Kira had spent a lot of time on asteroid fortresses of various vintages and designers. They all shared certain features—they all started by taking a natural nickel-iron asteroid and hitting it with carefully calibrated heat in the form of plasma blasts and lasers while spinning them.
The result tended toward rough ovoid shapes with a massive cavern in the center. Redward’s fortresses, for example, had basically stopped there. Holes had been cut into the asteroids to allow access to the central core and mount turrets, but most of the actual “station” was concealed behind a kilometer or so of natural armor.
Samuels Defense Command, on the other hand, had taken that rough ovoid shape and applied further heat and carving lasers, smoothing the surface down to clearly artificial featureless plains. They’d later used those exterior plains as the medium for immense murals of the Earth mountains the stations were named for, large enough to be seen some distance away by approaching ships.
The same boring lasers had opened up large landing bays—covered by twenty-meter-thick armor of their own—as well as hundreds of channels now filled with power cables, plasma conduits and personnel tramways.
Apollon fortresses went for a similar “built from an asteroid” rather than “guns mounted on an asteroid” esthetic, so the SDC forts looked vaguely right to Kira in a way few of the stations she’d seen in the last few years had.
Her home system, though, shared one tendency with Redward: they built structures on the surface of the asteroid fortresses. Academies, residences, observation domes—while the designers accepted that anything on the surface except the heavy-cannon turrets was inherently expendable in the event of an actual conflict, they were disinclined to let that surface area go to waste.
The SDC, with the sole exception of the large hangars like the one she was landing her shuttle in, had not. The surface of Kanchenjunga Fortress was an expanse of laser-carved steel marked only by the identifying mural.
Even the heavily armored turrets that provided the fort’s armament were smoothed into the armored and painted plains. On an Apollon fortress, those plains would provide the base for a city of skyscrapers.
Here, only the open hatch of her immediate destination was visible. Beneath it, a hangar bay that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a planetary surface starport spread out, with atmosphere shields holding the air in place as Kira brought the shuttle in for a careful landing.
“Huh. They actually have security here,” Bueller commented from the copilot’s seat. Between her two starship Captains and the engineer, her boyfriend was the most qualified to back Kira up in that role.
He wasn’t actually qualified to be a copilot. Simply more so than Mwangi or Akuchi, neither of whom had ever helmed anything less than a hundred meters long.
“Light defensive turrets just outside the hatch, and looks like a pair inside,” Kira agreed approvingly. “Of course, the hatch itself is the main security. Not much is getting through that without causing trouble.”
“I was mostly thinking about the fact that there’s actually soldiers out there,” Bueller pointed out, indicating the roughly two dozen armored troopers scattered around the landing bay. “Not enough, I don’t think, but I didn’t see anybody armed on the surface.”
“This is Samuels’s shield,” Kira told him. “Culturally and professionally different from her bureaucratic heart. I’d hope there’d be somebody armed around.”
“Because Milani didn’t have a fit at being left behind,” her boyfriend muttered.
“Even they recognize that we need to trust some people,” she said. “Plus, I can’t think of anywhere safer in the area than aboard the largest battle fortress between here and Colossus.”
“Oh, I know,” he agreed. He unstrapped the safety harness. “Shall we collect the Captains and get to work?”
“Remember that you are supposed to be working directly with Tapadia going forward,” Kira told him. “He’s responsible for their shipbuilding, even if I doubt he’s hands-on enough to be buried in the designs.”
“At least I know who I have to work with. As I understand it, we’re only meeting some of the potential new commander in chiefs?”
“The commander in chief is Buxton,” Kira noted. “But yes. One of about seven people gets the big hat when the dust settles, but we’re only meeting with three of them.” She sighed and shook her head. “But one of those two commands their nova forces, which means they’re the most relevant person to us no matter what happens.”
* * *
An eager guide in a sharp-creased white uniform led the four mercenaries through a series of elevators and trams that eventually delivered them to an open lobby that looked like it belonged in a luxury hotel, not a heavily armored fortress.
Soft carpet and gorgeous abstract murals covered the floors and walls, with a dropped ceiling concealing the necessary fixtures of life aboard a space station. Soft hues of natural greens and browns brought a sense of walking into a forest or field.
Kira had only a moment to appreciate it before Commodore Mahinder Bachchan approached them. Bachchan was a towering woman that Kira could only describe as statuesque, with tanned skin and waist-length hair twisted into a tight braid.
She wore the same sharp-creased dress uniform as the young officer who had delivered them, with three gold circles on the left side of the uniform’s high collar—and, unless Kira missed her guess, was wearing a military-grade shipsuit under the uniform.
Many of the people she’d seen on the station had been wearing dress or undress uniforms without the safety gear underneath, something Kira would never have tolerated aboard any vessel or fortress under her authority.
The SDC was not the ASDF or Memorial Force, though. The war with Brisingr had been large enough and culture-shaping enough for Apollo that she doubted anyone would even assume the home front was safe for a while yet.
Samuels, on the other hand, had never even had to consider the possibility of actually being attacked or facing a military threat until very recently. It wasn’t Kira’s place to speak to their defenses or their military culture—for their home-system defenses, at least.
“Admiral Demirci,” Bachchan greeted her. “It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Our dinner is this way.”
She gestured toward a set of double doors leading off from the lobby. A pair of armored SDC military police flanked the doors, looming at anyone who came near them.
“What is this place?” Kira asked. “It looks like a hotel.”
“Because it is,” Bachchan replied. “The Kanchenjunga Pahilō Hōṭala. We have enough civilians and dignitaries come through that it’s necessary to have a place that lives up to their expectations.”
She shrugged.
“The Pahilō Hōṭala is based out of the Nepali-majority regions of the surface and was delighted to lease space on our key platforms to provide a service that was outside the scope of the SDC’s resources. And when people like Mr. Tapadia visit, it’s always in our interests to keep them…content.”
Kira didn’t see any safe response to that as she followed the Samuels officer into the dining room. The space was just as luxuriously decorated as the hotel lobby, though practicality had intruded into a space that could clearly just as easily serve as an addition to the hotel restaurant.
There was a large central table, but several taller ones had been set up around the edges to allow mingling. Half a dozen people, all tall and with the dark-skinned features Kira was starting to associate with Samuels’s Gorkhali minority, were standing and talking quietly.
Between her own companions and the average height of SDC’s senior officers, she was feeling particularly small. Knowing her own bad habits, that meant she had to watch herself and make sure she didn’t get too aggressive.
Bachchan walked over to one of the women, who was wearing a body-hugging red sheath dress that showed off her legs. Embracing her, she gave the woman a kiss and then gestured toward Kira.
“Admiral Demirci, this is my wife, Mrs. Chimini Bachchan,” she introduced her partner. “You know Mr. Tapadia, of course.” She gestured toward the businessman as he joined them.
“Please, Admiral, allow me to introduce you to my other guests,” Tapadia said. He bowed to the Bachchans. “Thank you for finding them, Commodore.”
He smiled.
“Remember, we aren’t here to work tonight.”
“Bullshit,” Commodore Bachchan said flatly to an amused giggle from her wife. “We’re here to sort out what the Admiral needs to defend our star system in a way that’s politically acceptable while us flag officers hash out who gets to be in charge.
“Rao and D’Cruze both know that.” She chuckled. “I’d be stunned if there’s a flag officer in the star system who doesn’t know what this dinner is about, Mr. Tapadia. But you’ve done what you needed to cover the tracks.
“The SDC will behave. We promise.”