A War Most Modest (JNC Edition) Read online

  “......Boy, you really, really suck at lightening a guy’s mood. What do we do? We haven’t got any weapons.”

  “Is there no means of escape?”

  “We’re at a loss.”

  “I surmised as much.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. But we can make it out of here with your help. Hate to ask, but could you take a connecting vessel over here? If you could do that for us, then things might just go our way.”

  “Where do I take it?”

  “Right above us. There’s a pier up there.”

  Lafier had to stop herself from diving into a series of questions.

  “Your Highness” interrupted Arsa. “I’ve pinpointed Lonh-lym. He’s at the Chicrh Blységar (Flight Control Room).”

  “Did you hear that, Jinto? It seems the Baron hasn’t the time to murder you at the moment.”

  “He never makes any time for me,” said Jinto, sighing with relief.

  Suddenly, the walls went dark. Half of the numerals and diagrams gamboling across them disappeared.

  “What happened?” asked Lafier.

  At first, Arsa didn’t answer, her fingers dancing furiously across the console. Finally, she lifted her head. “The functionalities this room shares with the Flight Control Room have been taken over by them, Fïac. But it’ll all be okay. I closed off part of the input of the computing crystal network. That means we should be able to maintain our present conditions despite Lonh-lym’s directives.”

  “Which functionalities did they take over?”

  “Remote management of the antimatter fuel factory and the fuel’s storage asteroid, monitoring of intra-system floating bodies, intra-system communications — That sort of thing.”

  “Can we control take-off from the pier?”

  Arsa was loath to tell her: “I’m sorry, but that’s always been restricted to the Flight Control Room.”

  “No matter. We’ll manage.” Military vessels were equipped with the ability to lift off without Flight Control’s aid.

  “I’m going to the connecting vessel.”

  “Yes, please leave everything here to us,” replied Seelnay. “Incidentally, Cfaspia’s was the only weapon in the office.”

  “Why were those servants carrying weapons to begin with?”

  “They’re the Baron’s favorites. And by ‘favorites,’ I mean...” Seelnay didn’t hide her disgust. “His lovers. They’re the only ones with the right to bear arms. And that’s not the only privilege they enjoy either, like how during mealtimes they’re allowe—”

  “Yes, quite.” Lafier interrupted Seelnay’s impending diatribes. Every second was of the essence. Holding the phone back up, she said, “Jinto, I’m leaving now.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” he said, his words full of a puppy-like trust in her.

  Lafier hung up. They’d continue their chat later.

  “Fïac Lartnér, I’ve opened up all the doors leading to the landing lot,” said Arsa, thus making her conscientiousness known, and in short order at that.

  “You have my thanks,” she nodded to Arsa. Then, facing Greda: “I’d like to speak to Jinto from inside the vessel. Is the phone connected to the general line?”

  “I don’t think so...” Greda tilted her head. “If I recall correctly, the way it’s constructed makes it independent from the general line. As such... I can only assume it’d be impossible without some work done. Albeit, that work wouldn’t be particularly difficult... but still...”

  “Is there another way?” They had no time to waste doing construction work.

  “You could just take the phone to the Retirement Zone,” suggested Arsa.

  “Do you think you could do that?”

  Seelnay clapped her hands together. “The Chicrh Spaurhot Mata (2nd Service Pantry!).”

  “What?”

  “There’s a food transport passageway that runs from the 2nd Service Pantry to Lonh-lym Raica’s Retirement Zone,” she explained. “We could use it to deliver the phone to them. I’m not in charge of the area, but I have done some menial labor there, so I know the kitchen.”

  “So, it can be done,” said Lafier, double-checking.

  “Yes,” Seelnay nodded.

  “Are there any extra phones?”

  “Yes, if you don’t mind using my compuwatch, Your Highness,” offered Seelnay.

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Heavens me, of course not! Regardless of what may happen to me, I would sacrifice anything for Your Highness, let alone one or two compuwatches...”

  “Thank you,” she said, plugging Seelnay’s zealous outpouring. “Your compuwatch’s number, if you would.” She registered Seelnay’s number into her own compuwatch.

  “Okay, allow me to head to the Service Pantry. With Arsa’s special skills, she should man the office,” said Seelnay, apparently forgetting all about Greda. She was now clutching to her chest the device that moments before had adorned her wrist, as it was now her treasure.

  “Be careful.” But Lafier immediately regretted saying that. There was a 100% chance it would trigger a torrent of overblown emotion in her. And sure enough:

  “Oh, Fïac Lartnér, what an absolute honor...” Predictably, Seelnay seemed likely to collapse into a puddle of tears on the spot.

  I wonder what Jinto does whenever this happens, Lafier thought to herself idly.

  No, this was no time for idle contemplation. “I’m leaving. Good luck.”

  “Your Highness, wait!” Seelnay dialed back her own storm of weeping and rushed over to her. “Please take this. Lonh-Ïarlucec Dreur will be needing a weapon, too.”

  Lafier’s eyes fell on the phaser she was being handed. “But what about your own defense? Surely you need a weapon yourself?”

  “I have the one Cfaspia dropped,” she said, indicating her paralyzer gun.

  “Understood.” Lafier took it, holstered it in her sash-belt, and dashed out of the Homemakers’ Office.

  Chapter 2: Bar Gairsath (The Style of the Abh)

  You fool! You tremendous, doddering fool! Remorse was driving daggers through the Baron of Febdash’s heart.

  Why did I let down my guard? Why did I take such half-measures, so totally unlike an Abh?

  He should have either rushed her departure immediately (as was his first idea), or else thrown her under strict lock and key without worrying about the consequences down the line.

  Having shaken off any and all tipsiness, his hatred of the servants who betrayed him intensified as he brooded. Why are they putting so much faith in the Empire? Don’t they realize that the Empire could very well give this territory up as lost?

  But the biggest shock of all was the surprising fragility of his reign. The maid-staff he’d believed would obey him to the ends of the universe instead changed sides the day a royal princess dropped by.

  What was once diamond-clad in his mind was now hollowest glass. It had taken practically nothing to utterly shatter.

  “But you, you’re all with me, aren’t you?” the Baron bayed at the Flight Control Room’s assembled servants, who were the four that had flanked him plus the two who’d already been there.

  “‘With you,’ as in, our loyalties, my lord?” asked Flight Control Officer Faigdacpéc Mwineesh.

  “Yes, that’s what I mean!”

  “Have no doubt,” she consoled him.

  “I’m upset you would even ask that, my lord,” piped in Faigdacpéc Belsa, Captain of their makeshift combat unit.

  “Y-yes, yes of course, you are my only true servants. You’ll follow me through thick and thin, won’t you? Even with a royal princess as our enemy.”

  “We’d stay by your side if Her Majesty the Empress herself declared war on you,” averred Belsa.

  However, her readiness to declare that only made him think it a shallow platitude.

  No, I must rid myself of this paranoia! The Baron swallowed down his gnawing suspicion. He needed naught but to remind everyone who was king. Then the servants would think better o
f their little change of heart and swear fealty to him once again.

  In his head, the Baron began to select which servants he could expect to be loyal. If he set his standards too high, then there were not many candidates to speak of.

  “This is the Homemakers’ Office speaking. Attention all servant staff,” resounded Arsa’s voice.

  “What the!?” But the Baron hardly needed to inquire.

  “It’s the speaker,” replied Mwineesh, equally perfunctorily.

  “There is dissension in the estate. I repeat, an incident is currently unfolding. As for why, His Honorable Lordship has unduly stranded Her Highness the Royal Princess’s connecting vessel while she is on a military mission. All she wishes is to leave this orbital estate at once, alongside the Honorable Noble Prince of the Countdom of Hyde with whom she arrived. As such...”

  “Computing crystals!” The Baron attempted to stop the broadcast in its tracks by connecting to the computing crystal network by means of his compuwatch. Yet he was greeted by an unfeeling response.

  “Connecting to the computing crystal network is not possible.”

  “What!? Why!? I am the master of this mansion!” The system was set up to recognize his voice as the one with top access.

  “The main line telephone is currently offline,” explained the compuwatch. “Please use a terminal kiosk.”

  The Baron clicked his tongue. “Tch!” This was undoubtedly the doing of the crowd still at the Homemakers’ Office. “Activate the terminal,” he ordered Mwineesh.

  Meanwhile, Arsa’s announcement was continuing apace. “...So please, my dear colleagues, let us all cooperate with Her Highness. After all, she has promised to set us up as servants to the House of Crybh. Then we can finally reach the capital of our dreams, Lacmhacarh (LAHKFAHKAHRR)!”

  “What a load of rubbish!” said the Baron to his servants. “Don’t buy into that nonsense. A royal family would never take in servants so readily. Mwineesh, the terminal?”

  “It’s no use,” she shrugged. “It’s not connecting.”

  “Those damn traitors! How much do they intend to get in my way!?” He pointed at Belsa. “You lot, come with me. We’ll use a different terminal. Mwineesh, you stay here and carry out your duties here.”

  “Please wait,” said Mwineesh. “Someone has infiltrated a connecting vessel. It must be Her Highness.”

  “What did you say?” The Baron grimaced. If the vessel achieved lift off, then he would be faced with a bitter choice.

  Arsa’s broadcast had reached Lafier’s ears up until the moment she entered the elevator-tube.

  She just had to go and say that, huh, thought Lafier, as she settled into the steerer’s seat.

  She didn’t know whether it was a misunderstanding on the part of Seelnay or Arsa, but it wasn’t up to Lafier to choose the servants of the Crybh family. She thought she’d made that quite clear. It wasn’t as though Lafier wished to be regarded as a bonehead incapable of guile, but telling such insipid lies left dents on her pride nonetheless.

  Oh well. Her father had always told her that the words of Imperials were always interpreted in whichever way proved most convenient to the listener.

  Lafier banished her embarrassment and linked up her circlet’s access-point cables into the steering apparatus. Thus, she awakened to the structures beneath her.

  What a comically small, miniscule world. The heat and light of Febdash’s star blew from beyond this world’s corners, while she basked in the sorely-missed twinkling of the stars from above.

  She transferred the map info of the Baron’s estate from the compuwatch to the vessel’s computing crystals. Using the pier’s location as a landmark, she incorporated the map into her frocragh spatiosensory perception. The subsequent sensation made her feel as though she were looking through the floor (even though she knew it hadn’t actually become transparent). Through her frocragh, she could now discern every wall and surface that divided up the estate’s various zones.

  Her control glove equipped and ready, she commenced emergency take off procedures. The names of each onboard instrument hurtled across the main display screen at imperceptible speeds, until at last the glyphs meaning “NO ABNORMALITIES DETECTED” shone bright for her.

  The only issue was the fact that the ship’s landing gear was stuck into the dock. It wouldn’t detach without Flight Control’s say-so. Naturally, asking Flight Control for help would be fruitless.

  Therefore, Lafier didn’t hesitate to leave the landing gear behind her. Though it would certainly make landing the ship inconvenient, there was no other option.

  She sealed the air lock and fired up the jets. The vessel disengaged from the dock.

  She expanded her external-input frocragh to a radius of 10 sedagh, or 10,000 kilometers, and probed the surrounding astrospace. She could sense it — the antimatter fuel asteroid lay extremely close by.

  Was it truly out of fuel, as the Baron claimed? No, that was obviously false, a lie fabricated on the spur of the moment to detain her. She would have needed Flight Control to refuel on the docks, but she could refuel without their help if she sourced it directly from the asteroid itself. While it was little dicey, she was confident she’d know what she was doing, given her academy training.

  Should I stop to refuel?

  Two paths, two choices: She could either comply with Jinto’s plea immediately, or refuel beforehand. It was not a choice she could make lightly.

  She dialed Seelnay’s number into her compuwatch. “It is not currently equipped,” came its cold, robotic response.

  Still...? Lafier was dismayed, but she collected herself in no time. Then we refuel. She directed the vessel toward the fuel storage asteroid.

  That was when the asteroid started zooming away. It had begun to accelerate toward Febdash’s star.

  Lafier pursued it. This vessel’s acceleration capabilities far outstripped it. Furthermore, games of space tag were a staple pastime among Abh children, and Lafier had been a particularly deft hand at catching her fleeing peers.

  However, when she had closed half of the distance between them, the asteroid suddenly exploded. Charged particles bombarded the ship’s bow. In a panic, Lafier expanded her frocragh by a factor of 100, and determined that faraway fuel storage asteroids were also silently detonating, one after the other. Their sun was now encircled by a veritable ring of explosions.

  Given the speed of light, they had to have been directed to explode all at once.

  The fuel asteroids weren’t the only things to be lost. Her cylindrical thrusters had pushed her away from the spaceport, and now she was cruising via inertia. After she had distanced herself far enough away from the orbital estate, it, too, exploded — the antimatter fuel stored at the spaceport had been dumped.

  I commend you, Baron of Fedash. The Royal Princess’s opinion of him improved. He had done nothing so roundabout as blowing each asteroid up individually. Instead, he had jettisoned every last molecule of antimatter fuel he could. Such was very much the style of the Abh.

  It was a positively majestic proclamation of war, and Lafier was obliged to respond in the Abh manner as well. After she rescued Jinto, she would ensure the Baron paid the ultimate price. For this day, he would die by her hand.

  When first they met, she noticed his head was a slight bit too big compared to his shoulder width. It was a subtle defect that would go unnoticed by all except the Abh, versed as they were in the precepts of beauty. Yet his head was most certainly oversized. It was offensively ugly.

  In fact, were the space above his shoulders to be relieved of that eyesore, the cosmos could breathe easy once again.

  Lafier bade the ship retrace its path, and narrowed the scope of her frocragh. She searched for Jinto’s confinement zone as she approached the mansion.

  It didn’t appear on the map, but there were certainly the vestiges of a pier in that zone. She took her time pacing toward the Confinement Zone’s pier, thrusters at low speed like sighs in the wind.

&nbs
p; Then, her compuwatch beeped — call incoming.

  “Lafier!” Jinto shouted into the compuwatch he’d just taken out of the refrigerator there.

  Lafier’s reply came instantly. “Jinto, you must listen carefully. I can’t touch down. Standard boarding procedure is impossible.”

  “What do you mean?” A faint anxiety shot through him.

  “I mean... are there any gonœc (pressurized suits) there? If so, it won’t be an issue.”

  “Damn, I thought that’s what you’d say,” Jinto groaned. “Nope, no pressurized suits.”

  “That’s a shame. But I’ll be needing you to swim through space, then. I’ll bring the ship as close as I can,” she said casually. “At my signal, open the hatch. I’ll drop a careugec (grappling cord) from the air lock room.”

  “Thank you, sure,” said Jinto feebly.

  There was no shortage of air in their sector, so it would take quite some time for that air to leak completely. If they didn’t face too much difficulty, it would unfold not dissimilarly to an expedition up a tall mountain. But could it really go that smoothly? He wasn’t sure he could get his hopes up.

  He looked back to spy Sruf’s expression, only to be met with a hung head.

  “Why’s it I get the feeling keeping you company ain’t so great for a man’s health?”

  “But you are gonna keep my company, right?” asked Jinto.

  “Even if I told ya otherwise, you’d go open the hatch anyways. And I don’t plan on shriveling up any time soon.”

  “Yeah, probably would,” concurred Jinto understatedly.

  “But from another angle, the honor of an audience with Her Highness the Royal Princess might be just the head-clearer I need.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it. Since as long as we’re together, one thing we’ll never be is bored.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be an adventure and a half for you. Meanwhile I’ll just be reminded of how old and frail I am. But so be it, boy. I might as well go pack my bags now.”

  Straining against the estate’s artificial gravity, Lafier kept the connecting vessel at a safe distance. Almost directly below her and less than 100 dagh away lay the hatch.