it fails? I am not leaving my sisters adrift. Of course I have a contingency plan. If Herculea wants to come, then may well the common woman make them choke on steel and blood." Eyes glittering, the noblewoman gestured sharply with her hand. "I am a Slattara, heir to the line of Adele, and I will be damned if I did not at least leave my people the ability to resist if I fell. What sort of Altiplano noble would I be then? How would I face my foremothers if I helplessly let the darkness fall again? If I die, I die, but I will not helplessly await events. Nor will I let them depend on me..." She trailed off, and looked down forlornly as her face fell. "That... was my wife's one weakness, I have come to believe. No woman can allow herself to be indispensable to Otrera..." Even if, I grant, it... took losing Zee to force me into seeing that. Goddess please give me enough time to finish putting such contingencies into place...
"Good. And I will take that knowledge with me, even to the grave, if necessary. Ekata doesn't need to hear it," Andrea smiled tightly. "Promise. I say that of my own volition. She has her own vision of Otrera... But I am starting to fear that no vision of Otrera is good enough anymore. Please keep yourself safe, also. We will get by all right; I sleep with a pistol, these days."
"I wish I could believe that, Lady Andrea... I truly wish I could." Queen Theodora had an intensely maudlin look on her face as she said so, and shook her head lightly. "Still. I will pray for you - all of you. Be safe, please, and I hope your team will be enough."
"I'll get her to agree to everything I promised... Somehow. Thank you. I wish I could offer more."
"It will have to do, Lady Andrea... it will have to do." She sighed, and thence looked up. "I... hear you are something of a swordswoman. My apologies for the non sequitur, but..." She took a deep breath, and seemed to steel herself. "Would you perhaps like to spar sometime? I understand if not - Ekata would perhaps be upset of it, but... ah, well, if I intend to repair my relations with her, I must start somewhere."
Andrea blinked sharply, and then smiled. "You will me rather a challenge. I was a source of bemusement in Roman lands, once upon a time, but to survive that, you still had to be very, very good. I would be honoured."
"... Well, good. If you beat me into the ground, I think Ekata will be insufferably pleased with you." came the reply from the woman, and she laughed softly, before she sobered. "I... well. They had you fight for your life. I never have, not with the blade, and I would very much hope that I never do... and that I do well enough to ensure you never will have to again. Thank you, Lady Andrea. It is sometimes very... lonely, nowadays. Even if I end up on the ground wondering what the number of the maglev train that hit me was... it will still be a good time for me, I think."
Andrea smiled. "Thank you, Sister Theodora. I will be so very honoured, come what may of it. You can be in touch with my personal secretary about a date."
"Thank you. You've my leave, and I hope... we can have meetings on more pleasant things. I will see if I can arrange some Altiplano drinking chocolate to be delivered - it has a rather different taste than the low-land version. Thank you for the call, Lady Andrea. Fare well." And let's hope you live to our next meeting...
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Simon_Jester
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 30165
- Joined: 2009-05-23 07:29pm
Re: Daughters of Penthesilea (TGG)
Ah. Now introducing Andrea!
Glad to see your plans for the prologue working out.
Glad to see your plans for the prologue working out.
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