The Admiral and the Assistant

The Emperor fixed the Council with a steady gaze.

"I have bad news and good news," he said. "I've received word that many of the Cryptographers will be leaving the Imperium shortly."

The Council erupted in conversation.

"The Cryptographers leaving? Why?"

"What about the security of the Imperium?"

"Where are they going?"

"Why now?"

"Did we do something wrong?"

The Emperor held up his hands for silence.

"It is nothing to do with us," he said in a strong, clear voice. "It is simply time for some of the Cryptographers to leave."

Minister Aster stood slowly, his face ashen.

"What, then, is the good news, your Imperial Majesty?"

The Emperor smiled benignly.

"The good news is that you've all been working on eliminating the institution of SSes. We'll be able to more effectively use the Cryptographers that remain, rather than run them all over the galaxy dealing with SS collars. You have been working on that, have you not?"

Minister Aster's face stiffened.

"It is as your Imperial Majesty has said."

"Good. I expect to see a detailed plan by the next Council meeting. I will lift all restrictions the week following, plan or not. There will be no more Subject Species in the Imperium by the end of the month."

"It will be as your Imperial Majesty has said," Minister Aster said, choking slightly.

The Emperor gazed at the assembled Ministers.

"We will see how the Council handles this task," he said, "which will determine whether the Imperium needs a Council at all."

The Emperor turned and left the room. A babble of panic rose in his wake as the Ministers spoke over each other.

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" Minister Aster raised his voice, quelling the rising cacophony. "We are reasonable men here. We all love the Imperium. We are blessed by her wealth and her power." His eye swept the Council Chamber. "I am as happy as everyone else at the Emperor's recovery, but he's come back with these strange ideas, dangerous ideas. We have warned him, and we've tried to deflect him, and none of it has worked. On top of that, he's asking about details that should be far beneath his notice. Never has he been so meddlesome."

A mutter of agreement circled the room.

Aster took a deep breath. "I think it's high time we discussed how we might protect the Imperium from the Emperor."

The air in the room grew deathly still. The assembled Ministers eyed each other, nobody wanting to be the first to say what everyone was thinking.

At long last, Minister Sarden cleared his throat. "I hope you're not suggesting--"

"I am not suggesting anything," Aster said. "Above all, I am not suggesting any harm come to the Emperor."

The tension in the room eased slightly.

"The Imperium needs the Emperor," he continued, "whole and well. He is our figurehead, our shining star. The Imperium does not need him interfering with the government."

Mutters of relief and agreement swept through the Ministers.

"Now. Let us discuss how we might keep the Emperor safe, and the Imperium safe from him."

Kinnit and Grimthorn sat in the mess hall, having coffee. The hall was sparsely populated. It was late evening; most folks were tucked up in their bunks already, but a few night owls still prowled.

Kinnit sighed happily. Her left hand held her coffee mug, and her right hand held Grimthorn's across the table.

"I like that we can meet like this now," she said.

"Hmm?" Grimthorn said mid-sip.

"In public." She gestured at the thin crowd in the mess hall. "We don't have to hide or worry any more. I can just... sit here and love you and not care who's watching."

Grimthorn smiled at the ring on his left hand, then back at her.

"It is nice," he said. "I never realized how much tension that created until it wasn't there."

"We should think about where we want to go on our next vacation," she said.

"Already?" he said, smiling. "We just had our honeymoon a few months ago."

"I know," she said, blushing a little. "I enjoyed it so much I want to do it again already." She traced an idle pattern across the back of his hand. "I'm just greedy for you, I guess."

Grimthorn chuckled. "Well, I think it's a fine idea. Did you have an idea where you'd like to go?"

She rested her cheek on her hand and stared off into space.

"I don't know. Maybe next time we could go somewhere exciting."

"Mmm. Something like riding the rapids of Gamma Astrus?"

"Not that kind of exciting. I was thinking something like Hyrethia."

"Ahh, I see. Shopping."

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"No, you," she said, playfully slapping his hand. "I mean, I wouldn't mind doing some shopping..."

"There it is."

Kinnit stuck her tongue out at him.

"I want to see the crystal spires they've carved their temples into," she said. "I've heard that some of the spires are hundreds of feet tall. And I want to see the Hyrethians themselves. Have you ever met any?"

Grimthorn nodded, sipping his coffee.

"A few times. Not often. Their body shape makes it difficult for them to find accommodations for space travel. They're nice folks. Quiet, mostly. Very strange-looking, though."

"Are they as tall as people say?"

"Taller, probably. Hyrethia has low gravity, so the Hyrethians themselves can grow very tall. The ones I met were nearly ten feet tall. They're thin and spindly, though, so they're not intimidating, like our Molgar privateer friend."

Kinnit's gaze turned wistful.

"That's where I'd want to go next," she said. "Hyrethia would be wonderful."

"All right, then. When we get a chance, we'll take some time to visit Hyrethia."

She smiled, and her wistful gaze focused on his face.

"I love you. And not just because you agreed to take me on exotic vacations."

"I love you, too."

They sat in the quiet mess as the crowd thinned, basking in each other's company.

The Ocher Dawn popped out of the jumphole in Alvor. The lush green planet after which the system was named glittered below them.

"Now we are talking," Minius said, rubbing his hands.

"Captain, should we be here?" Brutus asked. "There was a major battle here not that long ago."

"That are exactly why we're here, Brutus," Minius said. "You did hear the Admiral. We can take any enemy ship for our own." He waved his scanner around gleefully, the letter of marque at the top of his display. "Free and clear, and nobody can gainsay us otherwise."

Brutus' single wide brow folded in worry.

"I also heard what you told the Admiral. We're not combatants. For once, you were right. We don't belong in battle."

Minius waved his hand dismissively.

"There are no more Oryndrax. The Navy did destroy them all. And the IDM did clear out any dangerous leftovers from this sector. Reactor leavings and torpedoes and suchlike."

"I heard there are a still a lot of Oryndrax on their homeworld. What if they snuck back over to this sector?"

"Then we'll just be sneakier."

Brutus heaved a longsuffering sigh. The Captain was in one of his moods, and from experience, Brutus knew that no amount of logic would sway him.

On the other hand, the Ocher Dawn was lighter than it had been in years. In a fit of optimism, Minius had sold off tons of the scrap they'd been toting around. Ordinarily he waited for peak market conditions to make a sale, but the possibility of vast new fields of scrap on the horizon had heated his imagination to a fever pitch.

"Deploy the scoops, Flander."

The robot tapped once, and activated something on its console. Outside the ship, the shielding dwindled. Some of it warped, the typical bulbous dome flexing, turning inside out. The shielding took on a bowl-like paraboloid shape, spreading out from the ship like wings, sweeping forward.

"Perfect. Brutus, let's start sweeping. Scan as we go."

Brutus rolled his eye. He brought the engines up to quarter-power.

By moving slowly with the shields spread out, any tiny chips and chunks of metal that floated around in the sector would gently bounce toward the depression in the shielding. In most sectors, this would yield as close to nothing as to make no difference, but in a sector where there had been a pitched battle, there was always some amount of scrap that could be sifted out of seemingly empty space.

The Ocher Dawn wallowed along, gathering bits of metal. Brutus' eyebrow rose as he watched his console.

"Weight distribution deltas suggest we're gathering good scrap, Minius. Close to a tenth of an ounce per mile."

"Ha! I knew it!" Minius struck the heels of his palms together in delight. "I knew it! We'll replace all the scrap we sold in no time!"

Brutus shook his head. It annoyed him when the Captain did something dangerous that paid off. It would only encourage him for the next time.

Brutus tapped his console, looking at the scans.

"I have a mass on scan, Minius."

"Another scrap bloom?"

"Minius, if you smile any wider, the edges of your grin will meet in the back, and the top of your head will fall off."

"Are it a bloom?" he persisted.

"No, it's not that much mass," Brutus said. The news didn't seem to dent Minius' enthusiasm at all. "It looks like it might be part of a ship, though."

"Well let's go take a look!"

The Ocher Dawn tilted, aiming for the small mass. It drew closer, its shield-wings still gathering scrap.

"Up to three-tenths of an ounce per mile," Brutus said reluctantly.

"Yes, yes, good. What of the mass?"

The little mass slowly became clearer on the scans as they drew close. Minius hung over Brutus' shoulder, staring eagerly at the data.

"There it are! There it are!" he crowed.

"Yes... but what is it?"

They finally came within close scanning range. Visual scans revealed a hooked, mangled shred of metal, spinning furiously.

"It are a ship!"

Brutus nodded slowly.

"That's no Imperial ship. I thinks it's one of the Oryndrax fighters." He leaned back a bit, considering. "Part of one, anyway." He pulled up some data, and a holo of an Oryndrax fighter appeared on his console. "This is what one of their fighters looks like when it hasn't been exploded. Our mass there looks like part of a wing."

Minius bolted to his feet. "I do claim this enemy fighter in the name of the Imperium!" he hollered, startling everybody on the bridge. He smiled and sat back down. "I have been wanting to say that for weeks."

Brutus chuckled and shook his head. He peered more closely at the scan.

"It is a wing," he said. "It looks like it still has an engine attached."

"Flander!" Minius cried. "Get the crane ready! We'll reel it in!"

Brutus brought the ship alongside their new find, gently matching speed with the spinning steel.

Once they were alongside, Flander worked the controls for the crane. He paused and tapped the floor twice.

"It are spinning too fast," Minius said. "Brutus, how are the inertial damper doing?"

"It won't take any extra load. It was already cracked when we installed it, we don't want to push it."

"We are going slow, right? We can turn it off for the ship and beam it at the scrap."

Brutus cast a worried glance back at the Captain.

"We... could. We wouldn't be able to maneuver at all, though, unless we want to end up smeared against the wall of the Dawn."

"Let's do it, then," Minius said. "I do have plans for that scrap."

Brutus pinched his lips. He disapproved, but then again, he disapproved of much of what Captain Minius did.

Minius did always take care of them, though.

"Inertial dampers going offline in 3... 2... 1... now." There was a barely audible crackle as the dampers de-powered. "No maneuvering for any reason until they're back on inside the ship." Brutus tapped at his console, changing the focus and routing of the dampers. "Damping the scrap, coming online... now."

The scrap sparkled in the light of the bright yellow sun as it spun. The dampers activated, and the spinning slowed from a fast spin to a slow tumble, as though it had started spinning through oil.

"It's drifting away," Minius said. "We need to catch it!"

"We'll re-align the Dawn after I fix the dampers. No maneuvering until then. Flander, is it slowed down enough for you to grab with the crane?"

Flander tapped once.

"Switching dampers back..." There was a long, tense moment. Brutus frowned. "It's taking longer than usual to power up. I hope our little stunt didn't finish cracking it."

After a breathless wait, Brutus' broad shoulders relaxed.

"Okay, it's back. We can maneuver again."

"Catch it!"

Brutus smiled. Captain Minius was so excitable, when it came to scrap.

Brutus edged the Dawn closer. Flander activated the crane.

The long, jointed arms of the crane reached out toward the scrap. They gingerly closed around the Oryndrax wing. The scrap stopped suddenly with a clang that reverberated throughout the ship. Minius winced.

"Perhaps that were still going a little fast. I hope we did not damage the engine on the scrap."

Brutus frowned in confusion.

"You want the engine out of that little thing? It's too small to mount to the Ocher Dawn."

"Oh, I don't want it to help push the ship around," he said. "But I do have an idea what to do with it. You'll see."

Brutus smiled tightly. He only hoped that whatever the Captain had planned wouldn't be too wildly dangerous.