The Triad, Royal Palace, Tharkad City, Tharkad, 23 October, 3067...
Debra let the guards check her sidearm and confiscate the ready-loads. When they handed the now-empty revolver back, she accepted it without a word of complaint or objection, sliding it into the scabbard-like hip holster worked into her outfit.
It took less than a minute. It took longer for Carlos to finish the weapons-check-in, as he added spare magazines, backup pistols, knives, a leather-wrapped piece of lead bar, in a way, it was embarrassing...or would have been, if the next man in the line hadn't been a Mercenary.
"brought 'nough spares?" Deb asked as they entered the gallery before the main audience hall.
"I was trying to be prepared." Carlos told her. Since his was a truly 'militia' commission, he'd been encouraged to show up in 'suitable civilian clothing'. To Deb's eyes, the sharp suit looked very good on him, and she'd even told him so. She hadn't really been aware that it was cut to conceal quite the arsenal the Royal Guards insisted on putting in locked storage.
"Et's a royal summons, not a gunfight." She whispered back, "ef you'd'a worn one'a those outside, they'd'a likely let you keep one."
"Pol said it would spoil the cut of the suit..." He whispered back.
Deb shrugged, and stole a quick kiss to his cheek, "You're adorable." she told him, and then, the line moved and they proceeded forward.
A servant in a gaudy House steiner Livery moved through the crowd, separating it into groups.
"Name?" the man asked.
"MacAulliffe, Debra, and guest." she enunciated.
"His name, please."
"Carlos Al-Carrera de Los Cassos Arluna." Carlos said, showing a bit of the irritation Deb was starting to feel.
at the word "arluna" the Liveried man glanced up and seemed to see them for the first time. "Oh, right this way Lady and sir, you need to be with the others for the swearing in."
They followed.
"wish Pol was doing this..." Carlos muttered, "...he would know how to deal with this with class."
"Don' sell y'sef short, Carlos, that was very classy what you did." she told him.
"Why do I want to punch the guy?" Carlos muttered back.
"tell me whah ah want to, an' we'll both be knowin." she muttered.
they found themselves a group of people, many in LAAF formal dress uniforms, a few in almost pathetically fragile formal outfits that to Debra looked outlandishly impractical in Tharkad's frigid climate, and one surprisingly young man in the Cadet Uniform for Sanglamore Academy.
"So..." Deb felt the oppressive weight of bodies around her, and a new annoyance with the entire setting. Put forth a genial face until you know for certain-it takes people by surprise. Maggie'd instructed. Debra tried a smile.
in spite of the near-crowding, somehow, space opened up around them, and a few of their 'colleagues' pointedly avoided eye-contact.
a few, but not all.
"Hello, are you the new Noble for Arluna?" a tall girl whose uniform barely contained her ample bust, asked.
"Ah..yes..yes I am." Debra suppressed her accent by a force of will, "And..ah..you are?"
"Constance Voord, Baroness designate from Praetoria." the girl extended a hand, "I heard you didn't see much of my world while you were in quarantine, perhaps you'll stop in a bit longer when you head home?"
Debra took her hand in a firm grip, "Ah maht do thet." she said, dropping the pretense and shaking firmly, "I'm Debra MacAulliffe, and Ah'm pleased t'meetcha."
"The pleasure is mine." Miss Voord said, "This is my fiance, Allan, he's an attorney." she gestured to a tall, ebon-skinned man in a civilian suit.
"an' this mah...boyfriend, Carlos." Debra said, indicating, "His pa's a judge."
"And what do you do, Carlos?" Allan asked, somehow looking down his nose at the younger man.
"I currently pilot a Clan built battlemech." Carlos told him, "My commander calls it a 'Timberwolf, Prime configuration'. It's a lot faster than my old ride."
"You're a mechwarrior?" Constance, at least, seemed somewhat impressed. "Which academy?"
Debra interjected, "Hard Knox." she said quietly, "Carlos was accepted at CMA, but the plague cancelled his arrival date, he's bin gettin his larnin' in the field, with Clanner and Kowloonese instructors, fighting armed criminals."
"in a MADCAT?"
"One of the criminals had it, but rest his soul he's dead." Carlos said in a deadpan tone, "got blood all over the place, very messy."
Debra riffed off Carlos' bluff, "indeed, very messy business in Brightsville. Ah almos' got stepped on."
"I apologized for that!" he insisted.
Debra laid an arm over his shoulders, "and ah forgave you." she said, "but Ah nevah said ah'd Fo'git."
the act hit the right tone-and the 'judgement pressure' abated as some of the other Heir-Designates re-evaluated.
one of the young men-almost a boy, asked, "What's your old ride, Carl?"
"Zeus." Carlos said truthfully, "The new one is much faster...cockpit's a little tight and the neurohelmet feels funny, but..."
Allan seemed content to drift into the group of men that were surrounding Carlos to talk about combat, tactics, and fighting machines, leaving Debra with Constance and the girls.
"I love your outfit." an ebony-skinned girl in Royal Guards colors said, "it's a Henri original, right?"
Debra nodded slowly, "Ayup...tailored three days ago, an' Ah don' even wanna think about th' cost, Maggie said she's coverin' it..."
This was a familiar feeling too. Any minute now, the cutting comments would start.
only...
"Janisha, she's a Proper noble, not a jumped up concubine." Constance snapped, then turned to Deb, "Unlike Janisha, I actually do like your outfit, it looks comfortable while it looks good. If I hadn't seen you on the newsnet the other day, I would've mistaken you for someone from a grade AAA merc unit."
Debra licked her lips, "Why?"
"Let's see...you walked in ready for a fight, which the boys over there are a lot more equipped to handle than these...concubines, courtiers, and hangers-on." she said, sweeping the other girls with a stare of contempt, "Usually a Merc from a big outfit shows with their legal rep, who's usually dressed like Carlos over there..." she nodded to the group of boys (and now, some uniformed girls) surrounding Carlos, "and they always walk in with a sidearm on display-not a decorative piece, but something functional and real-that's a Makba 10.1 Milimeter Magnum, right?"
Debra nodded, "It is...the grip's small 'nough for my hand, and it punches hard without flippin' too bad."
"yeah, my Dad liked those." Constance stated, "For the same reason, me? I like my Sternsacht 9-twice the number of shots, faster reload and almost as accurate and hard-hitting."
Deb shrugged, "I'm fair with what I have." she said, "though it's kind of irritatin' Ah had t' turn the rounds in."
"you were carrying when you walked in?" one of the other girls, the 'concubines' scoffed.
Debra eyed her 'slant-wise'. "Ah carry everywhere." she said quietly, "can't always have three big men with guns on tap."
The girl started to say something snide, but Constance interrupted her, "She's Elizabeth Ngo's protege, Angie, and she's the guest of Margaret Doons, you might want to put a stopper in your suck-hole, your family does business with them both."
"You done your research." Debra noted.
"it's like...osmosis? I've been learning this stuff since before I was able to walk." Constance told her, "Like my cousin Elena Van Derwee, who's...I think in the bathroom."
Debra crossed her arms, "Cousins, both swearin' in at the same tahm?"
"there are a couple hundred of us-heirs to people who died in the Civil War, hitting 'just the right age' to inherit-you're actually the only 'new' noble getting sworn in today." Constance told her, "Everyone else here either grew up on it, or didn't know they were due to inherit the titles and lands..story is, the Archon's been running one of these every month as the estates are being settled. The estates that don't have a line of succession he's supposed to be distributing to new nobles sometime in January."
Debra did some mental math, "So...what jumped me up?" she asked aloud.
"You've been running Arluna for two years-which is why I said 'Real' noble-you've been doing the job, your hearing is a formality, some of us, will be walking out as pauperized as they walked in-Peter's been very selective about who actually gets to claim titles and lands."
"and you?" Debra asked.
"I want Elena to get it." Constance told her, "That would leave me free to stay in the service, or go Merc when my five is up, like Uncle Carter."
Debra was flabberghasted, "You mean...he can force you?" she asked.
Constance shrugged, "He can rule that the lands are unclaimed and give them to someone else, if the person he chooses declines, he can appoint a Regent if they're in active service...yeah, he can force it-if you love your family anyway. Dad was killed without a valid will and testament during the battle here on Tharkad, when Peter took down Nondi."
Debra frowned, "which side?" she asked.
"Daddy was in the First Royals." Constance told her, "Which should explain Allan's...attitude problem with your boyfriend."
"Kathrinist." Deb hazarded.
"Yep." Constance said, "he's really very sweet, but his family lost a lot of influence when the civil war ended, and he's gotten hostile toward Peter's policies."
"and you?" deb asked.
"I...am a patriot." Constance said, "Peter is the legitimate Archon, he is my supreme commander, and soldiers don't generally discuss divisive politics or opinions if they want to be of true service to the realm-and that's what I want to do, Serve."
Deb smiled, "It's okay-mah mother was a Kathrinist an' mah father was a political prisoner, and ah gots no use fo' either of th' spoilt brats-their tiff split the nation an' ah b'lieve helped annihilate worlds...Arluna lost ninety percent of our population an' some of the neighbouring worlds are still dealin' with outbreaks."
"How bad is it there?" one of the older girls, looking a little scared, asked.
"When the wind's wrong, you c'n smell the death." Debra said, "Or when it's right...or when it ain't blowin, we've cleared some of the major cities an' we're consolidatin' areas, but rebuildin' is slow, there's bandits, feral animals, and ordinary accidents still killin' folk-less than there was...but still happens a lot...it's what happens when 1.9 billion people die in a short tahm, all togethah on one world. since thn, we've had plagues of rats, cats, dogs, vermin, septic conditions, a nuclear pile almos' melted down, the city of Oxford caught fahr... Et's whah Arluna is a Barony now, 'stead of a Ducal seat...but we're managin' to pull it out, slow, but steady. Bigges' problem's been getting organized and keepin' it, th' old duke an' his cronies looted th' treasury, left petty thugs in the Militia, an' generally had things a pretty nasty mess 'afore the plague come-when et hit, they wasn' ready or able t'deal with et, so civil disorder an' petty dictators all over hell an' back, that made things..difficult fo' a while, if'n we didn' have help from Kowloon, Arluna might be a deadworld now, sure 's hell the Alliance cain't send folks in-our best job sofar been a survival of 20% ifn' they get th' right help once they're infected, and the poor bastard Clannahs whats showed up, got sick, an' lived caint leave neither-they're still contagious."
the crowd around her was larger, but it felt more like a meeting than a mob.
"Clanners?" someone asked.
"We had some Jade Falcons show up t' help th' relief-from their enclave on Kowloon at firs', an' later they sent in a whole Galaxy, th' Beta galaxy-only once they realized they'd not be safe comin' home, the res' of th' Clan dropped 'em off'n the roles with a don't-come-home Abjuration." Debra clarified, "My militia's second in command is formah Star Captain Jonas Falcon, now Colonel Jonas Falcon, an' he's an exemplary citizen now, got him a lil' wife from Kowloon who was workin' the relief ops-Carlos works fo' him directly at th' Militia rank of Major...an' my man Carlos, he's seed real combat ever' day for a year-he earned his tabs th' hard way." Deb let the pride come out in her voice.
"Still contagious?" someone muttered, another voice questioned "twenty percent survival with the right treatment?"
Debra cleared her throat, "Once you gets th' virus, you will get sick, doesn' always happen all at once-a year ago, I looked like her-" Deb pointed at a ginger girl with a cream complexion, "Ah had th' virus, same as anyone else-but mah immune system was fightin' it a good fight...jus not good 'nough, now ah got th' face you're seein...but ah ain' contagious no more...but you expose a trueborn Clannah, an' those survival rates drop to ten percent, and they never git non-contagious, even after they's done whupped th' illness phase an' ain' in danger of dying no more."
"so you're letting the ones that survive...live with people?" a young man in the Chahar MTM's colors asked.
"ayup. they're still people." Debra said, "an' we still can use what they know an' can still do, and it wouldn' be right to turn them away-not when they're willin' to immigrate, integrate, and marry in. The docs have a theory thet it's th' overbreedin' done it to 'em-no junk DNA, so the virus hangs 'round instead of being metabolized-their kids, in theory, should be okay, not carriers-but that's only if they marry in an' have normal kids...Ah won' countenance murder nor genocide, an' ah am of th' belief neither does the Archon."
"Do you know what the Clans have done?" the young man stepped forward, and Carlos' posture shifted slightly to a 'ready' status.
Debra met the young man's eyes, "My father fought them from '49 to '52." she said, "Ah dam-well do...an' it wasn' th' Clans killed seven billion or more thus farly, including most of my homeworld." she stepped forward, "You're from Chahar, an' your folks had it hard, but I watched my world die. up close. Seein' it, smellin' it. Burn pits filled with thousands of bodies, unburied dead in the streets, people crazed in despair and sickness doing unspeakable things to anyone they could catch." she slapped her holster, "This ain' decorative, suh-et was necessary an' in some parts of my homeworld, it is still necess'ry."
the young Hauptmann from Chahar met her eyes, and they locked. Debra held his gaze, until...he averted his eyes, "Many pardons, Baroness...I spoke out of turn."
"Forgiv'n." Debra told him.
"Baroness Debra MacAulliffe!" another Liveried servant-this time, a graying man with a stack of service-stripes on his uniform.
"Heah." Deb answered.
"It is time." the old man said.
The group of heirs and nobles-in-waiting parted like the red sea, and Debra stepped through them, radiate confidence...radiate confidence... she tried to figure out what that was, and how to do it, through the screaming anxiety she was feeling.
