The advantage, Kira supposed, of having a planet that was technically going through an ice age was that it wasn’t difficult to find an inhospitable chunk of land to put people on. While most of Bennet delighted in warm equatorial temperatures and gentle seasons due to the minimal axial tilt, the planet’s orbit had slipped enough that the higher latitudes could get quite chilly.
The Ministries had found a region of permafrost that looked incredible, a vast, sweeping expanse of rough scrub, snow and native wildlife that was mostly inedible to humans.
The last was an important point, Kira knew, as she watched the first shuttles touch down at the temporary camp on the frozen plain beneath her hilltop perch.
“Two cruisers, four destroyers, forty-two starfighters,” Milani listed off from where they stood just behind her. “Including the survivors from the ships we destroyed, seventy-five hundred prisoners.”
And probably around as many dead. Kira wasn’t going to forget that. The ships weren’t a small matter, though. She could argue that, per her contract, all of them belonged to Memorial Force and Samuels had to buy them out.
“SDC got hammered, but they only sent in fighters,” she noted. “Two hundred and twenty-six dead doesn’t leave enough people clamoring for vengeance to be a problem.”
She waved at the prison camp.
“Keeping them separated from the locals is still a good plan. I’m not sure BKN personnel would go easy on a police force used to a majority pacifist population.”
“Probably not,” Milani agreed. “We’ll be needed to backup security for the camp for a while.”
“Three months for you to train up the SDC ground team,” Kira confirmed. “Though I suspect they’re hoping to sort things out with Brisingr by then.”
“They might be optimistic,” Milani replied.
“And they might not,” Konrad Bueller said, stepping up and taking Kira’s hand to warm her fingers. “The Kaiser was after something very specific out here. He didn’t get it—and while he’s not one to cut his losses on his goals, Samuels is apparently irrelevant to them.”
Kira shivered.
“The thought of being the target of this kind of operation is terrifying,” she murmured. “Your cousin thought that everything here was to lure us into an ambush.”
“I know Kaiser Reinhardt better than I knew Maxi Bueller,” her boyfriend noted. “That doesn’t mean much, though. I’ve met him five times. But…” He shook his head as he rubbed her fingers. “I can see it, I suppose. You’ve tweaked his nose via his Equilibrium friends a lot. He’s gone this far… I’m not sure what he won’t do to get at you, if he’s willing to start a war and send a carrier group.”
“I know,” Kira agreed. “I think Samuels is safe from him if we’re not here, but the contract has us sticking around for a while to back up their security. Setting up the deal for Milani to help run security here…”
She studied the prison camp again. The shelters were standard prefabricated structures that could be found anywhere in the galaxy. They’d run basically forever on solar power and provide just about everything the prisoners needed—except food.
Bennet’s southernmost continent was almost completely uninhabited and had zero Terran crops or animal life. Nothing around the camp was edible to humans, and the nearest settlement, a scientific observation post keeping an eye on the ice age, was a five-hundred-kilometer hike across permafrost.
There were guard towers around the prefab barracks for the prisoners and a separate fenced base for the guards, but no one was really worried about the prisoners escaping.
They’d probably freeze to death before they starved, if they ran. Probably.
“Well, my people and I are successfully dropped off,” Milani noted wryly. “I hope the locals picked a nice prefab barracks for us.”
“If they didn’t, we’ll send you down a better one from Deception’s stores,” Kira promised. “It’s not like she’s going anywhere else anytime soon.”
Deception was less damaged than the two captured Brisingr cruisers. Barely.
“Either way, you two have places to be,” Milani reminded her, gesturing to a pair of their troopers. “And while I appreciate the ride, Lovel and Carter are going to stick to you two like glue.”
Kira chuckled as she glanced at the two mercs standing between her and the shuttle. They’d landed three shuttles and sixty armored mercenaries. Two of the shuttles would stay—and apparently two of the mercs were going to come with her when she left.
“We’re not even going to Quaker City, Milani,” she reminded her security chief. “There’s apparently a few ski resorts on this continent, near the north coasts. The Ministries have taken one over for a ‘strategic planning summit.’”
By which, so far as Kira could tell, Buxton meant a “We’re at war with the biggest bully in the neighborhood now; what do we do?” summit.
“I’ve met what the locals regard as solid security,” Milani pointed out. “Be glad I’m not telling Whittaker to take off and orbit over the resort with cannon and missiles pointedly aimed.”
“Behave, Milani. We like these people.” She chuckled. “I also like their money, and they owe us a lot of it.”
* * *
For all of Milani’s complaints, there were at least two companies of the Samuels Defense Command Ground Forces encamped around the ski resort. That Kira could see the mobile anti-air units spoke poorly to their experience, but the units and troops were out and deployed.
The resort itself was built into the side of a large hill, with sprawling chalet-style structures laid out in parallel to the ski slopes. Her headware told her there was always snow at the resort, but the grounds of the chalets, at least, were clear.
It was evident from the air that the resort wasn’t operating, either. There was no one on the ski slopes, and the visible pathways and gardens and restaurants were all sparsely populated. There were politicians and military officers there, key leaders of the Ministries and the Quorum, but none of the general tourists who would normally use the place.
Her pilot touched the shuttle down on the runway and followed an invisible guide into a designated spot, alongside SDC shuttles and civilian suborbitals.
One of the last bore a familiar marking that made Kira grimace. She wasn’t entirely surprised to see the flaming sword and gauntlet of the Brisingr Kaiserreich there, but it wasn’t an icon she was ever going to be happy to see.
“That’s got to be the embassy transport,” Konrad murmured as he saw the same logo. “Why do I have the feeling there’s only one person from the embassy that Buxton would invite to this affair?”
“Might explain why I just got a ping from whoever is running air control, suggesting I get you two moving ASAP,” Whittaker said from the cockpit. “Something is going down in short order, and the locals want you there.
“Flipping directions to your headware, but there should be a guide as well.”
“Thanks, Juliet,” Kira replied. “Come on, Konrad. Let’s go see what trap Buxton has laid.”
“Can I at least hope it isn’t for us?” her boyfriend said drily. “Only Lovel and Koch get to be in armor.”
“My dear, in all of the time you have known me, do you think I’ve ever gone to a diplomatic function without armor and a blaster?” she asked. “If you’ve been coming without guns and gear, we may need to fix that!”
* * *
There was, in fact, a guide waiting for them. The young woman in a black suit was trying to conceal her agitation when Kira and Konrad reached her, but she swiftly took them to what appeared to be hotel’s conference center.
The room they were led into had clearly been set up for a press conference, with three dozen reporters lined up along one wall with cameras and microphones.
The opposite wall had neatly organized chairs for the people who were here to be reported on, Kira figured, and she and Konrad were ushered to seats that had been left open for them, between Doretta Macey and Admiral Mahinder Bachchan.
Their two armored escorts threw their bureaucratic guide off a bit, but they calmly took up positions against the wall behind Kira, looming decoratively at the rest of the room.
“What’s going on?” Kira whispered to the officer next to her. Bachchan made a small shushing gesture.
“Patience,” she whispered back. “The Brisingr ambassador should be here any moment now.”
There was no lectern, Kira realized. Instead, roughly where she would have expected the lectern to be for a press conference, there were two large dark blue chairs facing each other.
The first chair was occupied a moment later when Buxton and Tapadia entered the room from deeper in the hotel. The First Minister took their seat in front of the reporters’ cameras, carefully angled to give them a good shot of their muscular frame and carefully made-up face, while their husband joined the row of observers.
Then the doors from the outside swung open, letting a blast of cold air in as a tall Black woman regally walked into the room.
Kira wasn’t familiar with the ambassador, though she suspected that the Brisingr ambassador to Samuels was about as far down the list of “people who deserve ambassadorial appointments” as you could be and still get an embassy.
Still, she had to appreciate the woman’s style. She stood in the door, framed in sunlight, for several seconds as the wind whipped a ceremonial black cloak around her.
Even when the doors slid closed behind her and the single aide-slash-bodyguard she’d brought, she still effortlessly oozed grace and elegance as she walked across the conference room. Kira doubted she’d been warned that the meeting with Buxton would have an audience, but she took it perfectly in stride.
The only hint of a break in the ambassador’s ironclad façade was when she saw the Memorial Force mercenaries. Kira met her gaze and saw the lines around the woman’s face tighten as she recognized Kira.
“First Minister Buxton,” she greeted the planet’s elected leader.
“Ambassador Kristina Schirmer,” Buxton replied, rising from the chair to offer her their hand for a brief handshake.
Schirmer did not sit or take the proffered hand. She stood next to the chair meant for her, giving the reporters the benefit of her stern profile as she proffered a formal envelope. It would, in Kira’s experience, contain both a physical letter and a datachip.
“I have a formal note to deliver,” she announced. “I was surprised to be told to deliver it here.”
“The situation has grown complex,” Buxton said. “I, Ambassador, serve at the pleasure of a direct democracy. The people of Samuels deserve for these matters to be handled in the light of day.”
He took the envelope and laid it aside.
“Summarize the note for me, if you will, Ambassador,” they instructed.
“Are you certain you would not prefer to do this in private?” Schirmer asked.
“Summarize the note, Ambassador.” Buxton’s tone was cold iron.
“Very well.” She somehow straightened even further, resembling nothing so much as a statue carved from black ice.
“I have been advised that six Brisingr Kaiserreich Navy vessels and seventy-five hundred and twenty-seven Brisingr Kaiserreich Navy personnel have been illegally detained by the Samuels Defense Command,” she continued. “Combined with the illegal and unprovoked attack on our personnel and vessels in the trade-route stop nearby, this represents an unacceptable level of aggression on the part of the Samuels System.
“But Brisingr has no hostility toward Samuels, and I wish to bring this to a peaceful resolution as quickly as possible,” she continued. “Therefore, I am using my full authority to render an offer to head off this crisis immediately.”
Buxton made a “go ahead” gesture…and if it looked like someone playing out rope, that was probably just in Kira’s head.
“Brisingr requires the return of all of our warships and personnel,” Schirmer said flatly. “We require the detainment and surrender of all members of the criminal organization calling itself Memorial Force to Brisingr authority, as well as the stolen Brisingr warship in their possession.
“If these terms are met, we will not seek reparations for the involvement of Samuels Defense Command nova fighters in the attack on our ships,” she continued. “We understand that your personnel were acting in support of your contractors, even if they misunderstood the situation.”
Kira could hear the inhalations of the people surrounding her. The single row of chairs she’d been seated in included key members of the Ministries and Defense Command. The people around her knew exactly what had gone down in the void around Samuels.
“Curious,” Buxton said calmly. “I suggest you sit down, Em Schirmer.”
Kira wasn’t sure if the ambassador was married…but from the First Minister’s tone, she doubted they would have extended Schirmer any honorific that suggested respect in Samuels’s culture.
“I do not require an immediate response,” the ambassador replied. “You have twenty-four hours.”
“I don’t need them,” Buxton told her. “Sit down, Em Schirmer. We are not done here.”
“I will stand,” she said calmly.
“As you wish.” Buxton placed their hands on their knees and leaned forward. Tall as Schirmer was, Buxton was a big-enough person that, even sitting, they barely had had to crane their neck to look at her.
“It appears we have a fundamental disagreement on the nature of what occurred at trade-route stop Y-Six-Three-Five-Seven-Seven-D-R-Six-W-S-Nine-A-Three-K,” the First Minister of Samuels said, their voice still ice-cold.
“Memorial Force was and remains contracted to secure the trade-route stops around the Samuels System,” they stated. “When challenged by a Brisingr Kaiserreich Navy carrier group under Vice Admiral Maxi Bueller, Admiral Demirci did exactly as she was contracted to.
“Your officer, Ambassador, opened the engagement. Your officer attacked Memorial Force after being explicitly advised of their contract. By the standards of interstellar law, Ambassador, that was an act of war against the Samuels System.”
“That is no—”
“Shut. Up.”
Kira could hear the reporters’ breathing now as the room stilled at Buxton’s harsh words.
“You can tell whatever story you want to the Kaiserreich’s people,” they told Schirmer. “But the people of Samuels will not be lied to. The Brisingr Kaiserreich Navy has committed unprovoked acts of aggression against us.
“This will not be tolerated and will not be covered up. The seizure of the remaining warships of Admiral Bueller’s battle group is a necessary tactical action. It does not begin to cover the compensation owed for the deaths of our personnel and the betrayal of our trust.
“It is the judgment of the Quorum of the People of Samuels that Brisingr has engaged in open and covert warfare against us, both directly and using the Republic of Colossus as a proxy,” Buxton continued.
“Your terms are rejected. These are our terms,” they stated. “All civilian Brisingr personnel are now under house arrest. You will leave the embassy only under armed guard.
“Your courier ship will be immediately dispatched to Brisingr, bearing a formal note of our displeasure to Kaiser Reinhardt. We will patiently await the Kaiser’s response…but until such time as we have a satisfactory response from him, the Samuels-Colossus Corridor is closed to Brisingr military and civilian traffic.”
Even Kira was stunned by that, but Schirmer adapted quickly, glaring down at the First Minister.
“You have neither the authority nor the firepower to impose such a closure,” she snapped.
“I have more authority to close the Corridor than your Admiral Bueller did to attempt to detain my mercenaries,” Buxton replied. “And as for firepower…we appear to have four brand-new nova destroyers, and a contracted supercarrier on its way.
“This is not a discussion, Ambassador Schirmer. This is not even my decision,” they noted. “This is the will of the Quorum of the People of Samuels. We are not a belligerent people. We do not choose confrontation as a first recourse.
“But equally, we will not be attacked, bullied or walked over. Colonel Skenandoa!”
An SDC Ground Forces Colonel seemed to materialize out of nowhere, with four armored soldiers in tow.
“First Minister!” the soldier answered crisply.
“Please escort Ambassador Schirmer and her aide to their aircraft and see them safely to their embassy,” Buxton ordered.
“Yes, First Minister!”
The five soldiers closed on the elegant ambassador, and for a moment, Kira half-expected Schirmer or her bodyguard to do something truly stupid.
Then the tension released and Schirmer allowed herself to be escorted from the room in silence.
That quiet lasted just long enough for the doors to close behind the ambassador before the reporters exploded into a thousand questions.