

By the same author:

The Racetrack Chronicle

EVADED CADENCE. Text and original images copyright © Simon J. Dodd 2016–2019. All rights reserved, except as otherwise provided on this page.

www.SimonDodd.org

www.TheRacetrackChronicle.com

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is a property of Universal Network Television LLC.

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EVADED CADENCE. First edition, December 2019, 2d imp. Excepting elements subject to Universal's copyright, this first edition of "Evaded Cadence" is offered subject to a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license A.M.D.G. You may share the book so long as you charge no money and provide appropriate links and credit. You are not authorized to use the book or any part of it for or to any commercial purpose or effects of any kind.

"Evaded Cadence," "The Racetrack Chronicle," and their associated materials are works of fan-written fiction. They are fan-written: No authorization by or association with Universal Network Television LLC should be inferred. And it is fiction: The characters, settings, and events described took place 150,000 years ago, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, at any time in recorded human history, is therefore entirely coincidental... Albeit hilarious.

Heartfelt thanks to those who made it possible: To my family, of course; to Ronald D. Moore, David Eick, Remi Aubuchon, Kevin Grazier, Jane Espenson, and Kevin Murphy; Deborah Dalton, Simon Day, Chris Delnat, Steven Ward, Dorien & Evelien Verheyen, and Dan Woodell; Sam Bunch, Chris Dykes, Heather Ennis, Lindsey & Sean Kelly, Mike Vidrine, and Renée Whitfield; Beth Yoder, Paul Chafe, James S.A. Corey, C.G.P. Grey, Greg Pies, and Antonin Scalia; Leah Cairns et fam.; Lindsay Lennox et fam.; Edward T. Yeatts; and to Dave R, who rescued hours of work from a terrifying data corruption disaster.

Editor: Jeff Ford.

Front cover: Cyrannus model by Simon Dodd, based on a design by Geoffrey Mandel.

Rear cover: Ocean: ---=XEON=--- CC3.0 BY; Arenal: Shmuel Spiegelman, CC1.0 BY-SA.

Character digital paintings by xrayStu, www.sketchaprint.co.uk.

For Kendall, Grace, Kaiden, Keillan, Ava, & Alice.

EVADED CADENCE

Simon J. Dodd

Contents

Frontispiece: The Cyrannus system

A note on Calendars

Cast of Characters

Portrait: Nagala

Prelude: The Funeral

Portrait: Luke

Act One: The Sound of Distant Thunder

Interlude 1

Portrait: Haiden

Act Two: The Geometry of Moments

Portrait: Forsyth

Act Three: The Locus of Power

Portrait: Frances

Act Four: Cataclysm

Interlude 2

Portrait: Carolyn

Act Five: Dancing on the Rim of the Volcano

Postlude: Machinae ex Deo

Appendices and maps:

Map: Helios Alpha.

Map: Caprica City (detail: Pyrmont).

Map: The Peconic Ocean, Canceron (detail: Kitkatla).

Tables: The 1992 and 1996 Colonial elections.

Table: Calendars on Picon and Virgon.

Glossary: Geographic locations.

Glossary: Organizational terms.

Note: On canon.

**Out now:** _The Racetrack Chronicle._

Preview.

## A note on Calendars

Humanity was born in the cradle of Kobol, a planet with a 24-hour rotational period ("day") and a 365-day orbit ("year"). The pre-Exodus calendaring system is lost to history.

The nations founded colonies on the worlds of the Cyrannus system. These worlds had periods and orbits of their own, and the colonies, naturally, evolved calendars of their own. Centuries of war and peace further complicated timekeeping. But humans remain human, and some standardized measure of time and its regulation remained necessary.

Miraculously—surely a sign showing the favor of the gods!—two of Cyrannus' worlds (the first colony, Gemenon, and its binary-twin world, the last colony, Caprica) shared Kobol's period and orbit, almost to the minute. For much of our history, the Intercolonial Commission maintained the Gemeni _–Kobol Standard Reference Calendar_ ("GSKR"), which ignores local time and divides 365 24-hour-days into twelve-month years, and counts the number of those years "After the Exodus" ("A.E.").

As ICC influence waned and Caprica rose to commercial, cultural, and ultimately political preeminence, the Caprican calendar, despite idiosyncrasies peculiar to its orbit, became the standard in commercial transactions. When the new Colonial Government and Supreme Headquarters, Colonial Defense Forces set up shop on Caprica as the Insurrection became the War, it was convenient that they adopt that planet's calendar in substance, but politically expedient that it be _called_ something else. Thus was born the _Kobol Standardized Reference Calendar_ ("KSRC"), a synthesis of the GKSR's structure and Caprican names, stripped of Caprican idiosyncrasies.

For consistency and ease of reference, this book will recount all dates according to that Calendar, except as otherwise noted.

## Cast of Characters

THE PRESIDENT AND HIS STAFF

Richard H. Adar Seventh President of the United Colonies of Kobol.

Kenneth Adelyne Dir., Cavendish House Comms. Office.

Carolyn Culverson Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff.

Francesca Innes Cavendish House Counsel.

Claire Kikuchi Dir., Cavendish House Political Office.

Jerome G. Kominsky Cavendish House Chief of Staff.

THE MILITARY

Gen. Kimberly Bratton, CMC Commandant of the Colonial Marine Corps.

Adm. Peter R. Corman, CF Chief of Staff, Colonial Fleet Headquarters.

Cdr. Charles C. Landon, CF Commanding Officer, battlestar Atlantia.

Adm. Edward Nagala, CF Chief of Fleet Operations, Colonial Fleet.

THE CIRCUS

Emily Gutierrez Speechwriter and aide to Volakis.

Connie Haiden, CF (ret.) Federalist candidate for President.

Paul Katraine MIC Assistant Director of Campaigns.

Gerald K. Ostrakov FIC Dir. of Campaigns; Haiden Campaign Mgr.

Aldred Marineo MIC Director of Campaigns.

Robert Sirica Hon. Chair, MIC; Volakis Campaign Mgr.

Anne Vanssen Assistant to Adm. Haiden.

Hon. Lucas B. Volakis Municipalist candidate for President.

THE CAPRICA TRIBUNE

Caleb Banaias Executive Editor.

Jennifer Welles-Forsyth Political Editor.

Carl Hook Political Reporter.

THE REST

His Highness Andrew III The King of Virgon.

Hon. Katherine Byrne Chief Justice of the Colonies.

Nicola Edmondson Carolyn's flatmate.

Arjun Forsyth Jen Forsyth's husband.

Elizabeth Gerstmann Colonial Minister of Defence, 1,999-.

Penny Helms Colonial Minister of Defence, 1,992-1,999.

Rt. Hon. Kent Novak, M.P. Incoming Prime Minister of Caprica.

Rep. Uri Leiter (F-Tau.) Member, Joint Committee on Defence.

Hon. Sam Reed Sec. of Justice, Scorpia.

# Prelude: The Funeral

Queenstown Cathedral, Picon.

September 9, 1,998 years After the Exodus from Kobol.

"My dear brothers and sisters, the first reading is from the Scroll of Aurora," Edward Nagala intoned. "The Goddess of the Dawn," he added, as was prescribed.

As if, the thought crossed his mind, there might be some confusion with some other Scroll of Aurora.

Seventeen months before the Fall of the Twelve Worlds.

He glanced out over the congregation, which had packed a respectable arc of the ancient building. The cathedral was of the same toroidal plan as Pantheon temples throughout the Worlds, raised to a grander scale. At its heart, beneath a wide oculus in the roof and ringed by a reflecting-pool, stood Poseidon, the Patron of Picon. The marble image of the God of the Deep was frozen mid-stride between the western Gate of Hespiridea, Harbinger of the Sunset, and its easterly Auroran counterpart, jaw set, face determined, trident thrust aloft before him in a fittingly Olympian pose.

Outside the reflecting pool's perimeter, eleven massive pillars clad in a polished black basalt soared skyward. Each was a shrine to the other Elder Gods of the Day: Zeus, directly north of His brother, then Hephaestus, Dionysus, Apollo, Hermes, and Demeter; Hera, Hestia, Artemis, Athena, and Ares. From their tops, finger-like vaulting splayed out and reached for an outer orbit of pillars. These were the shrines to the Lesser Gods of the Day. Guarding the foyer were two rough-hewn bluestones, stand-ins for Chronos and Rhea, the parents of Zeus, and Poseidon—and of Hades, whose chapel was in the crypt below.

There was symbolism in every detail, Nagala was sure. Wrapping the columns in pious decoration and religious function was a cunning way of disguising their more banal purpose: Supporting the roof. Still, it was impressive, he would admit—not without a touch of ancestral pride. This edifice had been a wonder of the worlds and a tourist attraction in the Pican capital for almost a thousand years, but it had not been raised by Picans. This was the work of men and women of his world. As much as it was a temple to the gods whose shrines and devotionals dotted its interior, it was a monument to the might and ambition of Virgon's golden age.

He cleared his throat and began.

"'How, then, shall a man know his gods?'"

None of the words he now forced through his mouth connected with him. It was sad that his friend was dead, but satisfying that so many had turned out on a drizzly morning to say goodbye; somehow, funerals were never the place to speak so plainly.

"'But what if thieves should walk among the gods, taking for themselves the ensigns of divinity?'"

A significant fraction of the Colonial Forces' field-grade officers were packed into the building. Many would doubtless claim that they had studied under the man they were here to bury, during his years as Commandant of the officer-candidate school that bore the name of the god whose likeness now loomed over Nagala. That was an exaggeration. But not by much, as their presence affirmed.

A good man, Bob King, Nagala thought—but not a very practical one. A life broken by one stupid accident, by one stupid mistake, years ago, and then by his own stupid sense of honor and religious guilt. Eight months ago, Commander King had resigned. Everyone in the congregation knew that. A short illness had followed, and people had drawn their own inferences. How many knew the real story, Nagala wondered? That he had done so after two Midshipmen had uncovered the long-ago accident, obliging him to confess his part in it? As few as possible, Nagala hoped. The last thing they needed was scandal.

Officially, the Admiral, the Chief of Fleet Operations, had no opinion on such matters. After a glass or two of sherry, Ed Nagala, private citizen, would say that he was proud that, in a Service swollen with careerists, some remained willing to do the right thing and pay the price for it. In the precincts of his own mind, he doubted they could afford such gods-fearing luxuries.

Lest there be some doubt about the capacity in which he was attending the funeral, Nagala had worn a suit rather than uniform. Family tradition, he would plead, should anyone ask.

Not that anyone would dare ask.

Seating was by seniority. Forward of the field officers sat a few dozen officers of Pennant rank. Brigadier Natalia Caldwell, King's erstwhile colleague and successor, wept openly; a decidedly un-Marine-like display, Nagala thought, but it was little secret she and King had been close. Commander Helena Cain sat next to Caldwell, one arm around her and a hand on her shoulder; she had worked with King and Caldwell before getting her own command, and Nagala had resolved that she would make Admiral early if he had to have 'Pistol Pete' beat the appointment out of the President.

Beside Cain were three more Commanders—oafs promoted above their competence, in Nagala's judgment. And in that regard (he would admit after a third sherry), depressingly-average. Then there was Commander Bill Adama, looking about the same as he always did. Which was remarkable in itself: In a sea of dress greys and black formalwear, Adama wore duty blues. Must have arrived late, Nagala thought; the man was notoriously averse to pomp, but a stickler for protocol. Another one more honorable than practical for Nagala's liking, but a safe pair of hands to drop a problem into. Like those Midshipmen. Admonson or something? Well, she would be Adama's problem soon.

He would have to check the name, in case he was asked. The mystique had to be kept up; the pretense that Nagala knew everyone's name.

On the fringe of the congregation, he spied Commander Charles C. "Skip" Landon leaning against a pillar, arms folded. Notwithstanding any implicit insult to whichever deity whose shrine he was defiling, Landon was another good one, who now sailed Nagala's last command, the Atlantia. He'd have to try to catch Landon at the reception after the funeral and ask about 'our' ship.

He should not be so pessimistic. He had good people under his command; Landon was pretty good, Adama too. Cain was excellent.

"'...How I shall grieve with you gone, that strength in you finally given way.'"

How drearily-poetic it all is, he thought. It was difficult to understand how otherwise intelligent men like King became so religious. There's not a single actionable thought in any of this. And yet... King had always been devout, even more so in his final months. And in such stark contrast—the godsless administration of President Richard Adar? Was that better? More palatable for being more understandable?

So maybe Bobby was onto something.

When had he become so cynical, anyway? No, not cynical; tired. No, better: Spent. There was the right word.

What was decidedly an actionable thought—one that might be more usefully included in a funeral liturgy than vague blather about the gods—was the one that had occupied his mind since he had arrived: We've only got a little time, so we'd better crack on. He had no intention of retiring; certainly not while "Tricky Dicky" was still President and could replace him. Nagala had things left to do, if he had the time and could find the energy.

The front row was reserved for Flag officers, and it was populated more sparsely. General Kim Bratton had shown up, Nagala's counterpart at the Marine Corps HQ, which was good of her. But few of the Fleet's flag officers had. When King had fallen, he had taken Admiral Jonathan Earle down with him. Nagala had been not in the slightest bit sorry to see the last of that Adar bootlicker, the epitome of the careerist hack. But not everyone at FHQ shared that assessment, and the rest didn't want to take sides.

Admiral Peter Corman, however, was there. Nagala was still undecided on 'Pistol Pete,' Earle's replacement, although, being energetic, pragmatic, and blessedly apolitical, he could scarcely fail to be an improvement. Energy was what Nagala needed above all else as his own declined. Time, energy, a clear enemy on the horizon, and a trustworthy lieutenant at his right.

And not one person showed up from the Administration, Nagala noted, bleakly. Not the President; not the Minister of Defence; not even a personal representative. Hell, at this point he'd have taken Carolyn Culverson. At least that would have shown interest.

Or maybe it was better that they leave him alone? Could indifference be any worse than meddling?

"'...In sure and certain hope that we will meet again in that vale beyond shadows.'" Nagala paused. He looked around the congregation, pretending to meet everyone else's eye. "And may this be said by us all."

"So say we all," the congregation murmured.

Nagala made his way back to the front row, stiff, cautious, the click of his cane against the stone floor reverberating off the pillars. Something has to change. I have to do... something. But what? What's the endgame here, he wondered, as two choirs sung an antiphon in ancient Kobollian:

Dies illa veniet, dies iræ,

calamitátis et misériæ,

Dies valde magna et amára,

dum redibunt iudico sǽcula

In ignem.

Edward Hackett Nagala was not a very religious man. But, a scion of Virgan aristocracy raised before the war, he had learned the ancient language early enough that it had stuck. The melody of the chant was as melancholy as his mood, and the interplay of the two choirs was complex, but neither obscured the bone-chilling sentiment of the words. It was the same sentiment that had haunted Nagala for his entire tenure at Fleet Headquarters.

"The day is coming ... when the gods shall return to judge the worlds by fire."

# ACT ONE.   
THE SOUND OF DISTANT THUNDER.

## Chapter One: Luke.

Themis, Libran.

November, 1,999 A.E.

"Thirty-year-old cognac? From Leonis?"

"All cognac is Leonine, Luke." Sirica passed him a glass. "Otherwise it's just brandy."

"Hrr. Expensive cigars and booze—what's with VIP treatment?"

Fourteen months in, retirement was treating Chief Justice Lucas B. Volakis well. Domesticity suited him. His apartment was thirty minutes' walk along the riverside from the courthouse if he fancied visiting; fifteen from the largest law-library in the Colonies if he fancied reading or writing. He had settled into a comfortable pattern, writing an article every few months, and was trying his hand at a crime novel; gods knew he had the experience to draw on. Children and grandchildren flitted through a few at a time, and old friends like Robert Sirica stopped by every few weeks.

This time, he suspected, it wasn't a social call.

Luke liked to tell people that he had held and retired from the oldest extant office in the Colonies. When the Articles of Colonization had created what was now called the 'Federal' or 'Colonial' government, the Supreme Court of the Colonies had absorbed the old Intercolonial Court, swallowing its jurisdiction and infrastructure whole. That life had suited him, too. Phlegmatic and affable, he had led the court with equanimity in the majority, humor in dissent, and a good cheer in all things that had ensured that even opponents never became enemies.

And he had built a legacy. A quarter-century of caselaw, a school of jurisprudential thought fanned-out across the Twelve Worlds by law-clerks turned lawyers turned professors and judges, and even lawyers who were skeptical of his jurisprudence affected his gravelly baritone.

"President?" Luke frowned. "What, of the Colonies?"

"Yes."

"That's..." He cast around for a word, settling on—"surprising."

"Is it?" Sirica dragged on his cigar and blew smoke into the evening. "Adar's term-limited. He couldn't win even if he could run again, and he'll drag down any candidate the Federalists can bring forward. Set aside all the usual factors, the stuff you'd have in any election. The fallout from Aerilon's toxic; they threw the Defence Minister to the wolves and you know what it did?"

"Yes, yes. Offer the press a sacrificial lamb and you only remind them of their taste for lamb. I know."

"It's not only the press. They're the least of it; they're in the tank for Adar, doing the absolute minimum necessary to slake their professional consciences. Not only people on our side, either. There's real unrest abroad, and small wonder: Marines opened fire on civilians, and whatever the truth of it, the Adar administration looks like it's done everything in its power to stop a full accounting. There's been strikes, talk of general strikes on five worlds, talk on two of them about secession! Rumor has it Adar's unstable and drinking heavily, and I think that'll only get worse when Novak takes office on Caprica. You're not there. I live in Caprica City, and here's how it looks to me: The government's in crisis. It may fall. If proof comes out that there was an authorization to open fire that came from Adar, it will fall. But even if it staggers on, there's an election one year from now."

"Well, so the Tribune tells me. But I don't know what you want me to do about it. I'm not a politician."

"Which is the point," Sirica pressed. "My business is optics. Think about the optics, Luke: You've got name-recognition and credibility. Anyone who follows politics and doesn't like Adar, they'll look at you and say 'perfect, that's our guy.' And the rest—they'll see what they think of as a Presidential type. The look, the voice, the background, they'll say 'yeah, sure, that makes sense.' I'm telling you: Announce in the next few weeks, and you blow away any competition before the race even starts."

"I'm happy to smoke cigars with you, Bob, and this good brandy. But I'm not really interested."

Sirica gave him a wry grin. "I am appealing to your sense of patriotism."

"Low blow." He scoffed. "I'm seventy years old! I've got a great-granddaughter and another on the way. I've got a card-game and season tickets for the Stingers. Why would I want to schlep around the twelve worlds for a year, prostrating myself for the masses?"

"Because you want to be the eighth President of the Colonies."

"The frak I do! Clean up Dick Adar's mess for four years? No thanks."

"President, Luke! Think about it. You know what the President does."

"I know what this President does."

"Half the capital knows who this President does."

"Is that, ah," Luke chuckled, "what they call an 'uncountable noun'?"

They traded knowing smiles and clinked glasses. For a while, they sat and looked out over the city. All along both banks of the river, lights were coming on as the sun ebbed below the horizon. It was the ragged end of summer in Libran's capital, and Luke's balcony had a lovely southerly view across the river toward Tuning Fork Park, where the city's iconic butte reared out of the ground, its tops still bathed in gold by the setting sun.

"I'm being serious," Sirica said. "Look, Adar may be Scorpian by birth, but he's Caprican in every way that counts. They've been implementing a program, and maybe that program works on Caprica. But it doesn't work everywhere. Certainly not when it's imposed by fiat from Cav House. Some of it got struck down—by you! Your court, Luke; sometimes your own hand! So here it is. Next year there's an election in which we'll hold the Quorum. The Congress, it's a fifty-fifty shot, but I like our chances. And then there's the Presidency. You'd win. I'm certain of it. You could roll back some of Adar's overreach and you'll go down in history as the man who kept the Colonies together. So don't tell me you're not interested. Don't tell me you're not tempted."

Luke sipped his brandy. Everyone likes to be flattered. And it was flattering; it was nice to be asked.

"For sake of argument... Say that you talk me into this." He paused. The thought crossed his mind that if he didn't speak soon, Sirica would pass out, so obviously was the latter holding his breath. "I wouldn't know where to begin. You people—I mean, the party, you've an organization that can take care of that kind of thing?"

"We do. For you, I'd run the campaign myself."

"And you think that the worlds want to elect an over-the-hill judge in his dotage?"

"I've known you, what, 45 years? I know you like the self-deprecation. But this isn't the time for it."

"It's not self-deprecation! I don't want the job. I understand your play, and I'm not saying no, but... Frak, we're too old for this, aren't we?"

"Yeah." Sirica shrugged and was silent for another moment. "They tried a young guy. Adar was supposed to be the new generation taking the reins—and it's been a disaster. It's not the time. We need stability and retrenchment. We need adult supervision. Everyone knows it; in his heart of hearts, even Gerald Ostrakov knows it."

"'The old pros from the club.' Something like that?"

"Exactly. It's early November on Caprica. Say the word and I'll put out feelers. Let me book you on a talk show. Shake some hands; smile for the worlds. Make it clear that you're in, and you'll get a couple of good months of press before New Years."

Luke swirled his brandy and stared into it. "I'm not saying no."

## Chapter Two: Carolyn.

Cavendish House.

Pyrmont (the Federal District), Midtown Caprica City.

"My guy says Robert Sirica was in Themis yesterday, meeting Lucas Volakis," Carolyn Culverson said. She was 34, and the second youngest person in the room after Frances Innes, a pale, delicate, redheaded Canceran who had joined the team as Cavendish House Counsel eight months prior. Kenneth Adelyne, the Virgan Communications Director, was a decade older, as were Claire Kikuchi, the Policy Affairs Director and another Canceran, and Fred Mason, a Caprican lawyer for the Federalist International Committee. J.G. Kominsky, the Chief of Staff, was 48; he was Gemenese by birth but, like the President, Caprican his entire adult life.

Adelyne—gluttony, definitely gluttony. But he likes the horses, too. Kikuchi—pride. Always the idealist. Mason—lust and greed. Two affairs and an apartment in Iacon his wife doesn't know about. And Frances... Carolyn didn't know yet.

"'Met'?"

And then there was the President. What was his besetting sin, Carolyn wondered?

"What does that mean? 'Met.'"

Richard Harriman Adar, the seventh President of the United Colonies of Kobol, was 46 but was starting to look a decade older. Born on Scorpia, he had rarely left Caprica by choice in his adult life.

"Unclear." Carolyn shrugged. "They're old friends. Served together, law school together, practiced together on Tauron, so it's possible they just wanted to have dinner and catch up."

"He's the Hon. Chair of the Municipalist frakkin' International Committee! You can't possibly be that naive!"

"Of course not." She shook her head. Wrath, maybe, she thought. Wrath or envy. The best way to handle Adar's tantrums was to shrug them off and move on. "The markers and pointers are pretty clear. Sirica wants Volakis to run. And he might. You shouldn't ignore or underestimate this, Mister President."

"He's a judge, not a politician," Adelyne objected.

"If he wants the nomination, can he get it?" Adar ignored Adelyne, his voice strained, almost bewildered.

"Yes," Kikuchi said. "Sirica has the connections to make it happen. He knows everyone on their side, he's well-liked, and he can make a pitch. And the optics—gods, we're talking about the guy who wrote the dissent in Locris—"

"One more vote," Innes murmured, "and we'd have lost the whole Secretariat of Education."

"—we're talking about your legacy up for a referendum. And if the V.P. really won't do it, we still don't have a candidate. We have to start talking about that."

"They're so ungrateful." Adar shook his head, fuming. "We did exactly what we campaigned on; the people, they're so... I mean, they were fed up with this reactionary crap! 'The Articles this' and 'the Articles that.' My gods! We turned out a sitting President—never happened before! First time!"

Most of the staff squirmed in their seats. The tantrums were coming often now, though not normally with so many witnesses.

Kominsky's face remained neutral. He had worked for Adar for a decade, first in the Caprica City Mayor's Office, then on both campaigns, and here, at the pinnacle of power. This was not his first rodeo.

"And frak the candidate question! Can we address the obvious? Why not me?"

"You... Sir?" Kikuchi and Innes traded glances.

"Am I not the best person to safeguard and defend my own legacy?"

"Sir, you're in your second term, and—"

"It's a custom, not a rule," Adar snapped. "They say Baker thought about running a third time."

Adelyne interlaced his fingers behind his head. "We need to be realistic. No President's ever run for a third term; not even Margaret Cavendish. I agree with Claire and Culverson. They're getting a candidate, and we need one. Preferably someone who's clean, who's not directly connected with us. Preferably someone from Scorpia or Leonis—maybe that'll shut up the secessionists."

"Preferably someone with institutional standing that compares to Volakis'," Innes added.

"And in a perfect world..." Mason broke in with his high, fast-paced, nervy voice. He paused, meeting several people's eyes in succession. "Someone who can rebuild our credibility with the military."

There was dead silence for a moment.

"You got someone in mind, Fred?" Kominsky asked, his tone bland.

"Yeah, actually. Connie Haiden."

"Admiral Haiden?" Adar looked around the room, again seeming bewildered. "You're kidding, yeah?"

"Retired Admiral," Mason corrected. "Retired earlier this year. She's a Federalist, military but reasonably well known, and she's outside the Caprica bubble. Checks a lot of boxes."

"That's a gutsy play," Carolyn murmured.

"It's a good play," Innes said.

Carolyn glanced at her. Innes wasn't surprised, she noted; the lawyers, Carolyn thought, have caucused.

"We looked at her for Minister of Defence last year," Kikuchi said. "She's clean. She's not a politician, but that's maybe a boon right now. For sure, that's what Sirica's counting on if he's courting Volakis. More important, she understands the importance of what we're doing here," she added, in that pious tone that so grated on Carolyn.

"That's quite a call, Fred," Kominsky said—probably, Carolyn thought, having the same thought I did.

Adar smoldered for long moments as everyone thought about it aloud. "Get out. I—" He jumped to his feet and began prowling back and forth, his voice rising: "All of you! Out!"

Carolyn, Innes, Adelyne, Kikuchi, and Mason rose uneasily and shuffled toward the door.

Kominsky didn't move an inch. "Carolyn, close the door on your way out, would you please?"

That meant, 'but don't go far.' The President's private office jutted south into the interior courtyard from the building's northern wing. Beyond, leading into the corner where the north wing met the main western facade, was an open-plan office-cum-lobby shared by the Staff Secretary, the President's Private Secretary, and a small waiting area for visitors privileged to meet Presidents in their inner sanctum rather than the more ornate Rose Office. Carolyn pushed the doors to without closing them and stood just close enough to hear.

"You too, Jerry."

"Thomas Baker talked about it," Kominsky's voice said, slow and even. "But he didn't do it. And he was polling in the high sixties; you're in the high thirties on a good day."

"Some comfort you are." Adar slumped noisily into his chair, retrieving a glass and a bottle from a draw with a telltale clink.

"You don't pay me to tell you comforting lies."

"An admiral, though? Good gods!"

There was silence.

"Fine. Fine; what's the truth?"

"The truth, Dick, is that we're going to lose the impeachment vote in the Quorum. We'll block it in the Congress, and our media friends are playing up how it's an unprecedented break with tradition for the Quorum to send a bill to the Congress. But bills are a lot easier to block than the sentiments prompting them.

"Let's assume we win the air war and the bill dies quietly. Assume we can tamp down the strike talk and assume we can mollify the people who want to be good Federalist voters. If we do all that, and if we line things up behind a good candidate—and Haiden's probably as good as any we're likely to find—then we can maybe, maybe, Dick, retain the Presidency. But it's dicey. We already lost the Quorum. If they make a clean sweep, everything we've achieved is back on the table if it's not on the block."

"They won't."

"They might. This isn't about you. Not anymore."

"Godsdamnit, Jerry, if you're choosing a side, it should be mine."

"If I took a side, this place would crack down the middle. This is how it's got to be. I'll back you to the hilt with the others, but between us—you've gotta face reality. We have made so much progress in less than a decade. We have made the worlds better. That's your legacy, and we can't go back. Understand?"

Some devilish part of Carolyn wished she could be in the room to see Adar's face as he chewed that over.

"I understand."

"Good." Kominsky's footsteps moved toward the door. "We need to start thinking about exactly how far we're willing to go to safeguard that legacy."

Kominsky swept out of the office, not pausing to look at Carolyn, standing just far enough beyond the door that she could have claimed with a straight face that she had been waiting and not eavesdropping.

"Carolyn! Heel."

She trotted after him as he strode around the corner toward his office on the inner side of the west corridor. He settled at his desk, then turned his gaze out of the window into the courtyard.

"Are you sold?"

"Boss?"

"Haiden. Fred didn't just pull this out of his behind on a whim; it's coming from Ostrakov and FIC. But Claire and Frances are sold. Are you?"

"Um." She considered it for a moment. "It's a gutsy play. Frances isn't wrong." She bit her lip. "She'd be an amateur, but if they're running with Volakis, that cancels out. They can't saddle her with any of Adar's negatives. That's our upside on how they played this, they've pinned it all on him to get their impeachment, so they can't turn that around now. We, um... We don't know if she's interested."

He glanced up at her. "Okay. Go sound her out."

"Boss?" She clutched her meticulously detailed Day Planner a little tighter, welcoming the implication of that order not at all.

"Now. Go. You don't got nothing better to do this afternoon; go get an express flight."

## Chapter Three: Haiden.

Ambois, Leonis.

Life had changed little in the village of Ambois in nearly two millennia. Wars and revolutions had swept through Luminère over the centuries; governments and forms of government had come and gone. But here, some three hours south of the capital, Leonans had been sowing and harvesting, tending vines, making wines and cheeses, and dozing through long, balmy summer afternoons with only rare interruption since the Exodus.

"You know... I thought after so many years in the Service, my accent would go. That I'd forget my Leonese..."

Constance Sabine Haiden had grown up here. She might never have left had she not come of age during the War, and having been conscripted, found military life to her liking. Enlisted service followed, then Scorpia's Neptune Colonial Military Academy and an uneventful career on ships of war in a time of peace, culminating in several happy years as a rear-admiral and retirement to her hometown.

It was exactly as she had left it. She had bought the apartment above a café remembered fondly from childhood—a timber-framed building that had been old when she was young—and adopted a gaggle of dogs and daggits that she had taken to walking along the river.

"...But it all came right back. The moment I set foot here, it clicked back in. Like throwing a switch."

It was nice to have company for once.

"Mmm." Beside her, the woman from Cavendish House was several inches shorter than the willowy Haiden and was having to trot to keep up. That suited Haiden just fine. Best to keep such people off-balance, in her experience, though beneath her casual clothing, Culverson appeared to be built like a Marine and seemed not even vaguely breathless. "Et, uh, retraite? C'est bien?"

The Leonese wasn't bad, but the accent could use work.

"Bon. C'est—" Haiden shook her head and laughed. "It's boring as shit." She laughed and pointed after the dogs. "This part, I like. The dogs, the fresh air, the river. But I don't really know what to do with myself." She snickered. "It's so bad I even tried classes. Gardening, painting, that sort of thing."

"What a lovely segue. That brings me to why I'm here."

"You're here to charm me into running for office." Haiden smiled at her.

"No one's ever told me I was charming before," Culverson laughed. "Thought about it?"

"I don't think that I'm cut out for sitting around a table arguing in Quorum. Even less for disappearing into the backbenches of Congress."

"Actually, we were thinking President."

That got Haiden's attention. She whirled sharply on Culverson: "No Leonan's ever been President."

"Even so. There've been discussions at the top of Cav House and FIC, and your name keeps coming to the top of the list."

"Who put my name on the list in the first place?"

"Claire Kikuchi and Frances Innes."

Neither name was familiar. Haiden shook her head. "I don't know them."

"They know you. The Cav House people, I can speak to. I've worked with Claire since the '88 campaign, now she runs the Political Office; Ministries, Secretariats, policy, that kind of thing. Frances worked for CRP, then for the party on Canceron, now she's Cav House Counsel; our lawyer, if you like. They're good cheerleaders to have. They have J.G. Kominsky's ear, and he has the President's."

"Adar struck me as the type to try running for a third term."

Culverson pursed her lips and hesitated. Then, with an oddly flat affect: "It was talked about."

Haiden liked forthright.

"And?"

"And it's never been done. Consensus is, he'd face strong headwinds even in the best-case scenario. The party needs—look, the President's not stupid, Admiral. He understands the 'tactical environment' if you want to think of it that way. The Federalist Party's made great strides improving the worlds, but, yes, mistakes were made, some of them quite unpopular—"

Are 'mistake' and 'unpopular' the right words for ordering a platoon of marines to open fire on a civilian protest? Haiden wondered.

"—which means we need a candidate who's going to carry the flag forward but who isn't tied to the current administration, lest they be tarred by those mistakes. Richard Adar is many things, but he's not blind. He thinks you fit the bill."

"This from the man who said, not a year ago, I wasn't qualified to be Minister of Defence."

"That's an exaggeration. You were on the shortlist; he picked someone else. That's all. It's not a slight."

"The hell it wasn't! I was doing him a favor letting my name go forward in the first place, given the circumstances!"

"Well, as it turns out, it's quite convenient for all concerned, isn't it? You didn't have to clean up the mess, which means your hands are clean in a way no one else with your standing can claim." Culverson paused, and then, with a rueful look that Haiden wouldn't have trusted less had it come from a hungry cat, added: "Honestly, I think that he's six inches away from begging."

Haiden tried very hard to strangle her grin into a grimace. "That would be a nice touch."

They strolled along beside the river. One of the dogs spied a bullrush floating downstream and dived in to retrieve it, then clambered abank, cantered over to the two women, and presented it as an offering to Haiden before shaking off a good bath's worth of water over them.

If Culverson flinched in the slightest, she covered it well. Haiden liked that, too; you can't trust people who don't like dogs.

"Isn't this all a little—I mean, I've never held office. You know... There are people who say Adar ran for President too soon." I never said I didn't follow politics. "They say he should have run for Caprica's Parliament. Been P.M. there first. Like this Novak guy."

A look of disdain flickered across Culverson's face—suppressed fast, but not nearly fast enough that Haiden didn't clock it.

"Worked out pretty well for him," Culverson countered, just a little testily. "He's President."

"Did it? You know he's facing an unprecedented impeachment motion, right?"

"You mean the motion that's just Municipalist grandstanding, the one that's DOA as soon as it hits the Congress?" Culverson parried. "That one? Sure. Look, I'm sorry. Cards on the table." She stopped walking and touched Haiden's elbow. "I can't read you, but I think you like the direct approach. Are you interested?"

"Am I interested in being President?" Are you kidding?

Haiden gazed along the river after the dogs. She had been retired for seven months, and it had stopped being fun about six months ago. She had given no thought to politics, but it struck her as far from the worst idea she'd heard.

"Yes. Yes, I'm interested."

"Okay. Good. I have some questions."

## Chapter Four: Frances.

Riverwalk, Midtown Caprica City.

Francesca G. Innes woke to the sounds of the ocean and a gentle piano melody. She eyed her phone, sniffed her armpit, judged a shower unnecessary, hit snooze, and went back to sleep.

Ten minutes later, the alarm woke her again. She stretched and spent a few bleary-eyed minutes checking her inbox to ensure nothing urgent had arrived overnight. Satisfied that it had not, she picked out a cream blouse, a dark midcalf skirt, and kitten-heels. She pulled a brush through her hair, letting it fall in waves that were carefully arranged to look effortless. She was out the door a quarter-hour after the alarm had rung a second time.

Despite her clipped accent, Frances had grown up in the suburbs of Montara Beach, CN. Nowhere on Canceron's myriad islands and archipelagoes was far from the ocean, but her family had lived within spitting distance of it, and the alarm was a soothing reminder of home. So was her location. She paid above the odds for a tiny garret twelve stories above the waterfront; the city's harbor lacked the open ocean's crisp, salty air, and there was no view to speak of, but with the windows open she could hear the lap of water against shore. The morning was too cold for that, but another week and Caprica's orbit would move into its spring phase.

At 34.77 square meters, the apartment was also, technically, too small to be a legally rentable living space under the Municipal Code. On a lark, she had measured it. She found that funny, and wondered whether her landlords knew that she was literally a lawyer for a government office.

Perhaps most important of all, it was close to that office.

She walked south across the popular Riverwalk Plaza, already bustling with rush-hour foot-traffic, and queued to buy coffee and a pastry from her favorite food-cart. The east end of Midtown had burned almost to the ground at the start of the War, and Riverwalk showcased two distinct phases of rebuilding. The Plaza represented the brutalist utilitarianism of the immediate post-war period, a square of concrete-ribbed shoeboxes perched atop spindly concrete pylons, enclosing a grassy courtyard ornamented with evergreen shrubbery that tolerated Caprica's whipsaw climate and a decorative pond that the night had coated with a veneer of ice. Almost as soon as she crossed under the southmost shoebox, concrete gave way to the steel-and-glass buildings of the Resurgence period as she joined the sidewalk of Fellowes Street.

Another hundred meters south, where Fellowes met McGill and Tornvald Avenue, she turned southwest onto Tornvald, walking over a broad red-and-gold ribbon painted across the street. It bore the phoenix emblem of the Twelve Colonies. This was the boundary between the city and the Federal enclave.

Even without the markings, you couldn't miss that something was different. For one thing, the buildings were grander. Pyrmont had been razed even more thoroughly than Riverwalk; its destruction had marked the beginning of the Insurrection, always thereafter with a capital I, which had become the War, always thereafter with a capital W. Caprica had gladly conceded the neighborhood's remains as a home for the new Colonial government after the Articles had come into effect. Fitting, in Frances' opinion, that it should have been the chrysalis whence a new, better version of the worlds would emerge. Still twelve they were, not yet one, not really—but at least they were united, as they should be. The power at the center was still superintending, not yet unitary—but at least it was now safely in the hands of people who would use it properly.

People like Richard Adar.

People, perhaps more to the point, like Frances Innes.

The Federal District's buildings dated from the same period as those in Riverwalk, but these had been built (or at least retrofitted) with a dignity proper to their high calling. South of Tornvald, the Ministry of Justice's marble columns rose from well-maintained grass, just big enough to feel noble without becoming monumental or overwhelming. North, the Statsky Building, home to the Secretariats of Agricultural Management and Urban Infrastructure, was clad in ribbons of blanched siltstone that Frances thought gave it the look of a sheet of notepaper, its windows doodled in neat ranks and files.

Half a kilometer southwest, the northeast corner of Cavendish House's sandstone walls shone like burnished brass in the sun at her back. She continued walking until the avenue opened into the expanse of Hastings Square, where Cavendish House and the Congresshall faced one another. Almost alone among the buildings of the Federal District, they (technically, their exterior walls) predated the War. She loved this view.

And she especially loved what came next: She crossed Tornvald into the Square—already bustling even at the start of the workday—and threw the remains of her coffee into a trash can. She could use any of the doors, but she took a deep, proud breath, and walked through the main public entrance, centered below the Clocktower. She greeted every guard and staffer she encountered, most of them by name, strode up the main staircase, and was at her desk forty minutes after her second alarm call.

It wasn't much of an office, if she were to be completely honest. The President, in looser moments, dismissed the entire Cavendish House complex as a step down from the Caprica City Hall, six kilometers west in Downtown. And that was nothing special compared to the Caprica Capitol a few blocks north of it. The President was sacrificing for this job.

Perhaps that was all true, but Frances couldn't help but be sentimental about it. She had been born in 1,968, the same year renovations had begun in earnest to turn Cavendish House and the physical space of Pyrmont into something less ramshackle; something that was, if not grand, then at least befitting the capital of the Colonies. It would never have occurred to her to conceive of it as her bosses did. For as long as she could remember, this building was the very symbol of Colonial unity, more than any flag or fleet. To work in it was her proudest boast.

* * *

Kominsky held open-forum breakfasts with the senior staff twice a week in the Hartnel Conference Room. It was a good choice of venue, Frances judged. Equidistant from the Rose Office at the center of the facade and the Private Office on the north (technically northwest) wing, President Adar's preferred working space, it was far enough from the President to encourage candor but close enough that his presence was felt keenly. It was also practical: Just down the corridor from the offices of Kominsky and the rest of the "political" staff, and one floor up from Frances, Kikuchi, and the "policy" staff.

Technically, Kominsky, Kikuchi, Adelyne, and Frances occupied parallel positions on the org-chart. But no one doubted that Kominsky was in charge. He was a bald Gemenese in his late forties, perhaps early fifties, with dark, intense eyes, a cleft chin, and a gait that for no reason Frances could articulate always reminded her of a boxer. He favored light suits and dark shirts, an excellent choice for him, in her opinion. He rarely raised his voice, and though his preference seemed to be to guide discussions rather than settle them, the long-timers seemed more than merely deferential toward him.

With him came sometimes the Staff Secretary, occasionally the PPS, and always Carolyn Culverson. Firmly-built with freckles, dark-hair, and almond-shaped watery-grey eyes, she favored jeans and loose, long-sleeved, shirts—casual choices that Frances thought unsuitable for their high office. Still, she'd be attractive if she'd make an effort; she was also funny, fast with a sardonic jibe, sometimes at her own expense, in fluent, unaccented Emantic. Frances could not even guess which colony she was from.

Adelyne was loud, fat, avuncular, and as quick to laugh as Culverson was to joke. All soft edges and teflon. Always ready to steer conversation toward sports or vintage cars. Always immaculate but never ostentatious in bland shirts, foulard-patterned ties, and golf club sweaters that were almost certainly an affectation. He was unflappable in his own way; the perfect spokesman, Frances reminded herself.

Then there was Kikuchi. Her friend and mentor; the person to whom she owed her presence, and in all likelihood her future self. They shared a heritage, too; Kikuchi was Canceran of Aerilan descent, a pale, blonde wisp whose apparently insatiable metabolism always made her look gaunt under clothing that was always restrained but fashionable. Polite, but well-informed and a forceful voice when she needed to be.

That left Frances, holding the least political job at the table in the most political building on the planet. On any planet, really. She sat alone at these meetings, rarely having anything to contribute, and even less often called upon.

"Ms. Innes," Kominsky drawled.

Frances' eyes flicked up from her notes, and for a guilty moment, she hoped she didn't look surprised.

"Ms. Kikuchi. You'll be happy to know I sent Carolyn to sound-out Connie Haiden." He favored them with a very dry smile, then turned to Culverson. "Is she interested?"

"Yes. I warned her that Claire's people are gonna want to turn over every rock she's ever kicked, and it didn't faze her."

"Your opinion of her?"

"She's an admiral," Culverson grinned. "You've met Edward Nagala? Just like that. Calm, steady, stable. Someone who spent her whole life in a game of rules and math, and it shows. That's an asset. She's a bit feisty; maybe overconfident, if anything, if you're asking my opinion. She'll do fine on the trail. As to what she believes—we didn't get deep into it, that's not my area. She's one of us, probably more reflexive than ideological, but she's a safe pair of hands. If she's fazed by Aerilon, she hid it well, I can tell you that, I—"

"We've got a candidate," Adelyne boomed, to no one in particular but with evident satisfaction.

"You mind if I jump in on that last point?" Kikuchi asked. Culverson shrugged. "My staff did some digging. We reached out to contacts at MoD and FHQ asking about her rep. It's all solid and uneventful; she's well-regarded, nothing flashy, with two footnotes. One, she reached, um... How can I say this delicately? That age. Her next assignment would have been a desk job, not a ship. So the perception is, she retired—"

"The presidency is a desk job," Kominsky observed.

"I don't disagree, but, point is, a lot military types respect that kind of officer. Even the ones driving desks themselves. And then the second thing." She paused, looking each of the people in the room in the eye in turn. "If what I'm about to say is news to any of you, it doesn't leave the room. Clear?"

Nods.

Frances looked up from her notes to see Kikuchi looking directly at her. "Clear, Frances?"

She frowned, confused. "Yes?"

"After the incident on Aerilon, there was a movement to have all the senior operational commanders in both branches of the military sign a letter to the editor of the Caprica Tribune. It fizzled, or possibly Nagala or Corman squelched it, I don't know. Accounts vary on the point."

A look that Frances would later have to describe as smug crossed Culverson's face.

"But," Kikuchi continued, "Haiden was one of the 'wets' who wouldn't sign and made it known that she thought it was a bad idea. And within a few months, actually nine weeks later—she declares her intention to retire. Which could be a coincidence, but, again, it might give rise to a perception."

"I'm sorry," Frances said, blinking. "I missed something. What was the letter to say?"

Kikuchi and Kominsky traded looks. The latter nodded fractionally.

"It would have called the use of the Marines against civilian strikers and rioters unconscionable, illegal, and a violation of the President's oath of office. It would have called for his resignation, or, failing that, for the Congress of the Colonies to lay an impeachment resolution before the Quorum of Twelve."

Frances felt all the blood drain from her face. "That's—" mutiny, she had been about to say, but caught herself. It wasn't, and a lawyer should speak precisely. "That's an inch short of challenging civilian control of the military."

"But still an inch short," Kominsky replied. "That's what your counterparts at Defence and Justice said." He shot her an apologetic look. "Sorry we kept you out of the loop on that one."

"Clio," Frances gulped. "What did the President say?"

Kominsky and Kikuchi traded another glance.

"Mother of Zeus, you didn't loop him in either?"

Culverson looked like she was about to jump in with a witticism, but Kominsky beat her to it. "That's on me," he said. "We had a meeting at MoD. Me, Claire, Carolyn, Gerstmann, Nagala, and Bratton. The uniformed people assured us that the door had been slammed very hard on the idea, and that Helms taking the blame and resigning had mollified a lot of the concerns. Or at least, it gave adequate cover. The problem was taken care of and we felt that the President would be... unhappy, were he to learn of it."

That's the understatement of the year, Frances thought.

She had been a Federalist her entire life. She believed in platform and President, message and messenger. She had readily signed up to work for the Campaign to Reelect the President. Happily transitioned to working for the Federalist Party of Canceron. She'd been thrilled when Kikuchi had plucked her thence, bringing her into the very apex of power.

Granted, her transition from audience to backstage had not been entirely happy. In private, the President was prone to tantrums and paranoia, and he was getting worse. She did not envy her colleagues whose jobs were ever more to ensure that the President's public image was kept at far remove from the reality. But to withhold something like this from him was startling.

Wasn't it?

Eight months and change working at Cavendish House was long enough that she wondered how Adar might have reacted before Kominsky could calm him.

But still...

We're way out on a limb here.

* * *

As soon as she could escape from the meeting, Frances retreated to her office, making as little eye contact and small talk as she could manage. Her office was on the floor below, by the main stairs and on the way to the elevators at the south end of the building. Everyone who didn't take the stairs all the way passed her door on their way to anywhere, so she closed it and put an 'in teleconference' note on the outside.

For the rest of the morning, she hid, stewing.

Kominsky was a sharp operator; that much, she knew. Probably a ruthless one, if you were to look closely; that much, she suspected. Behind Culverson's amiable facade, her elbows were sharp and she seemed more concerned with winning than policy. Granted, this wasn't a game, and you needed people like that. People with focus. People who got things done. But the idea that they had concealed information from her, information within the scope of her job—that was a notion new to her, and unpleasant.

That they had concealed it from the President, too, was... Well, not actually all that hard to believe, on second thought. The President had suffered mightily in the furious reaction to Aerilon. As the gods tempered the winds to the shorn lambs, it was for Cavendish House staffers to shelter Presidents; to protect them from their enemies, sometimes from their allies, and occasionally, if necessary, themselves. This one especially.

But it stank.

At about the time the morning began turning toward lunchtime, Kikuchi let herself into Frances' office, ignoring the note on the door. Frances was about to open her mouth and make a pantomime of pointing to her desk phone, but she couldn't bring herself to lie. Not to Kikuchi, and certainly not in this mood.

Kikuchi smiled warmly and placed a pair of boxed salads from one of the places in the Square on Frances' desk. "Here. Peace offering."

"I'm sorry?"

(True enough, though mostly she was sorry that she had failed, it would seem, to conceal her unhappiness from the others.)

"No, no. I am. Sorry we dropped that on you earlier. We should have told you, but at the time it seemed the better path. Take it the right way, okay?"

"I don't need to know what I don't need to know," Frances ventured, in the most soothing voice she could muster. She hoped that she sounded more cheerful and collected than she felt. "You got it handled it, right? It's fine, I understand."

"I know you better than that," Kikuchi chided, through a mouthful of salad.

"Alright. Yeah, it hurts a bit. I thought I was part of the team."

"You were new. They take some time to open up, and—well, you know."

Frances didn't know. "And what?"

"Well, you were new. They didn't trust you yet."

She felt her face fall. "They didn't trust me?"

"You're taking this wrong. What I'm saying is, they do now. That's my point. That's why you know now."

"I thought we were all in this together."

"We are," Kikuchi soothed.

Like hell, Frances thought.

"Look, Jerry's a practical guy. As long as you're useful, as long as you're a team player, he's got your back. You do great work. If you ever doubt that you're part of the team, keep doing good work, keep being a team player."

"No wonder he likes Culverson," Frances muttered, not reassured.

"No wonder," Kikuchi agreed, drily.

## Chapter Five: Luke.

Themis.

November 10.

Luke pulled on a blazer—the first chill of what passed for autumn on Libran was in the air—and set out along the embankment toward to the Courthouse. The walk had taken half as long when he joined the court, but driving it seemed wasteful, and he was not one to waste. His late wife had loved the riverfront, and an apartment that had been intended as a temporary base of operations while they found a house in the suburbs had become a lifelong home.

He had lived on Libran long enough that even he felt the relative cold, though not so long he didn't still chuckle to himself at that. Picon it wasn't, but his impression on arriving eighteen years prior had been that Libran was roasting-hot and stormy in the summer and barely less hot or precipitous in the winter. It was amazing how flexible people were—how they got used to almost any climate. Besides, while his first impression hadn't been wrong, precisely, the planet's climate was dictated by an elliptical orbit that made its twice-annual summers and winters short, bookended by elongated springs and autumns. During those times, he could see why the world had seemed appealing when the Libranese diaspora had re-coalesced to colonize it eleven centuries after the Exodus.

The oldest parts of the Courthouse complex were only a century younger than the colony. The forecourt were Luke had for years strolled and sat and lunched on uncut sandwiches was worn and bounded by a low wall that was now barely more than an unruly pile of stones. Back in the day, tour groups had walked past him, showing no hint of recognition, and he had listened to their Tour Guides explain that the wall had been built with stones from all the worlds. Had it? Luke had doubted that very much. After the third time he had heard the story, though, he had started making a point of collecting stones on his travels and adding them to the wall. Far easier to correct the wall than to correct the Tour Guides.

"Luke! You walked down here? A little cool for that, isn't it?"

His successor—he thanked the gods that the court ran on seniority rather than allowing Adar to appoint a Chief Justice, as happened on some planets—had been a career JAG appointed six months after him, but a decade younger. Katherine Byrne could not have been less like him, personally; an effusive, pugilistic, often voluble and sometimes explosive Aerilan who took a little too much after the Tauron side of her family. Had anyone on the court been fitted for politics, it was her, not him.

Volakis, Byrne, and Franks—"the three horsemen of the apocalypse," the Caprica Tribune's Jennifer Welles-Forsyth had dubbed them at the height of the confrontation emerging from the Adar administration's shenanigans. They had been the court's fixed-meaning bloc, and any time they could win Justice Palomino's vote, a majority. Now it was Byrne's institution to run. The reviews were mixed.

"A little, yes." Luke unbuttoned his jacket and made himself at home by the fire.

"How are the grandkids? The, uh, greats?"

"Everyone's fine. Everyone's good." His hands fidgeted; he had very much hoped that a diplomatic way to broach the topic would occur to him on the walk. It hadn't. "I, ah... liked your dissent last week in Leuven," he tried. "That was very good."

"Oh! Gods, that was—" Byrne visibly tried and failed to contain her enthusiasm, slamming her hands down on her desk. "Thanks! A little much, maybe, but they—"

She stopped herself and narrowed her eyes.

"You didn't walk down here to stroke my writing. Or talk the finer details of a CivPro case."

"Hrr." He smiled, thinly. "Katy, I've got a, ah—hm." A lifetime paying for his shoes with words, he suddenly found himself uncomfortable with it.

No, that wasn't it. Not quite; he couldn't put his finger on what was irking him.

"You know Bob Sirica?"

"No. Well, by reputation, sure. Met him a couple of times; I think he argued a case up here once."

"He did. He and I go back a ways. Now he's the chairman of the MIC, and he came out here to—I mean, I had a visit from him. He, ah..."

"Spit it out."

"He wants me to run for President."

Byrne stared at him for a moment before her forehead crinkled. "Of the Colonies?"

Luke raised his eyebrows fractionally.

"Of the Colonies. Whew. Okay, that's... That's a surprise."

"That's what I said!"

"And what did you say?"

"I said I'd think about it."

"And?"

"And, I've been thinking about it." He spread his hands. "What do you think?"

Byrne leaned back in her chair, her arms folded tightly around her torso. She was silent for a while, eyelids fluttering. Eventually, she clasped her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling for a few more moments. The fire crackled. Then she looked him in the eye.

"This guy. Your friend Bob who's also Robert Sirica, Chairman of the Municipalist International Committee. Which one's making the ask? And, more important: He thinks you can win?"

"He thinks I can win."

"For real, Luke. I'm not talking, 'he needs a warm body and thought you might enjoy it.' I'm not talking, 'he thinks they have infrastructure in place, it's a noble effort for the good of the cause.' 'Weather looks favorable.' Any of that crap. He thinks you can win?"

"Yes. I don't know the politics of it, but I read the papers. I can do math. Every Federalist who might otherwise have run tied their balls to the proposition that Adar would ride out the Aerilon business. Since it just keeps burning hotter, they're diving for any foxhole they can find." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "And that mess is coming here, by the way. I promise you."

"I know it. We've talked. Informally."

"The Quorum took up a resolution sua sponte. That's unprecedented by itself, but an impeachment resolution? This isn't going away. Bob's take is that they're going to struggle to find a candidate who's untainted, and since I'm perceived as critic of Adar from the get-go, I come in with name recognition and looking vindicated. It's a smart play. I get it. But to win, you've got to run."

"But to be President..." She shuddered. "There's so much you could fix. Even if they hold onto the Congress..." She shook her head, nearly lost in the thought before snapping back into the moment. "They'll tear you a new one, of course. The press, I mean. Might as well be paid officers of the Federalist Party, most of them. I don't mean to sound indelicate, but..." she hunched forward. "When they go looking. And if you do this, they will look. You'd best be sure there's nothing for them to find."

"That's not a problem. There's nothing like that. It's just—"

Luke paused. What was it that was gnawing at him?

"Well, among other things I was out of breath just walking down here. It's not what I thought I'd be doing at this age."

"What did you think you'd be doing?"

"Honestly? If I thought I had five more good years in me, I might of stayed on the bench."

"That's a little bleak."

He shrugged. "I'm a realist. Say I'm a pessimist, for sake of argument; still, an election campaign? I'd have to traipse around the twelve worlds, shaking hands and slapping backs and kissing babies. Aside from the fact it's horseshit, it all sounds... I keep coming back to the word exhausting. And for what? Say I win. Honestly, what do I know about running the government?"

Byrne roared with laughter. "Luke, aul' buddy, aul' pal: What the frak do the idiots running it now know about running a government?"

That, Luke had to admit, was a strong point.

Celeste, Scorpia.

November 16.

"Three minutes," a Production Assistant announced, leaning around the dressing room door.

"I should never have let you talk me into this," Luke chided Sirica.

"You'll be fine."

"Actually, I meant the makeup, not announcing."

"Dignity's the first thing to go," Sirica smiled, as a young man brushed foundation and concealer onto Luke's face.

"Yeah, well. For the gods' sakes, is this really necessary?"

"Remember all those opinions you wrote on deference and expertise? You're going to be on television. This is what the TV people say is necessary. So, you know... Defer."

"Don't people want authenticity in their politicians?" Luke asked, with more than a trace of acid.

"No, people want to say they want authenticity. What they actually want is to think you're like them. Besides: At our age, authenticity's a horror movie. Stop fussing and let him work."

Luke grumbled indistinctly, but complied.

"It's okay to be nervous, Judge," the kid offered. "Everyone is." His hair was dyed a vibrant magenta with mint-green tips, and that was far from the first alarm-bell that had sounded in Luke's head since walking through the television studio's doors.

Reflexively, Luke shot him an annoyed look. "I'm not—" He stoped himself, regretting it immediately. "You're right, of course. Thank you."

The P.A. returned to fetch them, leading them through the maze-like backstage area into the wings.

"Why a talk show?" Luke whispered.

"Soft launch. It's unthreatening, it makes you seem normal. Remember, just don't be yourself. Be funny. Charming. That sort of thing."

"Frak you, Bob."

"Get used to the shape of those words, my friend. You'll use them often these next few months."

"Ladies and gentlemen," Baxter Sarno Jr. hollered, as a sign beyond view of the cameras flashed APPLAUSE toward the studio audience, "please welcome, the very honorable, the former Chief Justice of the Colonies, Lucas Volakis!"

Behind Luke, the P.A. prodded him forward.

"Game time," Sirica encouraged.

Luke cracked a nervous smile. "Too late to back out now, huh?"

"You'll be great. Go. Go now."

He walked out into the lights and was surprised to get actual cheers. Maybe Sirica had been astute about this booking after all. The younger Sarno, the very image of his father in a drab, retro suit and a garish paisley tie, was standing center-stage, leading the clapping. That part was surely for show, Luke thought; weren't all these media types Federalists?

Sarno offered a wide smile and a handshake, clasping Luke's right hand with both of his, and led them to a pair of chairs. As long as you're sitting in the chair, a producer had advised, the mics will catch you. Just follow his lead, and stay in the chair.

"Wow, Mister Chief Justice, this is really an honor. Let's get something straight upfront: Is it Vol'ar-kis or Vo-la'kis?"

"It's an 'a.' Like in 'cat.'" He sounds just like his dad, too, Luke thought.

"Great, great. You know, I don't think we've ever booked a judge for this show before. 'Do you come here often,' as they say?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"I do, yes, actually. I'm a Stingers fan by adoption, and I try to make it over here for games every month or two."

Luke adjusted his glasses and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Things were moving fast. Sirica had suggested announcing on a talk show in a friendly market (fine), losing the scraggly retirement beard (fine), a new suit (not fine), and trading his glasses for contact-lenses (negotiations ongoing). Being in front of an audience was nothing new; nor was being in front of television cameras. But having little or no control over proceedings—that was new, and he was enjoying it as little as he had expected.

Maybe that was what had him so discomfited. He had been in the public eye for a long time, but it had never been about him. Now, in a way it had never been before, it was personal. There was something exposing about that.

"And to what do we owe... I mean, what the hell makes you come on my trash show?"

"Well, for one thing, as you might expect, I respect institutions. I used to watch your father on this show, for many years. 'Backtalk with Baxter Sarno' is an institution; has been for as long as I can remember." That was flattery, but it wasn't untrue.

"Well, thank you. But, Sir, if I might, and if you'll forgive the bluntness, rumors have been swirling around that you've been approached by the Municipalist Party to run for President. And, ah," he chuckled, "I kinda think it has something to do with that. Am I right?"

LAUGHTER, the sign prompted the audience.

Direct. I can respect that. He glanced toward the wings, hoping to catch Sirica's eye. "Uh. Yes, actually. That's right."

"And are you gonna do it?"

He smiled his biggest, widest smile, and gestured toward his legs. "Well, probably more walk than run, let's be honest." That got a big laugh from Sarno, and, more gratifyingly, an unprompted one from the audience.

"Well, I have to ask, I mean, you make a joke of it, but at our age... I'm 58 and I barely phone this show in on a good day! And you're, what, 68?"

Luke winced. "Seventy." For another few weeks, anyway.

"Running for President... That's an exhausting thought."

Luke glanced out into the audience, addressing himself to no one in particular: "He's very perceptive, you know." That got a laugh, too.

"So why do it?"

"That's a good question. Well, because it's important. You're right, it's an exhausting thought, but I think we have to talk about what's been happening, these last few years. I won't want to ramble on, but do you mind if I...?"

"Yeah, no, please! Of course! It's a talk show, man."

Finally, the ground under him felt more solid. Now he could talk about things he knew well.

"So when the Cavendish Commission wrote the Articles of Colonization, what they had in view was the Insurrection. The War, by the time they were signed. What they were trying to do was, unify the response to the Cylon threat. So certain powers were unified in the Colonial government, the federal government, whatever you prefer to call it. But emphasis on certain powers. First and foremost, the military and the things that appertain to it. Because—naturally, right? We were fighting a war.

"But the individual colonies, when they ratified the Articles they didn't sign away their existence. They ceded certain powers for a particular purpose, but the Articles look to an indestructible union of indestructible colonies. They certainly didn't sign up to be ruled by or vassals of whichever world ended up hosting the new government.

"For a decade and some after that, we were at war. Everything else faded into irrelevance because we had the enemy in our face and annihilation at our backs. And for years after the Armistice—restraint, indolence, balance-of-power, whatever you want to call it, the Colonial government didn't flex its muscles, and the worlds mostly ran our own affairs. If you were an ordinary citizen, if you'd never been in the military and you didn't work in a handful of federally-regulated fields, you probably never interacted with the Colonial government or gave it a second thought. Okay?

"Well, then there's the crises of '89 and '91, and the Adar administration comes in to fix it. How do they do that? They're technocrats, managers, they believe in government, they believe that what you need to do is to take control of the situation, which they did by erecting a blizzard of new agencies, centralizing everything in their own hands. Reasonable people differ on how far that needed to go, but assume for sake of argument that what they did in Adar's first year was necessary. Things stabilized.

"Problem is—now they're confirmed in their opinion that the more they can control, the more power they have to, quote-unquote, 'fix' everything. Right? They reach out and try to micromanage the worlds from Cavendish House, interfering in what had always been the purview of the colonies separately. They say, 'here are the units you'll sell in,' 'here's the prices you can charge,' 'here are the curricula you'll teach,' and so on.

"Now, let's be clear: the Federalists, Adar's people, these are good people with good intentions. They mean well. But you can make old problems worse and surface new problems when you blunder in with nary but good intents. It turns out that what a bureaucrat in Pyrmont categorizes as a carnivorous, uncontrollable monster that murders avian life at a prodigious rate, I call my cat, and I wouldn't appreciate you telling me I can't have one just because in the aggregate, you think the cats in the world are a threat to the bird ecology. They have a vision that amounts to imposing the values of Caprica and the, I suppose what you'd call the metropolitan monoculture of the big cities. And out of thin air, they have erected literally dozens of Ministries and Secretariats that have simply no basis in the Articles. It's not only indirectly a threat to liberty because it corrodes the rule of law, it's a direct threat to liberty any time you run afoul of it, because, again, maybe I love my cat more than I do birds. Does that make sense?"

Sarno sat back in his chair wearing a flat expression, his arms folded. As the moments ticked away, a horrible sensation grew in Luke's stomach as he wondered whether he'd dumped too much on him at once. When at least an eternity had passed, maybe two, he tried to find Sirica's eyes in the wings.

"I didn't know you had a cat," Sarno deadpanned. Loud laughter from the audience.

Luke laughed, too, mostly out of relief. "Well, it's a figurative cat, Baxter."

"Ladies and gentlemen, the first lie of the 2000 election," Sarno joked. "Figurative cats."

"You got me," Luke agreed, laughing with the audience. "I'm more a dog person. But you take the point."

When the laughter died down, Sarno added, "I do, but, Sir: If all that's true, okay? Then why did people vote for President Adar—twice? He was reelected, after all."

"Barely reelected. Well, because people were afraid. We were going through bad times, and the Federalists promised to make it better. Here's Dick Adar, a very charismatic guy, a young guy, a mayor with a great track record reinvigorating one of the biggest cities in the worlds, and he's preaching a hopeful message, we're, uh, 'stronger together,' and all that. It's optimistic, upbeat, it's very appealing."

"And yet, you opposed it."

"Well, I voted to strike down some specific actions taken by the administration that came before my court."

"But only on legal grounds, right?"

"Right, that was my job. I was a judge. They don't remove your opinion when you 'take the black,' as they say, there isn't a surgery or anything! So I also voted to uphold some things I thought were really bad policy, but which didn't go beyond what the Articles allow the government to do. Justice Byrne used to say she wanted a rubber-stamp, 'dumb, but legal.'"

"You wrote a dissenting opinion, a humorous but very strongly worded dissent, in a case called, let me see if I can get this right: 'County of Locris versus Secretary of Education Laura Roslin.' And I wanted to read you just a little bit from the end of that opinion. You wrote, 'the articles did not take from any colony any power to direct the education of children. The pernicious fiction that any matter in which there is a federal interest is therefore within the federal power—an idea the court today uses to bless the Secretariat of Education, but which in principle has no limit—would transform the Articles of Colonization from a promise that federal power will rarely interfere with the internal administration of individual colonies'—these are your words, Mr. Chief Justice—'into a guarantee that it often will.' That's strong stuff."

"Yes."

"Is that still your—I mean, you lost. If you're elected President, would you try to relitigate those cases?"

"Well, relitigate definitely isn't the word I'd choose," Luke chuckled, with more jollity than he felt, trying to channel a little of Byrne's ebullience. "That means something in my trade."

"That's a good—your trade, right? Is it difficult making that transition? I mean, we're talking at a, well, for this show, anyway, we're talking on a very substantive level. And I guess that's what you're used to when you talk. But it's not how political campaigns usually go. I'd think that might be difficult to... I mean, you're a familiar name but a novice candidate. How do you think that this campaign is likely to go?"

"Well, that depends. I've not really thought about it." He had thought about it a lot. "It depends on who the other candidate is. I don't know whom they intend to nominate, but I hope it's someone who, um, I suppose has the temperament that we can have a respectful, civil, substantive campaign."

"A civil, substantive political campaign? Wow." Sarno eyed him, then turned to the camera. "Chief Justice Lucas Volakis, everybody. A man of no small ambitions. We'll be right back after these messages."

## Chapter Six: Haiden.

Luminère, Leonis.

November 18.

"Admiral, Sir?"

A girl—she couldn't be more than thirty—parked herself beside Haiden, speaking Leonese too fast to be anything but native. She offered not a handshake but the slight nod that veterans of the Colonial Forces substituted for the ingrained salute.

The girl gestured around. "This must all seem like a circus to you."

It did. Haiden had spent much of her life in space, surrounded by the prospect of a brutally swift death, but this was somehow worse. The capital city offices of the Leonis Federalist Party were swarming with offworlders; you had only to look at their clothes to see it, their hair, suits, and dresses in cuts that were unspeakably conservative for this most chic of cities.

At the storm's center, Haiden was its nominal object, but for most of the day she had sat still, basking in sunshine that filtered into the atrium where they had parked her as people swirled around her. She answered questions when they were asked, sipped coffee, and felt oddly like a supernumerary in her own biography. Up to now, her single longest interaction with anyone had been with an earnest young man, the condescending disdain of youth writ all over his face, who had quizzed her on some policy particulars before disappearing back into the maelstrom.

She eyed the girl. Definitely Leonan; the jet-black hair and watery eyes set wide across a knifelike, upturned nose gave that away. The manners and ramrod-straight back confirmed she was a vet, though clearly too young to have been out long.

"I'm Vanssen. Our mutual associate Miss Culverson made the suggestion that you might like a, ah, bridge? An aide who can speak your own language, so to speak. I'm with the local party now, but before that—"

"Which branch?" Haiden interrupted.

"Fleet." Vanssen didn't miss a beat. "Two tours enlisted, one on a destroyer, one on a battlestar. Left the Service a decade ago, did local government for a while, came over to the dark side in '97."

"Bullshit are you that old, Vanssen!"

"Born 1,967, Sir. Served under you, actually; my first assignment was the DE-1176. Don't know what the officers called her, but we called her Thunderchild."

Haiden smiled. "That was my command." Well done, Culverson. Another nice touch.

"I'd agree if I saw as they had much of a choice. Not many vets around here."

"I noticed." She made a mental note to ask Vanssen for directions to the font of eternal youth and relaxed a little. It was nice to have the company of someone with shared experience. "Okay, Culverson's right. I could use the help. Who the frak are all these people?"

Vanssen grinned the grin of the proverbial Cheshire Cat. "You're looking at three tribes who all hate each other trying to get along. You've got the local party; they're the ones dressed like normal people. The Capricans in expensive suits, they're FIC, the Federalist International Committee, the party apparatus. And the Capricans in suits that they're trying to pass off as cheap because they're public servants, they're from Cav House. Culverson you met already. The blonde in the pantsuit with the metabolism you'd kill for's Claire Kikuchi; think of her as Adar's X.O. for policy. The grey suit with the hairline and the paunch is Gerald Ostrakov, FIC's director of campaigns. The rest are the people who'll spool up your campaign 'til they can find a campaign manager you like. Every Leonan here's going to kiss your arse for the next couple of months, by the way, because they all want that job and they assume you want someone from here."

"Do I?"

"That's a conflict of interest for me. I work with these people."

"That's why you're the right person to ask."

Vanssen considered that, switched to Emantic, and dropped her voice. "Probably not. The local party's fine, they're good people, but maybe a little self-absorbed. Well—I don't want to say that. They're... Hm." She searched for an appropriate word.

"Parochial?" Haiden ventured.

A smile crept over Vanssen's face. "They're great at winning elections in Luminère, but Graces be Good the Presidency of the Colonies won't turn on a few hundred votes in the Montparnasse barraton. You need someone with a bigger perspective."

"Like who?"

"If you're asking, frankly, you could do worse than Ostrakov."

"You just said he was a stiff."

"Yeah, but he's good at what he does. I'd also say he's also the person in the room you have to convince. You've already got Kikuchi. Get him, and the rest will fall in line, which makes it tactically smart, too. Not," she deadpanned, "that I'd dare suggest tactics to an Admiral."

"Hrr." Haiden chuckled softly. "Tell me about the other guy—Volakis? I heard he announced on Sarno. What do I need to know that I've not read in the paper?"

"Lucas Būe Volakis. The crown prince of darkness." She bulged her eyes slightly, her smile taking on an even more sarcastic cast. "He was the Chief Justice of the Colonies. In Adar's first term, the Municipalists had nothing left, we'd taken the Presidency, the Quorum, and the Congress. His court became their brake. Turned back a lot of signature legislation, came damn close to throwing out even more. It's a clever move. Anyone who was already against Adar will throw in with him, and he'll argue his doubts have been vindicated. I watched that Sarno appearance. You should, too; carefully. If he wins, he might unravel the whole thing."

"'Might'?"

"Hard to kill a well-functioning program that's popular. I wouldn't bet on the Bureau of Mining Safety being his first target."

"Can he win?"

"Of course he could," Vanssen laughed. "Fire anyone who tells you it's in the bag. He probably would if he was running against Adar or one of his cronies, which is presumably why they want you. You're your own person, untainted by the administration. A fresh face."

"That's a hell of a thing to say to an old sailor, young lady," Haiden laughed. "Alright, you just got a field promotion. X.O., you think I should get Ostrakov aboard. Anyone else? What about Culverson?"

Vanssen was silent for a moment. "Fais attention, mon amiral." Another pause. "I think you would be well-served to keep her at a distance."

"Oh? Why? I've heard she's good at what she does."

"She's very good at what she does. But I don't think you want what she does anywhere near your campaign."

Haiden frowned, but before she could ask another question, a lanky boy even younger than Vanssen appeared, either excessively nervous or excessively caffeinated, but visibly vibrating either way. "Miss Haiden?" He gestured toward the back of the atrium. "They're ready for you now."

The boy led them into a windowless room dominated by a long, T-shaped table at which perhaps a dozen people were seated. At its terminus, the one Vanssen had called Ostrakov—pallid, overweight, with thinning grey hair—was wiping reading-glasses with the fat end of a blue tie. Seated beside him was Earnest Young Man, her interrogator from earlier; an aide, presumably.

The air-conditioning had been turned up for the Capricans, and the room felt decidedly cold. Haiden shivered involuntarily. Vanssen nudged her. "Rappeler," she whispered. "Ils vous ont cherché."

Remember: They asked for you.

"I'm fine," Haiden said, stifling her annoyance.

There were a few minutes of introductions and greetings in both Emantic and Leonese from the local party officials before conversation died down and everyone turned to Ostrakov. He looked down at the folder in front of him and cleared his throat.

"Miss Haiden—" he paused and looked over his reading glasses. "I'm sorry; do you prefer 'Admiral'?"

She smiled, tautly. "I don't sweat trivia, Gerald." Thrust, parry.

"I see."

They gazed across the table at one another.

"Miss Haiden, why do you want to be President?"

Over her career, Haiden had found that humor was a good icebreaker. Her smile didn't change. "Well, after I retired, I found that men my own age don't have the stamina to keep up and the young ones aren't interested in me."

A couple of people around the table smiled or chuckled. Vanssen nudged her; "ne soyez pas si sûr," she whispered, motioning with her head toward the boy from earlier.

Ostrakov's tone remained diffident. "It's not unreasonable to expect a straight and satisfying answer to that question when we're here talking about spending seventy billion cubits to make you the most powerful person in the Colonies. Especially when you walk into this room with some question marks hanging over you."

Question marks? Haiden quickly opened her mouth, then closed it again, letting a flash of anger wash out of her. She leaned back in her seat and let his statement hang in the air, careful to maintain eye contact with him. She narrowed her eyes, waiting. First one to talk loses.

Ostrakov blinked first. "Forgive me. You are lifelong military, and the military has had a... strained relationship with President Adar's administration." He glanced in Culverson's direction. Then looked around the room. "And while this city—my thanks to our hosts, this city is a Federalist stronghold. But you retired to a town that is at best Municipalist country, I'm told. Do you understand why we might have concerns?"

"Bon." Haiden give him the iciest smile she could muster, never breaking eye contact. "We're off to a good start if we're being straightforward with one another, so if you'll forgive me, if relations between Colonial Forces and Cav House are strained, that's because of the attitudes of certain people in this administration—no one here today, I'm sure—not Federalist policy. There's been doves in both parties for three decades and it's never prevented cordial relations with Perkinston and Coldstream. Don't think everyone in uniform votes a particular way; I voted for President Adar, and I'm not an outlier. I grew up in a Federalist home, so maybe it's easy for me to say, but my experience in the Service reinforced those views. Ms Kikuchi, that slogan the President ran on in '92?"

"'Stronger Together,'" Kikuchi quoted.

"There, you see? Put it in Kobollian and you could hang it over one of the academies as a motto. We do better when we work together, and we work best together when we have effective, consistent leadership and clear lines of authority. That's the President's major accomplishment. More than any policy or program, he reminded us that we're all in this together, twelve worlds but one society. He changed the conversation from how do you best herd twelve feral cats to how can we most effectively coordinate that one society.

"I'm grateful for his accomplishments, and I intend to honor that legacy if you'll let me carry it forward. Now, there are mistakes to correct and problems to fix, and everyone in the worlds knows that. Whoever follows President Adar has a lot of work to do. Thing is, the worlds don't stop turning, so here's the hard part: Keeping us moving forward and fixing the mistakes as we go, without endangering the progress we've made. 'Underway repairs,' we used to call it, and there's little enough art to it. It's just difficult.

"You ask, why do I want to do it? Because we've made a lot of progress these last seven years and I don't want to see it rolled back, or screwed up by someone who thinks history's a ratchet, who doesn't understand you can't just declare victory and move on. The things we've done have to work. Success is a shield. That goes for everything, but the more visible, the more important that it work; everything the other side says about the Secretariat of Education will bounce right off if people feel like their kids' education's going well, and nothing we can say about why it's a good idea will matter if they don't. We made a big leap forward under President Adar. now we have to slow down and solidify those gains while keeping up forward momentum. I can do that."

Vanssen smirked. Ostrakov said nothing. Earnest Young Man wore a look of barely-concealed contempt.

Alright. Time to up the ante.

"Most of you flew a long way to be here, so let's cut through it. Maybe you don't like it, but you know as well as I do you can't have some hothead buckaroo fucking up the progress Adar's made by taking it for granted. Like dickless, here," she gestured to Earnest Young Man. "Some kid who's never known anything but the last few years."

A mixture of sharp intakes of breath and stifled snickers orbited the table.

"Someone who assumes anything we won is banked and anything they won is still up for grabs."

"Now look here—" Earnest Young Man began.

Ostrakov silenced him with a small hand gesture, not turning his eyes from Haiden.

Haiden leaned forward, her eyes boring into Ostrakov's. "Something else I learned in the Service: Sometimes there's a weak spot in the enemy line, and you surge forward. Great. But you know there's a counterattack coming. It's great that you've made headway, but you can lose it all if you don't secure your lines."

"That's a nice sentiment," Kikuchi said. She had been one of the ones who had snickered before, Haiden had noted, which was a good sign. "But it's a little vague."

"With respect, if you want someone who'll rattle off a list of policy particulars and empty-headed pipe dreams that'll never go anywhere, go find a politician. That's not why you came to me. With once-in-a-generation exceptions like Richard Adar, that's not a President's job. There's different ways to command a ship, but my experience is that the micromanagers never do well. You set a tone, you resolve disputes among the Command Staff, you make the important decisions, and you let your X.O.—in this analogy, I suppose that'd be the Ministers and Secretaries—do the dirty work."

"I don't think you've answered my question yet," Ostrakov observed.

Is there something more important I should be doing with my time? she wanted to joke, but that tack hadn't worked so far. "You alluded earlier to the fact that outside of the metro areas, Leonis hasn't been fertile ground for us. Can I tell you my theory why?"

"Please."

"We tend to say the kind of things I said earlier—we tend to emphasize efficiency and centralization and consistency and coherent direction. We want the experience of, say, going to a doctor to be the same on any world. The same standards for care and privacy, the same prices, and so on. The other side, they're for diversity and competition. They're for letting the worlds be different. That's a powerful pitch to people who are content with how things are around them.

"I've not been back planetside for long, a few months, but people here seem content. Things are good. So it's easy to forget the good that government can do. Has done, in fact, in the very recent past—1,992 really wasn't long enough ago that people should have forgotten what kind of mess Adar walked into. But they have. That lets them get hung up on concerns that are really quite abstract and theoretical, to my mind; to worry about government overreach and whatnot. To say, look, the private-sector is this big, messy jumble but it's free, and the benevolence of unintended consequences will just take care of us, and when companies are free to do whatever they want, they'll magically distribute wealth, happiness, security, rainbows, unicorns, and whatever else people want. I don't think it works that way. Strength and progress comes from community, and the government is the best instrument we've invented to coordinate that community. I want to be President because I think it can be done better."

Earnest Young Man looked sick, and Haiden found that more than a little satisfying. Teach you to interrogate me like I'm an unruly Midshipman, you little frak.

Ostrakov looked satisfied. He removed his glasses and sat them in front of him. "All right." His tone had not changed throughout the morning, and it did not change now, though the implication of the words was clear enough. "Have you given any thought to who's going to run your campaign? Traditionally, it's the candidate's choice."

"As you know, I am new to this, but it's been suggested to me that you would be a good choice. If you're willing, that is."

"I have a job already, Miss Haiden."

"Is it up to me or isn't it?" Haiden gazed at him, keeping her face neutral.

For the first time all morning, the man cracked a smile; a lopsided grin, at any rate. "You know, they say Dick Adar had a kind of 'reality distortion field' when he ran. He'd say 'this is what I want.' And someone'd say 'that's impossible' and he'd say it more forcefully and people would just say, 'okay, let's do that, we'll find a way to make it happen.'"

In the corner of her eye, Haiden noticed Kikuchi nodding at that.

"I suppose that's the politician's charisma," he added. "Never met an admiral with it before."

"First time for everything," Haiden said, with a wide smile.

Ostrakov returned half of it and sighed, beaten. "Very well. I'll do it until you find someone you like better. How's that?"

And just like that, it seemed to Haiden, she was running for President of the United Colonies of Kobol. The whole thing felt surreal.

* * *

Two days later, Vanssen's phone rang.

"Se, mon amiral?" she answered, with a smile Haiden could hear through the distance.

"Better make that 'mon candidat,' I think."

"Old habits."

"Fair enough. Hey, Vanssen, I got two questions."

"Shoot."

"Who looks after my dogs while I'm gone?"

Vanssen chuckled. "I will make arrangements."

"Good. So, no kidding, I can have you as my X.O.? You're not a one-time deal, I get to keep you?"

"I'd be honored. Yes, me, you can keep, if you'd like. It's everything else that's gonna drop out from under you."

"Okay. Do something for me: I want to meet him. Volakis."

"Excuse me?"

There was a long pause. Haiden waited, unhurried.

It didn't take long for the droll tone to creep back into Vanssen's voice. "I'm not sure what your new Campaign Manager will say about that."

"So don't tell him."

"It doesn't work that way, Sir."

"Call me Haiden."

"No, Sir. But I'll tell you what. I know a guy over at MIC a bit; their counterpart to Ostrakov's deputy. I can Colonial Express him a note. See if they're willing to set something up. But you're telling Ostrakov."

"I can do that."

"In that case: Je me soumis a vos commandement. Remember, Sir, they work for you. You're telling him not asking."

Haiden had not forgotten.

## Chapter Seven: Luke & Haiden.

Gaoth, Aerilon.

November 20.

"It's confirmed. They're running with Connie Haiden," Aldred Marineo said. He was the MIC director of campaigns, Ostrakov's counterpart. Another old friend of Sirica's; a balding, olive-skinned Tauron with a small frame and vine-like tattoos that peeked past the edges of his shirt when he moved. Luke liked Taurons, and Marineo was veteran of enough campaigns that his apparent annoyance at Luke's every choice was more concerning than annoying.

Sitting by the window, Sirica said nothing.

Luke frowned. "I've never heard of her."

They were all operating outside of their accustomed environments. The decision had been made that the campaign should be headquartered in the Aerilan capital, near the site of the Adar administration's worst blunder. Symbols matter, Luke had said. Looking like symbols matter to you matters, Sirica had agreed, noting that it was good optics, but agreeing with Marineo that it would introduce practical difficulties.

"She's a retired admiral," Marineo said. "Uneventful career, all of it 'at sea' as they say. No shore assignments to speak of. We've come across her before; Adar considered her to replace Helms at MoD when they kicked her out."

"I thought Helms resigned? Took the blame for Aerilon and fell on her sword."

Marineo shrugged. "Reports vary."

Not for the first time, Luke felt an acute longing for the factual certainties of his old job. He glanced at Sirica, who was still staring off into the distance, his hands clasped in his lap, looking for all the worlds like he was praying.

"She has no ties to the current administration," Marineo added. "Smart."

Luke looked between the two men feeling uncomfortable. Feeling out of his depth. What's so interesting outside that damned window, he wanted to snap at Sirica. "Well, what does that mean?"

"It means," Sirica said, softly, "that the King's Men have lost. For now."

"I don't understand."

"FIC," Marineo explained, "probably Cav House too, is fracturing. It happens to every President as their second term winds down, but the flip side of Adar's personality cult is that it's more polarized this time. On one side, you've got the people who are personally loyal to Adar. Who want to dismiss his unpopularity as fabrications we've concocted. Who believe the official line that what happened down in Balfast was a tragedy but it was an avalanche of misfortune and misunderstanding; one rock gets thrown, one trigger gets pulled, and everything rolls downhill, you can't blame the President.

"On the other side, you've got the party faithful, who believe the polls. They're a lot more concerned with winning the next election than they are with saving Adar's reputation. They don't care if orders were given. They just want to move past it and get back to 'talking about the issues.' They're more pragmatic, about this if nothing else."

Pragmatic... And cold-blooded, Luke thought. His people love him until he's of no further use. What happens when I'm of no more use? "I hate this everybody-has-to-choose-sides business."

"As the sun sets on each term, every justice has to write or join in every case," Sirica reminded him. "You said that."

"That's different."

"Is it?"

"Thing is," Marineo continued, ignoring them, "Adar's always hated the military. Now more than ever. Haiden won't have been his choice, no matter what he'll say publicly in support, which means this was a fight. For now, it looks like Adar's people lost."

"Is that bad for us?"

Marineo shrugged. "It puts them back in the game, but still at a major disadvantage."

"And..." Sirica lent back and adjusted his glasses. "There'll be a price to pay."

"Meaning what?"

"A lot of pressure on Haiden to embrace the Adar program and give a firm 'no' to an Inquest, I'd imagine," Marineo said. "That has to be the tradeoff if they're putting space between the candidate and Adar."

"Mm. From the outside, they abstract Adar," Sirica observed, "but within their camp it also aggravates him. And an angered king is fearsome. If the scuttlebutt about the drinking is true, that makes him more likely to blunder, too. Perhaps good for us, but potentially bad for the worlds. For all his charisma," he gave Luke a pointed look, "he's not a very nice person, I'm afraid." He steepled his fingers and returned his gaze to the ether. "So. We now see the players and the pieces. They have bought their way back into the game, at a cost. They can't use the experience line against you, and they lose the advantage of running an experienced candidate against one who isn't. They've distanced the election from Adar, but in the process, pissed him off. Who's running her campaign, Al?"

"Gerald Ostrakov's taking a sabbatical to do it."

"Ah." Sirica smiled thinly. "A pro. Now we have an interesting race; new candidates managed by experienced old hands." He fiddled with his pipe, a tobacco-pouch, and a matchbook. "Is Emily here yet?"

"She's outside."

"Send her in, please. Luke, meet your new shadow."

"Oh?"

He waited until she was in the door. "This is Emily Gutierrez; she might be a good fit as an aide and speechwriter. She's been writing for Delegate Esquivel—"

"I'm still not sure I need a speechwriter."

"You weren't sure you needed the makeup. Change is good for the soul, Luke."

"Go frak yourself, Bob."

They exchanged wry grins.

"You want a small staff. Fine, but give me room to maneuver. Emily's worked with us for a while, and she's very capable."

"Sir, if I may?" Gutierrez said. "When you were on the court, you had law-clerks. They wrote drafts for you, but you always sounded like yourself."

Luke felt his eyebrows rise. The thought hadn't occurred to him, and the implication that she was familiar with his work was a nice touch on Sirica's part. There were a lot of nice touches like that going on; they were doing everything they could. And he appreciated the effort. It wasn't their fault that he still felt uncomfortable with the whole thing.

"This is just the same," Gutierrez added. "I ghostwrote President Sutherland's memoir and I was a staff writer for a couple members of Congress you'll of heard of before that. You're welcome to compare it to things I wrote for myself in the Sagittaron Gazette. I'm just here to help take some mental load off of you."

"Also," Sirica added, "you need a handler, and I've got better things to do."

"I don't need a damn handler, Bob!"

"Yes, you do. You don't understand yet, but you will. You've made your own schedule for two decades plus; familiar patterns, comfortable routines, and we're upending your life. We're not young anymore."

Luke eyed Gutierrez; then Marineo; then Sirica. "I don't like this 'Sir' business," he muttered.

"What did your clerks call you?" Gutierrez asked.

Before he could answer, a tap on the door interrupted them. Paul Katraine was one of Marineo's assistants, a bullet-headed Gemenese lawyer, a Marine veteran and built like one, mercifully more phlegmatic than his boss. "The ColEx guy was just here," he announced. "Friend of mine on the other side sent me a note. She reports she's Admiral Haiden's new Executive Assistant, and the Admiral requests a friendly sit-down with the Chief Justice."

Silence descended on the room. Hard. Katraine stayed put in the doorway.

"That's an interesting development," Marineo said, eventually.

Sirica again said nothing, but looked at Luke with raised eyebrows.

"Something out of the ordinary, I take it?" Luke asked.

"My friend suggests the Shorewood spaceport on Gemenon might be appropriate," Katraine said. "They are open to counterproposals if we have another preference."

Luke looked to Sirica.

Sirica shrugged.

Marineo looked between the two of them, seeming appalled by the idea. "Now, just a minute. You're not thinking of doing it?"

There was a long silence. Luke wished that he could see the chessboard that he felt sure floated in front of his friend's eyes at all times.

Eventually, Sirica shrugged. "It's up to you."

Luke nodded. "Alright. Well, then, it can't hurt to listen."

Shorewood, Gemenon.

November 28.

Katraine's phone buzzed and he glanced down at it. "Vanssen says they're five minutes out."

An advance team had emptied out a nondescript coffee shop on the spaceport's circular concourse, and Luke, Sirica, Gutierrez, and Katraine had set up shop. Sirica was visibly enjoying playing barista with the owner. He was the only one having any fun; five hours on a Pan-Colonial airliner improved no one's mood. They were early, and all of them—perhaps a poor omen for the months to come—were unspeakably jetlagged. It was still morning on Aerilon; Luke's watch, unchanged from Themis (because, though he dared not admit it, he had forgotten how), said it was the middle of the night; in Shorewood, the sun was setting. As it did, tensions rose.

"It's a power move," Katraine said. He hadn't moved from the doorway since they arrived, other than to accept first one and then, more enthusiastically, a second cup of Sirica-brewed coffee. "She's asserting she's confident enough to meet you on your own turf."

"Oh, is that what it is, Paul? Really?" Luke rolled his eyes. "Thankyou, because I was having trouble seeing through that subtle artifice."

Sirica and Gutierrez traded snickers. Katraine shrugged, humorless.

"Consider that it may be a gesture," Sirica suggested. "An offer to meet somewhere she thinks you'll feel comfortable."

"Just because I grew up here doesn't mean I'm comfortable here."

"And she would know that how? Consider all possibilities."

"I'm considering the possibility this was a bad idea," Luke admitted.

"It's not too late to back out. Though it won't endear you to our friends on the other side to do it when they're on their way."

"I don't mean taking the meeting, I mean taking the gig. Should never have let you talk me into this."

Sirica placed his hands over Luke's hands. "You said that before." He gave Luke a deadpan look. "Would you like a hug?"

"Would you like to go frak yourself?"

"They're here," Katraine said, staring out along the concourse. "Four people. Correction, three, one's hanging back."

"Armed?" Sirica asked.

"What?" Katraine's head snapped around.

Luke and Sirica traded sardonic looks and light chuckles. "Just a joke, Paul," Sirica said. He frowned and adjusted Luke's tie for him. "Game time."

"You said that before! You say that too often," Luke grumped. But he had to admit, it was apropos this time.

First through the door was a black-haired young woman in what Luke would guess to be a fashionable green sundress, whom Katraine greeted warmly. She shook hands with Gutierrez and Sirica, who introduced her to Luke as "our long-lost friend Anne."

Behind her was a middle-aged man in a suit that was neat but not tailored, nor especially well-made, by the looks of it. Gerald Ostrakov, Director of Political Campaigns for the Federalist International Committee, and Campaign Manager pro tem, Sirica explained, in a tone that Luke interpreted as respectful but decidedly cold.

Lastly came someone who could only be Haiden herself. She was tall and slender, her black hair streaked by a white forelock. Beautiful, actually, it occurred to him, and if Luke had to pick any word to describe how she walked in, it would be sauntered.

"I'm messaging Paul that we're five minutes out," Vanssen announced.

"More like ten," the pilot said. "We'll be down in two, but I'll need a few minutes to taxi. This place is a maze on the ground."

Picking Ostrakov had come with an unexpected bonus: With him came an FTL-capable plane and a pilot. No one could be enthused by how much commercial flight a campaign would otherwise necessitate. The Bearing Tradewind IIC+ wasn't pretty. It was a chromed traffic cone, flattened on one side and mounted atop a delta wing. But it had been a welcome surprise.

"Look at that." Ostrakov pointed out of a cabin window at the city below them. This high up, the plane was still in sunshine, but Langalac and its suburbs were already in dusk, myriad lights illuminating its border with the lake's inky blackness and spiderwebbing outward to the south. Shorewood was clearly marked by the lights of its spaceport. "I love this view. I painted this kind of thing when I was younger; I think I called them 'The Conquest of Nature by Man.' A little pretentious," he allowed, "though in my defense... they weren't very good paintings, either. Happy though I always am to be on the great Republic of Gemenon, I think this is a bad idea," he reminded them.

"Noted." Haiden glanced at Vanssen. "X.O., tactical analysis?"

"The enemy's occupied the location and presumably secured the perimeter. They should be sitting comfortably. But they've got to be wondering why we asked, and why here, so the initiative's ours. By the way, personally, I frakking hate Gemenon, not that anyone asked."

Haiden absorbed that. Then, in a tone she intended to brook no argument: "Ostrakov, stop being touchy. Vanssen, stop being a snob." Good leaders project confidence. In truth, she was nervous; as went the next half-hour went the next year of her life, and there were too many wildcards. Had she read Volakis right? How would he react to what she had in mind?

She eyed Vanssen's dress; a sensible if showy choice for Luminère, but not, perhaps, for Gemenon's second city. What season is it here, anyway? She had no idea. There would be a lot of that in the months to come, she realized.

The pilot curved them in a tight circle around the spaceport, and for a moment, Haiden's stomach tightened. It was to be a wheeled landing, then, and she hadn't done that in a long time. She struggled to remember what the protocol was.

Vanssen met her eyes. "The candidate looks shipshape," she said, for once without a trace of sarcasm. "Buckle up."

"What kind of ship?" Haiden deflected, complying.

With a thump and a shudder, the plane lapsed onto the spaceport's runway, and the sense of speed that flight elided resumed instantly. The pilot braked, then turned them toward a complex of black hulks silhouetted against the grey of dusk.

"I was thinking of a Thunderbird," Vanssen said. "The dart-shaped ones from the Allied Powers Intervention."

"A thousand years old?" Haiden quipped.

"Sylphlike. Svelte, confident, and dangerous."

"Good." The compliment was appreciated. "That's what I was going for."

That wasn't a deflection; she had chosen clothes and makeup carefully, even applying a temporary dye to thin to the ranks of greys in her hair. Appearances count in politics, and first impressions count in everything.

After they disembarked, a spaceport employee led them to a private arrivals desk, where Vanssen deftly handled the paperwork, and they emerged into the spaceport's main concourse, a brightly-lit doughnut of glass and white-painted tubular supports, blinding after the cabin's subdued lighting.

"This way," Vanssen said, striking out toward a row of restaurants and coffee shops indistinguishable from those in any spaceport on any world. Ostrakov followed. Haiden brought up the rear, her eyes still adjusting.

Standing in one doorway was a broad-shouldered man beaming in Vanssen's direction. Haiden had studied pictures and thumbnail bios of the people likely to be there—by common consensus, Volakis, Sirica, and Vanssen's friend Katraine. This one was Katraine, for sure. Inside, someone she recognized as Sirica was making introductions, standing beside a woman Vanssen's age whom she didn't recognize. Hanging back just a little was Volakis.

His picture doesn't do him justice, Haiden thought.

He was tall, long-faced, chestnut-skinned, and had salt-and-pepper hair cropped almost but not quite so close as to erase curls that revealed no apparent withdrawal of his hairline. Despite a slight stoop, he was handsome; that was more obviously now he had shaved off the beard and ditched the thick-rimmed glasses that, in his picture, had obscured striking hazel eyes. He was dressed in a well-cared-for suit that Haiden reckoned had been expensive when it had been bought many, many years ago. Over a neatly-starched shirt, he wore what Haiden would have judged a quite expensive Leonese silk tie emblazoned with the crest of the Neptune Colonial Military Academy, her alma mater.

An olive-branch? she wondered.

Connie Haiden hadn't gotten where she was without learning to read body language. Even artfully disguised body language. And where Sirica looked the part of the wolfish, backroom player, Volakis either couldn't or wasn't trying to hide his nerves. That was charming, in its own way.

After the staff had been introduced, Volakis—shambled was the only word for it. Patiently, he shambled forward, smiling awkwardly, offering his hand. The staff pulled back slightly around them.

Should of asked Vanssen about the rules of engagement.

Still, her impression in person was the same as the one she had taken from watching videos of speeches he had given as Chief Justice. I can do business with this man, was Haiden's conclusion.

"Admiral Haiden, it's good to meet you."

She took the proffered hand, calibrating her grip to his.

"Mister Chief Justice. Likewise, a pleasure," she said, smiling as warmly as she could.

"May I call you 'Connie'?"

"People mostly call me 'Haiden,' but—sure, if you'd like. I understand your friends call you Luke?"

"They do. Are we to be friends, Connie?"

"I hope so." Haiden let the corner of her mouth curl upward. "Friendly adversaries, at least. Don't you agree?"

"Mmm. Would you like to take a seat?"

"Actually, I've been sat on a plane for an hour, so if it's all the same to you, I'd like to stretch my legs. Can we walk?"

The two staffs exchanged glances with their colleagues. Then with their opponents.

"Just us," Haiden added. "I don't know what time you're on, but it's lunchtime for us. I'm sure my colleagues would welcome a break, a coffee, and a pastry—"

"Bob makes a pretty good cup of coffee, if memory serves," Ostrakov agreed. "He may have missed his calling."

Sirica pursed his lips to say something, seemed to think better of it, and flashed a thin smile at them.

"Good. So," Haiden insisted, "just two friendly people talking. Simpler that way, isn't it?"

Volakis glanced at Sirica, then back at Haiden. "I'd like that."

At first, they strolled along the concourse in silence. People streamed around them, killing time or rushing to catch flights, oblivious to the candidates. Luke wondered whether this kind of anonymity would be hard to let go of. As the election unfolded, they would be recognized in such a setting. But not here; not yet.

He cleared his throat. "You know what's interesting about spaceports? Everyone knows where they're going. There's something to envy in that, I think."

"Mm. A clear purpose." Haiden had been trying to think of an icebreaker, and having come up with nothing better, she offered, "You served in the War, yes?"

"I was a Marine. Three tours; two enlisted, early on, before it was mandatory. Got out for a while, went to school, then went back near the end as a Lieutenant. You?"

"Came in enlisted right at the end. It stuck, you know? Stayed in after the Armistice, got a commission. I did okay."

"That's modesty. They were mustering people out left and right; they had their pick of the litter, so they must have thought you were good. Believe me," he chuckled, "I couldn't keep a billet in a weather-station on Aquaria."

"Maybe." Haiden shrugged. "Or I just got lucky. I've had good luck, y'know? Been in the right place at the right time. Came in at the end of the war; served long enough to learn my lessons, not long enough to get hurt." She paused. "These kids, the Adar people, the FIC people—they're young. They don't remember it."

An olive-branch? Luke wondered.

"Some of them served," she said, "but peacetime's different. War hammers a mindset into you that every jump's a combat jump, every new tactical environment, you sweep for threats like your life depends on it. I swear, I walked into this place and the first thing my brain's doing is a quick count of chokes and exfil points, IFF, so on. Isn't that crazy? It's been years, and still. I choose to think of it like it's a superpower," she grinned. "Sometimes I even find myself missing it; the War, I mean."

"'Miss it'?"

"In a way. There was a clarity; a unity of purpose. Nowadays, everyone's fighting everyone else for their own tiny little fiefdoms, and—"

"I'll never miss it," Luke said, softly. "It was war. In '51..." He hesitated. "I was in a platoon tasked to hold this little redoubt, just a craggy little place hanging off a mountainside on Tauron, and they attacked. To this day I've no idea what was so damn valuable about it, but we were there with orders to hold it, and they were there with a whatever-the-Cylon-version-of-an-order-is to take it.

"When I say they butchered the platoon... It's not a figure of speech. A couple of us got lucky. My, uh, campaign manager? You met a few minutes ago? Me, this Aquarian kid Bob Sirica, and a local girl, Ferrera. We were outside on guard duty. They hit us with some kind of grenade, it killed Ferrera right there and it blew me and Bob back over a ledge. There's a drop on the other side, down into the snow, and I guess they couldn't see us where we rolled. But we heard what happened next. And when we left that place, we were old, old men.

"The War's over, and best left in the past. Besides, it's a new era, Connie; that's what they tell us, right? President Swanson told me that, once, too. She didn't want Sutherland to be President. Did you know that?"

"I didn't." She blinked, surprised. If he trusts me enough to tell me that... Good sign.

"She felt it was time to hand over the reins to a younger generation. But Sutherland ran anyway, and the economy hits a bump in the road, and suddenly he's the villain. Bad timing on his part. Not his fault, but being President means you're responsible. I'm guessing Swanson woulda preferred it wasn't Dick Adar taking over, of course, but she woulda been a much better person than me if she didn't feel just a little vindicated. She had a sense it was time."

"I sense a 'but' coming."

"But," he smiled, "they've frakked it up. Pardon my language. You must see that."

"They've made some missteps. Mistakes, yes, but well-intentioned."

"Good intentions can't save bad ideas. The problems are the inevitable result of fundamentally flawed policies."

"We're a little old for dogmatics, aren't we?" she said, archly.

"The Secretariat of Education isn't failing because the Secretary's bad at her job, it's failing because no one can do that job. You can't micromanage 1.3 million school districts from Pyrmont! That's a practical point not a dogmatic one. At best, they've pushed too far too fast. They're reckless, and I'd say it'll get someone killed, except it already did."

Haiden took in a breath, held it for a moment, and walked to the nearest eatery.

"Time out. This'll get us nowhere. I need something to eat; d'you want something?"

Luke took the hint and followed her. "I don't go in for anything fancy. Or healthy, come to think of it."

"We both lie to our doctors, then," she said, a twinkle in her eye.

"You seem in good health," he said. Delightful though this is, he wanted to say, why are we here?

She bought two pastry concoctions, dusted with sugar and filled with custard, handed him one, and nibbled the other as they resumed walking. You can thank Richard Adar for the fact I just bought you that with the same cubits in my pocket I brought from Leonis, she didn't say aloud. They were by now almost on the opposite side of the terminal from Sirica and the others.

"You can be disciplined about exercise or strict about diet," she averred. "I always found exercise easier. It's something you can do—y'know? That's a problem I have. I need to be doing something."

"Something like, say, running for President?"

"I don't know, Luke, that feels a lot more like dieting than exercise," she said with a devilish grin that could have lit the night. She swallowed the remainder of the pastry. "So I know some things about you. I've done my reading. Born here, grew up here until the War took you offworld. You've spent your whole life since then doing law. Why would you want to be President? Isn't that a change of gears?"

"You've spent your whole life in the Service, so I could ask you the same thing."

"Bon. Turnabout's fair play. Well, I retired. There were things going on I didn't like, personally and professionally, I had to make a decision, so I retired. And for the first time in a long time, I slept in. It was glorious. And then, after a week or two, I realized: I don't have a frakking clue what to do with my life. I turned sixty this year. That's still young. And then Carolyn Culverson shows up saying, hey, Haiden, we think you'd make a good President, how about it? I mean, how's that not turn your head?"

"Yeah." That landed closer than Luke should want to admit. "They approached me, very similar. I hadn't thought of it, and, yes, it's nice to be asked."

"And, soon as they ask, you start thinking—well, frak, why not? Right?"

"Can't be worse at it than the people doing it now," he grinned.

If that was intended as a jibe, she resolved to let it pass. "You start thinking about things you'd do different. Issues you care about. You find that little voice inside yourself who says 'you're nobody, you can't do this,' and you stick a frakkin' KA-BAR through her throat because, damnit, you can do this, and you were a pretty good leader in one context so you could be in another. Right?"

"That's... Not a million miles from the truth." Luke smiled, faintly, bemused. "Is this all a hypothetical or are you being very candid, Connie?"

"I'm going somewhere with it." She held his eye for a moment. "Here." She led him across to the railing at the concourse edge, a sheer wall of glass providing a view out over the now-dark field as planes roared into the night toward unknown destinations. "I bet you don't relish the notion of flying a trillion miles on commercial over the next year."

"No, but—"

"We have a plane."

"Oh. I mean, are you—" he chuckled, gazing out of the window at a departing flight. "That doesn't help me. Unless you're offering to share, that is."

"What if I am?"

His head whipped around.

"I want to float an idea. Take it as read that what's happening right now is, we're being mounted as figureheads on two mutually hostile organizations that are bringing on-deck massive caches of arms to shoot at one another. Maybe we're not pawns, but we're pieces on someone's chessboard, played by people like the two fine gentlemen who came with us, hm? But I'm not the devil. And you're not the devil. We're just two people who disagree on some things. I want to be President; we deserve better than Adar, let's agree on that much. But I don't love the idea of spending the next year getting torn to shreds, and I'm not fond of the idea of spending that year tearing someone else to shreds, either."

"That thought had crossed my mind," he admitted. "But I don't know what to do about it."

"I do. They need us, Luke. They came to us, and haven't you asked yourself why? Or, why we've been in a month and no one else is jumping in?"

"Well, it's too early... Isn't it? Bob said I'd clear the field by announcing, so—"

"It's because neither side has anyone else to run, and no one's taking the risk of jumping in of their own accord."

He absorbed that, then rumbled "candy-asses."

"They all want it but they don't want to reach for it or risk for it. On my side, the incoming Prime Minister on Caprica wants to run for President, but he's not ready yet. He wanted to do it next time round and bet on the Vice President taking a turn at the wheel, but it turns out Briscoe's not stupid enough to do it. And on your side, no one wants to come in and try to clean up the mess and risk failing. Both parties are toxic, the same old faces and new ones not ready for primetime. So they turned to us."

"If it's a poisoned chalice," he asked, hesitantly, "why are you reaching for it?"

She looked him straight in the eye. "Luke, I think we're a lot alike. I think our situations are alike, and I also think we're alike in being entirely ill-equipped for what they want us to do." She jabbed a finger across the concourse. "Running their way, the way it's always done. I've watched vids of you giving speeches while you were still—is 'on the bench' the right term?"

"Yes."

"Yeah. I can't give a speech either. It's just not in either of our skillsets."

"Those were well-received," Luke sniffed.

"By a friendly crowd of the same professional milieu. You think you're going to lecture your way into Cav House with a series of intellectual disquisitions? C'mon, you're not naïve."

Luke stared at her, unsure whether all this was annoying or charming. "Alright. I accept your hypothetical. So what's the point? Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want to be President, and you want to be President, and we're a little old to spend a year striking at each other's ankles. And I know we're old enough that neither of us wants to spend a year falling on our faces. I don't want to do this the way it's normally done. I say we run but we run our way."

"We just met and we've already got a way together? This is happening so fast," he laughed.

She smiled thinly. "We could spend the next year never seeing one another, firing artillery barrages over the airwaves, just figureheads mounted on enemy battleships. I'll hate it and you'll hate it, and pretty soon we'll hate each other. But how's this instead: Let's tour the worlds together. We'll debate, talk; hell, we'll spar if you want. But whatever form it takes, let's do it together. Let's be friends. Let's be inspiring. That's the whole thing; I realized it the other week. We're stronger together. Forgive me, I know that's political, but we're one civilization, so let's act like it."

"We're all children of Kobol," Luke murmured. "All children of the gods." He swallowed. "I like this idea. We go around together, see the worlds together, let them see us. That's great. But. Um." He gestured across the concourse in the rough direction of their staffs. "I don't know that they'll let us. They'll say it's not how it works. They'll call it naïve."

"So what? Let 'em. Vanssen said something to me when I floated this meeting: Don't forget, they work for us. Godsdamn, that's smarter than she knows. They need us and they work for us. They won't like it, but they'll do it our way."

* * *

Ostrakov's plane climbed unhurriedly into the air. The pilot turned northwest over the lake and inclined them upward.

"You're quiet," Vanssen said.

Haiden didn't move; her eyes flickered away from the window. "What do you make of him?"

"I barely met him."

"Alright, what do I think of him?"

"Charming, just wrong," Vanssen suggested.

Haiden continued staring out of the window and Vanssen shrugged, returning her attention to the itinerary.

"I like him," Haiden said.

"I like her," Luke said, briskly.

Katraine and Gutierrez raised their eyebrows and traded looks.

"What exactly did you two talk about?"

"It doesn't matter. Bottom line is, I'm in. But we're going to do this my way. This won't be some kind of slash-and-burn campaign; this is going to be civilized. It's going to be a conversation."

Sirica shrugged, returning his attention to his imaginary chessboard.

"What do you have in mind?" Gutierrez asked.

Luke eyed her. "I don't want to offend you as a wordsmith, but how are you with outlines? Distilling and organizing talking points instead of speeches?"

"Good...?"

"Good."

"What are you up to?" Katraine asked.

"For one thing, I want to do a joint tour of the worlds. We'll go together. We'll go debate and be seen together."

"That's not how this is works," Katrine noted. "Also: Al's going to have a stroke when he hears."

Luke kicked Sirica's foot.

Sirica locked eyes with Luke for a moment. Then he blinked a few times, and glanced in Katraine's direction. "Apparently, Paul, it's how it works now." He shrugged. "Set it up, if you'd be so kind?"

## Chapter Eight: Forsyth.

Jennifer Welles had been born in Queenstown, Picon, on January 29, 1,957. Theoxenios 17, according to the Realigned Picon Calendar; a Solstice baby.

There was a war on, and the Armistice was yet three years away. Her father, Harry Welles, served as an enlisted in the Colonial Fleet before injury forced him out of the fight and ignited fresh devotion to the gods. He became a Preacher, to the delight of his low temple family. Then he met Eleanor Grantley. During a lull in the War, the cleric and the nurse fell in love, to the dismay of her high temple family. As Picon rebuilt after the Armistice, they provided their daughters with a safe, middle-class, suburban, and devout upbringing.

Jenny inherited her mother's dark hair and her father's wide, curious eyes. Like them, she was smart and observant. But she was unmotivated. School was an unwelcome intrusion until she met Ari.

Arjun Forsyth was the eldest son of a family that moved to the area in the summer of 1,973, when his mother retired from the Service. What caught Jenny's eye was Ari's athleticism and infectious smile. What would prove to be of more lasting significance was his parents' determination that he should be more than a jock. At their insistence, he joined the school newspaper, and after three weeks of daydreaming and drooling over the newcomer, Jenny did the same to spend time with him.

Ari Forsyth was not a very good journalist. Jen Welles would prove to be an exceptional journalist. She had a way about her that put people at ease; she was curious, absorbed detail quickly, and had inherited her father's way with words and his gift for making the abstruse accessible.

The couple married young. While Ari studied as an officer candidate at the Poseidon Colonial Military Academy, Jen wangled a job at the Eastern Hemisphere, where she won two Rising Star awards. Over the next decade, wherever the Service put her husband, Jennifer Welles-Forsyth easily obtained jobs that burnished her byline's growing reputation. A growing collection of awards trailed in her wake.

In January 1,988 by the KSRC (late Athanaios for the Pican Forsyths), the same year in which Bill Adama would make Colonel and Ed Nagala became FHQ Chief of Staff, Ari was assigned as a liaison to the Tauron headquarters of Asterillos del Norte, the prime contractor for sub-capital military shipbuilding. Jen went to work for the [Tauron] Capital Times. It was the year she would win the Bentinck Prize.

Tauron's central bank had been a recurring problem for two centuries, and Jennifer Welles-Forsyth, the fearless Pican Preacher's daughter, did the investigation and wrote the articles that broke the mob's control of it. Jennifer Welles-Forsyth, almost single-handedly, brought down a bank that had been an integral player in the fate of worlds for 750 years. It was a milestone; a feat of shoeleather journalism unparalleled in recent history. Before, she could get a job anywhere; after, she had to turn them down. She was only 31.

The Forsyths returned to Queenstown, where Ari started a second career and looked after both sets of parents, by then ailing. Jen joined the Queenstown Sun-Gazette as their political reporter, where she garnered more accolades—but fewer, and further between. Their personal life, too, felt different. Unbalanced. The drinking started somewhere around that time.

Her trajectory nevertheless remained ever upward, and, at last, the big leagues beckoned. First, she was invited to be Picon Correspondent for the [Caprica] Capital Times. Then, in 1,996, to Caprica City itself, to be Associate Political Editor for the Times. And finally, in 1,997, to be Political Editor for the Caprica Tribune. She was 40—or 43 if you counted by Picon's calendar, which she was just as pleased to not.

The Tribune was the Twelve Worlds' newspaper-of-record. Just down the road from its Midtown headquarters, the Federalist Party had retained power in the election-season that brought her to Caprica, but lost their majority in the Quorum. That promised the sort of friction on which the capital press should thrive. The Tribune job was supposed to be the crowning jewel of a dazzling career.

Things had proved more complicated.

What Jenny Welles had learned watching her father preach, the power that Jennifer Welles-Forsyth had seized and wrapped around her in becoming a journalist, the unshakable faith that had powered her through long months away from Ari and long nights digging through dusty archives during the Central Bank Divesture Crisis, what had grounded her in good times and propelled her in bad times, what had comforted her as she and Ari had realized that they couldn't have children, was that words can change the worlds. The work she did mattered.

In the heart of power, fifteen minutes' walk from Cavendish House itself, she learned the hard way that they did not.

Words, she discovered, mattered not at all; journalism, even less. Power mattered. The Trib's sympathies were Federalist to its bones. So were Forsyth's; she had inherited liberal views from her parents and marinated for years in a profession where everyone was a Federalist. But the Trib's open favoritism for the Adar administration went too far. It offended her conception of their professional calling. The drinking worsened.

She began to fear that she had peaked early. The days when she had been Pican wunderkind felt like a very long time ago. A nice apartment in Midtown's toney Seattle neighborhood, even one with a Bentinck on the shelf, was less and less a distraction from the troubling realization that was longer and longer since she had written anything she was proud of. The drinking began to spill over into her workday. Deadlines began to be missed.

Ari, bless him, rescued her. As he always did.

She quit drinking. For all the weird Libranese mysticism that went with Addiction Recovery Fellowship, the Program worked. She quit smoking, too—well, she cut down. She found the gym like it was religion and lost twenty pounds. She cut her hair. She started attending temple again, which pleased Ari and would have pleased her father even more. Two months sober, she had done what she reckoned some of the best writing of her career covering the Congress' stormy autumn session, albeit while still on leave from her editor's chair.

1,999 A.E. had been a difficult year for her, but she was ending strong. She had fixed a lot of things that had been wrong in her personal life.

2,000 A.E., she was determined, would be the year in which she fixed her professional life.

Seattle, Midtown Caprica City.

December 31, 1,999.

The winter phase of Caprica's 28.2-day dance with Gemenon was four days away, and there was a soggy cold in the air as Forsyth walked down Dionysius Avenue to the Tribune building in Cheltenham. Not that it was dampening spirits; New Years parties were in full swing and Midtown was full of people celebrating. A little to the north, fireworks had already started out over the harbor.

The west end of Midtown had escaped the worst of the War. That good fortune had spared it the worst of the rebuilding. Here, brick buildings topped-out at a couple of dozen floors, small parks dotted the neighborhood's narrow streets, everyone walked everywhere, and as many un-permit'd ethnic food-carts as there were ethnic foods in the worlds fed them, creating a warmer, closer, more haphazard feeling of community than the austere glass-and-steel to the east in Cheltenham, or the positively hostile skyscrapers to the west in Downtown, their streets planned and managed to the last detail. Seattle and Telford had none of that oppressive sense of newness.

If anywhere on this godsforsaken world could be a home, this was it.

She crossed under Rutherford Parkway, the boundary between Seattle and Cheltenham. Here, the city reared up into modern buildings tens of stories tall, neatly arranged in rigid, unrelieved grids. A few more blocks, and she was standing in front of the Tribune building, a glass knife aimed at the sky. Still unsure whether this was a good idea, she glanced east; a few blocks away, Dionysius split into three boulevards where it entered Pyrmont. Beyond, the Clocktower and the dome of the Congresshall were just visible in the twilight.

She had not walked into this building since being carried out four months prior. How people might react she had no idea, but it was time. Besides, it wasn't like she'd been gone gone; she'd been working from home for a few months. Just a health problem. That was all.

Any fears that she might have harbored about temptations to drink evaporated as she stepped out of the elevator into the Trib's New Years party. Two colleagues staggered past her on their way to do something they would later regret, and she immediately spotted Caleb Banaias, the Executive Editor, watching from across the Newsroom. He'd seen them too. They traded a cod-shocked, amused glance and Banaias raised his beer-bottle in a silent acknowledgement of her, one corner of his mouth turned up, before returning his attention to his date.

Prick, Forsyth thought.

"Look who put on smart clothes and came to the office," the Sub simpered, breezing past her. She winced; fair hit. She hadn't looked her best the last time she was here.

She had a plan to follow. A strategy to be executed. Just mingle. Be seen, say hello, keep it light and breezy but let them know you're back. You can do this.

She circulated and socialized for a while, staying far away from a wet bar that had been set up by the Metro desk. The Newsroom was a bullpen carved out of two floors, with most of the editors' offices on the upper level. When she'd left, she'd had an office up there. Now, she noted, a much smaller office on the lower level bore a sheet of paper with her name hand-written on it. If that was a punishment, she would accept it graciously. It actually suited her fine, though she wasn't about to tell anyone that.

She glanced at her watch. If she was going to say anything, now was the time—while they'd still remember it.

"Hey, Carl, lend a hand?"

Carl Hook smiled at her. "Welcome back," he offered, helping her climb onto the closest desk. She clinked a pen against an empty glass loud enough to get the room's attention. "Hi everyone. Can I say something? I'll be quick."

"Make it real quick," someone joked as the room turned to look at her.

"I'm grateful to have you all as colleagues. Everyone except you, Josh." She lobbed a grin in the shouter's direction. "No, seriously. I'm thankful for all your support these last few months. We're about to turn the page to a new year. They say the public has a right to know; that's our job, to find out and tell the worlds. It's going to be an eventful year. We'll have a lot to tell.

"As of tomorrow morning, Caprica has a new government. Kent Novak," she gestured westward toward Downtown and the Caprica Capitol, "is photogenic, quotable, and despite his best efforts to pretend otherwise, he's an ambitious, pugilistic son-of-a-bitch. And," she gestured eastward toward Pyrmont and Cav House, "the President hates him. Between the friction we'll get between them, lame-duck maneuvering, and maybe an Inquest into the Aerilon shootings, and it's an election year, the heat's only going up. There's gonna be some great journalism to be done. I've, ah... I've never been good at pep talks, but most of you know my husband was Colonial Fleet. He says they have something called a Cag who gives talks like these, and I think it's a little apropos how he says the Cags are supposed to end those talks: 'Good hunting.' Happy New Year, and good hunting!"

There was scattered applause as the party resumed. Well, Forsyth thought as Hook helped her back down, that went about as well as expected.

"'Good hunting'?" Banaias sidled up to her. "S'a little dramatic, you think?"

"I figured—y'know, big, dramatic comeback? Jumping right back into the game? I thought you'd like that."

"Well, as you say, there's the election, and I'm guessing Novak will make his share of trouble on Caprica, so, sure. We'll eat well. But don't forget whose side we're on."

"I thought we were on the public's side?"

Banaias snorted softly and chuckled. Then glanced at her. "Wait, you're serious?"

"We don't work for Adar. He's fair game."

"No, we don't, but we sure as hell don't work for MIC or the Volakis campaign either."

"Don't you get it?" she grinned. "If they're running Haiden, we're covered. It's a clean break. We don't have to run defense for Adar. He's not our guy anymore."

"Yeah." He scratched his head, dodging her eyes. "You look good, Jen. I respect what you've done this year."

That didn't sound like a compliment.

"Well, there's better to come," she said.

"Yeeaah," he repeated, elongating the word awkwardly. "Look, be careful. Okay?"

"'Careful'? The frak does that mean?"

"It means, if you want to take a more critical line on the administration, fine. But make sure the stories are sourced impeccably."

"Don't I always?"

"Sources are one thing. Impeccably, Jen." Banaias arched an eyebrow as he stepped away. "Impeccably."

Prick, Forsyth thought again.

# Interlude One.

Queenstown Cathedral.

September 9, 1,998; after the funeral.

"Oh, she's a beaut," Skip Landon enthused—too loudly for Nagala's liking. Landon always played the part of the boisterous Scorpian to a tee. "Bill got the pretty one, but hot damn, Atlantia's a hell of a ship. Great crew. Couldn't be happier. Don't worry, Ed, I'm treatin' her like a lady."

"That's great, Skip. I'm glad."

Over Landon's shoulder, Nagala caught Cain rolling her eyes at that last quip. Nagala was glad, but mostly he was melancholy and tired. Funerals had that effect, to say nothing of the venue. The cathedral's verticality was almost oppressive; it was supposed to call one's heart up to the gods, to lift one's spirit to the heavens, but it had never had that effect on Nagala. It just made him feel small. Inadequate.

Overmatched.

As the reception wore on, he found himself drifting toward the door. The Chapter House was packed with well-wishers, shaking hands and exchanging the wan looks of funerals everywhere. There was a little buffet and bar, and a brunette momentarily caught his eye, retrieving what was at very least her third glass of wine. Wearing black, not uniform, noted some automatic friend-or-foe system hardwired into his brain.

He edged toward the doorway, as inconspicuous as he could manage in a crowd where everyone knew him. When he made it through the door into the cloister beyond, he wandered, looking for nothing more specific than solitude. On something like autopilot, he found himself in front of the archway leading into the Hadean Chapel.

He wasn't one to look for signs, but he walked in anyway, knelt down at the altar-rail, and murmured a prayer for his departed friend. Unbidden and unwelcome, a sob escaped him. By habit, he stifled it. Another one got by him; then a quavering intake of breath.

"Godsdamnit, Bobby."

He rubbed his eyes and peered up at the altar. Its statues peered back, mute: Hades, lord of the underworld and god of the departed, his daughter Selene, goddess of the dark, and a figure Nagala supposed to be Thanatos, the herald of death. More than all the gods honored on the main level above, the Elder Gods of the Night and their harbingers were depressingly-familiar to him.

Well, as King had been apt to remark, if not reiterate ad nauseum, death was their business.

Nagala stood and stuck his hands in his pockets. His shoulders slumped.

"Excuse me—are you okay?"

He started. "What?" In the corner of his eye, he caught that it was the brunette he had noticed at the reception. "Oh. Yes. Thank you."

They talked over one another for a moment, the brunette apologizing for the intrusion and explaining that she was looking for the restroom, Nagala assuring that there was no intrusion and it was fine. The brunette flashed another of those wan, sympathetic funeral smiles.

Nagala sighed internally and glanced back up in the direction of Hades. "Really, it's fine. Don't worry about it. I was just... I don't know. It's a funeral." He smiled weakly and shrugged. "I suppose one is apt... By the nature of it, one starts to think about... Well." He cleared his throat. "Did you know Commander King?"

"No. My husband served under him; under you, too, actually. Anyway, I'm just here for him, though to be quite honest a trip home's always welcome. He was a good boss, I'm told. Commander King. Good man, too. I heard something about that business when he retired."

Nagala felt himself flinch. "Yes." There was a long silence. "Spaceflight's dangerous; it's commonplace, so we forget. We take it for granted. That was Bobby's thing, he was very keen to impress on his charges that risk isn't the exclusive province of war." He jerked a thumb toward the altar and the herald of death. "Thanatos waits for everyone, all the time, one mistake away."

"He was young, wasn't he?" the brunette said. "Commander King, I mean. My parents died young. Not—I wasn't a kid, or anything, they were in their sixties. But that's young, isn't it? My dad was injured in the War. He was on the Ward when she went down in '56. Said it was more than enough fear for one lifetime."

"Your father was on the battlestar Ward?" He shivered.

"Yep. Petty Officer First Class Harold Welles."

There was audible pride in the way she said that, Nagala thought. As well there should be. "I was there. Flying off the Masada; my first deployment. I saw it happen. Gods."

"I can't imagine. He got religion after that. Became a Preacher. He'd seen too much; enough fear, more than enough death." She gazed up at Hades, then turned back to him. "Are you afraid of it? Dying, I mean."

Nagala chuckled softly. "The hell kind of question is that?"

The brunette shrugged. "The kind you think about at funerals." She cracked a warmer smile—a real smile, not a funeral smile, a twinkle in those wide, dark eyes. "I guess the kind people are usually thinking about when they retreat to Hadean chapels after funerals to get away from people."

He stared at her, then chuckled softly. Touché, lady. "Are you?"

Her eyes fell. There was still a glass of wine in her hand; she swirled her drink, looking into it. "I'm afraid of it not mattering."

"Now that's a good answer," he had to agree. He dropped his cane onto the nearest pew, sat down, rubbed his nose, and thought about it. She leaned against another pew across the aisle—not quite steady on her feet, Nagala noted. "No. No, not really," he replied, eventually. "During the War, death was everywhere around us. We just... kind of... got used to it, I suppose."

"How d'you get used to the idea of dying?"

"I don't know. You resign yourself to the possibility. You come to some kind of peace with it. Bobby was at peace with it at the end; he'd unburdened himself, made his peace with it all. Got religion, like you said with your father. I think that's the best you can hope for. Well, maybe it's the second best."

"Second? What's first?"

Nagala smiled, grimly. "It'll sound... These days, this might sound macho. Glory-seeing, or something, but I don't mean it that way. Death comes for you, one way or another, so you should ride out to meet it, I think. Face it, fight it, and go down swinging. I suppose that sounds silly, nowadays."

"Not at all. You strap on your spurs and ride off into battle one last time."

"Yes; yes, I like that. That's a good way to—yes. Something like that. Well-said."

"Is it selfish I'm glad my husband doesn't think that way? I was always so relieved, so happy when he came home to me."

Nagala had completely forgotten about that, and generations of social training chided him. "You said he served under me?"

"Mm hmm. On the Australis. He'd of been a Lieutenant." She smiled, happily, as of a fond memory; a woman in love. "Arjun. My handsome Lieutenant Ari."

Nagala leaned back against the pew, dredging his memory. "Lieutenant... Lieutenant Arjun...? I'm sorry. I mean..." He chuckled. "Contrary to legend," he admitted, "I don't actually know everyone's name."

"Oh!" The brunette bridled, looking apologetic. "No, of course not. I'm sorry. Ari Forsyth."

Something about that sounded familiar to Nagala. And not in a sentimental way. Something nagged at him insistently.

"Lieutenant Arjun Forsyth, he'd of been," she added.

"Forsyth?" Nagala squinted and blinked as the thought connected. He looked at her with a sudden flash of recognition, feeling a rising panic. "Oh no. Oh no no. No, I don't talk to the press, Mrs Forsyth."

Jen Forsyth bridled. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—I mean, I'm not..." She shook her head. "I'm off the clock. I'm not here to cover anything, I'm—"

Nagala stood abruptly, quailing and reaching for his cane. "Forgive me. I can't—I'm sorry. This was... I have to go. All of this, it goes without saying... None of this is on-record."

"Of course," Forsyth soothed, genuinely chagrined, as best as he could discern.

He was already moving toward the archway as fast as would not appear impolite.

"Um, Admiral Nagala?"

He didn't turn around. But he hesitated.

"This... This isn't—I mean, we're off-off-off-the-record here. We're just two people talking at a funeral. I know you don't talk to the press. But... Oh, what the hell, look: If you ever do want to talk, you know, just on the off-chance..."

She approached and pressed a card into his hand. She looked flushed enough that he judged it sincere embarrassment rather than one drink too many.

"We're on the same side, Admiral," Forsyth said. "And I'm a good listener."

Admiral Nagala did not talk to the press. Not ever. That was part of the mystique.

Something has to change.

He stood in the archway for a long moment. Beyond, the cloister was empty. He looked down at her card.

I have to do something to change the game.

Then he looked at Forsyth.

# ACT TWO.   
THE GEOMETRY OF MOMENTS.

## Chapter Nine: Nagala.

Near Scorpion Shipyards, Scorpia.

January 2, 2,000 A.E.

"You know," Corman said, "I think you probably rank a shuttle for these trips."

Nagala smiled. "I like flying in Raptors. It's a fine aircraft."

The trick was in saying it loud enough for the pilot to hear but soft enough that the pilot couldn't assume he was supposed to hear.

"Mighty fine, Sir," the pilot agreed.

Just right, Nagala thought, not without satisfaction.

Corman chuckled. "It's a shoebox with a DRADOME and a jump-drive. I woulda flown circles around either one of y'all when I was younger."

"Admiral Corman flew Vipers," Nagala told the pilot. "He's very proud of it."

"If you want to come up front, Sir," the pilot offered, "we're close enough you can see her."

"Thank you, son. I know what she looks like."

The Chief of Fleet Operations was a lean man in both body and attitude. He had just turned 64, the last strands of dark hair peppered among the white and grey. He was coming up on nine years as CFO; before that, three in the billet now held by Corman as FHQ Chief of Staff.

He was legitimately a legend in his own lifetime. He had never had another job; scion of Virgan aristocracy, he had come of age at the War's height, and though the draft was a year away, aristocrats took seriously the notion that serving, leading, and even dying in the service of the throne were noblesse oblige. Joining the military would have been mandatory for him in peacetime, let alone with a war on. Let alone with not only Virgon but all of humanity staring down an existential threat.

If high birth had its obligations, it had perks, too. He had avoided demobilization (a blessed relief to some, a sad day for others), and spent two decades paying his dues before, to his supreme satisfaction, he had gained the long-sought-after red-over-gold trim on his jacket and command of the first battlestar Knossos. Two more commands followed, each more prestigious than the last.

Commander Nagala had been well-regarded, with a couple of books to his name. Rear-Admiral Nagala was already shrouded in a mystique within the Service when a stroke dropped him to the deck of the battlestar Atlantia's Combat Information Center in the midst of wargames. Bad enough that it had put an end to his days on deployment; worse yet, it had gotten him promoted, landing him at FHQ on sweltering Picon as Chief of Staff. But that was his duty, and he would serve. Noblesse oblige.

After that, his leg had never quite worked right again. But every officer in the Service knew his name.

Unexpectedly, it had been a boon to his career. As much as he loathed FHQ, he was good at playing its game. He appreciated the power of mythology; his background had fostered that much. But his exceptional gift was all of his own. Nagala made each person feel like they were in the inner circle of a man aloof to everyone else. Each confederate felt like an insider, and therefore felt a particular kinship and debt to the Old Man.

"Admiral Corman, you wan' t' peek?" the pilot asked.

"Hell yes I do," Corman said, scampering forward.

Nagala's successor-once-removed in the Chief of Staff position had an undeserved reputation for blandness. There were times Corman struck Nagala as positively giddy, the boyish delight of a child playing with models belying the long face left by fast-receding grey hair.

"Damn if that ain't an amazin'-lookin' ship," Corman enthused. Ahead of them, orbital dawn was breaking over the Mercury-type battlestar Tethys in all her glory, looking like she had just rolled off the production line. Which, more-or-less, she had.

He'd had that giddiness, once. When he'd sailed ships rather than pushing dots around a map. Now he had bigger responsibilities. And she's just one ship. One more. It's not enough.

* * *

"...And so, Admiral Nagala, on behalf of Scorpion Shipyards and the prime contractors, Union Forge et Béton SA, General Products, Integral Systems Engineering, and Veridian Dynamics, it is my great honor to present to you the battlestar Tethys. And I do hereby relinquish her to your command."

To applause and even a couple of cheers in the audience, Scorpion Shipyards Senior Vice-President for new Construction Lhan J. Vanara signed some paperwork on the podium, then stood aside and lead the audience in sustained applause as Nagala clambered to his feet. Beside him, Corman sat at attention, ready to help if needed, and handed his cane to him.

He walked stiffly to the podium and shook hands with a smiling Vanara. The latter handed him various bric-a-brac and a folder. Nagala turned to the podium, hooked his cane over his arm, and added his signature next to Vanara's on the paperwork.

He waited patiently as the room settled, then reached into his jacket, removed a sheet of paper, and unfolded it on the podium before him. Straightened it. Cleared his throat.

"On behalf of the Admiralty, the Ministry of Defence, and the President of the United Colonies of Kobol, it is my duty, my honor, and my appointed place to receive this great ship into the service of the Colonies."

Most of this was yet more empty ritual that he could have done without, but they were coming up on the part that mattered. He squinted out into the crowd and spied, of all people, Jennifer Welles-Forsyth. That seemed appropriate.

"Exercising that same authority, I do as of this same day and hour appoint Commander A.H. McCollum as her Commanding Officer. May the gods bless all those who sail her. Thank you."

He paused, retrieved the paper from the lectern, re-folded it—careful to ensure no one in attendance could see that it was blank—and returned it to his pocket. "Since we are gathered today..." He half-turned toward Vanara. "Lhan, would you mind? May I beg your indulgence to offer a few remarks?"

He spoke for a brisk ten minutes, and if you had asked anyone in the audience, they would have sworn that he spoke off-the-cuff with a casual ease that belied how insightful his remarks were. Nagala worked hard to maintain the mystique that he had long ago and so very deliberately wrapped around himself. The remarks in fact capped weeks of thought, research, and rehearsal, distilled and crafted into six points with just a little polish from Forsyth. Through her, they would later find their way into the pages of the Caprica Tribune, and thence to the worlds.

Edward Hackett Nagala didn't like playing games. But if games were to be played, he didn't like to lose, either.

At the reception that followed, guests flocked to large windows to get a view of the fleet's newest colossus. He wasn't sure what the windows were made of, but they were an obvious vulnerability; it would be hell to defend this place when the time came. Such a stupid move, he thought, having a single facility for the Fleet's capital-ship construction and another single facility for escorts; such an obvious vulnerability.

Politicians. Their small minds and gilt-lined pockets had made his rear more vulnerable than any enemy could dare dream.

He made the rounds, shaking hands and trying to avoid getting collared for too long—or saying anything too meaningful.

Vanara, alas, was not easily dissuaded. "...And I hope you're doing something about these cutbacks the Congress wants. The sooner we pour concrete," he gestured out the window in what Nagala assumed was the direction of Libran's moon Herse and the Yard's dry-dock facility, "the sooner you start getting your new toys. The Gen3 design is ready, but contracts need signed before we start building the hull."

"I know, Lhan."

"And what about the Warstar? Any hope?"

"Believe me," Nagala said, and it was the gods' honest truth: "No one's keener than me for Congress to approve it."

"Don't bet on that," Vanara joked, nodding across the room to a man in an exceptionally crisp business suit who was prowling a tightening circle toward them. "The contractors are getting hungry."

"Corman and I are up before the Committee in a few weeks," Nagala said. "We should have a clearer picture when we see what kind of questions we get."

He stifled a yawn. Then he spied Corman waving at him across the crowd, standing by a familiar face.

"Military shipbuilding," Vanara was saying with a droll smile, "is a special alchemy by which a paper tiger springs into three dimensions of flesh and fangs through the magic of enormous quantities of money. A lot more money than even Scorpion Yards Inco can front, Admiral."

"Well, we'll have to see. I'm doing what I can. I'm sorry, but would you excuse me?"

Without waiting for an answer, he hobbled toward Corman and Rear-Admiral Connie Haiden. Before retirement, she'd commanded Battlestar Group 92, with her flag on the Damocles. She had been one of his appointments, and had proven one of the better ones at that. He'd been sorry to lose her, though he faulted no one for declining to serve a sentence at FHQ.

"Haiden! Well, look at you! You caught some sun, I see. Retirement's treating you well! What are you doing here?"

"Ed!" She looked happy to see him. "The dark arts, I'm afraid." She gave him a rueful smile; "my people... Yes, I have people now—"

"Hear that, Ed? Haiden has people." Corman looked tickled by that.

"Be nice, Pete." Haiden chided. "They like me doing these things; they say it makes me look less like Adar. Moderate voters like that. Or something. Helps win over the Service and Corps votes. I shoulda thought actually being Colonial Forces might do that, but still."

"Ah." Nagala smiled. "I thought I saw Forsyth lurking around. She's with you?"

"You know her?"

For just an instant, Nagala feared he must have looked like a cat caught with a canary in his mouth. "We've met. Here and there."

Haiden seemed oblivious. "Oh. Yes, that's me, sorry. My X.O.'s babysitting her."

"Your X.O.?" Nagala wondered.

Haiden grinned. "Old habits. They found me an aide who served, it's proving a blessing."

Forsyth joined them, Haiden's aide a half-step behind her.

"Admiral Nagala." Forsyth beamed. "What an unexpected pleasure; would you care to comment on—"

"I don't speak to the press, Mrs Forsyth."

"Had to try. Admiral Haiden, is this the first time you've talked to Admiral Nagala since you announced?"

"No," Nagala lied. "She gave me a courtesy call before getting in. Have you met Admiral Corman?"

"I've not." She grinned and extended a hand. "Jennifer Welles-Forsyth, Caprica Tribune."

Corman shook it, chuckling. "What's with journalists and three-barrel names? Mary Catherine Cate, Jennifer Welles Forsyth..."

"Admiral Floyd Goepner Ward," Forsyth parried. "General Ernst Saffire Ruby."

"Saffire's a nickname. That can't count!"

"Mrs Forsyth's father escaped the battlestar Ward," Nagala murmured to Haiden as Forsyth and Corman sparred.

"Pleione. I'd no idea." No sailor old enough to remember liked to think about that. Grown men had wept that day.

"Mm hm. Service family. Her husband retired as a Captain, and his mother, too. If you're bound and determined to do this, keep that one around. As much as I distrust any journalist on principle, she's trustworthy."

"Admiral Steven Eastwood Merritt," Forsyth offered, insistently.

"Mrs Forsyth," Nagala interrupted, "I'm sure Mr Vanara would welcome the chance to say a word about plans for the generation three battlestar." He gestured to where the man in the crisp suit was bending Vanara's ear. "They're hoping to begin construction of the lead ship this year, if Congress approves the funding."

She took the hint and headed across the room, brushing past Corman. Nagala glanced after her, his eye lingering for a moment. Corman caught his gaze and frowned at him.

"I'm sorry I didn't, by the way," Haiden said.

He returned his attention to her. "What?"

"Let you know beforehand. Sorry; it didn't cross my mind. Should at least have sent an e-mail."

"Oh, don't worry about that. More important: Don't take this the wrong way, but why in the worlds would you want to be President?"

"Sticking the knife into Adar's not a good enough reason? They asked me to interview for Defence Minister, did you know that? And what does he do? He gives it to some university crony! Frakker."

"I hope you gave Forsyth a better answer than that!"

"Just because Adar's a prick doesn't mean his politics are wrong. I do have certain beliefs, and I think I can do the job. Better than he did, for sure. Besides, what else am I going to do? I was about climbing the walls and the FIC people came to see me and said, hey, here's a really great billet you could take. Frak me if it's not actually a really good idea. I could be President. Imagine how much easier your life will be if you're reporting to me instead of Adar!"

"It would. But you're not really answering me."

"You know—it's a weird thing. As soon as you think about it, as soon as someone offers it to you, I mean, it's suddenly hard to not think about it. And I like the other guy, turns out. That makes this easier. We're actually going to start going around the worlds doing events together."

"That's..." He searched for an appropriate word, settling on, "atypical." She still wasn't answering the question, he noted, but with fastidious politeness, he decided to let it go.

"We've seized control of the agenda," she grinned. "Have hope, Ed. It's going to get better."

## Chapter Ten: Carolyn.

Burrard, North Caprica City.

Thursday, January 13.

Carolyn Culverson woke at 0600 every morning to an alarm that chirped at her every twenty seconds with increasing volume until silenced. It rarely made it past the first chirp.

She swung her legs out of bed, forcing her eyes open. If you want to wake up, get your blood moving as soon as possible. That wasn't just drill sergeant talk, it was a physical law of the universe, albeit one she only barely remembered from half a lifetime ago. Objects at rest, objects in motion... and all that.

Her first action of each day was to retrieve her watch from her nightstand. If she could have stood to wear it overnight, she would have. She stretched the lethargy from her muscles, wrapped a robe around herself, and walked to the kitchen, skimming e-mail on her phone to ensure nothing of immediate urgency had arisen overnight.

A single-serve coffeemaker, meticulously readied at bedtime, had already brewed a mug of the right brand of coffee to the right strength by the time she had measured precisely one and a half cups of sensible cereal into a bowl and poured precisely one cup of milk over it. As she ate, she skimmed the headlines, occasionally glancing out of the window at pre-dawn traffic streaming south onto the Bradfield Bridge toward Midtown.

By 0615, she had finished her cereal, poured the remaining milk into her coffee, and opened her Day Planner. She reviewed her schedule, compared her inbox, and penciled in a minor adjustment. This was the unpredictable part of her morning, and happily, today, dawn was carrying with it nothing unexpected. Preparation was her religion; precision and consistency her sacraments; the Day Planner her liturgy. And Carolyn Culverson was devout.

At 0630, her watch tapped her wrist. Her flatmate had appeared, already wearing sweats, already smoking a cigarette. Carolyn returned to her bedroom and dressed in sweats and running shoes. Good ones. Like the coffee: If you rely on it every day, don't screw around, just spend the extra cubits and get the right stuff.

"It's cold this morning," Nicola cautioned, already on her second cigarette.

"Mm hm." Carolyn grabbed a sweatband as they left the apartment, pulling it over her ears as they walked downstairs. They stretched in the building's lobby, and at 0641, set out for their morning run.

There's a beauty, a certain clarity, in being up and moving when most people haven't yet hit snooze on their alarms. They ran a block along Burrard's streets to the waterfront, then turned north around Circle Wharf; past a trickle of foot traffic getting an early start at the Ferry Terminal; turned south along the embankment; past the Concerthall; northwest into McQuarrie Park. She glanced at her watch. To her satisfaction, they were making perfect time.

At the thirty-minute mark and the park's southern tip, they paused, Nicola leaning against a rock formation across the footpath from the water's edge, Carolyn squatting down on her haunches to balance on the balls of her feet. Some days, there was a lovely view of the sunrise behind the bridge. Today, there was only a thin ribbon of red and gold glinting on clouds far to the east.

By 0740, they were back in the apartment. Carolyn spent fourteen minutes lifting hand-weights, then hit the shower at precisely 0755. She dried off and dressed in comfortable jeans, a loose flannel shirt checkered in black, charcoal, and white, a casual jacket, and sneakers. There were advantages to being Carolyn D. Culverson, Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff: If anyone disliked how she dressed, no one would dare say anything.

By now, the sun was up, and at 0815 precisely, Carolyn left the apartment, trotted downstairs, walked back around the Wharf to the ferry terminal, and caught the Burrard–Riverwalk Ferry. It left on time, crawled across the water, and docked on the Riverwalk Embankment, leaving her ample time to walk south to Hastings Square. The Clocktower atop Cavendish House chimed 0845 right as she crossed into the square.

She spied Innes, ambling toward the front entrance in a shimmering dress that couldn't possibly be warm enough, and swallowed. The latter gave a hale wave and Carolyn's heart skipped a beat.

"You seem relaxed," Innes offered, cheerily.

"Ah." Carolyn cleared her throat and willed that her hand get away from her throat and hair. "Morning. Yeah, the um... the ferry was on time."

"You see the message from Kominsky?"

Frak. She hadn't.

"When'd that come in?"

"About three minutes ago. Senior Staff in Hartnel, soon as everyone's in."

"Why?"

Innes paused on the building's threshold. "Trouble."

* * *

"There's nothing in the Articles about secession," Innes insisted. "It's impossible."

"Perhaps you'd like to go explain that to them," Adelyne grumbled. "I'm sure they just didn't think of that." He was a cheerful sort, but it was early and even Carolyn, keeper of sins and secrets, begrudged no one a need for caffeine before they hit their stride.

"We shouldn't overstate this," Carolyn ventured. "It's just a few people in Scorpian backwoods talking."

"'Backwoods'?" Kikuchi scoffed. "Clio, Culverson, it's the Scorpian General Assembly!"

"Pretty sure that counts as the backwoods."

"It's the sovereign legislature of a Federal Subject," Kikuchi rejoined, icily. "Even if the bill gets shot down, just being on the Assembly's agenda fans the flames. The timing's not a coincidence. They mean to make a point; Aerilon was a year ago, almost to the day. The impeachment talk's not going away. We've already seen wildcat strikes on other worlds demanding an Inquest and the teachers' union here on Caprica starts their AGM days from now; there's a sizable faction that wants to join in. If that takes off, it could spread into the public sector unions."

"Novak took his first PMQs yesterday," Innes said. "Someone asked about an Inquest. He told their Parliament the President should apologize—"

"That should endear the President to him," Carolyn deadpanned.

"—so would that mollify the Scorpians? An apology?"

"Oh, please," Kikuchi said, scowling at Carolyn. "He was ducking the question!"

Kominsky held up a hand for silence. "Carolyn, I trust we've got a nuclear option against the right honorable Prime Minister, should it come to that?"

"I've got a tasting-menu of nuclear options. This guy's a prince. Seriously, how is it they never think they're gonna get caught?"

"We're the good guys, Carolyn. All our sins will be forgiven if it's for the cause. Alright; then that's a problem for later. What's in front of us this morning is the Scorpian bill. Claire, what's the timeline?"

"The Presidium meets next week. If they endorse the bill, it goes before the General Assembly's spring session in about a month, our time."

"'If they endorse.' That means what?"

"Technically, the Presidium can vote to strike it as procedurally improper," Innes said.

"Can, if given the right motivation, hm?" Kominksy shot a wry smile at her.

"I think their motivations are pretty clear, don't you?" Adelyne asked. "There was an election last month. When the Assembly convenes, it'll vote for the Presidium. All of a sudden, there's a politically popular shot fired at the President, a shot which has to have cleared the General Secretary's office if it didn't actually start there."

"Can a roomful of experienced political operators possibly figure out the connection?" Carolyn joked.

"I can go," Innes said.

"I understand the situation, Ken," Kikuchi was replying, "but that's not the same as having—"

"I can go," Innes repeated, louder. "I'm a team player. Send me."

Heads swiveled toward her.

"Ken just said it a moment ago. Only, he was joking, but—why not? Why don't I go explain it to them? I know someone on the Presidium. Sam Reed. I took a class from him in law school."

"You took a class... From Sam Reed?" Kominsky asked.

"This was before he was in government, obviously."

"Obviously."

"If I might translate," Kikuchi offered, "I think what Frances is saying is that it won't hurt to send a personal representative of the President."

"I'll go with you," Carolyn heard herself say.

Kominsky's head swiveled back to her in a serpentine motion. "Oh?"

"Yeah. Let's get some boots on the ground. We'll go find out what this is really about," Carolyn said, with more conviction. "Or at least what their price is to shut up." She aimed a smile at Innes.

Kominsky tapped his fingers lightly on the tabletop. "How long?"

"How fast do you want us there? There's at least two flights a day just out of Midtown CCA. Presumably more out of Trojan CCX. We can go tonight if you want, though personally," she tapped her fingers on her Day Planner and shot him a sardonic look, "I'd prefer tomorrow morning."

"Alright. Frances, Carolyn, go to Scorpia. See how things look and report back. See the Staff Secretary for Credentials. Meeting adjourned, and I'd like a transcript of those PMQs if you'd be so kind, Claire."

He did not need to tell Carolyn to wait.

Kominsky eyed her as the room emptied. "Carolyn Culverson volunteers to go to Scorpia. Sorry: To fly express to Scorpia, which means at least two FTL jumps each way."

Carolyn shrugged.

"To fly to Scorpia, express, on short notice," said J.G. Kominsky, Chief of Staff.

Checkmate, said his expression.

As best she could, she kept her face neutral. "Look, if Frances wants to go—and I didn't hear any better ideas—someone's got to go with to keep an eye on her. Besides, I made a new year's resolution. I need to be more flexible. Personal growth, boss."

"I see."

Carolyn hoped he didn't.

What she needed was a plausible excuse. Better to cook one up now than have to improvise if Innes asked her later. "Look, we need to put the lid down on this, right? I'm sure Frances has her own style of negotiating. She knows the guy and she certainly has her charm. Maybe her way'll work. I have a... different style. Maybe it'll be needed, maybe not. We'll see, won't we?"

"Safe travels, Carolyn," Kominsky said, his tone bone-dry.

## Chapter Eleven: Luke & Haiden.

Canceron.

January 13.

"I don't like lavender," Luke muttered. Like everything else happening around him, his shirt was new, too new, and he didn't like it. It was too late to change now, but it was never too late to complain.

"You look great," Gutierrez reassured him. "Black skin always looks good in lavender, and it photographs well under stage lighting. This is the first time mostly anyone in the worlds is seeing you."

"She's right," Haiden said. "I think you look nice."

"...Said the snake to the mouse," Vanssen joked.

"Thank you, Connie." Luke ignored Vanssen and pulled his jacket a little tighter around him. Somehow it was reassuring coming from Haiden. "The collar's too tight. Can I ditch the tie?"

"Leave your damned tie alone," Sirica said, from across the room. "Palmer's already on his way."

They were sitting on a comfortable sofa in a make-do green-room, and the clock was ticking down relentlessly.

Luke scowled at him. Then he turned to Haiden: "Do your people do this?"

"They don't have to. I'm naturally very stylish."

He chuckled. "You look good too."

Agreeing on the plan had been one thing. Hammering out the details was another thing entirely. Where to go? Where to go first? When? What format? Would any questions be out of bounds?

One thing had been settled immediately: No commercial air. They would share Ostrakov's plane, which Katraine, with humorless grandiloquence, had suggested be called the Friendship. To the worlds outside, that was technically its call-sign, but inside the cabin, the name hadn't lasted a minute. Vanssen, with support from Gutierrez and droll assent from Ostrakov, had suggested the Fat Chance. That one had stuck.

By mutual consent, Aerilon, Leonis, Libran, Gemenon, and Caprica had each been taken off the table as being, for one reason or another, problematic. No one wanted to start on Virgon; that was a whole other can of worms. The choices had dwindled to Scorpia or Canceron, and the latter had won on the simple expedient that, as the most populous colony, it should be easy to get a crowd. Ostrakov was satisfied with the choice, claiming that it was a solid Federalist world, though he allowed that it had twice voted for Swanson. Sirica (mostly to annoy Ostrakov, Luke suspected) likewise pronounced himself satisfied, claiming that its history made it fertile ground for Luke. Besides, Luke insisted, tilting the field toward Haiden was only fair. After all, he would be more naturally in his element in the format they had envisioned.

Out of earshot of their handlers, the candidates had agreed that if this was to work, there would have to be some give and take. Both had wanted friendly rather than adversarial, a conversation rather than a debate; on that much, they would get their way. Each had wanted low-key; on that, both were to be disappointed, for on demanding television cameras, Ostrakov and Sirica had found common ground.

The result was an auditorium in a mid-size university in a mid-size city, staged with a pair of chairs facing 45 degrees from one another and from the audience. Over Luke's objection, there would be no direct questions from the audience; they would be filtered through a moderator seated between them. that was another thing on which Ostrakov and Sirica had insisted. Questions about nearby Aerilon had been taken off the table. Beyond that, no one had any idea what to expect.

Haiden was, she had to admit, nervous—"but like hell am I telling him that," she told Vanssen. The Entente had come only so far.

Selecting a moderator could have been difficult, but they had unexpectedly found one in G. Nathan Palmer, the Chairman of the Reserve Bank of Helios Delta, as well-informed but apolitical a figure as anyone could have asked for. Neither candidate knew him personally, but Sirica and Ostrakov did, and both held him in high regard. Chalk one up for the Entente. When he arrived in the green room, there were brief introductions and small-talk, before some practical matters were addressed. At last, Palmer concluded, "Then I'll do short introductions, some moderator questions, and we'll just jump into it and see where this goes. Sounds good?"

"Sounds good," Luke agreed.

"Nervous?"

"No," Haiden lied.

"Yes," Luke said, at the same time.

"You'll both do fine," Palmer smiled.

He conducted them onto the stage, leading polite applause as they settled in. Vanssen handed a bottle of water to Haiden, and scuttled into the wings; she and Gutierrez were getting along, Haiden was pleased to see.

"...But you haven't come out here this evening to listen to me," Palmer concluded his opening remarks. Tonight, we have—I think this might be unprecedented?"

"But it's a good idea, right?" Haiden cracked, with a broad smile, winning chuckles from the audience.

In the wings, Vanssen patted Gutierrez's shoulder with a grin. "One to nil."

"The candidates are going to take some questions and converse—"

"And digress," Luke said.

"And digress," Palmer agreed. "This is new, so we're all feeling our way. By way of introductions: Admiral Connie S. Haiden was born on Leonis. She joined the Colonial Fleet in 1958, later attending the Neptune Colonial Military Academy whence she was graduated in 1965. She served on several destroyers and battlestars before taking command of a Battlestar Group as a Rear Admiral. She retired last year. Chief Justice Lucas B. Volakis was born on Gemenon. He served as a Private in the Colonial Marine Corps—"

"Private First Class," Luke corrected, with a touch of pride.

Palmer adjusted his round reading-glasses and peered over them at Luke. "Is there another kind?"

"Well, there was back then, albeit that you had to work pretty hard to get bumped down to it."

That, too, got a laugh from the audience.

"One all," Gutierrez whispered to Vanssen.

"Served as a PFC from 1948 to 1951," Palmer corrected himself, "then attended Stanford College on Tauron and MacDonald Law School on Libran. He served another tour as a JAG Lieutenant, and after the War practiced law for several years on Tauron. After service as Tauron's Solicitor-General, he was appointed to the Colonial Court of Appeals for the Helios Beta Circuit by President Thomas Baker, and to the Supreme Court of the Colonies by President Karen Swanson. He retired in 1998. We are very honored to have you both here.

"It's the privilege of moderators to ask a few questions of their own first. And I think an obvious question that a lot of people may have is—neither of you is what I would think of as a traditional candidate. What do you bring to this? Mr Chief Justice?"

Luke had thought carefully about how to handle this question, the only one he had insisted be asked, and be asked first. Haiden had loved the idea immediately. They were sure that Sirica and Ostrakov were going to hate it, which in a way made it all the more appealing.

"I think," he said, "that what Admiral Haiden brings to the job is a deep appreciation of the role of the leader."

There was an audible intake of breath in the crowd, and a puzzled expression crossed Palmer's face. Luke was answering the wrong question! Or—rather, he was answering it about the wrong person.

"I think she's served for many years in a role very much like the Presidency, where you have to delegate, sometimes explicitly and always by setting a tone. Where you're the ultimate decision-maker but you have to step back and let others play their part. She's spent her entire life in the service of the Colonies, and that record speaks for itself."

"And the Chief Justice," Haiden said, before Palmer could recover, "he's someone who's spent decades thinking very carefully and precisely about some of the most important legal questions in the worlds. What's more, the Colonial courts have become a smoothly functioning operation, which judges past and present attribute to his stewardship. No one, not even his critics, doubts his patriotism or sincerity."

"There's a lot of this that has to do with what kind of leader you are," Luke agreed. "What kind of person you are, and I think you can take a lot about us from our respective careers."

Palmer looked between them, a quizzical expression giving way to a slight smile.

"I promise, we aren't going to answer one another's questions all night," Luke said, to slight laughter in the audience.

"Two to one," Gutierrez whispered to Vanssen.

"Well, alright." Palmer recovered himself. "This is off to an interesting start."

Heim, Aquaria.

January 14.

Canceron, by the candidates' lights if not by their staffs', had gone well. When Luke had suggested a stop on nearby Aquaria before moving on to Scorpia, curiosity had gotten the better of Haiden. She'd been regretting it since the Fat Chance landed.

"Good gods, this is truly the middle of nowhere," she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself under two jackets and an overcoat.

Luke was in a cheerful mood, buoyed, if anything, by a wind whipping off the bay. "Ah, man, it's nice to be back here. I was stationed here for a while in the Corps. I was a weatherman, if you can believe it."

"I thought you were joking about that!"

"Only half."

"Well, you couldn't pay me to live here."

"They did pay me to live here. Twice, actually. When I was an associate, I had a case out of Aquaria. Spent six months out here. It's very interesting, actually: Did you know it's the most geologically active of the inhabited worlds? You can't see it because of the water, but that's what makes it a freezing ball of cold water not a frozen ball of ice."

"D'accord; fascinant. Alright, let me try it this way. Why would anyone live here?"

Heim was a desolate place. Haiden wasn't wrong about that; it was the far end of the worlds. The spaceport's buildings, Luke explained, were typical for the planet: Functional, huddled, and low, most of them drilled down several stories into the ground. Kyros, the planet's only major landmass, could not be more than a hundred miles end-to-end, Haiden guessed. Its landscape was not yet eight centuries old, the exposed rock an alarming, coal-black basalt, eldritch in its sharp, unweathered angles. Soil had been imported over the centuries and hardy trees transplanted where they would take, but the world's thin atmosphere came from oceanic algae. Green parts of the landscape that passed for grass from a distance turned out, on closer inspection, to be moss, ferns, and other well-chosen imports. Bit by bit, native soil was accumulating, here and there, but it would be centuries before outdoor agriculture flourished here, if ever.

It was also starkly beautiful, as Luke had said at least twice since the group arrived. The spaceport, such as it was, had been built at water's edge, and despite icebergs meandering across the bay, the tropical setting and shallow sea gave the water a crystalline, limpid turquoise appearance that belied the air temperature. Beyond the city, the bedrock reared up into Selene, the extinct of the pair of volcanos that bookended their progeny, and the more dramatic in appearance. In the far distance, the uplands of its stubbier, dormant twin Endymion seemed to hover in midair, its base lost in haze over the horizon. It was stunning, Haiden would have to admit, if pressed.

But it was also very cold.

"Ethnic pride, for one thing," Luke said. "Freedom, for another. Independence."

"How is this freedom? They're as independent as a housecat. Completely dependent."

Luke bridled. "No, no. Not at all."

"Yes at all! Shut them off from trade and everyone's dead in a month. Nothing grows here. Unless you like fish."

"I do like fish. It's a life, and it's their choice. That's the—look, you can't just take people's choices away because you think you know better. And when you do, they'll always run a little farther away if they can."

Haiden rolled her eyes. "Let's leave the politics until tonight. Can I ask about something else? Why Tauron?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Why'd you land on Tauron after the war? Palmer said so yesterday; I don't think I knew you lived there for so long."

"Oh. My wife was from there."

Haiden winced. "Was?"

"Cancer. Pancreatic, I'm afraid; very fast."

"Gods, I'm sorry. When?"

"It'd been a little over nine years on Libran right before we started this. I'm too jetlagged to do the math for here. A long time."

Behind them, keeping a respectful distance but not too much of it, Vanssen and Gutierrez tolerated the weather about as well as Haiden.

"I frakking hate the cold," Vanssen grumbled.

"Is there anywhere you don't hate, Vanssen?"

"I don't hate Leonis. The next time one of our candidates proposes visiting somewhere this cold, I say we kill them both and run."

"Ha! Wait 'til we get to Picon. At least you can wrap yourself in layers against the cold!"

Vanssen grunted and gestured toward Haiden and Luke. "I don't understand this."

"We get along. Why shouldn't our bosses?"

"It just seems... wrong. Unnatural. What do you think they're talking about?"

"Pyramid." Gutierrez laughed. "I'm calling it now, we're all watching the Worlds Cup together the way this is going."

"I frakking hate sports," Vanssen complained, but she didn't sound like she meant it this time.

## Chapter Twelve: Frances.

January 14.

Frances woke to the sound of engines rumbling through fuselage, a soft hiss of recirculated air, and the muted, indistinct sounds of a hundred passengers' entertainment playing through headphones.

"You fell asleep," Culverson said, from the seat next to her.

Frances started and pawed at her face, offering a prayer to whatever gods there were that she hadn't drooled. She hadn't spent much time with Culverson, and that was hardly the impression she wanted to make. With the cabin darkened, she'd probably gotten away with it. She fought down a desperate urge to stretch, making do with flexing her neck and shoulders as unobtrusively as she could manage.

"Where are we?"

"Somewhere between Delta and Gamma. The first jump was a while ago so I'd guess the second's coming up. Here," Culverson offered her a Lavinya-brand self-heating coffee pouch and an unmarked, lattice-like biscuit. "They brought refreshments. I kept yours for you."

That took Frances aback. "Thanks. Sorry, I didn't sleep very well last night."

Culverson shrugged, but a half-smile crossed her lips. In the semi-dark, she looked unusually pale, Frances thought.

The biscuit was pretty good; the coffee was cardboard-flavored lukewarm water, but it was caffeine, and that was good enough. She slipped her shoes back on (flats, because she would remember Reed as being short, kobicha leather because they paired well with the slacks she had chosen for the trip) and retrieved her bag from a storage bin. She pulled a folder from it, retrieved an e-sheet, and reduced its brightness to suit the cabin. Some things about their destination she knew, but for the rest, she needed a refresher.

The Cyrannus system comprised four stars in a double-binary. Helioses Alpha and Beta orbited one another, as did Helioses Delta and Gamma, and the two pairs orbited one another in a half-million-year dance one-and-a-half trillion kilometers apart.

The two pairs were not alike.

The worlds of the Alpha–Beta pair had been startlingly well-suited to human life when the Exodus arrived. Excepting the Allied Powers Intervention, much of the grand drama of the ensuing two millennia had played out there. Far, far away from them, at the other end of the long-axis sometimes called the 'Deep Black,' Canceron, her home world, was rich, populous, and idyllic. It was the exception. Though the pair contained half of the twelve worlds, less than a third of the Colonial population lived on those worlds. Small wonder: Aerilon aside (a good agricultural world, but not a great place to live), the other worlds of the Delta–Gamma pair were rugged and challenging. Two of them had been populated late, freezing Aquaria and simmering Libran, their bare survivability bent into habitability by brute force and human determination. Frances could not understand what drove people to such exertions.

Two worlds had always dominated the pair. One, naturally, was Canceron. Scorpia was the other. Like Canceron, it was a democracy, and like Canceron, it had been so for long enough to have its own ideas about what that meant. Every two years, its half-billion people elected a General Assembly, which sat twice a year for a month or so at a time. In turn, it elected a Presidium, which sat continuously. The Full members of the Presidium (the Secretaries) plus a variable number of Candidate members (the Undersecretaries) constituted the government—and, insofar as the Presidium organized the General Assembly's agenda, the world's real locus of power.

Against accumulations and abuse of that power, the Assembly was supposed to enforce stringent limits on how long anyone could serve on the Presidium. Limits which meant that, for example, a professor elected to the General Assembly might rise to Secretary of Justice in the time it took his former student to soar to the Cavendish House Counsel's office. If he were good enough... Or ambitious enough. Sam Reed had never struck Frances as ambitious, which confirmed her opinion that he was pretty good.

A subtle chime sounded and the lights in the cabin pulsed twice. An equally subtle voice cautioned that the second jump was imminent. These were perfectly calibrated, just enough to get attention but not enough to awaken sleepers. The kind of detail that made all the difference between decent airlines and the budget carriers.

Those who lived their entire life in the Alpha–Beta pair often could not fathom the sheer distance of the Delta–Gamma pair. Helios Alpha was 126 SU from Helios Beta; hardly a brisk walk to the shops, but you could fly subluminal from Caprica to Leonis in a week. The Delta–Gamma pair was more than eighty times that far from the Alpha–Beta pair. Hold out your left arm. Now hold up your pinky-finger and your index finger. If their tips are Helioses Alpha and Beta, you'd have to hold the fingertips of your right hand almost seven meters away to be in scale. If you weren't in long-haul shipping or the military, sailing the Deep Black subluminal was unthinkable.

The distance had practical implications for commercial space travel. At that range, the speed of light became a significant factor in plotting any jump. To fly from Caprica to Scorpia, then, an airliner climbed from the spaceport and cruised until, on a meticulously-managed schedule, it jumped to its designated Transfer Point outside of the Delta–Gamma pair. Thence, it might fly the remaining distance subluminal, taking anywhere from a day to a week to complete its journey, or make a second jump, this one into yet-more-tightly-controlled airspace.

There was no countdown or further announcement, just another soft chime. The jump itself was perfectly smooth; there was no perceptible sensation of motion in the cabin. And with that, the adventurous part was over and the boring part began. Their plane, a Hexforth 4468 mini-jumbo airliner, still almost twenty million kilometers from its destination, turned in a lazy arc and loped toward Scorpia. It would take another hour to get there. With so many aircraft in motion, FTL jumps within the boundaries of the four systems were tightly-regulated. And now, federally regulated; uniform and safe. Another great legacy of President Adar. There had only very rarely been commercial aviation accidents, and now, to Frances' great satisfaction and reassurance, there would be none.

From the pictures in her briefing, Scorpia had to be a geologist's wet dream, its crust shattered and twisted into soaring mountains and deep, narrow oceans. Sophisticated animal life probably couldn't have emerged here, but, colonized by tough, industrious humans, the planet thrived. The people shape the world, Frances mused, and the world shapes the people; in the pictures, angular, ambitious buildings encrusted the mountains, and judicious use of the plains and jungles for agriculture...

Culverson's hand caught Frances' eye. It was wrapped around her seat's armrest, squeezing so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.

"I fucking hate Scorpia," Culverson managed.

"You alright?"

"I'll be fine. I just need a minute."

"Is it the jump? Statistically speaking, it's the safest way to travel."

"Please talk about literally anything else," Culverson mewed.

The fearsome Carolyn Culverson, Frances thought, poleaxed by something as simple and routine as an FTL jump. The thought was, in its own way, darkly amusing.

"I've never been to Scorpia."

"Stay a while. You'll hate it too."

Frances chuckled. "You're a bit of a broken toy, aren't you?"

She had intended that as humorous not rude, but Culverson shot her a venomous look, visibly pale even in the semi-darkness. "You're exceptionally beautiful, Frances."

"Err... thanks?"

Culverson scowled at her. "You've never been turned down for anything in your life, have you? No one's ever said 'no' to you."

Frances didn't know how to reply to that.

"Sorry. I'm being a bitch. I don't like jumps. It's an inner-ear thing; it's unpleasant."

"I can tell."

"I just mean... Ignore me. Sorry, I—" Culverson's chest heaved, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. She rocketed out of her seat, darting for the restroom in halting steps that were, in their own way, even more amusing. For the first time (and as time would tell, certainly for the last time) Frances couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

* * *

As they descended toward Celeste, what struck Frances was the sheer barrenness of the landscape. Slate-blue sea gave way to slate-gray bedrock, shattered in concentric rings that betrayed some long-ago impact of unspeakable scale, slashed by long, knife-like lakes. "Is there no agriculture at all?" she murmured aloud to herself.

Not until they were barely a hundred and fifty kilometers from the capital did the desert finally give way to first soil, then greenery, and, at last, signs of habitation. Closer still and the ground buckled upward into the cusp of what had once, very obviously, been a kilometers-wide crater. Now it was a vast lake, an island at its center, in turn with a lake at its own heart. Everywhere on the island, scree overrun by wild vegetation testified to a violent past before humans had come here.

Beyond the shore, the ground began climbing again, this time into the furrowed foothills of what looked reassuringly like mountains proper rather than the remains of an impact crater. Finally there were signs of not only habitation but civilization: Steppes, roads, buildings. The sun at their back, they crossed a highway, so low now that she could pick out individual cars, and it finally dawned on her that they were making a rolling landing. That would be unheard of on Caprica or Canceron—but, well, why not build a runway? she decided. It was probably more efficient, and clearly there was ample room here. Sooner than she expected, with a thud and a sudden rushing feeling, the 4468 touched the ground and vibrated as the pilot corralled it to a halt.

"Welcome to the wild frontier," Culverson grumped, already out of her seat and retrieving her bag.

As they walked through the plane's hatchway into the open air, Frances looked around, taking in their surroundings. The spaceport sat atop a mesa in a horseshoe-shaped valley. To what Frances figured to be the southeast, the valley was bounded by the lake they had crossed; to the south and west, by three enormous mountains; and, running northwest to southeast, a long, flat escarpment that rose almost vertically. Mercifully after the desolation of the approach, the valley was green and savanna-yellow, filled with rangy trees that grew alone or in small groves, becoming spindly and sparse as they climbed the mountains. She sniffed the air gingerly. Then took in a lungful, with more enthusiasm. A pleasant scent of something not-quite-identifiable hung on the breeze; an aromatic resin from the trees, she guessed, and she made a mental note to find out whether she could get it in a perfume or a lotion or something.

A large sign written in both Kare logograms and Emantic proclaimed that DAN AMAREO SPACEPORT WELCOMES YOU TO SCORPIA. Below it, a digital display advised that it was 06:42 A.M. local time and the temperature was 27 centons with a high of 49. Frances had no idea what a centon was, but the air was hot and dry and very welcome after what they'd left on Caprica.

Inside the terminal, the logos of several local sports teams competed with stylized graphics of Scorpia's famous half-ring to be the most pervasive image. "It's a fraud," Culverson said. "It's a whole ring, but a third of it's reflective, and the rest's black as Daniel Graystone's heart. It's an optical illusion."

Frances took Culverson's mood in stride. It was exciting to be on a new world, the morning sun was warm through the terminal's glass walls, and whatever scent suffused the air outside had followed them indoors.

Beyond a poorly lit and seemingly abandoned vestibule (maybe it had been passport control long ago, Frances guessed), a series of moving walkways carried them down the side of the mesa into a lobby area. Culverson paused to grab a newspaper, then led them to the pickup zone—in most ways, all spaceports are identical—where she stuck two fingers into her mouth and emitted a piercing whistle. A cab appeared, bolting away from the curb as soon as they were inside. Culverson directed the driver in a rapid-fire language that Frances couldn't parse before unfurling her newspaper. "Frak me, the Marauders are going to the worlds cup," she mumbled after a moment. Frances chuckled and turned her attention to the window.

Soon they were on the highway headed for the mountains, and Celeste's outer suburbs rose around them. As the road climbed through the piedmont, it became clear that much of the city was built on (and sometimes into) broad steppes cut from the terrain. The houses looked somehow wrong. At first glance, everything looked angular and sharp, but on second look their edges were blunted, radiused into tight curves that gave the buildings a strangely melted appearance. The sky was clear and almost cobalt-blue; the soil seemed to glow burnt-orange in the sunrise, though Frances couldn't tell whether that was a trick of the light or its actual color.

Bit by bit, the buildings on either side of the highway grew taller and more densely-packed, and the mountain loomed ever larger. Out to their left, the terrain sloped away toward the lake. As the taxi took an offramp and turned southwest past a Pyramid stadium, Frances gulped involuntarily; now the mountain towered over them, dirty red fading to grey fading to white against the deep-blue sky.

They drove past a building unmistakable from her briefing: The Assemblyhouse. It was a glass, steel, and concrete crescent that seemed to wrench itself free from the ground at one end, rising to half a dozen stories as it curved upward and around. It, too, appeared to be a play on the half-ring motif. At its corner they turned onto a wide boulevard, absurdly wide, actually, for how empty it was, even so early in the day. Across it from the Assemblyhouse was a squat terraced pyramid of black and garnet marbles. GENERAL SECRETARIAT OF SCORPIA, a sign advised, again in both Kare and Emantic. This time, the latter dissolved as she watched, morphing into Lucena glyphs for languages she didn't speak.

A block farther, the taxi deposited them in front of an asymmetric building of polished concrete that rose four stories pocked with small, neat windows and crowned with two more stories of glass. Anywhere else, it might have seemed imposing, but the mountain was a sheer wall behind it, mocking the scale of any who dared contend. Like all the buildings, up close, it had no sharp corners, giving the same unsettling, melted impression.

CALABRESI BUILDING, said the sign, this one in Kare only; SCORPIA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE.

Long-haul shipping crawled across the Deep Black, but there was no laser communications system of the kind that linked the worlds within the pairs. Consequently, Frances and Culverson brought notices of their own arrival. These Frances presented, along with their credentials. A guard examined the papers, and after looking pointedly at his watch, suggested in serviceable Emantic that they might be well-advised to breakfast in a nearby diner. Belinda's would be his suggestion, if they wanted his opinion, for which Frances politely thanked him.

Somewhere between the spaceport and the diner, Culverson had regained her bearing. She ate ravenously, tucking into an unspeakable concoction of noodles, eggs, and some kind of green, leafy vegetable mixed with a diced meat. Frances chose something from the vegetarian menu and a cup of Canceran tea; it was one of her world's few agricultural exports, and without the cost of shipping it over the the Deep Black (and the admittedly onerous taxation of Caprica), it was half the price she'd pay at her favorite Riverwalk food-cart.

"Notice no one's smoking?" Culverson said, through a mouthful of whatever-the-hell.

Frances hadn't.

"You're wrong about agriculture. On the plane, you said something about it. But tobacco, fumarella, kannab, they all grow like weeds in this climate. But no one here smokes them. They export them. Half the worlds want it but can't grow it, and Capricans can't get enough of it. That's the agricultural base, like tech and shipbuilding are the industrial bases. And the population's not huge, so they can import whatever food shortfalls come with that kind of agricultural specialization. Someone did the math. See," she jabbed the air with a fork, "that's smart. They're practical, Scorpians. Same as the ring: 'You heard we have a half-ring? Sure,' they say, 'come look, we'll sell you a half-ring.'"

"You're saying they a lot but you're talking like you're from here."

"I'm not from anywhere," Culverson snapped before catching her tongue. "Sorry. I don't—I just lived here. That's all. How's your tea?"

"Excellent. Tastes like home. Why don't you like Scorpia, Carolyn?"

Culverson scoffed, then chuckled. Then, not meeting Frances' eyes and toying with a globule of egg, "do you care?"

"It's nice to get to know the people you work with."

"What makes you think you'd like me if you knew me?"

"Dare to be surprised."

It was Culverson's turn to be taken aback. She folded her arms, studying Frances. Licked her lips. "Alright. When I was twenty, I wanted to be sterilized, or at least put on LTC, and—"

"Wow; why?"

"Why is it any of your business? I—I mean... Not you. I mean, if you're a doctor. That's what they asked, too, but it's a service, I want it, you provide it, so do your frakkin' job. Can you imagine if you went to buy a pack of smokes and the guy at the counter got to quiz you on why you want it, and are you aware of the risks, and on and on? You know what's nice about worlds with proper governments? You have a right to something, you want it or you don't, and if you do, you get it. Here's not like that. It's sticky. They want to get to know you. They like to greet you by name and know what you like, all of which is just a nicer way of saying they want to know your business. If someone on Caprica told me I'd have to explain why I wanted something I've a right to, I'd have his head. I hated that. I hated having to explain, to justify to someone, to someone who could say no, why I should get to have what I want."

"I agree. That's wrong."

"It's gross."

"The Patient Charter Act fixed those problems," Frances offered. "You'd get your LTC now, no questions asked. Well, no questions that weren't medically relevant, anyway." It was vaguely surprising to her to learn that Culverson had any kind of substantive political views, albeit that they perhaps lacked altruism.

"Yessss," Culverson hissed. "Thank whatever power there is in the universe. Now it's clean. Impersonal, like it should be. Government's better, you know? It doesn't have opinions or loyalties. And you'd think that's bad, right? But it doesn't have loyalties against you either. It's not on your side, but it's on no one else's, either. It doesn't get to be arbitrary or capricious, and if there's any explanations owed, it has to explain itself to you. Jerry likes to say 'we won't go back.' Well," she gestured out of the window, "welcome to 'going back.'" She sighed. "I shouldn't unload on you."

"I asked." Frances offered a sympathetic smile.

"Yeah." Culverson returned a half-smile. "It doesn't matter. Today it's this, tomorrow it'll be something else. There's a crisis every third week."

"Your life sounds exhausting. Don't you ever get tired of it all?"

"It's what I do."

"Sure, but you're more than what you do."

A flash of something Frances couldn't parse crossed Culverson's face. "Oh?"

"I mean—one is more than one does."

Culverson stared at Frances, then cocked her head and licked her lips. A little chuckle escaped her. "You really are something else. I'll give you that."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Frances replied, cheerily.

Eventually, a clock on the back wall of the diner passed ten to eight and Culverson gathered herself. "Come on, let's get this over with. Sooner we get this done, the sooner I'm off Scorpia."

This time on arriving at the lopsided building, they were escorted to an elevator that deposited them at the end of a wood-paneled corridor. It ended in an antechamber marked with a brass sign: SECRETARY OF JUSTICE. A removable plastic inset further specified HON. SAMIEL B. REED. The Secretary was in the building, his assistant assured them, if they would care to wait in his office? They would, Frances agreed, whereupon the assistant pointed without ceremony to a door and returned his attention to his computer.

Frances and Culverson looked at one another. Culverson shrugged, then led them through the door.

Much of Cavendish House's interior had been built hastily during the war, the old Post Office's gutted interior replaced with concrete that no one had bothered to disguise beyond the parts the public saw: The museum on the ground floor, the Rose Office, and the main staircase that led from the former to the latter. Reed's office was of similar construction, but the concrete of the floor and two walls had been buffed to a dull gleam, and a delicate, abstract pattern of muted dyes had been laid in the floor.

The other two walls were glass. One offered a commanding view out over city toward the lake. From here, Celeste was startlingly low-rise for a capital-city. Opposite, the other window looked inward over an atrium, where held court a statue of Themis, the blind goddess of justice, one hand holding a pair of scales before her, the other holding a mace at her side. The message was clear. I'm fair, as Frances' eldest brother had liked to say when they were younger, but don't test me.

There was little in the room by way of ornament. A smiling photograph of the General Secretary, a bald man in unfashionable, horn-rimmed glasses; a small vintage map of Scorpia and a larger, current one marked with lines Frances supposed to be the jurisdictions of Scorpia's courts; an orrery of Cyrannus, a miniature of a larger one that Frances walked past every morning on her way into Cavendish House.

Reed's desk was flanked by the flags of the United Colonies and of Scorpia. On the desk, though, a miniature flag caught Frances' eye. One familiar to her from a history education on Canceron. Horizontal bands of those same cobalt-blue and burnt-orange, surmounted by a wide, white band containing an orange ball and that same half-ring motif in silver. It was the flag that had emblazoned Scorpian ships at the battle of Delta IV; it was one of the flags that had fluttered in the background of archival photos of the signing of the Baylin–Hollander Treaty. It was the pre-Articles flag of Scorpia, and it was not a good omen to find it here, now.

"Francesca!" Reed's voice boomed from behind them. "What a delight!"

Against the room's grey, he was vivid color. The years had aged him well. His hair was streaked and his face was lined, but he looked tanned and healthy, beaming a toothy, mile-wide smile, and was dressed casually in a short-sleeved shirt. He greeted her warmly, and Culverson more cautiously. Frances couldn't fault him for that.

You've done very well for yourself, he insisted; no, no, she demurred, I've done well despite myself, much luck, caught the attention of the right people at the right time, et cetera et cetera; nonsense, she was being far too modest, she had been an extraordinary student.

"Yes, she's extraordinary," Culverson agreed, a little too generously.

The small talk continued for a few minutes before Frances steered them to business.

"You of all people know that there's no provision for secession."

"Of course not," he grinned. "I don't support the bill. I would like answers, though... and, oh! Look! After months of getting stonewalled, we make just a little splash, and within a week, two high-ranking officials of the administration walk into my office. How 'bout that?"

"What answers?"

"I'm being polite." The toothy smile didn't change, but his tone cooled slightly. "What I want, and what the General Secretary wants, and what the people of Scorpia want on behalf of our Aerilan cousins, is an Inquest.

Frances bridled. "An Inquest?"

"A full, independent, public Inquest into the Aerilon shootings. What possible objection could there be to that?" Reed wondered, innocently. "Who knew what, when did they know it, what did they say, and who to. People are angry, and they've a right to be. Obviously the secession bill's an overreaction; overreach. It won't pass. It's just, y'know, a few crazies acting out. But it's useful."

"If it's just a few crazies, how did it get onto the agenda of the Assembly?"

"We're a democracy, Francesca. If the people want something discussed, don't you think it should be discussed? The General Secretary feels it's best we deal with these things in the clear light of day."

"Then what's with the flag?" She jabbed a finger toward the little one on his desk.

Reed's smile became just a little thinner, his tone just a little more measured. "We're a democracy," he repeated. "The motion's going to fail. It's just a steam-vent. But you have to let people have their feelings."

"But it's stoking resentments! It's feeding the fire!"

"Maybe the fire needs feeding!" he snapped.

And now—or perhaps she was merely noticing it for the first time—there was a dangerous glint in his eyes.

"Lookit: Marines opened fire on civilians. What were their orders? Even if Penny Helms quote-unquote 'takes full responsibility,' we still don't have a clear view of exactly what happened. If there was an order authorizing them to fire, especially if it came from your boss, the worlds deserve to know. And the way we find out that kind of thing is an Inquest. When the secession bill fails, the next vote, the one formally calling for an Inquest? That one will be unanimous."

Culverson chuckled. Frances stopped, and turned to look at her.

"Very adroit. Well done."

Culverson had so far said little, which was perhaps understandable if the flight had made her queasy and a heavy brunch of unaccustomed foods was not sitting well with her. But she now straightened in her seat and put a hand out to touch the arm of Frances' chair, as if to tag in. "That's well played. The people have spoken, and you, as they say, must follow, for you would be their leaders. Jump in front of a parade and make it your own. Mister Secretary, can I make an observation?"

Her voice was honey laced with poison. Whatever vulnerability Frances thought she had seen in Culverson earlier was gone.

"The President's unpopular here, isn't he? Lost twice. One of only three colonies he lost in '92."

"Pierce Sutherland was from Scorpia," Reed observed.

"Sure, but Rory Kemp wasn't, and he beat us like a drum here."

"The President's from Scorpia too," Frances interjected.

"No, he was born here," Culverson said. "That's not the same thing. I bet no one ever lost points here by beating up on Richard Adar. This thing—letting it onto the agenda's gotta get the General Secretary a ton of points, right? It positions him well with a freshly-elected Assembly that's gonna be casting ballots for his colleagues and for him in just a few weeks. And I love how clever it is! He's not proposing it, he's just for allowing the debate. He's taken a position that all sides can applaud."

"The General Secretary is keen that we get to the truth, Miss Culverson. So am I. And I have to assume that the President, if it's true he didn't give the order, is the keenest of all."

"Hm." Culverson nodded, sagely. The silence dragged for a moment. "It's got to be a worry that funding for the third generation battlestar's stuck in the Congress. That's a lot of money at stake, isn't it—money you're counting on? 'You' meaning 'the Presidium's collective responsibility,' of course."

"I don't see—"

"Fleet contracts are, what, twelve percent of gross revenues? Fourteen? And people would be shocked by how much your economy depends on the Yards indirectly. Think how fortunate Scorpia's government is; you get to rail against the far-away Colonial government, all while quietly pulling more back in contracts than's taken in tax. Scorpia's got a lot riding on what is, let's face it, just prudent naval policy. Policy that silly, silly President Adar—who lost here! Twice!—has been holding up because of some kind of... what, idealism? Or misguided confidence in our security?"

"That's not my—"

"What if it was? What if you had used personal connections to secure a promise of funding from Cavendish House? You said it earlier. You made us appear in your office. And I can make that promise."

"Well, I mean, I didn't—"

"I bet that the General Secretary would love that. It'd sure help him get reelected when the Assembly meets. Or... maybe you're more ambitious than that? Maybe you tell the Presidium that you secured the money. Maybe there's enough people who'd like a new General Secretary a little sooner than expected. A man of vision. Someone with connections."

"You're barking up the wrong tree, Culverson," Reed said, his voice cold. "I'll take the Inquiry."

"Hmm." Culverson steepled her fingers, her voice even more honeyed than before. "Frances is extraordinary, isn't she? We agreed on that, didn't we? D'you know, one of the things that makes her extraordinary is, there's no skeletons in her closet. You know how unusual that is? No one's clean; not at the top of government. Not in Cav House. And not on the Presidium of the Scorpian General Assembly." She stood and walked to the outside window. "May I speak to you in private, Mister Secretary? Just for a moment."

Frances wanted to protest, but the look on Reed's face knocked the wind out of her. He stood, uneasily, and walked to join Culverson at the window. Whatever was said was beyond Frances' hearing, but when they returned, Reed looked even paler than had Culverson after the jump, and Culverson looked grimly accomplished.

"I'll do what I can," Reed was assuring her.

"Good. Well. Until next time, then," Culverson said, lightly, retrieving her bag and sauntering toward the door. "Frances, are you coming?"

Frances followed back out along the hallway, feeling dazed "What just happened?" she asked as they got onto the elevator. She hated that the most likely answer was so obvious.

Culverson checked her watch, retrieved a cigarette from a case, and lit it as they left the building. "I think," she took a drag, "what just happened is that we won. Right? The secession motion's going away, your buddy's very likely getting a promotion, our boss can look forward to a more constructive attitude from Scorpia's government, and we can go the hell home."

"I thought he was one of the good guys," Frances muttered.

"Oh, he is," Culverson reassured. "You didn't see how hard he worked to avoid giving in? Too bad I couldn't let him, but it's nice when things work out, isn't it? A Scorpian's still a Scorpian, even rolled in sugar. They move fastest when you show them a carrot and a stick. Well done, by the way. You set that up perfectly."

"I wasn't trying to."

"All the more impressive, then." The traffic had picked up and Culverson stepped to the curb. She stuck a hand in the air, then leveled a finger at an approaching taxi. She glanced back at Frances and smiled pleasantly with damnable calm. "Sometimes everybody wins."

Whatever this is, objected a quiet little voice in the back of Frances' mind, it doesn't feel like a win.

## Chapter Thirteen: Luke & Haiden.

Aerilon.

January 21.

"I feel like we're off to a good start," Luke said.

"That's because you've not quite figured out that the objective is to grind the other side into the dirt," Marineo hissed, "not play footsie with the opposing candidate!"

They were in yet another dressing-room on yet another world. Haiden and her people were in another one more or less nearby. Luke flinched, wondering whether it was less enough that they could have heard the outburst.

"The objective is to win," Gutierrez said, with admirable diplomacy.

In only three weeks, they had done seven of these events on on five worlds. There was one planet left; one that couldn't be avoided before leaving the Delta–Gamma pair. And there was more chill in the air now than there had been on Aquaria.

"That means people have to like the Chief," Gutierrez added. "You don't win an election by taking the same coalition that lost last time and shrinking it. You have to win people over, and it's working."

('Chief' was the compromise they had struck, Luke unwilling to be called 'Sir,' and none of his staff willing to call him 'Luke.' That reticence, however, went only for the Municipalist half of the Fat Chance's merry band. Vanssen had offered to call him something unrepeatable, so 'Luke' it was. Haiden, as she had been most of her life, was 'Sir' to her subordinates and 'Haiden' to almost everyone else.)

"The public seems to like them playing footsie," Katraine agreed. "Personal approval numbers for the Chief and Haiden are stratospheric, even among self-identified whatever-they're-nots."

Everyone had been getting along. Everyone was still getting along, but there was an unease. Ostrakov struck Luke as a phlegmatic type, but he'd been touchy since they left Sagittaron, and an undercurrent of tension had spread since the Fat Chance kissed the tarmac in Gaoth, even among Luke's people, for whom a return to the campaign offices might otherwise have been relaxing. This 'Discussion Among Friends' (as they had settled on calling them) could not fail to be different. Because if you were going to have a political debate here, there was one question everyone knew would be asked. There would be no ducking it this time.

"Well, I'm glad you're happy, Paul," Marineo said, sounding far from glad about anything. "And I'm glad this is all good fun for you, Chief. But how exactly do you intend to make headway with our metrics pulled inside out?"

"A metric is a measurement of the thing," Luke observed, "not its substance. Why does it matter?"

Across the room, Sirica stirred. "Might Luke and I have the room for a few minutes?"

With some grumbling, the others left. "There's a breakfast cart in the lobby," Gutierrez's voice said from the hallway.

"Oh, breakfast sounds good," Luke said. "Can we go too?"

Sirica clasped his hands. He gave Luke a wry smile and a light chuckle. "You okay, Luke?"

"Yeah. Sure. I just... Everyone seems stressed."

"We're all operating outside of our comfort zones."

"You seem fine."

"I do seem that way, don't I?" Sirica lit a cigarette and dragged on it; his pipe had gotten lost somewhere and Luke suspected that Vanssen and Gutierrez, thick as thieves, knew more than they were saying about that. Perhaps as a grace-note for Haiden, he had resorted to unfiltered Royale Noires, which Haiden bummed here and there when she thought no one was watching. "The game keeps changing. They didn't expect you, and we didn't expect her. None of us expected you two to get along. No one expected you to hijack the campaign."

Another thin smile—this one a little more more sour, Luke thought. His friend Bob's tone was light and humorous, but he fancied that Robert Sirica, Campaign Manager and party doyen, wasn't entirely joking.

"I'd hardly call it that."

"Call it what you like. My view is that we have time, the public likes it, as Paul points out, and it seems to have you at your ease. And that seems to make you comfortable talking about yourself, which the public likes, because they want to feel like they know the people who want their votes. So this is all to the good, so far as I'm concerned."

"Great. So can you get Al off my ass?

"Al... doesn't agree with my assessment. Al is unhappy. He's maybe a little high-strung for all this. A little inflexible. I think we might leave him behind to run Headquarters; he's more of a mind-the-store type anyway, and Paul can handle his end of things. I think that everyone's just trying to figure out how to process you and Haiden."

"I know, we're not traditional candidates, but—"

"No, no, that part we've got. You and Haiden."

"What do you mean?"

Sirica chuckled. "You're a smart guy, Luke." He clapped a hand on Volakis' shoulder. "Figure it out."

"You know they'll ask," Haiden said.

"I wouldn't presume to tell you what to say," Ostrakov replied.

He was a droll sort, and Haiden could never be sure whether he was joking when he said things like that. Just in case... "Okay, well, then I'm asking for your advice."

His eyebrows lifted. "There's a first time for everything, Sir."

She couldn't tell if that was a joke either. "That's not true. I weigh your advice, particularly on something like this."

"What's like this?" He eyed her and finally cracked a smile. "Okay. Strictly between you, me, and the wall?"

"I won't tell anyone either," Vanssen drawled from across the room.

Ostrakov had come a fair way, Haiden had to admit. She was starting to feel like he actually worked for her. He didn't like splitting with Adar's line, but he would, when pushed.

"Acknowledge their pain. Don't be a politician; that's the foundation of your appeal, so lean into it. Deal with the personal first, not the politics. That's where Volakis'll trip up, he can't help himself. He's a judge. He's habituated to dealing with the facts concisely and dispassionately, then moving on to the issue. That goes over as cold, and no one wants that, so it makes it harder for him to connect. You can't avoid the question, so be real, relatable, and honest. That's worked for you so far. People like it."

"People like seeing them conversing like adults, rather than throwing mud at each other," Vanssen drawled.

"Sure, everyone says they hate mudslinging," Ostrakov shot back—just a little testily, Haiden thought. "They say that, while they reach for another handful of mud. Empathize, tell them what you think, and please, for my sake if nothing else since I'm the one who'll have to take the call after, try to avoid throwing the President under a steamroller." He paused and caught her eye. "Sir?"

"Yes?"

"I've not asked you what you're going to say. You're the candidate and I'll march to your drum. That's proper. This thing we're doing, it's working out okay so far. But I think you should have a plan B. The President won't like what you say; that I can guarantee, because he doesn't like what anyone says anymore. He's likely to react. I don't know how Volakis will take it, either, or how it'll be received here. Have in mind: Sooner or later, this ride's got to come off the rails."

Outwardly, Haiden nodded. Internally, she sighed. For all the deference she and Luke could command, she couldn't avoid the feeling that it was all contingent. Sometimes it seemed like no one else on the staff understood what they were doing.

Maybe this is where we find out how long this can last. Certainly it had the feeling of an inflection-point.

* * *

For the first forty-or-so minutes, the discussion went roughly as they all had. The candidates came on stage and seated themselves in comfortable chairs, made self-deprecating jokes with the moderator, gave opening remarks in which they bantered cheerily, and then settled in for questions and answers. Luke had done panels like this for years. Haiden hadn't, but, used to thinking on her feet, she had caught on fast and was enjoying the experience. In most cases, the setting and the aura accumulating around the campaign avoided any unpleasantness, though each candidate had been pushed into answering questions they didn't like. They had certainly come to know where they disagreed.

Things were already sharper this time.

"'Candor'? Look," Haiden grumped at one point, "everyone knows a lot of things the Municipalist Party says it opposes the Colonial government doing is because it's opposed to those things being done at all. Not because it wants to carve out space for experimentation at the national level! You kick the issue down to the worlds and kill them there."

"Maybe on some issues. To a point, alright, sure," Luke conceded. "Isn't it equally true the Federalist Party wants the Colonial government doing things because you just want them done and you don't think it matters so very much how it gets done?"

"Well, of—and that's a bad thing?"

In the wings, Vanssen and Gutierrez were visibly less chatty, and Sirica and Ostrakov had gone a step further, taking opposing sides of the stage.

We could all use a break from one another, Haiden thought. A day or two of shore-leave. I should make that an order. "That's because sometimes the things you say matter don't matter so much as you think. Sometimes it's a lot of fussing over procedure instead of substance."

"Process, though," Luke noted, "you would surely agree is vitally important in, say, criminal cases. We care a great deal that all the rights of the accused are followed, don't we? And that's not for the sake of formalism or efficiency, it's about public confidence in the system. Or don't we care—you know, so long as it comes out right, we don't care if we've crossed the i's and dotted the t's... wait." He stopped himself. "No, wait. Hold on."

Haiden saw her opportunity and leapt for it.

"Reverse that," she laughed, hamming it up just a little and reaching out to pat his arm. He's cute when he's flustered, she had to admit. "And he's the articulate one of us!" she joked, glancing out to the audience. There was less laughter than she had hoped. But it was enough. Just enough to get the door open a crack. "I'll give you that," she agreed. "I did say sometimes, and of course there's some art in knowing which those times are." That won light laughter from the audience, but more important, it got a chuckle from Luke, and all of a sudden they were both a little more relaxed. Look at that: Another win for humor, she thought.

"There have been several questions submitted on this next topic," the moderator said, "and I will try to contain them under one basic question."

Here we go, Luke thought. The moderator was... Luke couldn't read his expression, and assigned it the descriptor 'agitated.' He was talking too slowly and deliberately for comfort.

Haiden caught it: Sadness and anger. She had seen it in the mirror on the day the Aerilon story broke. This man was a distressed Adar voter.

"Last year, after months of escalating protests and strikes arising from actions taken by President Adar's administration, a general strike was announced on this planet. Colonial Marines were sent, at first to take over policing, citing the need for civil order, and then, it's alleged, to break up protests and pickets. On the second day of that occupation, in the city of Balfast, a Marine platoon fired into a crowd of civilians. There are different accounts of exactly what happened, but we know this: Sixteen people died, including one Marine. There have been calls for an Inquest, and several unions throughout the worlds have carried out, discussed, or announced strikes in support. Will you support those calls?"

Luke and Haiden eyed one another. They had avoided this for weeks, between themselves as much as in public. Sooner or later they would have to grasp the nettle, and when they had agreed to hold an event on Aerilon—even on the far side of Aerilon—everyone had known this was coming.

"After you. Please," Haiden said, as graciously as she could manage.

Luke licked his lips. There was a lot riding on this. "When I was nineteen years old, I enlisted in the Colonial Marine Corps. When the news came out, I tried to imagine what I would have felt if I'd gotten that order. If I'd been there at that age, ordered to break up what was, by most accounts, a mostly-peaceable picket."

He wavered, Haiden noticed. He can't help himself, he's professionally habituated.

"This is part of the problem with micromanaging from the far end of Cyrannus. And in a larger sense, it's an example of what happens when people feel attacked, when they're deprived of control over their lives, forced into someone else's scheme, no matter how well-intentioned. Let's step back and look at—"

"Luke," Haiden, interrupted, "before we get into the long-grass, maybe say more of what you were just saying?"

Luke stopped, stared at her for a moment, and then smiled, grateful. "Sure. Of course, yes."

In the wings, Haiden saw Ostrakov throw up his hands in frustration.

Sorry, Gerald. We're not doing this the same way. You'll just have to trust us.

"You don't want a politician's answer, to see us regurgitate talking-points. You want to see us talk plainly and directly, and the Admiral and I, we're both committed to doing that. I think that what happened in Balfast was a tragedy if it wasn't a crime. Either way, I think people need closure. There's tremendous anger on this world, and it floats in the air like static electricity, grounding randomly and sometimes violently on anything it intersects with. The Adar administration seems to believe it'll dissipate on its own, but it isn't, and I understand.

"When my wife died, I was angry. I desperately needed to know why; why her? This strong, amazing woman who did everything right, what was our mistake? What should we have done? Over time, conversations with doctors helped. They made me understand that fifty–fifty doesn't mean half the patients survive so why didn't Moira, it means half the patients die. A process of understanding helped.

"The way we move forward, the way we discharge that energy, is to air it out in public. An Inquest is the best way to get answers, to understand what happened, and for those reasons I support it."

It wasn't a great answer, and he knew it. But it wasn't bad, and it was better for Haiden's intervention.

"It was shocking, wasn't it?" Haiden said to the moderator, looking him in the eye. Acknowledge his pain. Acknowledge him. "Particularly for those of us who voted for President Adar; to read headlines that he sent in the Marines—to read the next day that shots had been fired? The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I bet you had the same feeling. It gets to you when you've supported someone and they do something bad. Or to be more precise, if you'll allow it, they're accused of something, because it may well be that those first headlines were oversimplifying. We don't know, which is part of the problem. The fog of war, believe me, I understand well.

"I should confess my priors on this, so please bear with me. To me, the Uniform Commercial Acts made a lot of sense. I understand—I interrupted him, but I know that the Chief Justice was about to talk about the President's legislation standardizing weights, measures, currency, time, and so on. We've discussed all that before, and you can watch those on vid if you want. And I take your points, Luke, I do, but my feeling is that despite the difficulties of implementation, they'll be worthwhile.

"All that to say, while I sympathize with the strikers' cause, respectfully, I must say—and I think that here, on this planet, now, I really do have to say in so many words, though many of you will disagree—that I don't agree with them. As he said a minute ago," she pointed toward Luke, "we've all had enough of politicians and pandering. So this is a real point of disagreement I have with the Chief Justice. I recognize that's an unpopular opinion here; I'm from Leonis, and believe me, it ain't so popular there, either. But I have to be honest with you. This is one area where my professional experience frames my point of view; imagine a plane fails in combat because different contractors used different units of measurement. Okay?

"But here's another way my professional experience frames my feelings. Like a lot of people in the Service, I have liberal views on the use of Colonial Forces. You don't use the military as the police. Or at all, for that matter, except as a last resort, and then only with clear, specific, achievable goals. What happened on this planet offends me as an officer. It was a mistake to use the Marines that way. Whatever their orders were, it created a dangerous situation, it was unfair to them as much as anything else. President Adar's not a military man, but he should have realized that it was a disaster waiting to happen."

"So, do you support the calls for an Inquest?" the moderator wanted to know.

"Well, I've actually been the convening authority of a court-martial, so I have some—I mean, it's still not clear what the sequence of events was in the run-up to and aftermath. Who did what, why, what their orders were, and so on. Those are all things I'd want to know if I convened a court-martial for this. If the Minister of Defence authorized it, still less if the President did, as some have alleged, still less if it was ordered, that's a whole other situation. The other side is, one version of the story says the Marine who was killed was shot before the platoon opened fire, and if that's true, it's a quite different situation again. It's maddening to me that we don't have a clear picture on what happened."

"That's the big problem," Luke agreed.

"Personally, I don't usually find value in looking back. What's done is done. You get closure by moving on. Optimistically, I think maybe that's what the administration thought. But a year on, I'm forced to agree with the Chief Justice that this has become a festering wound, and that the best way to give the families closure, really to give us all closure, is to get everything out in the open. We can't keep doing this thing where vague allegations are set in napalm and hurled around, sticking to everything they touch and burning down to the bone. Let's find out what really happened, deal with it, and move on. If an Inquest can be framed in a way that it'll do that, to really bring finality, I'll support it."

And that, she thought, with satisfaction, should deal with that question, once and for all. That Adar would hit the roof once news broke was a cherry on top.

What was the one thing I asked you to not do? Ostrakov mouthed from the wings.

## Chapter Fourteen: Forsyth.

The Caprica Tribune building.

Cheltenham, Midtown Caprica City.

January 22.

"'Haiden Condemns Balfast, Backs Inquest'!" Forsyth crowed. Her mood had risen from jubilant to triumphal as a vid of the latest Haiden–Volakis debate played on her e-sheet. "There's your headline. Hot damn, that's front page material right there!"

"I'll write it up," Hook volunteered.

"Good man. Thanks."

As Hook left, Banaias appeared in her doorway. "Got a minute?"

He didn't wait for an answer, closing the door behind him and coming to a halt in the middle of her office. "I, ah... I take it from what I just overhead that I should expect copy on my desk this afternoon covering the Aerilon debate?"

"You bet!" It took a moment for his posture to register. It telegraphed nothing good, his hands stuck into his pockets, his head down, sucking his teeth... This was an 'I don't want to have this conversation but I've got to' pose that Forsyth knew better than she'd like.

"Will there also be copy covering the teachers' unions threatening to go out on strike?"

She blinked. "How should I know? Ask Planetside."

"One of the demands at the rally over the weekend was an Inquest into the Aerilon shootings—"

"Oh, come off it," Forsyth guffawed.

"—They're going to throw in with the offworld unions. It's coming here."

"Maybe the idiots leading them said that into any and every microphone they could find, but you can't take it seriously. They've been complaining about pay for months! It's nothing to do with Aerilon; it's a nothing Planetside story trying to spin itself a Pancolonial angle to make the front page. And if Adar didn't want to be micromanaging teachers, why'd he federalize education in the first place?"

"Is it still a nothing story if other public service unions join in? 'Cause, ah... They might."

"I don't know." She shrugged, dismissively. "We'll talk about that if it happens."

"Alright. Well, if strikes don't interest you, let's talk about what does. You went out to Scorpia to cover Haiden and get a sense of what she's doing in the race. Instead, you come back with a story about delays with a new type of battlestar, a story that includes some stuff there's no way I'm buying came from the people at Scorpion Yards."

"Also. Not instead. I filed the Haiden story, too, so what's—"

"Who's your source?"

"Let's just say it's someone close to the Mil office at Cav House. That's all you need to know."

"Kinda need to know more, actually. What did I tell you at New Years? Impeccable sourcing. How can I validate that if I don't know who it is?"

"My source is impeccable. I can vouch for its authenticity."

"But you can't give me his name?"

She smiled, thinly. "I never specified a gender."

"Stories way outside your beat with a secret source. Stories that should be on your beat, you're ignoring. What is all this? You're burning the miles, Scorpia, Virgon, you've been back and forth to Picon a half dozen times on my cubit. Putting yourself on stories you should be assigning—"

"I can't help where the stories are, or where they go, or what sources emerge. That's the news business."

"Yeah, but—" He grimaced and gritted his teeth. "Maybe. But it's not your job to personally handle every story you think's important. You're an editor, not a roving correspondent. Aside from anything else, you're stretching yourself thin."

"I can manage."

"Can you? Because from where I'm standing, you look thinner and thinner, and I'm not talking about you taking your lunches downstairs in the gym. Which brings me to this." He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

She glanced at it and returned it to him. "That's Carl's story."

"Really?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the Newsroom. "Hook wrote this?" Banaias turned over the paper in his hands and glanced at her.

"He wrote the copy." She wrapped her arms around herself, annoyed at herself that it had come out sounding defensive.

"As much as it pisses me off that your little protégé lets you borrow his byline—"

"My what?" She laughed. "C'mon, I hardly think he's—"

"He is, and if you really don't see that, it kinda makes my point." He let out an exasperated sigh, staring at his shoes. "You were better when you were a frakkin' drunk," he muttered.

Her jaw dropped. "Zeus almighty, Caleb—"

"At least you were here!" he shouted, jabbing a finger at her. "Maybe you were just overcompensating hoping no one'd notice the smell of ambrosia on you, but you were doing the job, not a loose cannon off gods-know-where, chasing that next Bentinck, ignoring real news happening right now like it's somehow beneath you!"

There was a moment of deadly silence, each staring at the other, neither giving any ground.

"Shit. I shouldn't have said that," he conceded.

"I can't believe you said that," she murmured, shaking her head.

"Sorry," he said, but he didn't look it. "That was over the line," he added, but his face didn't soften. He sucked his lower lip. "Jen, we all understood when you needed to take some time. For your—y'know, thing. I get it. I've got eight years four months myself, and I'm still counting. It happens to the best of us. But don't make me regret taking you back."

"Taking me back?" Forsyth bridled. "I was sick. I took a leave of absence to get myself better. I got better. It's a sickness."

"It's a behavior. One that becomes a habit, and they're hard to break; all credit to you for that. But I know exactly what Addiction Recovery Fellowship says, all that Latnock stuff about desire and detachment, and like all religious talk, what you find in it's usually what you brought into it."

Don't let him draw you in. She gritted her teeth. "I've written good copy. I've done good work since I came back."

"Yeah. That's true."

"Then what do you want from me?"

"I want you to do your job! You're the Political Editor. Be an editor. Manage your people, mentor the kids, be a good example, write good copy when necessary, dish out the stories, back off this crusade you've been on."

She pursed her lips. "'Crusade'?"

"Pleione, you don't—are you kidding? You've had it out for Adar since you came back. When I walked in here just now, you were practically salivating at Haiden sticking the knife into him. It's like you've wanted to be gunning for the President all along, and suddenly Haiden's running and ding ding, hunting season's open. You're pulling together sources, reaching, synthesizing... Seriously, do you not realize what you're doing?"

"The whole reason we're here is to do journalism that matters! We gave Adar an easy ride before because we liked him. Because we supported him. And maybe we shouldn't have, but we did. And maybe we told ourselves we had to, because what's the alternative, but now we don't have to, and for Clio's sake, if we're just punching a clock, and doing 'area cat stuck in tree,' what was any of it for? I could have stayed on Picon."

"Ah. And there it is. Can I be real honest with you?"

She snickered at that. "You were pullin' your punches so far?"

"Your dad was clergy, right?"

"Preacher."

"Mm. My uncle was a Priest. He told me one time, it's the mediocre clerics who shout loudest for the rights of the clergy. The good ones are pious enough or self-assured enough that they don't worry. You know what your problem is, Jen? You're a believer. You're stuck on this idea in your head that what we do is important, some kind of holy vocation, and the reality of the job depresses you. You've gotta be chasing that elusive Next-Great-Story-That-Must-Be-Told, even if it's fanciful, even if you have to manipulate sources, and when you couldn't get that professional high, you found the next best thing in a bottle. It nearly screwed you. The gods for my witnesses, I'm glad you got better. That's not bullshit; for my sake as much as yours, I'm glad you're back. You're a good editor. You're good at people—when your head's in the game. That's why I hired you."

Everything in her wanted to either strangle him or run to the closest restroom and cry.

"You didn't hire me, Caleb," she said, her voice as stony as she could make it. "Helen did."

"Owners don't make staffing decisions. You might have kissed hands with her, but that call's one she pays me for." He shrugged. "I still think it was the right one. You dug yourself a hole and you're trying to climb out of it. Getting back to the basics of your craft, I get it. And personally, I respect that. But I need the editor I hired, and I need her a lot more than I need esoteric military funding stories that no one except Ed Nagala gives a crap about."

He was trying to be conciliatory, she was quite certain, which somehow made her even angrier.

"You've just got to take off the blinkers, Jen. Like you said—you said!—it's an election year, and there's a new government Downtown. No end of hay to be had on the campaign-trail. A dozen unions here and offworld protesting and threatening to go out on strike, whether about Aerilon or anything else; you name it. I know it's grunt work and maybe it won't win you another Bentinck. But we're the newspaper of record, and that's gotta mean something. Your job's to make sure we have the best coverage of it."

He turned to go, and stopped.

"The booze isn't your problem, Jen. It's a symptom. If you don't fix the underlying problem, you'll be right back in that bottle."

"You're wrong," Forsyth snarled, furious at herself that he probably wasn't.

* * *

Ari was already cooking when she arrived home, the air full of spices, aromatic vegetables, and coffee. It smelled seductively of home; of real home. Of Picon.

She slipped off her shoes and thought about hurling them across the hallway. She thought better of it. Then she thought better of restraint and hurled them anyway. They hit the far wall with a satisfying whack; it was angled away from the entrance-hall toward the lounge and kitchen, and they skittered along it before dropping to the floor, prompting a startled yowl from the cat.

"Rough day?" Ari's voice asked from around the corner.

She followed her shoes down the hallway and flopped into one of the seats at the countertop that joined their kitchen to the lounge. Ari handed her a mug, looking pleased with himself. "Five debens of County Wexford, roasted right here in this very kitchen by mine very own hand—"

"Ha, no wonder it smells good in here."

"—one deben County Baleinse dark roast, poured over a pinch of khandsari sugar, raw milk, and finished with a dusting of cassia."

"It's your masterpiece," she said with a wan smile.

"Well, it's my best yet. The evening's young; I may do better."

"I can't wait to try it."

"I'd offer a foot-rub but I'm chopping vegetables."

"I see that." She sipped, cautiously. "That's good. Damn, that's really good, actually."

"You're welcome, and you didn't answer the question."

She stared into her coffee. Not so long ago, Ari had handed her martinis when she arrived home, and those had been really good, too. Too good.

Eventually she said, "Caleb Banaias thinks I'm an addict."

"You are an addict. You're in recovery. It's not something that gets cured."

"No, not that. He thinks I'm compelled to find stories that make me feel like what I do matters, and I drank because I can't face the mundane realities of the job."

Ari froze mid-chop. "He said that?"

"Mostly."

"Doughy frakker," Ari rumbled. "I should beat his ass."

It registered with her that she should probably have waited for Ari to put down the razor-sharp knife before telling him that. In a better mood, that might have been funny.

"What if I just quit?"

"Your job?"

"The Trib. My career. Both; either. We could go home," she ventured. "Where things smell right and feel right and we don't ricochet through a season a week and the gravity doesn't make everything feel just slightly heavier than it should."

"Nah," Ari grunted, without missing a beat. "You'd hate yourself in a few months. You'd be bored to tears, and you'd get a job that wouldn't be as good and you'd beat yourself to death second-guessing the decision."

"Yeah, but what if it's just skipping to the chase? Banaias keeps dropping hints that I'm on thin ice. He wants me to put my head down, hand out routine stories, and edit routine copy. He thinks I'm on a crusade against Adar. So maybe it's either I knuckle-under and make this into a crummy job or they fire me anyway."

"Aren't you? On a crusade, I mean."

"No!" She hesitated. "No...? I'm just tryin' to—I mean... What we do is supposed to be important. When stories come up, I chase them. That's the job. It's not my doing that the wheels are coming off Adar's administration in newsworthy ways."

Ari dipped a finger into a saucepan, licked it, and grunted in satisfaction. He dipped it again and offered it to her. Like the coffee, it was good, and tasted of home.

"He's right about one thing," she admitted. "I want what I do to make a difference. Of course I do; who wouldn't? I got lost for a while. Now I'm capable of doing the work again, and I want to do it. But maybe it doesn't have to be Caprica. Y'know?"

"I think you'd be bored," Ari re-iterated, returning to his cooking.

"Tell me I'm not kidding myself," she pouted. "What I do matters. Right? I'm not through?"

"You've done great work. Still, I am absolutely certain that your best work has yet to be written." He smiled at her; that same infectious smile that always could make her believe anything. "And," he added, "I can't wait to read it."

## Chapter Fifteen: Carolyn.

Cavendish House.

Monday, January 24.

In unmistakably agitated tones, Adar's voice carried from the private office as Innes joined them. Carolyn and Kikuchi had been waiting patiently outside, each wincing at different lines as the argument wafted out: "Kent, no, listen; you can't do that. I understand, I'm anti-smoking too, but you are injecting yourself into a volatile... Okay... Yes, but you just can't... No. No—"

"No-no-Novak?" Innes asked, with a wry smile.

"Novak," Kikuchi confirmed. "As of this morning, the Prime Minister of Caprica is formally asking their Parliament to implement punitive import tariffs on tobacco."

"They can't do that!"

Carolyn shot her a sardonic look and inclined her head toward the office. "I believe, Frances, that's what the President is trying to explain to him." Innes had been noticeably cool toward her since the Scorpian jaunt, and she seemed less carefully-put-together this morning, her blouse ever so slightly wrinkled, her hair less coifed.

"Clio. It's illegal!"

"Oh no! If only there were a lawyer around here! Look, didn't I tell you when we went to Scorpia? A crisis every few weeks. It's not the first, it won't be the last. Welcome to Arcadia."

Kikuchi put a silencing hand on Carolyn's arm and glanced across the waiting area at Innes. "Whatever the Articles say about whether Caprica can or can't do it, they're doing it. And the OTEC member-worlds will retaliate, whatever the Articles say about that. I trust you see the optics on Caprica fighting a trade war with Leonis, Tauron, and Scorpia in an election year?"

"The President's Scorpian," Innes observed. As though that settled anything. "From Scorpia," she corrected herself, with a sidelong glance at Carolyn.

"I'm sure that that'll make both sides trust him, won't it?" Carolyn chortled.

Innes licked her teeth and stared doggedly at the ceiling.

"Would you two knock it off?" Kikuchi scolded. "I'm with Novak on the policy. It's a menace to the public health, to say nothing of a parasite on the treasury. I wish we could back him. But the politics are ugly."

"The politics are simple," Carolyn countered. "He isn't ready to run for President this time around so he's playing an angle for the next election. Cheer up, Claire: I'm sure the President's motives are pure."

Kikuchi shot her a withering look, then turned her attention to Innes. "What did you need, Frances?"

"Um. Actually, I just assumed we were all in with the President first-thing. Did you read the story in the Tribune yet? Sounds like the President did."

Carolyn grinned. "Which one?"

There were three, and each was worse than the last.

* * *

"Three weeks that frakker's been in office," Adar fumed, circling the private office like a caged lion. "Three weeks and he's already pulling this stunt! Plei-o-ne!"

"I could kill him with my bare hands," Carolyn said, without looking up from checking e-mails on her e-sheet.

"That an offer?" Adelyne laughed—too loudly, as always. "'Cause that'd solve a few problems. Might create a few more, course."

"Just a few," Kominsky murmured from a seat by Adar's desk.

"I'll plead withdrawal. 'He made my cigs too expensive; it's an addiction, your honor. I had to, your honor.'"

"Culverson, you can shut up too," Adar snapped. "You're not helping."

"We're all under a lot of pressure," Kikuchi soothed. "Mr. President..." She hesitated. "The problem isn't the policy, it's the actor, the unilateralism of it. We could cure that. Have you considered backing Caprica?"

"And hand him a win?"

"It's good policy. It would be to the public's benefit, over the medium-term."

"Good thing no swing-voters smoke," Carolyn quipped.

Kikuchi ignored her. "One way to defuse it is to hug it. Politics and legalities aside, isn't this exactly the kind of public-good policy we're for?"

"I can draft something up," Innes offered. "Surely there's precedence for it."

"Wonderful," Adar spat, still prowling back and forth, looking for all the worlds like all he really wanted was a dog to kick. "My Political Advisor and my Lawyer are saying 'aside from the politics and the law, this is great.' Can you hear yourselves? How exactly do you expect us to win a Presidential election if we piss up the Tobacco Trio's leg? Not," he added, aiming a vicious look at Kominsky and with noticeable bitterness in his voice, "that there's an 'us' in it anymore, it seems."

"That's never been overriding. It didn't stop us passing the Weights and Measures Act," Kikuchi rejoined. "Or the Standardized Commercial Transactions Act. Those went down like lead balloons on Leonis; worse in Delta–Gamma. That's why things started spiraling on Aerilon in the first place! But we did it and we stuck by it because it was good policy."

"And we lost how many seats as a result?" Kominsky asked, his tone even. "We lost control of the Quorum and it nearly cost us the Congress. There are prices to be paid for that kind of move. Not all of them affordable, and not all worth paying. We can't do anything if we lose Cav House. Progress requires power; I don't know how many times I have to say this. Best case scenario, everything stops for four years, worst, they get control and we might actually regress. How does that help anyone?"

"Who's helped if we play so safe that we don't do anything?"

"No one said that, Claire!" Adar shouted.

"If you doubt we've done a lot, go read the other side's press," Carolyn suggested. "If International Review's any guide, it's revolution daily in here."

Kominsky shot her an exasperated look. "All I'm saying is that purism isn't practical. I'll go talk to them; maybe Novak or someone around him will listen if—with all due respect, Mr. President—if it comes from someone with whom he, ah, shares less antipathy, and in a less confrontational setting. Or at least one where he holds the high-ground. If he won't back off, we can consider our options."

Adar scowled at him, finally returning to his desk chair, sinking into it, and looking off into the distance.

"Why wait?" Carolyn asked. "He's not likely gonna back down now. He's in too deep to stop."

"Because we don't take potshots at our own team," Kikuchi said, virtuously.

"Because we don't take unnecessary shots of any kind," Kominsky corrected. "If it becomes necessary, then I'll countenance throwing him to the wolves. But only if and when," he added, eyeing Carolyn pointedly. "There are costs to that, too."

Kikuchi cleared her throat. "Are we sure we want to do that?"

"I'm sure we don't," Innes spluttered. "The press loves him and he may well be our next candidate after Haiden. He's a future standard-bearer for the party."

"Over my dead body," Adar rumbled, to no one in particular.

"What the press thrills to fatten for the harvest, Ms. Innes," Kominsky said, "it delights to slaughter for the feast. They might treat him like a sacred cow while it serves their interest, but given cause, they'll turn on him and swallow him whole."

"Alright, but do we even have anything on him? He's the white knight. He's squeaky-clean," Innes insisted.

Carolyn choked back a laugh. "Really? He's climbed to the top of a parliamentary system, and he got there quicker than you can believe. You thought he was on the up and up?"

"I suggest we table this discussion for now," Kominsky said. "We're all in agreement on what's immediately before us. Isn't that right, Mr. President?"

"What? Oh." Adar waved him away, lost in his own thoughts. "Yes."

"Good. What else?"

Kikuchi shook her head. Innes looked to be still stewing.

My turn, then. "We have two more problems," Carolyn said. She pulled a copy of the Caprica Tribune's print edition from her bag. "First, Haiden had some choice words to say about Aerilon—

"We're moving past that, too" Kominsky said, quickly, giving Adar a pointed look. "It's handled."

The source of the President's foul mood became suddenly clear. "I see. Alright. Well, our favorite muckraker has a story that includes details of memos between this building and FHQ. Someone's talking to Forsyth."

"I thought you handled that already," Adar snapped.

"I handled it by having her editor lean on her about sourcing. It would seem she has a source. The story says it's 'someone close to' the Mil Office here, but—"

"'Close to,'" Kominsky asked, or 'in'?"

"It says 'close to,' but that smells like smoke, if you ask me."

"To your nose, huh?" Kikuchi said, with a sardonic smile.

If anyone else had said that, Carolyn would have hurt them. But Claire, despite being a pain in the ass, was family. She ignored her. "The details here could come from the military. What if someone at FHQ leaked it?"

Adar stirred. "Probably from the top."

"You're thinking Corman?" Kominsky asked.

"Topper," Adar growled.

"You think Nagala?" Adelyne laughed, loudly. Uncomfortably loudly.

No one else did.

"Doubtful," Kominsky said, eventually.

"Not in a million years," Adelyne chuckled. "The man hates the press a lot more than he hates you, Mister President. One of Corman's aides, I'd guess. I'm sure Banaias knows. Maybe he let Forsyth keep the name out of print, but he wouldn't publish without knowing who it is."

"Well then maybe he should tell us," Adar said, and Carolyn couldn't tell whether the contempt in his voice was for Banaias or Adelyne.

"That's a card I don't want to play just yet," Carolyn said.

"A card? It's not a game, Culverson! This is my frakking legac—my administration!"

"Cards, prices; pick any metaphor you like. I understand your concern, Mister President, but the fact remains, that is a card I can play only once, and we may need it later."

"I'm the President of the Colonies. I'm getting real tired of people telling me what we can't do."

Kominsky steepled his fingers. "Whoever it is, if it's on the FHQ side, it's Nagala's responsibility. And Tyche be ever so good, he's just down the road; the Admiralty Board meets today, and I'd think they'll be done by early afternoon. We could ask him to stop by for a chat."

"A chat?" Adar snorted. "Sure, let's say a chat. Get him in here."

## Chapter Sixteen: Nagala.

Cavendish House.

The nerve of that man. To speak that way to me. Nagala paused on his way out of the Cavendish House complex, looking the building up and down. There was something gloomy about it from the interior courtyard, where the face it showed the worlds was missing and its concrete substructure was exposed.

An unhappy thought floated through his mind: I'm done. He was tired and angry. It was still afternoon in Caprica City, but in Perkinston, his body told him with no need to check his watch, it was late. This was no frame of mind in which to make decisions.

The driver assigned by the Naval Air Station was waiting for him, and for the duration of the drive, Nagala seethed. By the time he was ushered from the car into a waiting Raptor, he felt that he could see the shape of a decision taking form: I'm done with these people. Let Corman do it. He let the thought coalesce and sit in his mind, cooling, examining it.

He ordered the pilot to make the jump back to Picon as soon as they cleared orbit. If he could get back in time and get some decent sleep, his calendar for the morning had just the balm for his frustration.

Another driver collected him from a pad adjacent to the FHQ complex and drove him home. 'Home' was a cottage in the suburbs, a short drive from FHQ if traffic on the turnpike wasn't bad, and at this time of night there was none.

He had never needed much, or asked for it, and his accommodations were as spare as he was himself. A Virgan gentleman's home was his castle, and Nagala had taken that figure of speech literally, choosing a cottage with a living area that enclosed the inner Keep of his bedroom at its center. The cottage was set into a hillock, surrounded on three sides, a little private patio carved out of one of them. A good defensive position. Walls within walls within walls.

It was gone midnight by the time he crawled into bed. In this room alone, he allowed himself the luxury of something approaching sentiment: Penants of Virgon and the Staverton Canton; a photograph of King Andrew; a beloved mug from childhood, now cracked and repurposed to hold pens and pencils; a small collection of vinyl records and a player; handmade models of his commands.

Sleep proved elusive. At around 0230, exasperated, he pulled on a pair of pajama pants and limped out onto his patio, barefoot and topless, running a glass of water from the kitchen on the way. Even in the deepest dark of the night, Perkinston sweltered. He reclined on a deck-chair, enjoying the coolness of the water as it ran down his throat, and eyeing the stars above. He retrieved a pack of cigarettes from beneath his deckchair and lit one; it was a filthy habit, an unbecoming one, but this was one of those rare moments in his day when he was sure that no one could be watching.

Zeus was rising in the eastern sky. The mighty gas-giant was well-named for the Lord of Lords; he had seen it with his own eyes, naught betwixt them but a flight-suit's thin plexiglass visor. But from here, it was no more than a bright, ruddy dot. Flotilla Six, he knew. Two battlestars for three occupied moons, Commander Fischer on the Ravanna, escorted by the Clarke and three destroyers. He could not call to mind the name of the Colonels driving the escorts; he was not so good with names as he would have people think. But he knew intimately the weapons at his disposal to defend these worlds, even one so remote as Zeus.

The stars had been a source of awe and wonder when he was a boy. They held no comfort now; not since the War. Not since the Cylons had declared a unilateral ceasefire and vanished somewhere out there among those stars.

They had been brittle, the prevailing theory held. The Cylons. There'd been no gradual decline of hostilities, no apparent sapping of will or strength, just a sudden and unexpected offer of armistice. They could not bend, the theory went, and so, out of Colonial sight, they had broken and rushed to end the War before we could notice and press our advantage.

Nagala had never been one to make loans against the credit of prevailing theories. They're out there somewhere. Waiting. Planning, probably. Watching, obviously; keenly and closely, as the worlds go about our business, oblivious, serene in our infinite complacency.

Finally, sleep came for him.

When he woke, it was to the sound of birds cawing as they circled against overcast skies. It was gone 0800, and he inched back into the house, cursing softly. He retrieved his cane, called his driver, and struggled into uniform.

They made it, barely, and Nagala hurried to FHQ's auditorium.

"You're late," Corman hissed, as they were introduced.

Corman, alas, was less enthused by these events. It was a point against him—but, well, no one's perfect. "Yes. Catch me afterward. You'll want to hear this."

Nagala had never married and had no children of his own. He had nevertheless reveled in his nieces and nephews. By the time he had taken command of the Fleet, they were all grown, and Nagala had made a then-controversial decision to allow school tour groups into the FHQ complex, a building that was not generally open to the public. It was a recruiting-tool, he would explain, if pressed.

Not that anyone would dare press. Not anymore.

It was an opportunity to be around children; to get them excited about sailing and science and service, to remind himself of the innocence that it was his high calling to protect, and to have one blessed thing in his life that was joyful and pure and uncynical. Something that reminded him why all this was worth doing.

Well—maybe he wasn't quite done with it all. Not yet.

Besides, it was nice answering children's questions. Children ask things that grown-ups are too tactful, too fearful, or just too damned jaded to ask. If they were at all impressed by the mystique, they weren't intimidated by it. 'What did you do during the War?' was usually his favorite. Minute by minute as it went on, he felt the tension seeping out of him.

Until:

"Yes, the young lady in the blue dress?"

"Mister admiral sir?" Her voice was small and scared. "My mommy says the Cylons are going to come back one day. She says they're angry. Are they coming back?"

Nagala blinked. Incredibly, that was a new one. Six times a year he did these, welcoming junior-schoolers, usually from Picon though sometimes farther afield. This group's accents and neat uniforms suggested Tauron. But that question had never come up, and it suddenly seemed strange to him that it had not. He glanced at Corman who was staring fixedly ahead, his face frozen.

Corman had even fewer doubts on that score than did Nagala. That was a point in his favor.

Delegate Smith, that is why we have a four-hundred-ship fleet, he wanted to say. That's why we operate more than a hundred battlestars, Representative Jones; it's why I need more, and why Kim Bratton's going to be here next week wanting more money for the Marines. It's why we're talking about a third generation of battlestar and should be talking about the Warstar. You can't be this naive, Mister President, you can't possibly think they just walked away. 'Are they coming back,' my gods... Of course they're coming back.

He swallowed. The girl couldn't be more than eight, perhaps nine. Lying to children was tacky, but scaring them was uncouth.

"Well, young miss, I... What's your name?"

"Serina, mister admiral sir."

"Well, Serina, a lot of people have a lot of different thoughts on that. Can I be very honest with you? I truly hope they went off somewhere, that they found some place, some thing that makes them happy, and they lived happily ever after." He touched his fingertips to his chest. "I swear on Aletheia's altar, I mean that. Truly."

The image of the battlestar Ward danced past his mind's eye, listing in two pieces toward Ophion with that hideous, haunting languor. More desperately than anyone would believe, he wanted to mean what he was saying.

"Or perhaps they just kept moving. Kept looking. Perhaps they're dead and gone; ran out of power, the way we'd eventually run out of food and water and air if we wandered off into the deep. That's possible. And to tell you the truth, Serina, there are people, good people, decent people like your mummy, who believe they might come back. We don't know. We just can't know."

He glanced again at Corman, and hoped his next words would reassure.

"What we can do, though, Serina, is be ready in case they do. The ramparts are manned. Over our heads right now, there stand good men and women watching and waiting and ready to defend you. From here to every far corner of the Colonies, there is a line in space, watched vigilantly. We are everywhere, always, ready. Ready to protect you, Serina, no matter what happens. And I hope that some of you here today will consider joining them in a few years when you come of age. It's a vital task and there's none more honorable. And I know this much, I can tell you this, truly: If the Cylons come back, with every god they don't believe in as my witness, they'll wish they hadn't."

Corman cracked a satisfied smile at that answer.

Nagala didn't. He hated lying to children.

## Chapter Seventeen: Carolyn.

Burrard.

Monday, January 31.

Carolyn climbed the steps to her apartment feeling weary. She slipped off her shoes, lit a cigarette—one a day, no more, no fewer, and not until evening—and thought about opening a bottle of wine. Idly, she glanced out of the window and saw someone who looked like Nicola running along the street below.

You go, girl, she thought.

There were moments she envied her flatmate. Running was useful, but she didn't like it. Discipline carried you only so far, and she just wasn't built with a runner's lithe frame. Some days, Carolyn would have given a minor organ to be twenty pounds lighter. But she was strong; not so strong as she had been in the life before Kikuchi and Kominsky had taken her in, but muscular and trim nevertheless.

Forget your weaknesses, her LT had recommended, a lifetime ago. Figure out your strengths, work on improving those.

And she was attractive. That wasn't a boast, it was a fair assessment. She knew it in unsparing detail because it could be a useful tool. Kikuchi's joke about her nose still stung; too prominent, too fat, and had too obviously been broken. But Carolyn was sure it was her figure where eyes lingered.

Her cell phone rang. Screw 'em. Kominsky had his own ringtone and anyone else could wait. She was off the clock for the evening. It rang again, and her will buckled. She didn't recognize the number, and an idle hope crossed her mind that it could be Innes. If it was, at least her feet weren't hurting from those dressier shoes for nothing... Frak. She tapped ACCEPT.

"Culverson."

"It's me," Kominksy's voice said. "You got the pre-game on?"

She had completely forgotten about that. The Pyramid Worlds Cup was about to be played. "Hey. What number's this?"

"Don't worry about that. Listen, I just opened a nice bottle of red. Want to come over? I'm cooking."

She shrugged. "Yeah. Okay, sure."

"Great. Hey, listen. It's nice outside right now. Best hoof it while you can, right?"

She frowned but didn't argue. "Sure, I could use the exercise."

Kominsky's apartment was half an hour more expensive along the waterfront, in Rose Orchard. Caprica had cycled through another orbit around Gemenon and was back into its autumnal phase, which left the air crisp and cool so far as Carolyn was concerned. She ambled unhurriedly along the route of their morning run, glad to be back in sneakers. When she spied Nicola galloping in the other direction, she cracked a grin and held out her hand, palm flat. Nicola nodded in acknowledgement and high-fived the proffered hand as she passed, without a word.

Carolyn turned north where they would normally rest and turn back. She glanced south across the water where the wide end of the estuary became the narrow end of the harbor. On the far side, Midtown blazed with light in the dusk, and farther west, Downtown's lights shifted as people left office blocks in the financial districts to filter into more enjoyable pursuits. Around her, North Caprica City's neighborhoods were sedate, the streets empty. Everyone had made it home early to watch the game, she guessed.

Kominsky's apartment always made her think of a houseboat. It occupied a narrow section of the building, with clerestory windows made for light not a view, timber floors, and book-lined walls painted sea-green, its living area splitting into a pair of low mezzanines at the south end. She had been here many times over the years, but always with others. With Kikuchi and Adelyne; with Adar himself, early on; with the high command of first the campaign and later Cav House. Never alone.

The game, she could have watched at home. The cooking was a legitimate draw, no matter the cause for the cloak-and-dagger summons. J.G. Kominsky was a good chef, famously-so in their circle, and even before he opened the door, the hallway smelled like a Little Tauron grasienta. He welcomed her in, padding around barefoot in shorts and a Marauders jersey. On a television that dominated the living-area's north wall, the pre-game show's talking heads were breaking down the impending collision of Sagittaron's Marauders with the Picon Panthers, the reigning IPL champions.

The Worlds Cup simulcast was a feat of technology, logistics, scheduling, and diplomacy (between the networks, the International Pyramid League, and the Colonial Pyramid Association) of no little note. The laws of physics could be bent, but not broken: An FTL jump could move people and things vast distances in an instant, eliding the speed of light, but transmitted communications crawled along at its stubborn limit. To sate sportsfans across the worlds, the networks undertook a herculean effort to overcome these limits.

The natural division of the game into segments, and fans' tolerance of longer-than-normal breaks for commercials and analysis, gave the networks their chance. The game was filmed, timecoded, and broadcast on a short delay on the host world. The live feed went to an orbital facility where it was recorded. Every division, two couriers for each world, a prime and an alternate, took an FTL-equipped shuttle, and ran for their assigned world. One or the other arriving first, the couriers transmitted to a receiving facility that sync'd the timecode and sent it to planetside affiliates for broadcast.

Fudges were common around the margins, but no effort was spared to ensure a genuinely simultaneous Simulcast. As a result, the game played at almost the exact same time throughout the worlds. Almost. This made it the only offworld game on which you could legally place bets on most colonies in almost real time, and the only one where such bets were more tightly-controlled on the host world than off. Carolyn and Kominsky started betting before she made it to the sofa.

For the duration of the first half, they made small talk, threw popcorn at the television, sipped wine, and made jokes about how long it took to cook Tauron food properly. Kominsky disappeared into the contramezzanine briefly and returned brandishing a homemade Gemenese salt-bread with an experimental dipping sauce that he claimed to be Canceran, though the spice pallet seemed wrong.

The halftime show was an underwhelming affair in which a band that had been popular a decade ago played with more actual pyrotechnics than musical.

"Ha! The guitar player looks like Frances," Kominsky chuckled from the kitchen.

"Ah, frak, please don't. I'm so tempted to use my one-office-affair card."

"I wouldn't."

"Of course you wouldn't. You might if she looked like Steve Mitchells!"

"Office affairs never work out. I wouldn't."

"Dude! You frakked Mitchells on inauguration night!"

"Mommy never warned me alcohol leads to mistakes. And what happened? Good for me, for half an hour, but bad for the administration. Which ultimately means—guess what, Carolyn? Bad for me."

"I guess it's like the President says: What's bad for the queen's bad for the hive."

"That's not the saying," he laughed.

He returned to the couch, handing her a steaming plate. "If you want to toy with your crush after you turn out the lights, do what you gotta. But on the clock, exercise some discipline. Frances is good at her job. I don't want to lose another Counsel, 'specially if it's just because you couldn't keep it zipped. Trust me, you don't want to have to explain that one to the President."

"I know." Carolyn winced. "She's just so... There's nothing on her. She's clean, and I looked. It's... I don't know." She gestured, vaguely. "Thrilling."

"Only you could make someone being clean sound like it's something dirty," Kominsky chuckled, opening a second bottle of wine.

"We're in a dirty business."

"Sometimes," he agreed. He flashed her a sardonic smile. "This explains so much. I thought you'd started washing your hair, and didn't I see you in something other than jeans the other day?"

"Shut up."

"I'm sure she approves. You know, I don't think I've ever seen you take an interest in someone before."

"It's not—it's not just about that. I mean, it's a little about that. She's really pretty, boss. It's... I like her, and when we went to Scorpia, just for a few minutes I thought I saw who she thinks I am. Maybe who I'd be with her. And I liked it. I'm just thinking about the future; I mean, one way or another, we'll not be working for the President this time next year."

"We're not going to be working for Adar this time next year. You don't think we'll stay on for Haiden?"

"I mean, maybe. She seems cool on me."

"The Vanssen girl knows your M.O. and doesn't like it."

"I can't help that. That's my job. It isn't me."

"Yeah, it is." He held a glass toward her.

She scowled, softened, and clinked her glass against his. "Yeah. It is."

But, she thought, it doesn't have to be. I can change.

"For sake of argument, this other you, the one you'd like to be is... What? Mrs. Francesca Innes?"

"Frak you. It could happen. Fine, what's your plan?"

"Don't know. Maybe work for Haiden." He swirled the wine in his glass and took a long swallow. "Maybe for Novak if I can convince Dick it's not personal. I know that's crossed Claire's mind, too. But they really don't like each other, Adar and Novak. Now that—that's personal."

"It's because the press is busy fellating Novak the way they used to fellate Adar and he misses the attention."

"You're a little bold after a drink, aren't you?"

"I talk a big game but I'm a chapel mouse, Father Jerry, I swear."

Kominsky splayed his fingers against his chest in mock horror. "You'd lie to a man of the cloth?"

"Better to lie to than lie with."

"The voice of experience. Any tips?" They both laughed. "Why not Haiden?" Kominsky pressed.

"What's that?"

"Why not work for Haiden's administration? If she has one."

She gave a little shrug. "Fair-sized 'if.'"

Kominsky's eyebrows lifted, but not, it seemed, in any kind of surprise. He shifted in his seat, but the second half tip-off interrupted whatever he had meant to say.

But only for the duration.

A part of Carolyn's mind was still stuck on that comment: If she has one.

Ninety minutes later, with sports fans throughout the worlds exchanging money and drowning their sorrows, Carolyn tried again.

"So what's up?

"Who says something's gotta be up for us to hang out?"

"I don't recognize pretext? I have worked for you and Claire for how many years, and you've never invited me over for drinks and sports. Let alone calling me from what I have to assume's a burner cell phone so it's harder to trace, and, by the way, why the hell do you have one of those?"

"Maybe I mean to—y'know, seduce you or something."

"Pretty sure my having a vagina might put you off on that score. And no offense, but you're not my type either."

"Oof." He chuckled, pouring her another glass. "Well maybe I just wanted to watch the game with company. Pleasure before business."

"And the game's over. So, business. What's up?"

"All right, fine. We need to have a conversation that can't be had in Cav House. Connie Haiden's a decent candidate, and if she wins, she'll make an okay President. How do you assess her chances?"

"As good as anyone's, I'd have to think."

"You're dodging the question. That wasn't what I asked. Give it to me straight."

Carolyn frowned, searching for a way to articulate the problem. She settled on, "She won't kill for it."

"Go on."

She pointed at the television, where the postgame analysis was burbling away. "Peniket made a play in that last quarter that could have broken his arm. He risked it because he's 100% invested in the team, the game, the play. They were losing, they had to take risks, he did, and it probably won the game for them. Haiden doesn't want it enough. She'd like to be President, but she doesn't crave it. It's not all she's ever wanted. She's not got enough skin in the game to put it all on the line and take risks. She doesn't hate the other guy enough to go for his jugular. And that'll always limit her. This whole thing they've cooked up, this 'having a civil conversation' business? It's... naïve."

"Yeah. That's about where I am, too. You've worked for me, how long'd you say? Eleven years? Twelve? You know what always impressed me about you? You do whatever it takes. You're not worried about keeping your hands clean. If it needs done and someone needs to do it, you'll get it done."

She shifted uneasily. "Yeah..?"

"We're the magicians, Carolyn."

"Sometimes it's black magic," she laughed. "If it has to be."

"That's right. And it may have to be. We cannot lose this election. Certainly not to Lucas frakking Volakis; that man will set the Twelve Worlds back ten years in his first ten weeks."

"You don't have to sell me, boss."

"Yes I do." He held her gaze. "In a bad hand, Haiden's our best card. But those two amateurs have turned things upside-down and there's no predicting how this plays out. There's too much at stake to leave it to chance. You understand? We have to take steps to ensure that Haiden wins." He didn't blink.

"Alright." She didn't blink, either. "You have a 'how' in mind?"

Kominsky chuckled. "I have no idea," he admitted.

"There's definitely things we can do. I have a couple of ideas."

"Of course you do." He clinked her glass with a wry smile. "Carolyn Culverson, magician, always ready with a rabbit in a hat, just in case."

"You can't rig an election," she said. "Not on this scale. But. On this scale, an election's a big, complex system, and little things can get lost in the right places and add up to big effects. It's amazing how disruptive a Tax audit can be when it hits the wrong person at the wrong time. An indictment takes some key piece off the board, and so on. There's a lot of discretionary authority that can be leveraged, throughout the government apparatus. Of course, to do that, you need access to the people who make those decisions, which leads me to a delicate question. Who else is in on this?"

He raised his glass toward her. "Who else would I tell first?"

"I'll take that as a vote of confidence, but you'll have to talk Claire into this."

He winced. "I know. Ah, godsdamnit; I'd rather figure out a way around that, but we may have to."

"No choice. The election's nine months away, so we'll have to move fast. I have a guy at Justice; some things, I can set in motion right away. But for the rest... We need her. She's our link to the Ministries and Secretariats, so if we're talking about using them, we need to bring her in. But she's not gonna like it."

"No," he agreed. "She won't."

# ACT THREE.   
THE LOCUS OF POWER.

## Chapter Eighteen: Forsyth.

The Caprica Tribune building.

The afternoon of Monday, February 7.

"Forsyth." She grabbed the receiver, cradling it between her shoulder and her ear. The phone rang again and she cursed, tapping the ACCEPT button. March of technological progress my ass.

She tried again, this time annoyed. "Yeah! Forsyth!"

"This is Jennifer Forsyth? At the Tribune?"

"Yeah?" She frowned and paid closer attention; the voice on the telephone was audibly synthesized. She had covered politics for a long time, and such precautions were uncommon enough to get her attention. She reached for a pencil.

"I work for the President."

You and a half-million other federal workers, she wanted to retort. "Okay?"

"Later this week, Justice will file six indictments with courts on Canceron, Leonis, and Sagittaron. Go look at those indictments. Look at them together. And look into a man called Marc Renfeld."

"Never heard of him."

"He was CRP—"

"He's a creep? Who is this?"

"No, he was C.R.P. Now he's at the Ministry of Justice. Start digging. I'll call again." The line went dead.

"Great." She rolled her eyes and walked out into the Newsroom. "The name 'Renfeld' mean anything to anyone?"

There were diffident shrugs.

"In connection to either C.R.P. or Justice?" she offered.

"I think there was a Renfeld at FIC," Hook offered. "Field ops guy. The wall between FIC and CRP was porous; could be the same guy. Why?"

Forsyth beckoned him over. "You know anyone you can ask?"

"Yeah, I think so."

She lowered her voice. "I just had a call saying we should look into Marc Renfeld and some indictments Justice will file this week."

"It's the first Monday of the month! I'd imagine they're about to file dozens," he chortled. "Who called?"

"Someone using a voice-synth. It's a rare crank who bothers with that, and the crazies don't think of it."

"Alright. It's not much to go on."

"I know. We can file a Public Records Request and get a list, but it'll be six months before we get it. Let's start here: Find out where he is now. I'll dig around on the Mesh a little and see what I can find. You go talk to your contact."

Two hours later, Hook was back. "I treated my contact to a sandwich-cart lunch," he reported, "and when I asked about Renfeld, he cut it short, fast."

"Godsdamn." In spite of herself, Forsyth was surprised. "Maybe there's something to this."

"Looks like. Your caller mentioned indictments?"

"Yeah, on... um. Leonis, Canceron... Sagittarion, I think."

"Far enough away that it's a pain in the ass to round up that kind of info. Particularly the last one. I can go find the lists if you'll authorize the travel."

Forsyth glanced in the direction of Banaias' office. Thin ice, he'd warned. "No..." No sense in burning through goodwill on so thin a lead... Especially goodwill that she might need later if anything came of this. "Not yet, anyway. See what you can find out on-world first. Those cases may be handled and tried locally but they're supervised centrally, right across Pyrmont from here. I struck out online on Renfeld, so see if you can find him, too."

Tuesday and Wednesday came and went with the Newsroom occupied by a freshman member of the Caprican Parliament caught selling access. There were few things that shocked Capricans—too few for Forsyth's liking—but getting caught on the take killed careers. It was minor as scandals went, but after deadening series of meetings coordinating the story with the Metro and Planetside desks, Forsyth had almost forgotten about the call when Hook appeared in her doorway on Thursday morning.

"You want the good news, the better news, or the stroke of serendipitous luck?"

"I'm fired and I never have to sit through another meeting again?"

"Better. First, I found Marc Renfeld. He's got a long and mundane title that you don't care about, and, on paper, a position to match."

"But...?"

"It's obscurity by tedium. He manages the flows of paperwork between divisions in Justice that evaluate prosecutions and the Prosecuting Attorneys' offices on different worlds that actually carry them out. It presents some interesting opportunities for someone who wanted to, say, slip things into or out of that flow of paperwork."

"'The spider in the web,' huh?"

"That's more apt than you know. He does not have the resume of a low-level bureaucrat. Turns out, he was at CRP before being parachuted into Justice afterward, and what's really interesting is, he worked for Carolyn Culverson. If you had to believe anyone's doing something that needs looked at closely, she'd be my first guess.

"I also had some luck with the indictments. You said stay put, so I telex'd our Leonis bureau and they already had this," he handed her a thin folder, "because they were tracking the case for a story on one of the other defendants. There is literally nothing interesting about it. Like Renfeld's job description, the indictment's unreadably dull. But one of the defendants just happens to be Guy Benvento, who, among his many interests, just happens to be a Selectman and a vice-Chair of the Leonis Municipalist Party, in which capacity he's one of their larger fundraisers in the last three elections. Not the largest, mind you. Not even top three. If you made the connection, you wouldn't think twice about it, and the Leonis bureau certainly didn't."

"There's no bigger snooze than 'Corrupt local politician is corrupt, film at eleven.' Anyone else interesting named in it?"

"No one. And the Leonis bureau says it's legit; they'd had an eye on this story for a while. So it's a snooze, right?"

"You mentioned a third thing," Forsyth prompted, with an I-see-where-this-is-going smile.

"Turns out, Colonial Express is even better than advertised. My message caught the Canceron bureau at the exact right time, and they were able to get the list filed in the Northern District of Canceron. And on that list, there is absolutely nothing of interest. But, because we asked so nice—and maybe, if I'm honest, because I had no idea there's two Colonial District Courts on Canceron so I didn't specify—they went the extra mile and made a call down to the Southern District, in Heraklion. And because they were having a slow week, they provided not only the list but the Charge sheets, including Populus Coloniarum Duodecim v. MacKinnon et al, and hidden under that innocuous little 'et al,' we find.. Ta da... Heong Wei."

"Who is...?"

Hook couldn't contain his smirk. "He's the Guy Benvento of Heraklion. He bankrolled Rory Kemp's operation there almost single-handed. You don't know that, though, because Heraklion's a deep gold Municipalist province, so if you made the connection you wouldn't think twice."

"That's a pattern," she breathed.

"Wei won't be doing the same for Volakis because he just became a defendant in a 7206 case, in which the Colonial Code says Justice can ask the court to freeze defendants' assets, a filing they submitted with the indictment. I asked a tax lawyer I know how likely it is the motion gets granted. She says courts generally defer to the PA's motion, and if you want a piece of fine historical irony, the controlling case is a Volakis opinion from a decade and a half ago."

"Money's fungible," Forsyth murmured. "If they can't spend this Wei guy's money in Heraklion, they'll have to divert funds from more prominent donors in more chancy areas." If it was a scheme, it was clever.

"Precisely. Now, what do you want to bet—"

"That there's other indictments coming? That also just happen to kneecap people Robert Sirica expects to make use of? If I had a conspiratorial sort of mindset? Yeah. Maybe. Hidden in plain sight, because no one's going to put those pieces together; not a handful of second string defendants in routine filings at the far corners of the worlds."

"We don't have a Sagittaron bureau. I'd like to fly out there and start looking."

It was still awfully little to go on. On the other hand... She had flown farther on less.

Ah, hell; if Caleb complains, I'll tell him I'm mentoring, she decided. He told me to do that. I can sell it.

"Yeah. Go see what you can dig up."

## Chapter Nineteen: Nagala.

The Hall of the Colonial Congress.

Pyrmont, Caprica City.

The morning of Thursday, February 10.

"Chairman Geller; fellow members of the committee; Admiral Corman; Admiral Nagala. Thank you for your time this morning. I'll come right to the point, and I hope you'll understand that I'm trying to be respectful of your time."

Corman tapped a finger on a document in front of Nagala. Representative Leiter. Federalist of Hyades, Tauron.

For the hearing, Corman had opted for a haircut and Service Dress Uniform: A white shirt, its collar studded with two silver stars on each side, with a blue garbadine jacket, the stars duplicated on its epaulets, decorated with a name badge and a restrained collection of ribbons. It was a sensible choice. It showed respect for the committee, and it commanded respect for the wearer.

Nagala had worn a civilian suit.

The uniforms of the Colonial Fleet had changed little over the years. The most familiar of those uniforms was the iconic 'duty blues'; being comfortable, durable, flexible, and authorized for use in almost every circumstance, they were pervasive. But for several years, Fleet officers on shore duty in hot climates had eyed with some envy the shore duty uniforms of their Marine Corps brethren. The powers-that-were had relented, authorizing Service Dress for officers on headquarters duty, jacket optional. Nagala had switched immediately. Perkinston was hot enough for Capricans; for Virgans, it was near unbearable.

Still, the protocol for military officers appearing before civilian bodies had never been clear. Admiral Page, the first Chief of Fleet Operations, had never had the opportunity. Luckily for her, she had been killed in action before ever having to sit before a panel of politicians expounding their views on subjects she knew better than them. Her immediate successor was less fortunate: Admiral Harris wasn't killed until several hearings in. He'd worn duty blues, privately telling colleagues that he meant to convey that he was too busy for such nonsense. A string of CFOs after the Armistice had tended toward Corman's choice, but Nagala had a different view. The Chief of Fleet Operations would not be summoned; if Edward Hackett Nagala should accept an invitation from the Joint Committee, in a personal capacity, so be it. That kind of perfectly calibrated contempt was important if the right message were to be sent.

"What year is it, Admiral?"

Nagala blinked. "By the Standard calendar, it's 2000 A.E."

"And when was the last confirmed Cylon contact?"

Son of Apate, I see where this is going. "By the same calendar, on or about January 31, 1,960," Nagala said, hoping that he didn't sound cagey.

"Really? Forty years. Hm. Time flies. So, no confirmed contacts, but what of—can you tell us about possible contacts? Evidence of Cylon activity that you've found in the meantime?"

The room used for closed sessions was small, and Nagala would have sworn that the walls were closing in around him like a B-movie trap. There were only two doors, one at the back for the witnesses, the other behind the Chairman for the members of the Quorum and the Congress. Limited exfil options, he noted. He was so close to Leiter that had they each stood up and leaned forward, they could have shaken hands. Limited concealment, no cover, he noted.

"With respect, Representative Leiter, I would want to define several of the words in that question with greater precision before committing to any definite answer."

"Well, then, let me try it this way. You must have sent out recons, yes?"

"Of course."

"And they have found... what?"

Nagala tried to keep his face blank. "Representative, you, ehm... you must understand, the 'armistice line' is a legal fiction. At most, it's a cartographical convention. There isn't a glowing line in space over which we can stick our noses and find Cylon armadas massing for invasion, as though they had to physically march over a border. The words we use," he added, patiently, "the language by which we describe such things, these are rooted in historical realities, but they aren't literal."

Why else did you think we 'dial' telephone numbers, or talk about 'airliners' that spend most of their time in space, he wanted to ask.

"But stick your noses past it you have," Leiter persisted. "Right? This is a closed session, and you're under oath. You can tell us. You've sent recons, set up listening-posts—"

Nagala's ears pricked up. Now how did a Representative know about that?

"—and what have they found?"

A lucky guess, maybe? Nagala hesitated. "Nothing." He said it as flatly as he could manage. "They've found nothing of significance."

"Nothing?" Leiter spread his hands in a well-practiced gesture of confusion for the benefit of an audience that wasn't there. "Well, Admiral, you'll forgive me, but I'm confused. I think you're telling us you've seen no enemy contact, nor evidence of the enemy's continued existence, in four decades. And in that context, you want my constituents, the already overtaxed people of the Twelve Colonies, to pay for this 'warstar' monstrosity? Admiral, this is crazy; can you tell me why we're even talking about paying for a third generation of battlestar, given that, uh, what should I say... 'factual context'?"

A cold sweat ran down Nagala's back. 'Factual context'? Fatuous oaf.

The Warstar proposal was, he would admit in private, something of a flyer. And it was a monstrosity; Leiter was right about that. The model on Nagala's bookshelf resembled two Mercury-types spliced back-to-back at the gun-deck, one of their heads sawn off. It would be slow, thick-hided, and close to the theoretical limit of extant FTL technology, but also heavily gunned and capable of launching and recovering a multitude fighters in an instant. It would be an ogre of a ship.

But you need monsters to fight monsters.

"Do you understand how many schools we could build for the cubits you want to sink into this thing?" Leiter asked. "How many hospitals? The roofs we can put over the homeless, the meals we can put in the hungry? Phronesia's sakes, Admiral, d'you realize you're talking about spending the GDP of Sagittarion on this thing?"

The original proposal had called for six of them. Enough to deploy one at all times in each of Cyrannus' constituent systems with two down for maintenance rotations. It would massively bolster the firepower available when war came. Or, rather, 'in the event of any conflict,' as the official line had to be.

But the Gen3 battlestar... It had been an article of faith that the first ship in that line would be underway—or at least under construction—by the time the Galactica, the last of the first generation, was retired. That time was now barely two months away, and the Gen3 was already at least a year behind schedule. And now this upstart pipsqueak who never served a day in his life wants to put that on the table? Pig-ignorant pig frakker.

"Admiral? We're waiting."

"My apologies, I was trying to formulate an appropriate response. The Warstar would represent a quantum leap in—"

"I'm sorry, Admiral. May I stop you? With all due—I don't want to waste your time. The warstar's dead, so far as I'm concerned. Unless anyone on the committee wants to talk about it?"

Nagala looked around the room for any sign that anyone on the committee wanted to talk about it. No one even looked up. For a moment, he wondered if they didn't want to meet his gaze, but an ugly realization curdled in him: They don't feel bad about it. They don't care. They're all with Leiter.

"I want to pivot to this third-generation battlestar, which, so far as I'm concerned, is barely any less a waste of money."

"There will be no warning," Nagala said.

"What's that, Admiral?"

"When the enemy returns, there will be no warning, Representative Leiter. Everything will just stop." Nagala leaned forward, licked his lips, and swallowed. This was a speech he had practiced more than most. "One of these days, out of the clear blue—"

"Yes, yes. Stop, please," Leiter interrupted.

Nagala blinked. He had practiced this speech for years and he wasn't even going to get two sentences out?

"Admiral, we're all well aware that there is a faction at FHQ that thinks the Cylons are off planning their revenge. That any day now they'll descend on us. I hope you haven't gone over to it, but that's not what we're here to talk about."

And then he proceeded to rattle off a very long list of very specific operational numbers.

* * *

Nagala stood on the Congresshall's northeast steps almost shaking with rage.

Corman touched his elbow. "Ed. It'll be okay. Just stay the course."

Nagala shot him a venomous look and Corman retreated a step.

"Two things are going to happen before we fly home." Nagala jabbed a finger viciously across the Square toward Cavendish House. "First, I'm gonna go have this out with him. Right now. Man to man."

"That ain't gonna go down so well."

"I don't—that doesn't matter. It's necessary."

"I think it's a terrible idea, but if you're bound an' determined... Wait, what's the second?"

Nagala's face twitched. "I have never asked you to do anything unethical. If this counts, I apologize and trust your discretion. I want you to take a walk. Westward. Into Cheltenham, then then a block up Dionysius Avenue. I want you to walk into the Tribune Building, and I want you to tell Jennifer Welles-Forsyth exactly what just happened. Off the record, but not on-background. Understand?"

If Corman was surprised, he had the good sense to hide it. "That's a subtlety that evades me."

"She'll understand. Keep our names out of it, but don't make it too hard for them to figure out where it came from. Forsyth. Got it? No one else. Omit nothing." He paused. "If I'm not there when you get to Bedford Station, don't wait. I won't be long, but I'm not leaving 'til I've had it out with Tricky Dicky."

He crossed the square as quickly as caution and his cane would allow on gossamer snow, and handed his ID to the guards. The bottom floor was open to the public and full of tourists, not one of whom recognized him. The guard at the Executive Offices elevators did, and waved him through. He walked into the elevator and rode it as far up as it went. Here, the guards knew his face.

He spotted Culverson as he walked through the south bullpen, and was it his imagination or was that a smirk she was wearing? Leiter's figures had been very precise now he came to think of it. Of course. So it's 'You leak against us, we'll leak against you,' is it? Bitch.

The President's formal office was front and center on the fourth floor, with a command view over the square. Nagala knew his enemy better. Adar liked to hole up in the private office, perhaps not coincidentally one floor above the highest to which the elevators ran, and he made a beeline for the staircase, dragging himself up them by the railing.

"Is he in?" he asked the PPS, not hesitating as he bowled through the outer office, shouldering the door open.

Part of him was vaguely offended that security didn't stop a man with what could easily transform from a walking cane to a deadly weapon. Was he really so ineffectual, so little a threat? 'There's Nagala, give him a pat on the head'?

And then, in too little time to have caught his breath or calmed himself, he was face to face with the President of the United Colonies of Kobol.

"Mister President—"

And he found himself red-faced and breathless with nothing in particular to say. So he went back to where Leiter had cut him off.

"There will be no warning when they return. One of these days, out of the clear blue sky, the Cylons will come back."

'That day is coming: The day of wrath, calamity, and misery...'

"There will be no warning. No alarms; no sirens; no time to think or strategize or take shelter."

'...the day of great bitterness...'

"They will appear, and they will strike, and if we are very lucky, we may blunt their attack. But with absolute certainty I tell you this: They will rain down death and chaos and destruction on the worlds that we—that you and I, Mister President, have sworn to protect."

'...the day when They shall return to judge the worlds by fire.'

"And if I survive that day, I must have the tools to fight back. I cannot remain silent as your administration stands as an obstacle to that."

Adar stared at him, astonishment visibly curdling into anger.

And then, all of a sudden, they were each shouting over the other, neither willing to concede the high ground:

"Mister President, with all due respect—"

"I can't believe you have the nerve..."

"—even if we assume that we have tactical parity—"

"...The sheer nerve to walk in here demanding a single godsdamned thing..."

"—they have an overriding strategic advantage, Mister President, to wit—"

"...When your office leaks like a sieve, when you personally brief against me and my administration..."

"—they know where we are, and we do not know where they are. And so—"

"...and then you come to me asking for more? Frak you!"

That stopped Nagala dead in his tracks. He stared at Adar, aghast.

"You know what, Ed? I think you want them to come back. I think you need to believe in this fantasy, because for as long as we all go along with it, you get to direct this worlds-spanning state within a state, swanning around in your chauffeur-driven cars and planes, playing with your toy ships, planning war games for a war that was over decades ago. It's pathetic."

"If you are suggesting that the strategic defense of the Colonies is to be held hostage to vague suspicions and personal pique—"

And then Adar was off again.

Nagala stared at his boots trying to fathom what he had just heard and what to do about it. Zeus forgive us. My gods; he really is this stupid. He's this vindictive. He's going to put us at risk because he doesn't like me.

When one of Adar's flunkies interrupted them, he saw his opportunity, muttered his excuses, and bolted.

Wandering from the staircase back to the elevator, still reeling, he found himself walking next to the lawyer—the new one, the pretty, redheaded one. What was her damned name again?

She looked him over and offered a smile that he chose to see as sympathetic.

Still seething, he tried to make his voice as even as he could, and asked, "may I help you, young lady?"

## Chapter Twenty: Frances.

"May I help you, young lady?"

Frances had never been introduced to the Chief of Fleet Operations, but she knew him by reputation. That reputation said that he was punctiliously polite, but the way he growled "help" could have electrocuted her.

"Um. I'm sorry, we've not met yet. I just wanted to introduce myself and say thank you; my father served under you, a long time ago. He spoke highly of you."

Nagala stabbed at the elevator's CALL button and glanced at her, grim-faced and visibly (and uncharacteristically, if reputations were anything to go by) furious. The President seemed to have that effect on people lately.

"I'm Frances Innes, I took over as Counsel last year. Sorry if things right now are..." she tailed off, wincing and shrugging helplessly.

"Many things are happening right now," he spat. Then seemed to catch himself. "None of them your fault. I apologize."

You had to respect the Old Man. Misguided or not—and Frances tended to side with those who thought the military an enormous waste of public resources—he had given his entire life to the service of the Colonies, and that was nothing to be dismissed. He struck her as being like the last priest of a fallen god; a practitioner of a futile devotion.

"If it's the President, please forgive him. He means for the best but he's under enormous pressure. Sometimes," she added, with a wan smile and another little shrug, "we're our own worst enemy."

He turned and glared at her. "I beg your pardon?"

For want of anything else, she offered: "At least they've come around on your new ships. I was on Scorpia recently, meeting with one of the Presidium. The administration's committed to your third-generation battlestars."

The elevator opened for him and he seemed to slump into it. For a moment, he put his cane across the door, stopping it from closing long enough to meet her eyes. He opened his mouth, but whatever he meant to say, he seemed to think better of it. Instead, he said simply, "I assure you, Miss Innes, no such undertaking has been made." With that, his shoulders slumped, his cane dropped out of the way, and the doors closed, leaving Innes wondering what the hell had just happened.

She blinked a few times, turned on her heels, and walked back toward her office.

Cavendish House stood four floors proud of grade with a residential penthouse for the President atop the north wing. The first floor was mostly ceremonial with a museum open to the public, restored to something approaching its pre-war grandeur. The next two floors were for policy and the senior members of the nominally professional staff who operated the Executive Office. Above that, where no elevators ran, atop a staircase and so in some degree actually separated from the policy staff and professionals, the political staff worked: the President, Kominsky, Culverson, Adelyne, and their staffs.

Organizationally, though not part of the professional staff, Frances and Kikuchi did not belong to the political side, and their offices reflected this, located on the third floor adjacent to the main staircase. She paused by her own office. Past the stairs, catercorner across the landing, Kikuchi's door was closed, but that had never stopped Frances before, and it didn't now. She knocked and let herself in.

"I just met Admiral Nagala," she said. "He's supposed to be one of the most polite people you'll ever meet, but he snapped at me."

"The President has that effect on people lately," Kikuchi said, not looking away from her computer. Frances smiled; they were simpatico.

She hesitated to ask, but she had to know. "Claire, when we went to Scorpia, Carolyn told Reed that the administration was committing to funding Nagala's new ships. The generation three or whatever they're called. She, um... She bought him with it."

"That's what Culverson does. I told you to be careful with her."

"Yeah, but that's not—was that not true? Nagala said he didn't know anything about us making that kind of commitment."

"Don't know." Kikuchi was still engrossed with whatever was so interesting on her screen. "Maybe. I mean—" She tapped a few keys and finally turned to give Frances her full attention. "Look, I doubt it, to be honest. What does it matter?"

"What does it matter?" That was a very un-Claire-like thing to say. "Um. Are you okay?"

Her face twitched. "What? Yes. I'm just busy. Is there something I can help you with?"

Gods, is everyone tetchy today? she wondered. The hell. "You seem... Look, is there something I can help you with? I'm a team player."

"Please stop with that. I know I said—just... Pleione, could you give that a rest?"

"Sorry! What's happening?"

"How closely are you following the unions situation?"

"Not very," Frances had to admit.

"There's an international consortium of teachers' unions called the Education Alliance. As of ten days ago, they are striking one day a week, escalating to two next month, three in April, and so on, until their demands are met."

"What demands?"

"Oh, just wait. That's not even the good bit. The Caprican unions just voted to affiliate; they're joining the strike, starting next week. Which isn't great by itself, but here's the thing. EA has affiliates on half the worlds, but on most of them, you can't coordinate strikes with other unions. On Scorpia there's caselaw treating it as a violation of cartelization laws, on Tauron it's directly illegal, and so on. Caprica's different. It's legal and there's history of unions standing together in solidarity. And the public sector unions here have always been hand-in-glove. Which is just like...?"

"Aerilon," Frances said, alarmed. "That's how Aerilon started."

"So I'm told. Their demands were a nightmare jumble of funding, conditions, curricula, you name it. Which was fine. I mean—not fine, but I had a position paper all ready to go. We were going to say, these are exactly the kind of challenges we created the Secretariat of Education to untangle. And then their leadership jumped on the Inquest bandwagon, and that changes everything. And you know what pisses me the frak off? Some of the original demands, they're things we could back. But as soon as that idiot Stans went on TV and ran his mouth—now we can't back them, because their boneheaded little play to move from the Trib's Planetside page up to International made an enemy of the President."

"Why don't we try splitting the issues back out? Separate the legitimate demands from the political riders?"

"See, that's good. That's smart. It's also what the Secretary of Education said. And she's right; that's astute tactics. But the President's back's up now. So now it's a godsdamned pissing contest. He doesn't even want us talking to them."

"Boys," Frances mock-huffed, with a thin smile.

"So much testosterone," Kikuchi agreed.

"Testosterone," Frances repeated. Something tickled the back of her memory. "I never thought Sam Reed was ambitious."

Kikuchi shook her head, puzzled.

"I have three brothers. Playing them against each other always worked; boys just can't resist. When we were on Scorpia, Carolyn tried playing Reed's ambitions against the General Secretary to get him aboard. Could we do that here? Surely there's someone at this Education Alliance who wants to kick out the guy in charge and take his place. Can we find that person and help them? Tie the Inquest demands to the leadership and drive them out, sink it with them? It's hardball, but it can work."

"Gods damn it," Kikuchi all-but yelled. "You now? Am I the only one left without a broken moral compass? Don't you dare start playing that game; not you too. We can't do that, Frances. Of everyone here, I expect you to remember we're the good guys. That's not how the good guys behave. Look, go find some work to do, would you?"

Chastened, Frances slunk out and returned to her office. That's two people who've shouted at you in an hour, a little voice in her head chided. But I did nothing wrong! Worse, one of them was someone she thought of as a mentor, and she didn't like how it felt. So much for being a team player.

Some distant part of her remembered that there was a half-full bottle of whiskey hidden behind the dustier volumes of the Supreme Court Digest on one of the bookshelves in her office. It had presumably belonged to her predecessor, and like all the belongings that had outlasted him in the office, she had never gotten around to throwing it out. Well, if there was ever a moment for it... She retrieved the bottle, took a swig, and swallowed. It was not good whiskey. But the warmth that flooded through her torso felt good.

This is dangerous, the voice cautioned. Throw it away. Pray to Phronesia and Sophrosyne.

There were few certainties in life, but if Frances was sure of anything, it was that the gods don't answer atheists' prayers. I decide for myself, she rebuked the voice. There were no gods to appease, nor graces to entreat; I choose. It's up to me. Even if there were—It's my responsibility. Somehow those words seemed less comforting than they once had.

She weighed the bottle in her hand for a moment, and replaced it behind the Digest.

## Chapter Twenty-One: Forsyth.

The Caprica Tribune building.

The middle of Thursday, February 10.

"Are you making progress?" the same distorted voice asked.

"Some," Forsyth said. Never show all your cards. "I found the one I think you mean on Leonis; Benvento? Is that who you wanted me to find?"

"It's one of them. And the rest?"

Forsyth ignored the question. "Alright. Good. I'm writing it up now, just to lay a foundation." That was true; she had a hand-corrected draft sitting in front of her. "But I could use—if I'm gonna get the rest, I could use something more concrete." This next part was a fishing expedition... Just coax them along... "Especially Sagittarion. You're talking about places very far away—"

"Which is the point."

"Yeah, I got that, but knowing the game doesn't change the math. We might have to go one by one to the courts, and that takes time. And even if we get them... I assume you want me to see a pattern, I think I know what it is, but—you wanna help me put together what you want me to find? Better yet, how about giving me a list?"

There was a long pause.

"Are you still there?" Forsyth asked eventually.

"I should be able to get a list. Meanwhile, you should take a look at what CBTAC's doing."

"Tax Collection?"

"Assessments. Go talk to Mathis in the Queenstown field office. He won't lie if you ask the right questions, and you won't mind a trip home, I'm guessing? You'll be interested in who they were just directed to audit."

"If you want me to see something, don't you think it'd be easier to just come out and say it?" she asked, her tone even. Motherfrakker, she wanted to scream.

"I'll call again next week. Let's say Tuesday. Keep digging."

"Wait! Hang on; just a moment."

There was silence, but the line didn't click off.

She swallowed. The next ask was risky. "Can you give me something else? On some other subject; something I can verify? Something I can use to establish you as a credible source."

She held her breath. More silence.

Eventually: "Yes."

Forsyth listened for the next several minutes, scrawling hasty notes. It took her twenty minutes more to make two phone calls to confirm it with other sources.

ONCE THE QUORUM WAS LOST, she typed, EVERYTHING IN CAVENDISH HOUSE CHANGED. It took another hour to write up the story.

Hook was still gone, presumably somewhere on Sagittarion... But if I give it to someone else, maybe Caleb gets off my ass. Reluctantly, she gave it to Libby Bialik, whose virtue was occupying a desk where Banaias couldn't see the handoff. "Add whatever flourishes you like, I trust you"—she didn't, but she'd have to—"then slug it with your byline and take it to Caleb. Tell him I'm out but you called me and ran it by me and I gave the thumbs-up as-is."

She bolted into the emergency staircase (also outside of Banaias' view), took them one floor down, then rode the elevator down to the public concourse at the building's base. The Tribune Company rented the second floor to a gym where she, in turn, rented a locker. She changed into sweats and spent almost an hour burning through her frustrations. The endorphins helped, but her mind couldn't disengage. Someone's playing cat and mouse games. Why do I feel like I'm the mouse?

She showered and returned to her desk. She was about to call Ari and ask whether he fancied a long weekend in Queenstown when a call summoned her to Banaias' office.

"What's this?" he demanded, holding up the hand-corrected printout of her draft on the Leonis and Canceron indictments.

"Unbelievable," she scoffed. "So—what, you've got someone spying on me?Who? Libby?"

He clenched his jaw. "That how you wanna play this? Tell me about the copy."

"It's—"

"It's speculation and some cobbled-together documents, is what it is. We talked about this, Jen! Part of my job's to protect my reporters, so I want you to know, I'm just looking out for you when I say, I can't publish this. Not as is. Not unsourced."

"I'm not asking you to—"

"Not today, you're not. But you will be."

"It's a draft! One you had someone steal from my desk. And sourcing—the sourcing's the documentation! Everything in there is public record."

"The documentation's for the indictments. The pattern? The angle? That's all you, and I'm not stupid enough that I don't see where this is going. If I let this go, I know exactly what's coming next."

"I have a source who pointed me toward it," she allowed.

"Who?"

"No one I'll name at this time, and I don't see why that's a problem. We publish stories based on background all the time."

"Not this time. Not stories like this. Who's your source?"

She eyed him warily. "You know I won't tell you that."

He said nothing.

"C'mon, Caleb. Are you serious?"

"That won't fly this time. I want a name. I'm not talking about publishing the name, but I need to know. It's one thing when it's—you said you had a source for the military stuff, and I let it go because you at least told me where the source was. But this, though... I'm supposed to take it all on faith? Risk getting my ass reamed again, and for what?" His eyes bore into hers. With sudden realization, he scoffed. "You don't know."

"I don't know who it is," she conceded.

"Oh my gods." He laughed mirthlessly. "Are you serious? Come on, Jen, if you're going to accuse the government of orchestrating—"

"The copy makes zero accusations! It notes patterns."

"Bull-shit. This is lobbing a grenade at the President. At best it's muckraking, and worse yet—you are not new enough in this racket that you don't know that if someone's leaking, they have an agenda."

That was a better point than she wanted to admit.

"You just can't stop yourself, can you? You want this to be true so bad; it's exactly what you want to hear, so of course he's legit, and of course he's gonna leak it to you. You need a named source—okay? If you want to publish, call whoever it is back and tell him to go on record. And before we're even gonna have this conversation again, if we're even gonna talk about running something like this, you need to know who it is." He paused, then added, more quietly but not at all softly, "do you understand that if I publish and they come after us for this, and if I can't give them your source... I've gotta give 'em you?"

The temperature in the room dropped a degree.

"Seriously, Jen, think about this. D'you really want the last story you publish to be some small-bore crap about omission-of-federally-mandated-labels indictments on Leonis?"

"That's not fair."

"No. It's not. And I'm sorry for that, but it's how it is. It's your call; if you want to publish, I'll do it. But I want you to understand, you are putting your neck on the block. Is it worth it?"

She hesitated. Prick. But this time, the prick had her cornered.

She tried a different tack. "What about the other story? The one Libby was supposed to bring you?"

"That one's better."

And it's the same frakking source! she wanted to scream. "I got a lead, you told me to stop hogging stories, so I gave it to Libby."

"No, you handed Libby near-complete copy for a polish-pass. I put your byline back on it, next to hers. I also seem to remember telling you to drop the crusade to get the President, and now I'm wondering if you remember that part of the conversation."

"Work with me. I'm trying—"

"That's the truth."

"Okay, granted. But if you're killing one of my stories, can you just—"

They were interrupted by a tap on the door.

"Ms Forsyth," Banaias' assistant said, "there's someone here to see you."

"Not now, damnit!"

"You don't wanna wait. You won't believe who just walked in the front door for you."

"Your source?" Banaias deadpanned.

"I doubt that."

She walked out of his office to the railing and looked down into the Newsroom at a tall, slim man she had met once before. He had neatly-cropped grey hair and a blue military jacket slung over his arm. He wore a white shirt, the silver stars of a flag officer of the Colonial Forces on its collar, and a scowl on his long face.

"It really isn't," she murmured.

## Chapter Twenty-Two: Nagala.

FHQ, Perkinston, Picon.

The afternoon of Thursday, February 10.

Visitors to Fleet Headquarters who had not previously met the Chief of Fleet Operations were, as a rule, disappointed by Nagala's office. Far from their palatial imagining, it was a small, sparsely furnished, second-floor room with two small windows facing into one of the complex's interior courtyards. Visitors walked in past a small fireplace—a ludicrous decoration in Picon's climate, Nagala had always thought—and found a plain, simple desk to their left between them and the windows.

Along the far wall was a locker containing various spare uniforms, flanked by low wood bookshelves on which rested a small television, an antique clock rescued from the wreckage of the first battlestar Columbia, some model ships, several books, and a lot of file folders and binders. A painting of a bucolic, Arcadian scene hung over one shelf, and over the other, of a more daunting Olympian scene in which the gods handed to humanity the primordial technology of fire.

To the visitor's right, the wall across from Nagala's desk was dominated by a large computer display. The display showed a map of the Cyrannus system. The map showed the location and course of each and every asset under Nagala's command.

It was a simplified representation of the work carried out by the Operations Command Center in FHQ's sub-basement level. As ships reported in, the map was updated. Beneath each asset were two unobtrusive translucent circles, which grew larger the longer it had been since the asset checked in, commensurate with its last reported and maximum possible velocities. These represented the 'zone of uncertainty'—the range of places where a ship might actually be, given all the possible exigencies that could require a deviation from the flight-plan.

The speed of light precluded instantaneous communications over such distances. Without the possibility of real-time telemetry, the map was as close to a gods'-eye-view as had ever existed in the Colonies. Even so, the map was awfully large, the number of assets was awfully small, and the circles were always too godsdamned big.

Nagala had always hated FHQ. Its abstraction; its politics; its sweltering heat. He had taken the job because it was his duty, he told himself, and doing one's duty was obligatory. Even when it meant doing unpalatable things. Things like going to war, which included doing things he would rather forget.

One of his first choices on becoming CFO had been to find an office with enough indirect natural light to work by but which otherwise caught as little sun as possible. Beyond that, he needed little. His predecessors' desire for a space that could impress politicians did not impress him. Besides, a preference for practicality and simplicity was easily misread as modesty; yet another tool to burnish the mystique.

Corman walked in without knocking, still less waiting to be invited. He glanced without comment at the remains of the warstar model, lying at the base of the wall against which Nagala had hurled it, and sat down, waiting patiently as Nagala continued writing.

Nagala didn't look up. In the corner of his eye, he noted that Corman had not paused long enough to change out of the uniform he had worn to the hearing. With luck, Corman wouldn't notice his shaking hands. "What did she say?"

Corman picked at his sleeve. Nagala kept writing.

"Ed, I'm like your X.O., right?"

Nagala chuckled softly. "Something like that."

"I need you to be straight with me. Are you sleepin' with her?"

Nagala's head snapped up, for a heartbeat more surprised than angry. "I beg your pardon?"

"Forsyth. The woman from the Trib." Corman's voice was measured. "Are you frakkin' her?"

"No, Admiral Corman, I am not. How—"

"Are you tryin' to? 'Cause if you've been honeytrapped and you've not even sealed the deal, that's just sad."

Nagala reddened with anger. But for his leg, he would have been on his feet. "Plei-o-ne, Pete! She's twenty years younger than me! And married! I..." He stopped himself and leaned back in his chair. He took a deep breath. "No. No, that's not—"

"Then would you mind," Corman interrupted, "would you please do explain to me," anger was rising in his voice, "can you tell me exactly what just happened? Mister we-don't-talk-to-the-press literally has me leak to the godsdamned political editor of the Caprica godsdamned Tribune?"

Somewhere along the line, Corman had ended up on his feet, towering over Nagala's desk, fists balled and resting on the desktop.

Nagala didn't move. "What did she say to you?"

"She didn't say anything, Ed. I talked, she listened. But the whole flight back, I was tryin' to figure it out. I was tryin' to rack my brain. And then," he jabbed a finger at Nagala, "then I remembered the Tethys commissioning. I remembered how you looked at her. So—"

A chuckle escaped Nagala. He held up a hand, trying to make his tone soothing.

"That's not it." He sighed and clasped his hands. "Bloustad's First Dictum of Warfare is, know what battle you're fighting. We needed an ally. We'd been playing this game with Adar and his allies, and they were beating us. We didn't even know we were playing, let alone what the game was."

Corman looked appalled. "And you think—Ed! The press is not our ally. Never gonna be. Least of all the Tribune; might as well be the house newsletter for the Adar administration!

"I didn't need the Tribune to be our ally. I just needed to point Forsyth in the right direction and leak her bits and pieces, just here and there. She's from a Service family, she's smart, motivated, and yes, fine, so I looked; I'm only human. If she thinks she'd honeytrapped me, so much the better. That makes her confident. And confidence..."

He tailed off as Corman leaned over his desk again, putting his hands on it, flat, this time.

"You are playing a damn dangerous game. This could explode in your face. I hope to the gods you know what you're doin'."

Me too, Nagala wanted to say. Me too. "It doesn't matter. Not any more. I just lost."

He signed the paper, stood, and handed it to Corman.

"Read."

Corman couldn't have made it more than a paragraph in before his hands dipped. "Jove's balls, Ed!"

"I want your opinion."

"My... my opinion? I think you've gone mad." He kept reading. "Clio, resignin' don't solve squat."

Nagala hadn't wanted to go to war. He hadn't wanted to spend much of his life sealed in tin-cans in the endless deep. He hadn't wanted to spend a decade suffocating in Picon's heat, much of it at war again, this time with his own government, for fear of the next war—the one just over the horizon that so many refused to see and hear even as its clouds loomed and its hoofbeats boomed just over the horizon. He didn't want to fight that war, either.

And he didn't want to resign.

And yet...

"It does, if I'm the problem. Sometimes we're what's in our own way. I keep telling myself I can't allow Adar to sabotage us, but I realized today, I'm the problem. It's become personal. We need those ships, and if they'll hear that from you, or from someone they've appointed, and if they won't hear the same things from me, then I'm the problem and my duty's clear."

"Clear? You ain't the problem. From where I'm standin' that's crystal clear. We just have to hang in there, just a little longer. Adar's done. If Volakis wins, we'll be fine, and if Haiden wins, she'll do right by us."

"Haiden might want to, but it won't just be her. It'll be the same idiots in Congress and Quorum who just scolded us like we're unruly children."

"You don't know that."

"I do know that," he snapped. "I've always known it, I just... I don't know if I can... I'm so tired, Pete." Nagala sank back into his chair. "I thought, maybe I could get us back in the game. Use Forsyth to get public opinion on our side, change the political climate. But the only thing that works with people like Adar is power. You can either bring a countervailing power to bear against them, or they'll roll right over you."

Corman sat and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket. He took one, lit it, and placed the pack and lighter in front of Nagala.

"Don't do it. I won't let you."

Nagala gazed at the pack for a moment. "There's no smoking in here."

"Sack me," Corman shrugged, cracking a grin. "'Course, you can't do that since I'm holdin' your signed resignation. Legally, I outrank you if you don't burn this." He proffered the paper. "C'mon, Ed. Look at it this way: Stick with it a few more months and he's gone. Then—hell, you can give him what's coming to him and do a few years for murder and worth every second, instead of a trip to the noose for treason and mutiny."

"Good luck finding a hangman to push that lever."

That was barely a joke. The mystique had its uses.

Nagala shot a wan smile back at Corman. "Fine." He pulled an ashtray from a drawer, took the paper, and held the lighter to it, watching the flame consume the text before letting the remains drop into the tray. He pulled a cigarette from Corman's pack and lit it. "Jon Earle would have taken that letter and kicked me out of my own office in a heartbeat. You're really not gunning for my chair, hmm?" he smiled thinly.

"Gunnin' for it? Frak, I just dodged a bullet." They sat in silence for a while, smoking. "Ah, hell, you'd of regretted it in a few months anyhow." He stubbed out his cigarette. "You ever wonder if General Hague was right? The letter he wanted to send after Aerilon."

"He wanted the uniformed military to effectively depose the President of the Colonies. It's unthinkable."

"Sometimes the unthinkable turns into the only option left. Everyone's got his breakin' point."

"So—what, you'd have signed it?"

"Depends. I have responsibilities. I understand why you killed it, and in your chair I'd of done the same thing. But if I was at sea? A Commander not an Admiral? You bet your ass I'd of signed. I'd of signed if the only thing it accomplished was stabbing Adar in the heart and twisting, and I'm not the only one. You want my opinion, that's why Haiden's running—she's just givin' the middle finger to Tricky Dicky."

There was a long silence. "You don't understand," Nagala said.

"What don't I understand?"

"I killed Hague's letter because Kominsky and his pet told me to. And when Culverson asks, she's not asking." He smiled weakly. "I'm compromised."

"What, she's got something on you?"

"Have you really not figured out what her job is? Pete, Carolyn Culverson's got everything on everyone."

## Chapter Twenty-Three: Carolyn.

Cavendish House.

The morning of Tuesday, February 15.

Carolyn was nursing a cold in her office when the screaming started.

She had woken up feeling bad enough to skip her run, swallowed every kind of decongestant and painkiller immediately to hand, and called a taxi to bring her to the office. It had crawled through rush hour traffic across the Bradfield Bridge, giving her a superb view of ferries lapping them back and forth across the water. The commute took twice as long, which was just long enough to realize that she had left her Day Planner sitting at home on the kitchen countertop.

At least it gave the meds a chance to kick in. By the time the taxi pulled up to one of Cav House's rear entrances, the painkillers had blunted the knives scraping her throat, and the headache that had been strangling her right eyeball had eased. Of more dubious benefit, her sinuses had thawed from a solid block of mucus to a river running down the back of her throat, giving an unpleasant sensation of drowning.

She probably looked a state, she lamented. Unable to bear her contact lenses, she'd resorted to her emergency glasses, though they dated from two prescriptions ago and even Carolyn knew the frames were passé. She had pulled her hair into as close to a topknot as she could manage, and wrapped a sweater and a jacket around herself. She'd been making an effort since the Scorpian adventure with Innes; that was out the window for today.

All in all, she was in a foul mood. Everything was fuzzy and foggy. Mission objectives: Hide out in her office, make it through a quiet day, leave as early as she dared, crawl back into bed, and above all—each for different reasons—avoid being seen in this state by either Kominsky or Innes.

The first hour of the morning had been quiet. Soon after ten, the sound of the President yelling put paid to that. She bolted out of her office, past Kominsky's office and the PPS in the outer office, and into the private office where Adar was reading from a newspaper held aloft at something approaching the top of his voice.

"'Once the Quorum was lost, everything changed in Cavendish House. Everything became a fight over protecting the President or protecting the party. Two factions emerged, familiar in their collective posture if not necessarily their personnel,'" Adar was reading, punctuating the words with fingers stabbed in Ken Adelyne's direction. Some of Adelyne's staff were there, too, as were Kominsky and Kikuchi, and the Staff Secretary was standing by the doorway, cringing.

And Innes too, damnit. So much for flying under the dradis today. Carolyn slipped her glasses into a pocket and inched along the wall toward the closest chair, hoping to avoid Adar's eyeline.

"'For some time,'" Adar was still reading, "'the President was undecided. But according to a Cavendish House source with first-hand knowledge'—first-hand knowledge, don't you know!—'the decision was finally made on a shockingly simplistic expedient: The President's instinct is always to do something, and faced with a choice between two uncertain outcomes, he will, in the end, always choose action over inaction.'"

"It's not—"

Adar threw the newspaper at Adelyne's head. "Who the fuck talked to Jennifer Forsyth?"

"It's not a problem," Adelyne insisted. "I could have written that copy myself; talk about damning with faint praise! 'The President's instinct is always to do something'? Who in this room thinks that's bad?"

"Oh, well, look at that, everybody: Ken doesn't think it's a problem! Thank you, Ken, for your keen insight. But it's not your name on the line! It makes me look reckless. Like I don't even care what we do so long as we're acting."

"Fine," Adelyne conceded. "It says, 'member of staff with first-hand knowledge,' and there's no way, so I'll just put out a blanket denial. I'm 'first-hand knowledge' too."

"No," Kominsky said, quickly, almost sharply. "Trap."

"Trap?"

"Forsyth wouldn't put this out there if she couldn't back it up."

"Why, because she's the last principled journalist?" Adar scoffed.

"For one thing, we have Banaias holding her leash. For another—she's a pro. Canny enough to know full well what our countermove is, and she'll have planned for it."

"Or maybe," Adar hissed, "a story just dropped in her lap that was too juicy to let Caprica News Network scoop her. Huh? You think about that possibility?" He turned his eyes and ire on Carolyn. "So much for you having the bitch on a leash, Culverson!"

Kominsky's head turned halfway in Carolyn's direction, as if just noticing her. "If we kill every story we want to, we give away our leverage to kill the ones we need to. There are limits to influence. We have to be selective."

The meeting continued in the same vein for some fifteen minutes, with Adar yelling and Kominsky occasionally nudging them back onto topic. Carolyn sat on the fringe, miserable. For once, between the drowning sensation and the sore throat, she was content to be silent in a room where everyone seemed determined to have their say.

Well—nearly everyone, she noticed. Kikuchi was remarkably quiet.

An unwelcome thought sparked in Carolyn's mind. More than unwelcome; it was repulsive. More than a decade ago, Claire Kikuchi had hired Carolyn Culverson, bringing her into the '88 Presidential campaign and thence to Caprica City Hall and the nascent Adar campaign.

And Kikuchi could be prissy about means. As naive as Innes about how the good guys were supposed to act, and it wasn't nearly so winsome a look on her.

But she wouldn't.

Surely.

Carolyn shrank into her chair as Adar's tantrum continued, weighing the possibility. Too many pieces fell too closely into place right away.

"It's all too much," Adar complained as Adelyne's people left the room. "These strikes are a frakking contagion; it keeps coming back. And if it spreads here, Clio, it maybe starts with the teachers, but what if it jumps to the other public sector unions? What if they escalate—start demanding not just an Inquest but resignations? My resignation? They've always wanted it."

We could always just give them an Inquest, Carolyn expected to hear Kikuchi say. Clear the air, establish you did nothing wrong. This was the moment for one of her pious little interjections.

"I had a thought on that," Innes offered. "Maybe we can separate the occupational demands from the political ones and break them back into—"

"Won't work," Kominsky said. "Roslin tried it."

"She tried it or she suggested it? Stans only added the political demands to ride the dragon; he—"

"Yes, but they're added now. It's too late to backpedal, for them or us. There's no takebacksies in politics," said J.G. Kominsky, Chief of Staff—and that, Carolyn knew, was that.

Or it should have been.

"This is all Helms' fault, Adar snarled. "She should never have given in. And I shouldn't have accepted her resignation. These people, I mean—the press, they demand a scalp, but it's never enough."

Predictably, this reignited the fight, the staff splitting along the usual lines, with Innes objecting on ideological grounds and Adelyne on practical.

"It is possible," Kominsky offered, to no one in particular, "that there were other considerations on her mind. Considerations," he added in the plaintive tone of one who expected to convince no one, "other than 'what does Richard Adar want.'" He gave Adar a weary look, and Adar stared back venomously.

"They're all against me. The unions; Kent frakkin' Novak sniping from the sidelines, waiting to swoop in; Nagala, I mean, don't even get me started; Haiden—Pleione, our own candidate! I should never have let you talk me into her. She's no idea what she's doing, she's gonna wreck everything! Lords alone know what she'll say next. I should withhold my endorsement. That'd show them. I could call into CNN's morning show right now and tell Cate I don't support her."

There was dead silence in the room.

"Godsdamnit," Adar shouted, "I thought you frakkin' vetted her, Culverson! I should just declare I'm seeking a third term. Call their bluff. Let the worlds decide."

Kominsky steepled his fingers, looking into the middle-distance, his voice calm. "I'd like a moment with the President, please. May we have the room? Carolyn: Stay."

Kikuchi, Innes, and Adelyne all-but bolted for the door, looking grateful to be freed. Adar paced back and forth as they left. "I want Novak gone," Adar complained as the door closed, but he sounded more petulant than angry now. "I need one less problem and I'm sick of that snot-nosed little creep angling—"

"Sit. Down." Kominsky huffed through his nose and ran a hand over his head. "I would appreciate it if you wouldn't yell at my aide."

"I—." All the air had gone out of Adar. He glanced over at Carolyn, and shrugged fractionally, like a naughty schoolboy who knew he was caught. "Sorry, Culverson."

"No worries." Carolyn knew well enough which battles to fight and which to concede.

"Thankyou. Dick, you will not announce that you are seeking a third term. If you try, you will lose. You have done great things; now is the time to leave the stage with dignity and let history pour upon you the laurels proper to someone of your accomplishments. Which means that this Party requires other candidates. One of them might have been Kent Novak."

"I'm still President. Don't talk like I'm already gone."

"I recognize that we have months to go and he's a thorn in your paw, but everything has its price. I'd also point out that we can't trade tomorrow's necessities for today's comforts. So I ask you: Is this an 'I want' or an 'I need'?"

"He's behind these strikes. I'm sure of it."

Carolyn doubted that, but it was a good idea. She made a mental note.

"He's not just a distraction," Adar added. "He's a rabble-rouser. He'll throw us all to the wolves."

"Alright, then I want to be clear about the bargain you're striking." Kominsky smiled ever so slightly. "Poor choice of words. Making. If we sink Novak, I don't want another word out of you against Haiden, or any other nominee. Not in this building, and especially not outside of it; not this year, not next year, not ever. Are we clear?"

Carolyn kept her face neutral. No one spoke to Adar this way.

"Yeah," Adar muttered, looking away. "Fine."

"This isn't about you. It's about keeping the worlds moving forward. He woulda run for President next time around, and probably won, too. If we do this, we're betting it all on Haiden. She has to win."

"...Yeah."

"Alright. Then consider it done. FIC'll have all our arses for this if it ever comes back to us, but I will make this go away for you, and you will back the party's candidate to the hilt. Yes?"

"Yes."

"Good. Me and Carolyn will deal with Forsyth and Novak. That's what we're here for. Roslin will deal with the teachers. That's what secretaries of education are for. The calls for an Inquest—those are just gonna have to play out. In the meantime, my suggestion to you is, be a good President—"

"Unimpeachably good conduct," Carolyn snickered, earning an abrupt glance from Kominsky that was almost but not quite reproachful.

"—meet with Stans and whoever, parse out the issues where we can work with them, let the storm pass."

"I won't let a few malcontents bring down my administration or tarnish my legacy," Adar hissed.

Kominsky considered that. Then said, "That's all, Carolyn."

She took the hint and scuttled out. Whatever Kominsky had to say to Adar in private after that, she didn't want to be there for the reaction. She walked back to her office and slumped into her chair; her watch tapped her wrist to advise that it had unlocked her computer, and her nose dripped on her hands to remind her that she was still miserably ill. All I wanted was a quiet day.

She had been back in her office for a few minutes when Kominsky opened her door, and motioned with his head toward his office. She followed, closing the door behind her. He dropped into his desk chair and rubbed his eyes. Eventually, he looked up at her with more strain than she could remember seeing on his face.

"Load for bear. Quietly. I want a clean kill. But don't take the shot just yet."

"We have another problem, don't we?"

"Yes. The leak is back. Did you read the story that so agitated the President?"

"Honestly, no."

"Mm. I'm less confident than Ken that Forsyth can't have a source here. Even if she's exaggerating their access, or for that matter if they've lied to her about it, there's things in there that came from someone in this building, I'd bet real money on that. I'd like to have a better idea what's around us before we do anything drastic. This can't come back on us."

"I had a thought on that, but you won't like it."

"You've got a thought or you've got a name?"

"A hunch." She paused. "A guess," she admitted, "but it makes sense. All considered, I'd like some proof."

"I see. What do you need?"

"A favor from Special Branch. Phone records. But this one's beyond what I can call in."

"Done. Whose number?"

"Um. I said you're not going to like it, right?"

Kominsky reached into his drawer, and pulled out a bottle of clear liquid. He took a swig, grimaced, and put the bottle away.

"It's been a long day, Carolyn."

Yeah, and it's not even lunchtime yet. "I know."

He gazed at her, impassive, waiting.

"Claire's personal cell."

Kominsky didn't immediately react beyond running a finger back and forth along the ridge of his nose. Eventually, he said, "I've worked with Claire for a long time. She has a good heart. A soft heart; softer than ours. But she wouldn't. She's not a traitor."

"I know. I know, and she was my... I mean, I hate to even—"

"When I asked her to start pulling strings at Treasury," he interrupted, thoughtfully, "she took it well. Better than I expected. Remarkably well, now I come to think of it." He eyed Culverson. "I'll get you the records. Quietly; I'll have to go around her, I'll talk to Mallinson, but I don't know how long that'll take. Maybe a week. Meantime, say nothing and don't turn your phone off."

"I never do, boss."

Carolyn rarely hoped she was wrong. As a matter of professional pride, she rarely was. But found herself offering a prayer that, for once, she was.

## Chapter Twenty-Four: Forsyth.

The Caprica Tribune building.

Midmorning, Tuesday, February 15.

"'Let's say Tuesday," Forsyth parroted, seething. The problem with these anonymous sources, she realized, was, you're at their mercy. They call, or don't, as they please, at no one's convenience but their own.

"Oh gods," she gasped aloud. "I'm stuck in a nightmare version of one of those when-will-he-call RomComs!"

"What's that, boss?" Hook asked.

"Nothing. I'm just on edge." She checked her watch for the umpteenth time. "you think it's too early to take lunch?"

"If I were you, I'd get out of here before the Big Boss finishes on whatever call's got his door shut." He pointed upward toward Banaias' office. "Five cubits says that's about your story with Libby in this morning's edition."

"I reckon you're right about that." She glanced at her desk phone, willing it to ring. It didn't. "Okay, mind the store. If that rings, answer it."

Everything in her wanted to put away something greasy and loaded with cheese, but when the elevator stopped unbidden on the second floor and would go no lower for no apparent reason, she glanced at the sky and muttered some obscenities at the gods. If I didn't have gym clothes in a locker, I could be eating a baked-potato slathered in butter and salt and cheese in two minutes and not even feel bad about it. "Frak!" She stabbed the elevator button once more before accepting her fate.

Forty minutes on a cardio machine, a shower, and a protein bar later, she had to admit that it was the better decision, and wondered if there was a God of Elevators and whether she was now obliged to offer incense to them.

As people filtered in and out of the Newsroom during the middle of the day, the phone failed to ring. By three, she had decided it was being stubborn. By four, she had decided that it was deliberately taunting her. She almost jumped out of her skin when it rang at a few minutes before five.

"I was about to give up on you," she joked, hoping her voice wasn't as shaky as the adrenaline was making her feel.

"I have more for you," the voice said, "but I was hoping you'd have published something by now."

"Yeah. About that. We got some of the indictments and I talked to the Bureau staffer you pointed me at in Queenstown, but there's a problem. I need to be able to put the pattern in a source's mouth. Will you consider going on-record?"

"No."

"What you've given me isn't enough. Banaias won't let me publish it without an on-record source to tie it all together."

"And you told him, I take it, that that was stupid?"

"No, actually, because I don't know who you are, either. So how can I vouch for you?"

"You use anonymous sources all the time."

"No, I handle sources who aren't identified in print. They trust me to keep their identities safe, and so can you. If something's coming to me and I don't know who the source is, I'm happy to take it on background, but I need to know who the source is so I can know why they're leaking, so I understand the context."

That was overstatement, but with luck the source wouldn't know it.

"You know why."

Perhaps it was Forsyth's imagination, but there was a note of frustration in the voice now.

"I know what you've said, and it makes sense, but you could be anyone. People leak for a reason, they have agendas, 'specially in this town. How do we know you're not angling to have us take out a rival? How do we know you're not embellishing or fabricating documents?"

"You got the damned documents! I just told you where to look."

"Yeah, that's true. But I've gotta play devil's advocate here. If I'm going out to bat for you, I need to know I'm not being played."

There was a very long pause.

"Fine. I need to give you something anyway. The Grenfell Center, Downtown. Be on the skydeck tonight at eight. Come alone." The line clicked off.

"Frakking cryptic piece-of-shit garbage," Forsyth swore, louder than she'd intended.

"You okay?" Hook asked, leaning through her door.

"Just once, I'd like an anonymous source who isn't a godsdamned movie cliché and gives me a straight answer instead of a trail of breadcrumbs."

"Another chase, then?"

"Sort of. I asked for a meet." She let that hang in the air for a few moments, then grinned at him. "He went for it. Downtown, tonight."

"I don't think you should go alone. What if it's—I don't know, a trap or something? If they want to hurt you?"

Reflexively, she shot him a withering look. "I walk home every night. Anyone who wants to hurt me has plenty of..." She stopped herself. Banaias was a jackass, but he wasn't wrong about one thing: She should make more of an effort with her reporters. Especially when one was so clearly begging to come along for the ride. And Carl has a car. "Still, probably not smart to take public transport to a clandestine meeting." She let the implication dangle in the air.

"I could drive you," he offered, eager.

"The source said I should come alone, but I think there's a restaurant one floor below the skydeck. You can wait there."

"If I hear shots I'll call the cops," Hook agreed in a dry voice.

"If you hear shots, you call the damn News desk," she said, jabbing a finger in its direction. "No way's Mary Catherine Cate scooping us on that story."

* * *

She strolled the orbit around the skydeck, sticking close to the glass. Hopefully, she looked like just another tourist getting an eyeful. It wasn't an outlandish thought; there were plenty of people here, and while the skydeck wasn't the highest in the city, it dwarfed anything in Midtown. Or on most of the worlds, for that matter. To the south, ablaze with lights, Highway 1 wended west into the financial district and the city's true colossi.

Outside, it was raining; not hard, but fat droplets drifted through the air, kissing the building and running down the glass, dragging her eyes downward. Far below, nestled between two inlets from the harbor, the Caprica Capitol and Government Plaza shone with lights. Close; very close, actually.

What if the source isn't in the Colonial government at all? You could walk from the Grenfell's lobby into the heart of the Caprican government in two minutes, which made this an interesting choice of venue.

He coulda lied. Could someone in the Caprican government have that kind of access? Maybe it's not cat and mouse; maybe it's chess, and I'm being played for a pawn. The thought was no more comforting than thinking she was the mouse.

By 8:15, her patience was running out and a new unpleasant thought had set in: What if it's not real? What if I'm being yanked around? What was it Banaias had said... 'you want it so bad you'll believe anything.' Godsdamn me if the bastard's right.

He can't be.

Ten minutes later, she gave up. Whoever the source was, they had evidently gotten cold feet; she wouldn't believe the alternatives. She swore quietly and reached into her pocket, retrieving her phone and tapping out a message to Hook. THINK IT'S A BUST. NO ONE HERE. COMING DOWN NOW.

She walked to the elevator and jabbed the SUMMON button.

As she stood waiting, a child pulled on her coat. "Miss? There's a man over there," the child pointed, "says he wants to talk to you."

Forsyth blinked and followed the child's finger-line, alighting on the door to the fire stairs. It was half open, and disappearing through it was a thin figure of middling height wrapped in a long coat and scarf.

Clever bastard.

"Thank you." She walked toward the door. Nothing to worry about. It's just a source. Of course he doesn't want to be seen. Somehow she couldn't quite make herself believe that... A source, after all, making some extraordinary allegations.

Beyond the door was a tiny, railed landing for metal stairs that wound down innumerable flights into the building's bowels, coiled tightly into the cramped space. The man was nowhere to be seen.

"Close the door behind you," a voice demanded from almost directly below her.

It wasn't a man's voice, Forsyth noted. Clever bitch, she amended her previous thought. Very clever bitch, and as she rounded the bottom of the first flight of stairs, the figure was in front of her peeling off the scarf and hat.

"Ah, mother of frakkin' Artemis! You're kidding me."

"Now you know why I can't go on the record," Claire Kikuchi said.

"That's a terrible disguise," Forsyth deadpanned.

"Says you. That kid called me 'Mister.'"

Forsyth stared at her trying to fathom the angle. "You're leaking against the President?"

Kikuchi's eyebrows crinkled. "Am I? Have you found any evidence tying the President to what I've given you?"

Forsyth couldn't parse the tone of that; whether it was sarcasm or genuinely as hopeful as it sounded.

"I'm leaking against a something not a someone. Something I can't accept or turn a blind eye to. There's a conspiracy to influence the election."

"Elections can't be rigged. Not Presidential elections; it's impossible."

"I didn't say 'rigged.'"

"Then what—"

"Suppose you're running for President. And suppose the person you expected to run your campaign on, say, Sagittaron, the best person for the job? They get indicted. They can't do it.

"Or, it's the owner of a building in which one of your local headquarters rents an office, or a datacenter where you rent servers. The owner gets indicted, and an overly zealous judge approves a seizure warrant on the entire building, sealing it. Gets overturned on appeal, sure, but if that takes longer than ten months, it won't matter.

"Or, key supporters get their money or attention tied up; an audit notice, tax, compliance, it doesn't matter what the details are, it's a huge pain in the ass even if it goes well, and suddenly they're short on time or money, time and money you were banking on.

"Here's my personal favorite. A prosecutor in a Volakis-friendly district gets an anonymous leak of documents from a Colonial ministry, which lets them charge a university admissions fraud that some local magnates are doing. That one's great; who's losing sleep over a bunch of richie-riches pinched for gaming the system? And if it happens to pinch Volakis donors? Well, it's not a federal case, it's a national case, and brought by a Municipalist colony at that. It's above suspicion.

"That's the thing with a government with a long enough reach to make sure everyone has what they need. Turns out, its reach has other uses, too. This isn't about stealing an election, Mrs Forsyth. It's about moving the needle a percentage point or two, just enough to give Haiden a boost in key marginals without getting noticed."

"Who? You've gotta give me a name. Who's orchestrating it? You told me to look into Renfeld; he used to work for Culverson. Is it her?"

"Why's it always the ones you most suspect? Yes, Culverson. But she's just the attack-dog. Jerry holds the leash."

"Jerry—wait, J.G. Kominsky? The Chief of Staff? The President's Chief... Does the President know about this?"

"So many questions, aren't there? It's Aerilon all over again. You must have déjà vu; I know I do." She shrugged. "Whether Adar knows about it and whether he ordered it are two quite different questions. I know neither answer. But off the record I can tell you both answers are 'yes' where Aerilon's concerned."

Holy frak. That would be Bentinck number two if she could get Kikuchi on-record. She tried to keep her voice calm. "Why? Off the record."

"Because it was making him look weak. Which he can't stand," she spat, "and Jerry's the only one who can talk him down from that kind of thing. Believe me, I tried. But Jerry was hospitalized with a stomach virus; out of the loop for a week, and by the time he was back, it was too late. On such coincidences, history pivots. I should have said something then. I should have called you. I didn't, and now I find out something else is happening that I should say something about. You know the definition of insanity, right?"

Forsyth filed that away. There was a more pressing question: "Does Haiden know what's going on?"

"Unlikely. If Adar's running this, Haiden's only nominally the beneficiary; it's really to safeguard his precious legacy. It's a vote against Volakis, not for Haiden. Believe me, he didn't like her before the Aerilon debate, and the only reason he's kept his mouth shut in public is because Jerry's wired his jaw shut. And if Jerry's running it, he's not going to expand the people in on it beyond the ones who need to know. They only told me because they needed me to run point with some of the bureaucracy. Even Culverson's reach goes only so far."

"And what did you say?"

"What do you think I said? I said yes, and started trying to slow-walk it and find evidence. Then I called you. If I'd said no, they'd have found another way and I'd be on the outside."

"This is—this is unbelievable. You have to go on record with this."

"No," she replied, quickly, then winced and stopped herself. "I—that's the one thing I won't do. You've gotta understand, I've known these people for years. They're my friends. They're the good guys, they've just gotten lost in the weeds, they've forgotten it matters how we get things done."

Bullcrap, Forsyth thought; you're worried that if you get branded as a leaker you'll be unemployable.

"Besides, you won't need me on-record. There's more to come." Kikuchi pulled an envelope from her coat pocket and handed it over. "These are filings and case-numbers for attachments and search-warrants in three dozen criminal cases around the worlds. You're going to notice the same pattern. No matter who the filing is nominally about, further down the sheet or at one level of remove, you'll find players in Municipalist Party circles and potential donors for Volakis. Do you believe in coincidences?"

"Yes, actually. And so will Tribune readers, given an awful enough alternative to motivate them. Not that it'll matter, because they won't read it, because Caleb Banaias certainly does and he won't print it without a source to hang it on. This isn't enough, Claire. None of it's going to matter if we can't do anything with it."

"Banaias," Kikuchi chuckled. "It's pretext. Don't believe it for a second. If I let you name me, he'll find some other reason to burn the story."

"Why?"

"Why do you think?"

"Because he's in Culverson's pocket too," Forsyth said, slowly, with dawning realization.

"Keep working the story. Make it good enough he can't say no," Kikuchi advised. She turned and started trudging down the steps.

"What's your plan here?" Forsyth called after her.

Kikuchi kept walking. "Keep working the story, Mrs Forsyth."

## Chapter Twenty-Five: Frances.

Cavendish House.

The middle of Monday, February 21.

The door to Frances' office burst open and Kikuchi shot through it, pressing it closed with a visible effort to do so silently.

"You look like you're running from the fuzz," Frances joked, leaning back in her chair.

Kikuchi didn't seem amused. She dropped her e-sheet onto Frances' desk and paced back and forth, wringing her hands. "You ever make a decision, only you didn't actually make it—or... I mean, you made it, but you didn't realize you'd made it, then suddenly you look up and look around and you're way out on a limb and there's no one there with you?"

She didn't wait for a reply.

"I went Downtown. Talked to someone. To a couple of people, actually, and I guess I made some decisions, only now I'm really nervous about the follow-through. I've enjoyed working with you, Frances. You're a good person, it's really been a pleasure."

It's not the usual path of events, the thought crossed Frances' mind, that anyone says that before revealing anything good. "That's nice of you to say. I like working with you, too. What's going on? Who'd you go talk to?"

"I talked to Novak's Chief of Staff. I asked her if they would have a place for me if I jump the fence. And, well, they do."

Frances blinked. "Wow." She swallowed. "Okay, that's a bombshell. Yeah, the President's going to flip his—"

"No he won't. He's not going to give half a hoot. It won't matter. Culverson's on the hunt."

"For the leaks, yeah. Forsyth's supposed source."

"It's me. I did it; that's the other person I talked to."

Frances's stomach lurched. She stared at Kikuchi, slack-jawed and stammering.

"Jerry had Special Branch pull my call records. They just sent them over."

"How do you know—"

"Doesn't matter. Soon as they make it up to Jerry and Carolyn, I'm done." She swallowed, clenching her hands together. "I've got half an hour if I'm lucky. And now," a nervous giggle, "now I've got to figure out how to do this. And I'm not ready. Damn, Forsyth got in my head. I shoulda known, shoulda been more careful; Culverson always could smell a traitor a mile off."

"But..." With more calm than she felt, she managed to squeak out the only question she could think of, perhaps the only question left that mattered. "But why?"

"Wake up, Frances! Look around us! The President of the Colonies ordered a military strike on civilians, and we let him. And he did it for stupid, macho asshole reasons, and then he lied about it and manipulated one of his harem into taking the fall for him. And now—" she stopped dead, laughing mirthlessly. "Now he hates our candidate and he can barely keep his mouth shut about it in public, even if it fraks up the election, and he wants Culverson to drop the blade on Kent Novak, a guy who may actually be everything we thought Adar was, and why? Petty frakkin' resentment.

"We're supposed to be making the worlds better. I thought I was. I did everything for the cause, I gave it everything, and it sure as hell wasn't to carry water for Adar, or to close my eyes to him frakking his way through the cabinet. What's he made me into? I'm tired of waking up knowing my job's to make excuses for him just so we can get some good done when he's not looking too close. And now, now, you won't believe what's—I can't. I can't be the one to tell you, I'm sorry. I can't do that to you... He's got to resign." She paused as if the thought was now occurring to her, in realtime. "That's the only solution. They all do."

"'All'? Who—"

"A fresh start. That's it. I'm telling you." Another pause. A long, deadly pause. She looked Frances in the eye. "And I'm gonna go tell them. Yeah. That's what I have to do."

She was back out through the door before Frances could move or speak.

"Wait!" Frances called after her, already in motion. She chased Kikuchi up the stairs to the top floor, nearly breaking her ankle as one of her heels gave way on the marble. She swore, slipped off the shoes, and resumed the chase barefoot at a hobble, bolting along the northeast corridor as Kikuchi flung open Kominsky's door...

"Carolyn! Good, you're here. I'll save you some bother. It's me. I did it."

She sounded almost... Triumphal.

Frances skittered around the corner of Kominsky's door just in time to see Culverson uncoiling from the sofa. A few meters behind her, Kominsky was perched on the near side of his desk; his face was impassive, but later, if Frances had to, she would have described him as looking disappointed.

Culverson, however...

"After all those pieties," Culverson hissed. "After all those high-minded speeches; and for what? You were family, Claire."

Before Frances (or, likely, Kikuchi) knew what was happening, Culverson took a swing at her. Kominsky grabbed her arm in mid-air and held her back. Probably just as well, too; Culverson had maybe forty pounds on Kikuchi and both surprise and inertia on her side.

"Traitor," Culverson spat, and actually spat at her.

Frances stood in the doorway, frozen. Two Special Branch serviceman arrived, whether alerted by the commotion or somehow by Kominsky, shoving her aside on their way into an office now cramped with six people. What's going on, Adelyne's booming voice wanted to know from behind her in the hallway.

"I think it goes without saying that you're fired," Kominsky murmured. He eyed the servicemen and nodded fractionally. One of them touched Kikuchi's shoulder, gently, and she shook him off, nodding assent.

And of all things in the worlds, Kikuchi was laughing. Bitterly—but laughing. "Everyone gets their due, Jerry. When this is written, history won't be kind."

Kominsky's tone was flat, his face more sad than angry. "History has a selective memory."

## Chapter Twenty-Six: Forsyth.

The Caprica Tribune building.

"Tell me you're about to print the story," Kikuchi's voice asked from the other end of a phone line. The voice-changer was apparently of no more use.

"No, it's—"

"Well, it's got to be! Get it done; I can't help you anymore. I'm out. They were about to make me, so I told them everything. And, gods, it was worth it; the look on Culverson's face... Anyway, I just left and I'm on my way Downtown. I've a job waiting for me with Novak's team. I thought I'd better give you a heads-up because they're probably calling Banaias right now. Which brings us back to: I need to hear that you're about to print the story."

Forsyth winced. "I have to have more. I need either someone on record, or evidence that concretely ties the pattern to Kominsky and Culverson. That's the only thing that'll get it past Banaias, and honestly? I can't fault him. The kind of accusations we're talking about—they can't let those go. They'll come after us; they'll have to. It's gotta be airtight or he'll kill it and he'll do it with Helen's blessing." She paused just a moment before going for the kill. You manipulate people, Banaias' cherubic ghost chided her. You manipulate people to get what you want from them. "I can do it if you'll go on record."

It's not a lie, she determined. It's not manipulation, it's the straight, simple, unvarnished truth.

"I can't."

Maybe it was Forsyth's imagination, but she thought there was a petulance in the way Kikuchi said it, and her patience snapped. "Godsdamnit, then what's your endgame, Claire? What do you want to happen here?"

"I told you: If the Tribune prints it, they'll stop. They'll have to."

"But we won't. Not if you won't put your name to it. That's the only way I can ram it through. So what now? What's your plan?"

"I don't have a plan! I didn't ask for this, I didn't... I'm just trying—I'm trying to do the right thing. I can't betray—I don't have all the pieces yet."

"Well, this is where it all leads. This is where you have to make an irrevocable choice. If I can't attribute it to you, by name, we're stuck."

Silence.

"History will absolve you. Come on, you just said it: You're out. Only you're wrong about what it means. Now you can help. You're free now. They can't stop you."

Kikuchi made a noise that was midway between a snort and a scoff. "You think you know that, huh?" There was another moment of silence, then, "We've talked about this. If you name me, they'll say it's a disgruntled former employee and burn the story."

You're damned right we talked about it. Forsyth ground her teeth. "You're two moves ahead. You're talking about how it gets received and I'm talking about getting it published in the first place. Look, you have to realize this is only their opening move; it won't stop here. Not if there's enough at stake that they're willing to go this far. You can stop it, right now."

There was a long pause.

Forsyth held her breath.

"Do it," Kikuchi said.

Reflexively—and silently—Forsyth pumped her fist. Kikuchi's voice sounded regretful, she decided. "You're doing something important, Claire," Forsyth assured her. "This matters."

## Chapter Twenty-Seven: Frances.

Cavendish House.

At some point, it occurred to Frances that she had no conscious recollection of making the walk back to her office. She had remembered to retrieve her shoes from the staircase, it seemed; they were sitting on her desk, atop the e-sheet Kikuchi had dropped, the left heel snapped off. That plus a distant throbbing in her ankle reminded her that some kind of painkiller was probably in order. But everything was numb, including the ankle.

As if it had a gravitational pull of its own, her thoughts turned to the bottle of bad whiskey still hidden on the bookshelf. She retrieved it and took a swig. Then another, longer one. And a third. At the bottom of the bottle, some part of her registered vague disappointment that she felt no different.

How much time she sat staring disconsolately into the air before a machine-gun knock on her door jolted her back into the moment, she would not be able to say.

"Yah," she managed.

Culverson opened the door and peeked in.

"I need you."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Forsyth's calling. Jerry wants a lawyer in the room before he takes it, just in case."

"Oh." Innes stood and straightened her jacket. She wobbled just a little and hoped Culverson hadn't noticed. "Alright."

Culverson frowned and opened the door the rest of the way, cocking her head. Frak; of course she had.

"You okay?"

"Yah, are you okay?" Frances retorted.

"Well, no, not really. I just found out that someone I trusted for years betrayed me. Betrayed us all. But I ain't the one who's lookin' all kinds of unsteady on my feet, sugar."

Frances shook her head, sullen. She pointed to the broken shoes still lying on her desk.

"She came to me first. I chased after her. Broke my heel. I mean—not my heel heel, my heels heel. I twisted my ankle. I took a painkiller. Sorry; I'm a little woozy."

Technically, none of that was a lie.

"Oh. Ouch, that's gotta sting; sorry. Adds injury to insult."

Whether or not Culverson had bought it Frances didn't really care, so long as she accepted it. "My fault. Shouldn'ta worn 'em."

"They're, um... not very practical," Culverson agreed, with a rueful look and tone that were probably intended to seem empathetic. "But you do look nice in them."

"Please, not now."

Culverson had the decency to look just an ounce guilty for just a split second.

When they made it to Kominsky's office, Frances leaned against the wall by the door, not keen to get any closer than she had to. Kominsky acknowledged her but offered no comment, for which she was grateful.

"I'm sorry for the delay, Miss Forsyth, but with all respect for our friends at the Tribune, I wanted the lawyer here."

'Miss,' Frances noted; Kominsky invariably used 'Ms,' so why—

"It's Mrs Forsyth." The voice had a distinct chill in it.

"Of course. Please, continue."

"I have a source willing to go on record that the Adar administration is engaging in a pattern of harassment targeting potential supporters and staff of, and donors to, Lucas Volakis' campaign and the MIC. Indictments from Justice, Audit demands from the Bureau of Tax Assessments & Collections, and I could go on but you get the idea. Is there any truth to those claims?"

Kominsky laughed—not his own laugh, but Adelyne's laugh, loud and deep. "Wow. Of course it's not true."

"I have several indictments in my hands that—"

"I believe you'll find that in any given week, there's many indictments filed on every world, against all kinds of people."

"Oh, and is it just a coincidence that several of these happen to name people who give money to the Municipalist Party and are likely campaign workers and staff in the election?"

"Ms. Forsyth, may I tell you about one of my favorite sites on the Mesh?" Kominsky offered, 'helpfully.' "It's very amusing, actually. It shows the most unbelievable coinciding graphs of data that can have no possible causal link. Doubtless, there are all kinds of quote-unquote 'patterns' in any dataset if you cherry-pick the right examples and discard the rest. The human brain's a pattern-recognition engine; if it can't find a pattern, it'll impose one. We see the patterns we want to see."

"Well, it's certainly very convenient—"

"It's probably very inconvenient, for the people on the receiving end of those indictments," Culverson said. "Is there ever a convenient time to be indicted? Is there ever a time when an audit is glad news? When was the last time Special Branch executed a warrant on your office, let alone your home, and you thought to yourself 'gee, I'm sure glad that happened'? Justice files things all the time, Jennifer. It's the proverbial man-bites-dog story."

"We should probably ask who the source is," Frances murmured. If she was here to do her job, she would do it, but that same small, detached part of her noted how hollow and strained her voice sounded.

"Yes," Kominsky agreed. "Ms. Forsyth, who's your source?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Do we have to do this every time?" Kominsky asked, a chuckle in his voice of which his face knew nothing. "If the source is on the record, what difference does it make? Let me ask directly. Is it Claire Kikuchi?"

"Yes," Forsyth's voice said, and was it Frances' imagination or was there a tone there approaching glee?

"Oh! Well," Culverson said, her voice perfectly modulated to sound like this was expected and trivial, though her face, too, told a different story. "You're talking about a disgruntled former employee looking for five more minutes in the sun. Jennifer, d'you think you're the first person she's tried to sell this line too? We've had her comms for weeks. She's talked to everyone and—I mean, all due respect, but you're just the first hack dumb enough to buy it."

There was a long silence.

"I see," Forsyth's voice said, eventually.

"We see the patterns we want to see," Kominsky repeated, 'helpfully.' "Is there anything else?"

"Not for now."

"I'm glad." He smiled, very widely. "Please do reach out if we can ever help clear things like this up." He terminated the call. The smile vanished.

"The Corps has a saying for things like this," Culverson said.

"You're thinking of the one that rhymes with 'muster duck'? Yeah." He stood and paced a few times. "Frances—thank you for your assistance. I realize it's been a hard day. For all of us. I know you two were close; I'd worked with Claire for a lot of years, so believe me, this hurts me too."

Frances didn't believe him.

"No one saw this coming," he added

That, she did believe. "I know," she said. She could think of nothing else to say. "Is that everything?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"Go put some ice on that ankle," Culverson suggested.

As Frances left, Kominsky addressed Culverson. "Time to make that call."

Why Frances lingered on the other side after she pulled the door shut, she couldn't really say. It wasn't suspicion. It was barely a conscious choice, not really.

"Mister Banaias," Culverson's voice came through the door, muted. "I would like to tell you a fascinating story about the Prime Minister of Caprica and his offworld holdings. You'll love it. It's a story about money, lies, false identities, corruption, and someone who styles himself a public servant getting remarkably rich. Hm? The price? Oh, nothing much. I just want a story killed if it should percolate up to you."

## Chapter Twenty-Eight: Forsyth.

The Caprica Tribune building.

For several hours, she barricaded herself in her office, putting the story together. It had to be perfect; it had to be precise. After it was both, and after she had made the pro forma call to Cav House for their pro forma denial, she had an astonished Hook proofread it, signed her byline, and had him take it up to Banaias' office.

Briefly, she let herself feel triumphant. She ignored a longing for a celebratory drink, instead pouring a cup of coffee from the Newsroom's pot and climbing the steps up to the roof to savor it. Long ago, at the Eastern Hemisphere, a sign had hung over the editor's door: 'SI VERITAS ALIQVID OCCIDET, OCCIDATVR.' If the truth will kill it, may it be killed. With a feeling somewhere between satisfaction and sadness, she raised the cup westward toward Cavendish House in a sardonic toast. "To journalism that matters."

She returned to the Newsroom by way of the restroom and found a note on her door to come to Banaias' office as soon as she returned, which she did.

"Close the door."

"That can't be good," she joked, hoping to provoke some hint about what was coming. But his face was set like marble, unreadable.

"I'm reassigning Carl Hook to the Canceron bureau."

"What? Why?"

"Sit down." Unhurriedly, he placed the copy she had sent on the desk in front of him. "In other circumstances, this would make a decent scoop."

"'Decent'? It—" She stopped herself. "'In other circumstances,'" she repeated. "Exactly what are our circumstances, Caleb?"

"For one thing, intervening news. That would be enough to delay it, but for another: As I'm told, your source is unstable and she's under criminal investigation."

Forsyth scoffed. "You can't actually believe that."

"Can't I? Then why'd she flee the planet?"

"What?"

"She boarded a flight to Canceron an hour ago."

"No... No, she said... She had... She was going to go work for Novak."

"She told you that? Or they did?"

Her face fell. She hadn't confirmed that.

"Well," he shrugged, "it doesn't matter now. Even if she was, he'll be running, too, after the morning edition hits the streets. Pending indictment, anyway. Tauron, I guess; that's where his money's stashed."

Forsyth felt the world spinning out from under her. "What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? Are you that oblivious? Godsdamnit, Jen, you—" he gritted his teeth. "See, while you've been ghost-chasing and axe-grinding, we've been here doing actual journalism. The public union strikes? Remember those? Well, now we've got proof that Kent Novak's been egging them on, and that's only the start of it. He's been on the take for years, it turns out. And, wait for it: He's Tauron. His birth name's Kerenya Nowak. He's put away hundreds of thousands in offworld holdings, and we've got the whole thing; documents, witnesses, you name it. All of which means that while this is very well-written copy..." Banaias dropped it into a drawer in his desk. "We're not printing it."

"You wanted a named source. Now I've got one and you're telling me it's not enough."

"What you've got is some routine procedural stuff tied together with a conspiracy theory that, so far as I can tell, you swallowed hook, line, and sinker from someone who was fired from Cav House, someone now making accusations against the very people who fired her. Pretty convenient, isn't it?"

Forsyth stared at him. At some point, she realized that her jaw was hanging open; she closed it, licked her lips and leaned forward. "Wow. Talk about timing. You're telling me this just happens to be appearing now?"

"I've had people on it," he said, a little defensively.

"Really?" She scoffed. "D'you think I'm stupid?"

He reddened. "Check your tone."

"Oh please. Culverson gave this to you! This isn't just some bullshit, Caleb, this is custom-made, gift. frakking. wrapped. bullshit!"

"Now, listen—"

"Doesn't it occur to you that the very fact they're willing to go this far to kill the story vouches for the story? Don't you care?"

"I care a whole lot more that we aren't shooting our own army in the back!" he shouted. "You just don't seem to get that!"

Well, there's the iron truth of it, she thought. For all the good it'll do. She slumped in her seat and put her head in her hands. When she looked up, Banaias was gazing at her.

"I'm not done."

"What? What else?"

"Actually, I'm gonna do you a favor. See, Jen, you write great copy, but I need a Political Editor, and the thing is—I don't think you actually want that job. You like having your pick of the stories and signing your own expenses, but those are the perks, not the job. You don't actually like being an editor."

It did not require instincts honed throughout an acclaimed career for Jennifer Welles-Forsyth to realize where this was going. She flopped back in the chair, winded.

"You wanna be a reporter with special privileges. So I'm gonna give you what you want. And I know you'll hate me to begin with, but in a few days, I promise you'll see this is for the best. You're gonna resign as Political Editor, staying on as emeritus with a Senior Reporter title. Same pay, benefits, everything; frak, I'll give you a column if you want. Now..."

Banaias was still talking, but Forsyth stood, dazed, and walked out of his office.

* * *

At a bar a block away from the Tribune building, where she had been for more than an hour, Forsyth stared morosely into an untouched martini.

"Cheer up, weepy." Banaias sat down next to her, caught the barman's eye, and held up two fingers, flashing a winning smile at him. "Libby said she saw you here."

"That was a crappy thing you did to me today."

"It's for the best. You're not happy and you've not been for a long time."

"I'm not even talking about firing me."

"Oh. Well, then. First, I didn't fire you. And second—the Novak story's legit news."

"Sure, if there's one thing Capricans hate, it's a Tauron. 'Frakkin' dirteaters,' right? Old prejudices die hard?"

"Don't be like that. If there's anything Capricans love to hate, it's a public servant with his hand in the till, and when it's the Prime Minister, you can't deny that's legit newsworthy."

"Who d'you think you're fooling? You burned my story, you burned my source, and yeah, they threw you a legit story as cover, and you lapped it down." He knows. Of course he does; we both do. Not that he'll ever admit it.

"Hmn." He snorted softly and scratched his head. "Maybe," he allowed. "I guess then I'd owe you one."

"We're supposed to be the good guys!"

His smile didn't change. "'The good guys'?"

"We're supposed to find the truth and proclaim it to the worlds. And, yeah, I know that sounds all kinds of corny, and maybe we're more diligent about triple-checking it when we don't like it, but if it's the truth, we print it, and not just when it's politically convenient."

"Ah." The barman handed him a clear alcohol of some kind and he took a long sip. "You want some truth? In seven years, we've come very far, and Richard Adar's the reason for that. You might not like him, or particular things that happened, but what's the alternative? We can't go back, and no one, Jen, not me and certainly not Helen, is gonna let it be said that this newspaper helped the bad guys press 'stop,' let alone 'rewind,' on seven years of progress."

She scowled at him and returned her gaze to the martini. The real tragedy was, if she gave in after this long, it would be room temperature by now.

"If you drink that, you'll regret it."

"What d'you care?"

"Believe it or not, I do care about you. And I understand. Before I got sober, I lost my job, my marriage, all of it. Why did you think I'm in the office 'til every hour of the night? I understand clinging to work because that's your sober identity. Just because I talk smack about the Program doesn't mean it doesn't work, and right now, you may need it. There's a Meeting at the Talbot Center, just across Rutherford. It's not even out of your way if you're walking home. Go to it. Or go home and screw Ari. Either option's better than sitting here."

"Frak you, Caleb."

He shrugged and downed the remainder of his drink. "Suit yourself." He paused behind her. "Six blocks away, Jen. Do yourself a favor and go to it."

## Chapter Twenty-Nine: Frances.

Cavendish House.

A little east of Forsyth, Frances Innes had no such restraint. Her office darkened but for her desk lamp, she stared morosely into a coffee mug filled with whiskey—better stuff than her predecessor had bequeathed her—and tossed it back. It was the third that she had poured from a bottle purchased from the closest place that sold it.

"Working late?" Kominsky paused outside her doorway without looking in.

"Yah."

"Fair enough. Don't have too much fun."

A quarter hour passed before Culverson appeared in the doorway.

"How's the ankle?"

Frances scowled at her. "You lied to Forsyth. Just like you lied to Reed."

Culverson shrugged and sauntered into the office. "Yeah, Frances. I lied to Forsyth. And then, I called her boss and manipulated him into killing the story, just in case. And better yet, I not only killed the story, I threw one of our boss' enemies under the bus to do it. You got a point you want to make?"

"Don't you care?"

"I sacrificed some pawns. That's what pawns are for, Frances."

"It's not a game! These are real people, people whose lives you've destroyed! And—and you've made me a liar."

"Oh." She smirked. "That's what really galls you, isn't it?"

"We're the good guys! This isn't how the good guys behave."

Culverson grabbed the bottle off Frances' desk, held it up to her as if in macabre salute, and took a long swig. "Yeah, we're the good guys. And the good guys have to win. Kominsky's Law of Politics: Without power, you can do nothing. Look, I get you've got your ideals, and that's fine. But, Clio, Frances, you can't be naive. This is a dirty business. We can't all keep our hands clean. I do nothing more than what's necessary so's you get to be this naive; so you get to keep those lovely, well-manicured nails clean. You think there's some virtue in closing your eyes to that? Your pal Claire didn't want to know the details, maybe pretended she didn't know it was happening, didn't want to admit it to herself. But she knew. Don't kid yourself; she knew all along."

Who are you trying to convince, Carolyn? "I doubt that."

"Oh, why, Frances? Why? Because she didn't tell you?"

Because she left when she found out. What aren't you telling me? Avoiding Culverson's gaze, her eyes landed on Kikuchi's e-sheet, still lying on her desk under the remains of her shoes. A new thought crossed her mind. What exactly did Claire find out, Carolyn? She bit back the comment. "It won't work. Your Novak smokescreen'll blow over, and the press'll remember we're still here."

"That's the thing about our vantage point. We have all the worlds to feed to the press." She shrugged. "Something always happens."

"Which means what?"

"It means, Frances"—Culverson picked up Frances' mug and drained it. She leaned in close, close enough that Frances could smell the sweat on her skin, and breathed out past Frances' ear. Frances cringed.

"Give it two weeks," Culverson hissed. "Something will happen, and all this will be in the past."

She was to prove correct.

# ACT FOUR.   
CATACLYSM.

## Chapter Thirty. Disaster.

Compared to what could be found on Cyrannus' uninhabited inner planets, still less some of the moons of the gas giants, Kitkatla was not large. But it was one of the Twelve Worlds' larger quiescent volcanoes, and it was less than seventy miles off the western coast of Kalivia, one of the largest cities in Canceron's southern hemisphere.

From shore, it had the appearance of a child's drawing of a volcano, an almost perfectly symmetrical upside-down V. That was an optical illusion. Up close, the volcano dotted a comma-shaped island, a ridge dropping away from the cone to run a dozen miles southwest, directly away from the city. East of the ridgeline, cliffs fell steeply to the sea; to the west, it sloped several miles down to the ocean on a shallower angle. A C-shaped halo of coral ringed the island, open to the northwest. This was at once a source of reassurance to scientists that no eruption could threaten the city—and of puzzlement, for prevailing theories on the formation of atolls could not account for a reef that was closed landward yet open seaward.

It had not erupted since 1,453 A.E. Every few decades, some part of the ridgeline would sputter and fume, and tremors would get hearts running for a day, but the main vent was officially 'dormant.' Naturally, if the public thought of it at all, they thought it extinct.

It wasn't.

At almost the exact moment Innes and Forsyth were considering drowning their sorrows on Caprica, 928 billion miles away, Kalivans woke to a cacophony of hissing cats, yowling daggits, and barking dogs. Ten minutes later, as unexpectedly as they had started, they stopped.

There had been a small earthquake under the bay out toward Kitkatla, an expert explained on the morning news. Sometimes, the expert soothed, volcanoes stirred in their sleep. That was normal. Kitkatla had slumbered for a long time, but if it awoke, there was no danger. A government study conducted after the last spate of rumbles had concluded that the city was safe. Drive-time wireless did not interrupt its normal programming.

Ten days later came a string of noticeable tremors. None lasted longer than a minute, but they came and went for three hours. Schools closed early, and the more anxious members of the citizenry bought emergency supplies.

Then, on the morning of March 10, an unmistakable jolt shook the city, and as the sun rose, it revealed a column of smoke pouring from the familiar cone that seemed to hover above the haze on the horizon. This time, Air Traffic Control implemented contingency plans, adding a few minutes to both transorbital and suborbital traffic, and harbormasters ordered all ships capable of sail to decamp to other ports. Civil authorities ordered beaches cleared as a precaution. That order was ignored. The weather was pleasant, the sky cloudless and crystal clear, and the view irresistible.

Throughout the day, the mountaintop smoldered and smoked. Volcanologists made camp on a neighboring island to monitor what everyone agreed might be the early stages of an eruption—albeit, everyone still agreed, one that posed no danger to Kalivia.

Invisible from the shore, and unnoticed by the scientists, who were more interested in the secondary vents along the ridgeline, the occasional jet of steam emerged from the cone's western flank.

By nightfall, Kitkatla was spitting goopy gobs of lava in a spectacular display of natural pyrotechnics. The evening news interviewed a volcanologist from the local university, who predicted more of the same in the days to follow. Any kind of explosive eruption seemed unlikely given the lava's viscosity, he thought, and the most important thing, he stressed, was that Kitkatla's topography leaned away from Kalivia. Any pyroclastic activity would pour over the pass and harmlessly down the western flank into the ocean. This, the academic assured viewers in analgesic tones, was precisely what had happened in each of Kitkatla's previous four recorded eruptions. And even if a flow somehow spilled eastward, the fringing reef would catch it. And even if the reef didn't, pyroclastic flows could travel no more than fifty kilometers across water—less than half the distance separating Kalivia from Kitkatla. The science was settled. No need to worry.

Unnoticed by anyone, the problem was the western flank of the cone and the ridge slope. The steam jets should have been the clue.

Over millennia, swarms of lava dikes had built enormous, impermeable, concentric walls within the softer, permeable rock of the island. Then, in the eruptionless recent centuries, shifts in Canceron's climate had increased the rainfall on Kitkatla. Little by little, hemmed in by those unseen dikes, vast cisterns and aquifers had filled with water.

Throughout the day, as columns of magma rose and broadened in the volcano's heart, forcing their way slowly upward, the water heated and expanded. Where it could not escape, it forced open spiderwebs of microcracks. These the water invaded, then expanded further, causing yet more fracturing as temperature and pressure rose. Yard by yard, fractures fanned out through the flank and the bedrock of the western slope.

It was in the wee small hours when a magma finial jerked upward from the main column, reaching into the cone. The heat flashed the water there into steam, expanding uncontrollably in an instant. The pressure was too much; the rock gave way in an explosion that blew out a section of the flank midway up the cone. With a writhing scream, the cone above the breach disintegrated, ripping a wide gash in the side of the vent as it fell.

All of a sudden, the vent was open to the air. The pressure above the magma column was gone.

It was like shooting a hole in a giant bottle of soda. Without the pressure that had kept it dissolved, the gas in the magma column effervesced into bubbles, which forced their way upward, chaining together into larger and larger bubbles, charging upward, forcing the magma with them, faster and more violently with every second.

There was far too much of it for the main vent to handle, and it lunged and slobbered into the ridgeline vents, too. Below the surface, magma-filled cracks shot through the entire western slope, intersecting with the water-filled cracks, boiling yet more steam, in turn opening even more cracks for the water to invade. The slope became a slab floating atop a thin sheet of boiling water and steam that separated it from the deeper bedrock, its lateral connection to the ridgeline more tenuous by the moment.

At a little after 01:30, the main magma column reached the cone, where it found ample water remaining. Surging lava met water, which flashed instantly to steam. The final, colossal explosion shredded the cone and unbuttoned the ridgeline. Suddenly the entire island was moving as everything west of the ridgeline wrenched free, rolling westward and downward with terrifying speed as it disintegrated. Billions of passeris of rock cascaded violently into the ocean.

The explosion was powerful enough to blow out almost every window in Kalivia, and it was already one of the worst natural disasters in Canceron's history. But the worst by far was yet to come.

The wavefront from the massive displacement radiated across the Peconic Ocean at more than four hundred miles an hour. One and three quarter thousand miles away and four hours later, it struck the east coast of Heraklion at 07:46 local time. In Pianosa, built atop high bluffs overlooking a deep bay, residents got a spectacular show as they went about the school rush. But a hundred miles away, the city of Argolis lay at sea-level, behind a lagoon.

As the ocean pulled away, the lagoon became a whirlpool, water flooding with lethal speed out through its narrow inlet. For a few seconds, the sight verged on the surreal. Then the horizon reared up and charged toward Argolis; the initial shockwave had arrived. A ten-foot wall of water tore miles inland before washing up against foothills beyond.

In its wake came the real disaster.

The ocean poured back into the lagoon, and kept rising. It flooded up across the beaches. It engulfed the waterfront and still it rose, an inch higher every second, pressing inexorably inland. Throughout the city, lights began to fail as the rising water inundated electrical transformers that died in showers of sparks. Everything the water touched, it took hold of; mailboxes, newsstands, dumpsters, trash cans, traffic cones, trees, it all went with the water. It wrenched vehicles from roads and small buildings from their foundations. The wreckage became a battering ram to be flung against the next thing in the way: A cell-phone tower could survive getting its feet wet, but it could not survive a ten-wheeled 1991 EMS Voyager school bus colliding with it at forty miles an hour.

By the time the onslaught finally slowed, five minutes after the first wave had torn through the city, the surviving buildings on the waterfront were submerged to their second story and most of the inner suburbs were under waist-deep water and a tangle of every imaginable piece of flotsam.

There had been no warning.

Caprica City.

"Holy fuck," Forsyth gasped.

"As you can see," the Caprica News Network talking-head was burbling over the video images, "the damage to the city of Argolis is beyond catastrophic."

"Call the spaceport," she said, breathless, to no one in particular. "Call me a cab, I've gotta get out there."

Picon.

At FHQ, Nagala and Corman were watching the same images on the television in Nagala's office. Corman was pale, Nagala thought; rattled, even. That was a first but it was understandable. This was not a contingency for which they had plans.

Nagala watched, absorbing. Then he stood and retrieved a set of duty blues from the locker. He glanced at Corman as he buttoned the jacket. "Right, then."

He picked up his desk phone and dialed. "I'll need a Raptor on the south pad in a half hour. I need the QMG and ComDNA in my office in ten minutes, and I want telexes sent to ComOR4 and General Bratton's office that I'm on my way to Canceron. Thank you." He hung up. "Pete, I need you to find me a current copy of the Directory of Fleet Personnel and the first Captain or Major you can lay hands on who speaks Canceran."

"What can I do?"

"Go get me the Directory," Nagala repeated patiently, "and an aide who speaks the local language."

"Yeah. No, yeah, I got that, but I mean..." Corman spread his hands. "What can I do?"

"I've been asking myself that question a lot lately." Nagala pointed at the television. "I'm going to go help. I'm going to go be of use for a change. You stay here; man the ramparts."

"If Cav House calls... Or the Ministry... What should I say?"

Nagala didn't even try to stop an expression of contempt from crossing his face. "Snow 'em," he snarled.

Humber, Caprica.

The previous night's debate had run late, and Volakis was asleep when Sirica swept into his hotel room, crossing to the windows without a word of explanation and flinging open the curtains.

"Wake up."

Volakis shielded his eyes. "The hell, man?"

Katraine and Gutierrez were two and three steps behind Sirica respectively. Katraine plopped a cardboard coffee cup on the bedside and went to the dresser, rummaging for clothes.

"What—" Volakis began to protest.

"Emily." Sirica pointed to the television, snapping his fingers, and Gutierrez fumbled with the remote, bringing up a news channel.

"Wake up and watch," Sirica said. He pointed to the coffee cup. "Start drinking. You'll want something stronger before you're done."

"I'm already writing a release," Gutierrez said, tapping away on an e-sheet.

Volakis' hand scrabbled for his glasses—his contacts were beyond reach in the bathroom—and for the next several minutes he tried to process what he was seeing. "Mother of the gods," he murmured. "We're going, right?"

Sirica cleaned his glasses and glanced at Volakis. "Paul, talk to Anne; clear the schedule at least a fortnight out. Emily, keep working up talking-points and remarks, plus anything you can in terms of research." He stood, squeezed Volakis' shoulder, and grimaced. "I'll go warn Gerald that he's about to get a substantial fine from the C.A.R.C."

"What should I do?" Volakis asked.

"You can put on some clothes and go talk Haiden into ordering Gerald to do something illegal. We're all going, as soon as we can get airborne."

Cavendish House.

Culverson elbowed Innes, cheerily: "See? I told you something would come up."

Innes stared back at her, speechless.

## Chapter Thirty-One. Aftermath.

The Caprica Tribune building.

"There's no reason for you to go," Banaias insisted. "We have a bureau on-world, correspondents on the ground, and remember, you put a lot of miles on the company credit card this year."

"Yeah, but remember how you owe me one?" Forsyth shot back. "I need to be there. I can't really explain why, but I need to." That was the gods' honest truth. "Look, am I a senior correspondent or not?"

He held her gaze for a few seconds, then snorted. "Alright, then how's this for a compromise: If you want to go bad enough to buy a ticket, be my guest."

She swept out of Banaias' office, toying with calling his bluff. Then a thought crossed her mind. She still had Anne Vanssen's cell number from setting up the trip out to Scorpion Yards. And they were on Caprica yesterday! The chances of their still being planetside were low... But they weren't zero.

She dialed, offering a prayer to no god in particular...

Humber spaceport, Caprica.

"Yes," Vanssen said, "we're about to take off. Why? What? Huh. No, I mean—maybe. Wait one." She covered the mouthpiece of her phone and raised her voice to reach everyone in the Fat Chance's cabin. "How do we feel about Jennifer Forsyth hitching a ride with us?"

Sirica and Ostrakov immediately shook their heads. Volakis shrugged. "I'm somehow both too tired and too wired to care."

"Is it out of our way?" Haiden asked. The pilot affirmed that it was not. "Okay, fine. If she can be ready when we get there, let's go get her."

* * *

Haiden found herself standing in front of a classroom of children. They peppered her with questions, and she found that she knew none of the answers. She fled through the door, into the tall, canted passageway of a warship, splashing her way through water at her feet. The ship's cat stirred and looked her over, lazily; a big, ebony panther, it curled up by her in her bed, back in her flat above the café in Ambois, and started licking her hair.

She woke with a start.

The Fat Chance's cabin was darkened, lit only by light streaming around blinds pulled down over the portside windows. The cabin had been luxurious when it held three; seven was pushing it; eight, she decided, was too many.

"Sleep well?" Vanssen asked from across the cabin, her face lit dimly by video on an e-sheet she was sharing with Gutierrez.

"Where are we?"

"Coming up on final approach in half an hour."

Four hours ago, they had jumped in below the plain of the ecliptic, and had been falling toward Canceron ever since. Without filing a flight plan, still less obtaining authorization, there would be hell to pay for that if the authorities had noticed, and even Luke admitted that on this issue, they would have a point.

"Bien." She was still sweating from the dream. "You any sense of what we're gonna find?"

"We've been plowing through broadwave news since we jumped in," Gutierrez said. "It's a mess."

"Colonial Forces are on-site already," Vanssen added. "SAR units and Marines assisting the locals."

"Unarmed Marines, this time, I hope." Haiden looked over at Luke, still asleep. She hated to wake him when he looked peaceful. "Better wake Forsyth."

"Already did; she's in the restroom. Why'd you let her come along?"

"Nagala trusts her."

"Fair enough."

"I don't understand," Gutierrez said.

Vanssen gave her a pointed look. "If Admiral Nagala trusts her: Satis."

From the look on her face, Gutierrez didn't get it, Haiden thought. Civilians never did.

Forsyth emerged from the bathroom mopping water from her face, stripped to a white, sleeveless undershirt. "We're getting close?"

"Yes." Haiden gestured to an empty chair across from her, looking the journalist over as she sat. She looked like a lot of women her age in the Service; a little too thin, trying to stall the clock by building muscle mass. To her credit, she was winning. "Admiral Nagala trusts you, Jennifer."

"I believe so, yes," Forsyth said, pulling her shirt back on.

"Do you know that's rare?"

"Yes. Are you going to ask me why?"

"No." She elongated the vowel, a slight smile curling the corner of her mouth as she shook her head. "But anything you hear while you're hitchhiking with us is out-of-bounds. Like—Confession out-of-bounds. We're doing you a favor. You'll honor that."

"Yes. Anne made that clear when I came on board. And thank you."

"Still, off the record, since I'm sure you're wondering... I've no idea what to expect, and I have no idea how we can help. But it feels important to be there. To see it, and to be seen there, together." She gestured toward Volakis, apparently still dozing. "Him and me, I mean."

Forsyth cocked her head. "Is that why you're going? That's a big thing with this campaign isn't it?"

"Politics doesn't have to be nasty. We don't agree on much, but we like each other, and we think it's good to model that. To show there's a better way. It was important before, and with something like this, all the more so. Why are you going?"

"I don't know why I'm going," Forsyth admitted.

"You're hitchhiking to the other end of the worlds and you don't know why?"

She scrunched her face. "It's a feeling. An intuition that I need to see it. That I can do something, maybe."

"You want to use what you do to help," Haiden suggested. "That's a good instinct, as they go."

"Yeah, well, then why do I feel so damned stupid?" She laughed without humor, and Haiden thought there was a decidedly bitter edge to it. "Out of bounds like it's Confession? Goes both ways?"

Haiden nodded.

"I'm not having the year I intended. I'd been lost. I'd been a drunk, and I thought things were getting better. I figured—I got sober, and I thought, 'that was the problem.' If I could slay that dragon and get back to doing what I was supposed to do, I'd be okay. Instead, I got fired. They gave me a fig-leaf for my dignity, a fancy new title, but everyone I work with knows.

"My editor told me I manipulate people. He says I get lost in the story because the worlds have to know and I've gotta be the one to tell them, and damn the casualties. And, 'you shithead,' I thought, 'I don't do that.' But I do, and I found myself doing exactly that. Doing whatever it took to get the story, because it was just too damned important. How is it I'm sober and somehow I'm more lost than ever?"

"People can do the right things for the wrong reasons." Haiden glanced over at Luke. "Maybe I didn't have the very best reasons when I got into this," she admitted. "But it was the right thing to do, and now here we are. Doing the right thing, I hope. If you think what you're doing matters and the worlds have to know, then so long as you're not doing anything unethical, does it really matter what gets you out of bed in the morning?"

"I'd rather stay in bed." She smiled. "Sleep in. Read a good book. Frak my husband."

"There's days I think that'd be nice." Haiden glanced at Luke again. "But there's work to do. No one else can do what we do; if they could, they'd be doing it, right? For what it's worth, I didn't know who I was outside the Service. It'd been so long, but there's never any going back. I had to start again, in a way. So I understand. So they fired you; so what? The old you's gone, so you get to make a new you. Worse could happen. Imagine you could start over knowing everything you do now."

"Starting over... I don't even... you don't get second chances after forty."

Haiden laughed raucously. "Forty?" She managed. "Forty, you say. If I can start again at my age, then you, young lady, certainly can."

Kalivia.

They first flew into Kalivia. At Luke's request, the pilot brought them in low and slow over Kitkatla to see. Or, rather, what was left of Kitkatla; the tattered remains of the cone could be glimpsed here and there through an obscuring haze of steam and smoke. A thin crestline of rock curved away from it to the southwest, dropping steeply to the sea on each side. The lagoon around it was churned to an inky black.

As they landed, the spaceport was covered in a dirty grey snowfall, and more was coming down steadily.

"It's not snow," Luke realized aloud after they climbed down steps to the ground, and suddenly felt rather foolish.

"Ash," Haiden murmured, realizing it in the same moment.

In the city, they found only minor structural damage, but few vehicles in motion and seemingly no one who had escaped without injury. Shock and broken glass were everywhere, and the falling ash had laid a blanket of obscuring grey and an eerie, deadened quiet over everything.

At the hospital, seemingly the only building still alive with emergency power, they found few fatalities but overwhelming numbers of people needing various levels of care. The staff—most of them sporting injuries of their own—were too busy to pay the interlopers any heed. Luke and Haiden walked around, greeting people and asking whether they could do anything to help. Here and there, someone would were briefly conscript them as ad hoc nurses, providing a finger or thumb to hold some medical device in place. Forsyth trailed them at a distance, asking questions and trying to absorb the scale of it all.

From somewhere, Vanssen had scrounged Haiden the jacket from a set of duty blues. It was a size too big, and Luke had some doubts about whether it was a good instinct for her to put it on. Still, he had to admit that she looked the part in it. Seeing her in uniform put her in context, he thought. It made sense of the way she took charge of any place she entered.

That aura disappeared a few hours later as the Fat Chance reached the coast of Heraklion.

Argolis.

The hospital in Argolis was not full because it was no longer standing. Whatever rubble and broken glass might be strewn on the ground, it was underwater.

The lagoon and its famous white sand beaches were nowhere to be seen. They had been the backdrop to a million tourist photographs; now all had vanished beneath opaque brown water that submerged everything as far as the eye could see. And the eye could see very far. There was no ash here, no merciful haze to obscure the devastation. The flooding was receding but in every direction buildings that had not collapsed jutted upward from the sludge like buttes and tower islands.

It looked bad enough from the air, but on the ground it was unfathomable. The Fat Chance had landed at an emergency airfield set up atop a hill overlooking the city. The approach was lit by blinding floodlights that sent pillars reaching skyward, visible even in broad daylight, creating an almost cathedral-like impression around the runways and pads. Everywhere was noise and motion as cargo aircraft ferried people and things back and forth, ranging from Raptors up to CH-225 Argosies, lumbering behemoths that seemed to less take off than flop improbably from the ground into the sky, like a walrus slithering lazily off an ice floe into the ocean.

Forsyth stood on the edge of the hilltop staring down at what was left of the city. Surely, anyone who had been asleep in the suburbs to the north and west had died as the first wave tore through with enough violence to have wrenched the earth away down to the shallow bedrock in places. How many had been drowned or trapped in collapsing buildings by the inundation that followed, she would not wish to guess.

"I don't know what good we can do here," Volakis murmured from behind her.

"Yeah," she agreed, bleakly. "Where's Admiral Haiden?"

"Off looking for the command post. I think I like her in that uniform; it suits her."

"You know that people running for the Congress don't talk about their opponents the way you two talk about one another? Let alone for President. You get that, right? The nicest thing Kemp ever said about Adar was that he was charismatic, and it wasn't a compliment."

"Well, we're not politicians."

"Is that how this works?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but off-the-record or not, I've not forgotten that your newspaper doesn't like me. You, personally, put me in a group you called the 'three horsemen of the apocalypse.'"

"Fair point," she admitted.

"That was a dumb piece. For one thing, Katy Byrne's not an anything -man, so it shoulda been 'three horse-people.'"

She looked at him, surprised to find a wry smile on his face. They both laughed a little.

"Sorry," she stopped herself. "We shouldn't laugh. Not in the face of all this."

"I fought in the War, Mrs. Forsyth. And I mean fought. Not 'was in.' We made rude jokes when the enemy charged us, and unrepeatable jokes when we charged them. It'll suffocate you if you let it. Tragedy. It'll drive you insane if you don't find ways to stay human in the middle of it." He gazed down at the mess below. "And I am human, after all," he said with a sardonic chuckle, "much though your newspaper might be surprised to learn it."

"Can I have that as an exclusive?" She gave him a thin smile.

"Journalists and judges, Mrs. Forsyth. People want us to be superhuman. They want us to be unbiased, just call the facts, just so long as the facts line up with what they already think. It's a thankless job."

"Everyone at the Tribune was for Adar. And I mean everyone." She cast him a sideways glance. "At the places I'd worked before, too, only—something changed. It went too far. I had a story; I didn't like it, and I didn't like what it was likely to do, but that's the job. It might be a thankless job, but it was the kind of work I thought we were supposed to do. They killed it."

"Is that how it works there?"

"It's not supposed to be."

"You know... Above my court, over the main entrance, there's an inscription on the lintel. 'Veritatem scies, veritasque te liberabit.'"

"'And you will know the truth, and it will free you.'"

"I overheard what you were saying to Connie on the plane, Jennifer. You might be interested to know, 'libera' also means 'absolve.' Your story; the one they killed. It's true?"

She nodded, less sure of it than she would like.

"Then break it anyway."

"They killed it because it might help you."

"Oh, well, in that case, definitely break it," he chuckled. "If you don't like how something works, change it. I live on Libran. Their flavor of religion—one I think you're familiar with, hm?—I have a theory why people like it. They're very practical. They emphasize that the gods allow new beginnings. You fall down, you can start again."

She scoffed. "Right. It's that easy."

"What's stopping you?"

"My boss, for one thing."

"Don't give him a choice."

"I've heard that line already. Didn't work."

"Well, then, if all else fails..." He cracked a sly smile. "I was SG on Tauron for a while. Have you ever heard the expression 'make him an offer he can't refuse'?"

She stared at him for a moment, shocked. Then they laughed.

"Well, that's one option, anyway. Come on, let's find Connie."

They walked back to the Fat Chance, where Gutierrez and Katraine were holding down the fort, comparing notes. They pointed in the direction of a two-story building that appeared shaped to fit into an Argosy's cargo hold. In large, unfriendly letters it bore the initials 'FCP,' which Volakis helpfully translated: "'Field Command Post,' unless it's changed in the very few, brief years since I was a Marine."

"How many years?" Forsyth asked.

"Believe me, you stop counting after a while."

Inside, the FCP was all low ceilings, metal walls, and indirect lighting that seemed to glow, blue-tinged, with no specific source. Everywhere was bustle and conversations in the low, measured tones of professionals between people wearing uniforms, inscrutable camo, or medical scrubs. The Colonial Forces uniforms, she recognized; at the others, she could only guess.

Inquiries after Haiden took them to the second floor and a room labeled 'CIC,' which appeared to be the nerve-center. ("'Combat Information Center,'" Volakis whispered to her, helpfully.) Screens dominated the far wall, behind an underlighted table that looked like something Forsyth would have expected to see in a hospital's x-ray department. Waves of desks loaded with portable computers, communications equipment, maps, and hastily-scrawled-upon notepads fanned out from it.

Haiden was standing by the table, studying something on it that Forsyth couldn't see. Beside her, an awfully familiar figure presided over the room, more energetic than she had ever seen him.

"Admiral Nagala?"

His head snapped up. "Ah!" He spotted a stunned-looking Jennifer Welles-Forsyth and clapped his hands together. "Mrs Forsyth, I wondered when you would show up."

"When I—? Um. What are you doing here?"

"I've been thinking recently about our conversation about the Ward."

"The ward?" It took her a moment.

"I watched that happen. Did I tell you that?"

"Um. Yes."

"Thought so. See, I was always good at numbers. At how the maths translate into reality. So I knew she was dead, and I knew there wasn't anything I could do to help. Besides, I had a trio of Raiders on my six, and they had me and my wingman cold, so even though this big, important thing was happening in the corner of my eye, knowing I couldn't do anything about it let me focus on what was in front of me. On something I could do something about. I've been making a mistake, Mrs Forsyth. I thought, 'the Cylons are coming back, and when they do, all this will end in a heartbeat, so none of it matters.' I was wrong. This is the only thing that matters."

She shook her head, not quite able to force out the question written over her face.

"Because they're not here yet," he explained. "Maybe there's a 'later,' but there's assuredly a right now. So," he gestured around the room, "whatever's happening with the big picture, I'm needed at ground-level. This is what I can do to help."

He would never say it aloud, but these were the kinds of moments for which he cultivated the mystique. The Old Man who knew every ship, every name, and who was everywhere when needed, ready to take personal command.

She gestured around. "How can I help?"

"You're a reporter. The worlds should see this. Go report."

With a bit of luck, Nagala thought, she'll write something nice for them to read at my court-martial.

Standing just behind Forsyth, looking barely any less stunned than her, was a tall black man with a long face and close-cropped greying hair, his eyes aglow in reflections from the monitors.

"Luke, I should introduce you," Haiden said. "Ed, this is Lucas Volakis, my opponent."

Nagala straightened and offered a salute. "It's my pleasure to meet you. I'm honored to have you both here."

"Can we do anything to help?" Volakis asked.

"With great respect"—he turned and eyed Haiden—"for both of you. I think the best thing you can do for now is observe. There's an unused office," he said, gesturing to the back of the room. "You're welcome to if you want. That said..." He glanced after Forsyth, who was making for the back of the room, and judged her out of earshot. "I'm not sure that you want to be here. This may be an illegal operation. It's your choice, but you might prefer to avoid... Well, whatever association that may imply."

"It's... What does—well, the President ordered it, didn't he?" Volakis asked.

"No." Nagala held Volakis' gaze and shook his head. "I ordered it."

Haiden pursed her lips. "This is dangerous territory."

"Perhaps. But I have broad statutory authority to direct the Fleet and attached Marine formations. Having received no contrary orders, I am colorably acting within the law to assist in search-and-rescue operations and humanitarian relief." He lowered his voice even more. "I haven't heard a word from Caprica. I don't expect to, and I don't care to, either; all Adar cares about is whatever he calculates as his own best interest, and that certainly doesn't include search and rescue in a deep-gold province far away. If he doesn't like it, he can have me shot later, but for right now, between you, me, and the gods..." He triple-checked that Forsyth wasn't nearby. "Let him wave his fist at the television."

Haiden looked between Nagala and Volakis, processing that. One of the screens caught her eye; bodycams showed a Marine platoon hunting for survivors in a topsy-turvy nightmare, the ceiling underfoot and covered with the broken remains of anything that had not been fastened in place.

Nagala followed her eyeline to the screen. "It's a hotel. Twelve, fourteen floors. The shockwave broke it in half and the top kept its structural integrity as it fell. My compliments to the engineers."

"Luke, could you give us a minute? Maybe check out that office?" Haiden asked.

He nodded and followed after Forsyth.

"Are you alright?" Nagala asked. "You don't look well."

Haiden blanched; she had hoped she was hiding it better. "You have a moment? Privately?" Of course he doesn't, she chided herself.

"Of course." He led them through an exterior hatchway onto an observation balcony with a commanding view out over the city—or, rather, what was left of the city—which only made things worse.

"This is a real mess," Nagala said, gazing impassively at the scene.

She gestured around at it all, mute, and gaped. She shook her head and spread her hands. "This is insane." And then it all came tumbling out. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I'm running for President, for gods' sakes, and I've no idea. I feel like a fraud, I'm just trying to hold it together. We're visiting people in the hospital and I'm supposed to have answers, and I just—you asked me the other month why I was running. I just... I mean, I got offered it, and it seemed like a good idea, and then we landed here... Saw this... Shit just got really frakkin' real for me, Ed, and here you are, collected as ever! How the hell are you so calm right now?"

He took all that in and said nothing for a few moments. Eventually, he said quietly, "I am whatever they need me to be. Someone has to take charge. The locals are in shock, the administration's nowhere, so they look to us. Later, and when no one's looking, then we can indulge ourselves the luxury of questioning ourselves and doubting our choices. But not here, not now. Pull yourself together. We will be calm, collected professionals because that's what the situation demands."

"You must have hopped in a Raptor the moment news broke. That's what a President should do. Luke—that was the first thing he said to me. He said 'something's happened, we're going, right now.' I don't know that I woulda had that instinct."

He laughed at her. Laughed!

She bridled. "What?"

"Of course you would!"

"How can you know that?"

"Because you did, Haiden! What, did he knock you over the head and carry you onto the plane? I don't think so, and not just because he clearly adores you. Listen. I can't tell you why you're running. I can tell you that if you doubt your capacity to do the job, you're crazy. May I tell you why I plan to vote for you?"

"You're—um." She blinked. "Wow."

"I am registered, I think."

"Thank you, that means more than you can—"

"Don't look so happy. I'll tell you two things, why I can and why I will, and you may not like either. Have you ever heard the saying 'smoking is the new gambling'?

Haiden hadn't.

"Years ago, Virgon banned casinos. Then a few years later, they went after tobacco; 'Smoking,' they said, 'is the new gambling.' There's a certain kind of person who just can't sit still: They always have to be banning this or decriminalizing that, or centralizing this or deregulating that, or marching and protesting about something. It's a compulsion, a restless need for attention and change. And if you'll forgive me, in this age, it seems they naturally gravitate to the Federalist Party. Those people need to be kept as far from power as possible, and I've know you long enough to know you're not one of them. You solve problems and you want to make things better, but you don't have that compulsion to tinker, that meddlesome urge to impose yourself. Volakis is a decent man and he'd make a good tactical vote, but set the Federalist Party on a course where the decent people in it are ascendant? That's good strategy."

She swallowed. "What's the other thing?"

He paused, squinted, and shielded his eyes from the sun. "Contrary to popular myth, my power is limited. I have, however, cultivated a great deal of influence over the years, to a point where—in great part thanks to Adar's malign indifference, loathe though I am to admit it—I took effective control over promotions to flag rank. And I have been quietly, patiently, but I hope assiduously cleaning house. We'd gotten fat and lazy, and I needed the right kind of people. People who run toward problems, people with the judgment to know when to wait and when to get cracking. People like you. I understand why all this must seem overwhelming; you may be assured that I feel it too. But we're here. I've no use for people who shut down when they're overwhelmed. You identified the next step and took it, even if you weren't yet sure what the step after that is. I have faith in you; I had it six years ago when I appointed you, and you've given me every reason to have yet more faith in you now."

Forsyth stood at the back of the CIC, trying to take in the whole scene, to absorb the detail and commit it to memory. As overwhelming as it all was, Nagala was right: She was a reporter. That was what she did. That was what she would do.

Volakis had decamped to an office to one the side of the CIC. Without intending to, Forsyth had parked herself close enough to overhear what Haiden started saying when she joined him.

"I need to tell you something," Haiden was saying. "Between us."

They were candidates for President, and it would be so easy to eavesdrop.

You can't help yourself. You've always gotta be chasing the story, Banaias' ghost reminded her. At all costs.

Well, frak you, Caleb.

Defiantly, she walked out of earshot to a nearby desk. Unfurled on it was a map. "It shows population density," the Marine sergeant manning the desk told her. On it were scrawled grease-pencil arrows and lines in blue and green; the path of the shockwave, and the expected recession of the inundation, the sergeant explained.

"What are the checks and X-es?"

The Sergeant gave her a grim look. "A check means we've searched the building and found survivors. The X... We searched."

An urge to be sick washed over her.

"How long? Until, um..." She winced. "Before you're done searching?"

"Five days if the weather holds. A week if not."

"What do you need? What would help?"

"Prayer wouldn't go amiss." He touched one finger to his headset, holding up his other hand. "Go ahead." He cast her an apologetic look."Excuse me, please."

She walked back to the office commandeered by the candidates. "You think I do? I just—I'm a judge," Volakis was saying to Haiden. "What do I know about disaster management? We're both second-guessing ourselves."

"But you're here," Forsyth said.

"What?" Volakis and Haiden turned to look at her.

"I said, you're here. Both of you." Forsyth gestured around. "Where the frak's the administration?"

* * *

"The administration," Adelyne was explaining on a television mounted on the Newsroom's wall, "is staying out of the way of the more-than-capable first-responders of the Great Colony of Canceron. "We are ready to assist."

"Come on, Ken, Colonial Forces are already on the ground!"

"Well, then your information's better than mine," Adelyne snapped. "The President is sending his Chief of Staff to act as a liaison to the Canceran government, but this is first and foremost a Canceran operation."

"You're back," Banaias said.

"I'm back," Forsyth agreed. She walked to what was now her desk, eyeing the doorway to what had briefly been the office of Jennifer Welles-Forsyth, Political Editor of the Caprica Tribune.

"How is it?"

"Bad. It's unspeakably bad."

"Just as well your job's to write it not speak it."

She sat at her desk for about an hour trying to frame some kind of coherent thought, but the scale of it all escaped her. When she was sure no one was looking, she slipped out of the Newsroom and started walking home. She stopped at a newsstand and bought two packs of cigarettes and a lighter, lit up, and wondered which would help more, a hard hour at the gym or something unspeakable in the deep-fried-pastry category of junk food.

Or a stiff drink—but perish that thought.

Ari was out when she got home. For the first time in days, she was alone. She stared across the room; her Bentinck stared back from the shelf, and she was seized with a desire to throw it off the balcony to escape its mute mockery. She made it to her feet before thinking better of it. Her eye alighted on another decoration: A typewriter. An old, small, black, mechanical typewriter her father had given her. He had written sermons on it. She had written her first stories on it. It had come along to the Eastern Hemisphere, where she had insisted to colleagues that it was useful; if you can't instantly revise, she had parroted her father, you have to think about what you're going to say.

She retrieved it from the shelf, placed it on the countertop, rummaged in a drawer for a sheet of paper, and fed it into the roller.

The cat hopped onto the countertop and mewed. I'm sorry you're having a rough day, his expression said, but let's get to the you-feeding-me part of this conversation, hmm?

She scritched his chin, closed her eyes, and thought.

THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES, she typed. THE DEATH TOLL WILL RUN TO THE THOUSANDS; MAYBE TENS. IT'S A SOBERING THING. IT MAKES YOU COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS AND ASK YOURSELF WHAT YOU'RE DOING WITH YOUR LIFE -- WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO MAKE IT MATTER.

## Chapter Thirty-Two. Consequences.

Seattle, Midtown Caprica City.

March 23.

"Hi everyone. I'm Jennifer. I'm an alcoholic. A month ago, it was just short of six months since my last drink and I found myself in a bar."

She licked her lips, more nervous than she had expected.

"I came damn close to making it no months, no days. It's funny, I thought to myself, 'this is where you started.' Back then, I felt like everything I touched was turning to crap. And I used to justify it to myself; I said, a drink makes me better at my job. The worst part is, it did. Some of the time. But soon my husband was coming home and I was three drinks in and hoping he couldn't smell it on me. One day you just realize nothing in your life's what you thought it was. But you can start again, right?

"So I got sober. And I thought things were going better. Well enough I'd stopped coming to meetings. And then I got knocked on my ass and I found myself sat in a bar staring into a drink. And of all people, of all frakking people, my shithead boss shows up and tells me to go to a meeting. And I wanted to kill him. Actually," she winced, "I wanted to drink my martini then kill him. I knew he was right, and is it weird I hate him even more for that? I didn't go to a meeting. But I didn't drink. I went home sober, and I told my husband I loved him, and we went to bed and I woke up with a clear head, and I didn't have to start counting again. So I'm grateful for that, I guess. And I knew I had to come back."

There was light applause and a pat on her back from a grossly overweight man sitting next to her, contact Forsyth could have done without.

She was still spiraling on the unwanted contact when the next person began speaking.

"I'm, uh. I'm Lucy."

Involuntarily—professional habits—Forsyth's ears pricked up. 'Lucy' was slight, redheaded, and had the clipped accent of metropoli throughout the worlds. She looked familiar, too, but Forsyth couldn't place her. In this city and this business, who the hell doesn't look familiar? Nevertheless, she had heard enough lies over the years to know that whoever 'Lucy' was, that wasn't her name.

Which is fine, Jen; stop being a prick. She tried to shut off the thought-loop. These things are supposed to be anonymous, dummy.

"I realized recently, I hate everyone I work with and I hate who they've made me. So I started drinking and I've not really stopped since. I used to think we—that I was doing some good. But I can't look at myself in the mirror and say that anymore. My last drink was about an hour ago. I've actually no idea what I'm going to do in the morning, I'm out of sick days. I never thought of myself as an addict, but I finished the bottle and it was either this or a bar, so," she pressed her hands together and flexed her shoulders. "Here I am. I guess."

Claps and encouraging advice ensued.

Forsyth wasn't sure how much good these meetings actually did her. Addiction Recovery Fellowship built on the basic principles of Libranese mysticism: Suffering isn't the plan of the gods, it comes from disordered, attachments and uncontrolled desires, but you can control your actions, thereby attaining peace, and it's easier to do that in a community. Ho hum. But beyond that, it was relentlessly practical, as Volakis had pointed out. Pray for Sophrosyne's aid and abstain; well, try to pray, but do abstain. That part worked.

The meetings... Well, they had free coffee, albeit crummy coffee. It was on her walk home, and it couldn't hurt.

When the meeting broke up, 'Lucy' was waiting for her by the door. Professional habits reared up again. Something was off; the jeans and flannel shirt were too new, and worn with such visible discomfort, the leather bandoulière bag too chic and expensive to match the supermarket clothes.

"Hi. Sorry. Jennifer, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Listen, I, um... I hit rock bottom recently. Some people, that breaks them. I won't be one of them. I want to be one of the ones who bounces back, and I think you're the same. This is probably inappropriate, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable. But, uh... I think we can help each other."

"Aw. I'm sorry, I don't know that I'd make a good sponsor."

"No, no. That's not what I mean. Look, can I buy you a cup of coffee?"

Forsyth gestured mutely toward a table covered by two coffeepots and an array of disposable cups and powdered sweeteners and creamers.

"Drinkable coffee," the redhead pressed. "You're Forsyth, right? We have a mutual friend. Well... had. She said you came to these, sometimes."

Forsyth arched an eyebrow. "You know, it's supposed to be anonymous."

The redhead was damned familiar-looking, come to think of it. And she looked more anxious than made sense at an ARF meeting—after one, anyway.

"Claire didn't leave because she wanted to spend more time with her family, and she didn't run to Canceron because she was about to be indicted, and I bet you don't believe a word of it, either."

"Cla—" Recognition dawned. "You know," Jen Forsyth said to Frances Innes, "my apartment isn't far. And my husband makes excellent coffee."

* * *

"When you bring work home with you, you really do," Ari observed.

She batted his shoulder lightly. "Thanks for the coffee, hon."

"I'll make myself scarce. Shout if you need reinforcements." He cracked a sly smile. "She looks dangerous, this one."

She glanced across the apartment at Innes' slender form, then shot Ari a look. "You only think you're kidding."

Innes had showed herself onto the balcony and was gazing out over the park across the street. She looked very small, very fragile, and very far away.

"Here," Forsyth said, offering her one of the mugs.

"A week ago it snowed," Innes said. "Next week it'll be summer storms." She glanced at Forsyth and took the proffered mug. "I hate this planet."

"Me too."

"This rollercoaster season thing destroys my sinuses. Back home, it's consistent. And I didn't care, you know? Because I was doing something important. You'll put up with a lot to do something that matters."

"I get it. I'm Pican. Where's home, Frances?"

"Canceron."

Forsyth's face fell. "Oh, no. Is your family okay?"

Innes chuckled softly. "Would you believe you're the first person to ask me that? In two weeks, not one person I work with has asked. I've no idea. The comms channels are still clogged. The mail—who even knows."

"I was there. It was overwhelming."

"I, um..."

She was crying, Forsyth noted; shaking and visibly trying to hold it in.

"Do you smoke?" Innes blurted.

"Sometimes."

"It's a filthy habit. I'd never do that."

Forsyth scoffed softly and looked away, sliding her right hand over her neck. There are tricks to making a source trust you. One is, if you know body-language cues, you can shape their reactions based on how their subconscious thinks you're reacting to them. Another is, you've got to know when 'I'd never do that' means 'make it easy for me.'

"Let me get you one." Forsyth smiled, stepped into the apartment, and retrieved two packs, Tauron Red Lite and Tauron Green. She handed both to Innes along with a matchbook. The latter chose one of the menthols; she nearly dropped the pack over the railing and took two tries to light it, her hands were shaking so badly.

"We were the heroes," she offered in a choked, plaintive squeak. "The good guys. I thought we were, anyway. But this isn't how the good guys are supposed to behave. This is crap. It's wrong. To hear Culverson talk, that's naïve. She said it's a luxury that I get to keep my hands clean."

Forsyth put her arms around Innes. She didn't know what else to do.

Innes pulled away, abruptly. "So your source. Claire was leaking to you?"

"She's not the only one. But before they caught her, yeah. Sometimes I'd get quotes or documents. Other times, on background, she'd point me in the right direction. Put things in context."

"Figures. She hired me, straight off of Canceron. I was her protégé." She paused. "Culverson gave you people Novak to kill her story."

"Yes, I know." Believe me, I know. It was my story.

"She used to be Claire's protégé. Way back in '88, when Jerry and Claire were working the Ruiz campaign, Claire hired Carolyn. When Kominsky brought Claire out here to the mayor's office, Carolyn came with, and he poached her. I think Claire used to tell herself that she didn't know what Carolyn does; might have suspected, but didn't know. Kominsky's got no qualms about it, though."

"And what exactly does she do?"

Innes was silent for a moment. She took a long drag on the cigarette and blew smoke into the air. "My predecessor was an addict. They didn't tell me that, but I've discovered things recently. A lot of things. He couldn't keep his habit under control. And that kept him under Carolyn's control."

"I didn't know that."

"I'm sure. They never got a chance to use it. He killed himself; they didn't tell me that, either. Claire brought me here to interview for a job. It was supposed to be Counsel for an IG office, and the day after, they bring me into Cav House and J.G. Kominsky, the President's Chief of Staff himself, told me I'd passed my audition and did I want to work there? I mean... Did I want to work at Cavendish House, I wanted to ask? For President Adar? Are you kidding?"

"It was flattering."

"You think?" Innes scoffed. "Come to find out, my predecessor had been saving up for a rainy day. He swallowed enough hydrocodone to kill someone twice his weight and two bottles of whiskey, and locked himself in his office. And they needed to replace him, quiet and fast. I just happened to be there at the same time."

"I remember that. I thought he had a heart attack."

"Funny how it can work out that way when someone has something on the coroner. But you can find out all sorts of things when you're nice to the Special Branch guards. They like you when you learn their names and say hi every morning.

"I don't know what Carolyn had on Claire, but I know there was plenty of fight in her when she left Cavendish House. And I know she got on a plane to Canceron a few hours later, without a fight, and no one's heard from her since. That's what Carolyn does. Keeping people on a leash, and blackmailing members of the Scorpion Presidium, and throwing Kent Novak under the bus to protect her boss. She makes sure your boss gets paid off, and if that doesn't work, she knows everyone's secrets and hangs them up like the proverbial sword of Damocles." She scoffed. "Everyone except for me. I don't have any secrets."

"That makes you dangerous."

"Yes. But not like you mean. Carolyn's in love with me."

Forsyth blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"She thinks no one knows. That she hides it. But she wants me, and the thinner she's spread, the harder it's getting for her to keep it in." Innes stubbed her cigarette out on the railing and sipped her coffee. "I should be flattered, I suppose. But it means that where I'm concerned... I'm a blind spot. She's not going to suspect me."

"Suspect you of what?"

Innes scoffed softly. "And they said I was naïve. What did you think, Jen, that it was just a coincidence that I came to the same ARF meeting as you?"

"So your share—that was a lie?"

"No, that was mostly true. But that's not the problem I was there to work on, and I hope you didn't think it was a secret you were in recovery. That's probably what she had on you, by the way."

"She can't use that anymore. It's an open secret now. Which—oh. I see." She chuckled.

"Now you're catching on. I wasn't lying about my last drink, and I wasn't lying that I think we can help each other. I have a legit reason for showing up to that meeting; I can say honestly it wasn't for you, though that's why I chose that meeting."

"I told you I'd make a crap sponsor."

"I don't care. That's not the point."

"What's the point?"

Innes walked back into the apartment and retrieved her bandoulière, watched by a fat, marmalade tabby cat that wore an expression of feline disdain for the intruder.

"I was Claire's protégé," she repeated. "I knew her well. Better than Carolyn ever did. Well enough that I knew her password." She withdrew an e-sheet from her bag, placed it in the countertop, straightened it, and tapped at a series of Kare logograms as it blinked to life. "You need a new source for the story you're about to start writing. So we may need a cover."

# Interlude 2.

Coldstream, Virgon.

January 9, 1,999 A.E.

Fourteen months ago.

"You're talking about civilians. You're asking me to send my Marines against a civilian population!"

"No, General Bratton." Culverson leaned forward and pushed a piece of paper across the desk, its corners cut neatly in the traditional style of the Helios Alpha worlds. "The President of the Colonies, your Commander-in-Chief, is ordering you to deploy his Marines to safeguard civilian infrastructure against an escalating situation, with rules of engagement appropriate to defending themselves and others."

"Semantics. Word-games. Call it what you want; you can't be serious."

Culverson hesitated a beat. "Let me be candid with you about what is happening here. Aerilon is the breadbasket of the Colonies. If food production halts, people starve. That was bad enough, but a general strike? The Territorials, local enforcement, they're all part of it now. The President is..." She clicked her tongue, looking for the right phrase. "Not unsympathetic to their concerns and demands." (That part, at the very least, was a lie.) "But they've effectively taken the harvest hostage. This has to end, and it can't wait a moment more."

"But—" there are other agricultural areas, there's no shortage, there's no crisis, that's nothing more than pretext, Bratton started to say, but thought better of it. She stared at Culverson, feeling sick.

She looked out of the window, and wished that she could consult with Admiral Nagala, 186 million miles down the gravity-well. The timing could not be worse; Virgon and Picon were almost in opposition. What a stupid decision that had been—what a politician's decision—to locate the respective headquarters of Corps and Fleet on different worlds.

She could send Nagala priority flash traffic over the laser. Sixteen minutes to get there, the same again coming back, and who even knew how long it would take for the message to reach him? And for him to compose a reply? And that was assuming he was at his desk; what time was it in Perkinston, anyway? For all Bratton knew, it could be the middle of the night.

Conceivably she could find a Raptor and have a pilot make an FTL jump to Picon. But Culverson looked like she wasn't going to budge until Bratton gave her an answer.

"Look, here's how I see it, General." Culverson scratched her face, her tone bland. "You have the President's order. You've got three options: Implement the order, refuse, or resign. But I need to warn you that if you refuse," she tapped her attache case, "I also have an order relieving you of command."

"He can't do that!"

"He can, and he has."

"That's a contested... That's... Pleione, Culverson, frak the legalities; just—do you understand what you're asking me to do here?"

"Yes."

"And do you—not the administration robot. You, Carolyn actual. Do you have an opinion on that? For frak's sake, you were—you're asking me to give kids no older than you were an order that will very likely lead to them killing civilians."

For just an instant, something flashed across Culverson's face. Surely she was tempted to make a cold, snappy comeback if nothing else. She licked her lips, seeming to choose her words with care. "We, you and I," she pointed to Bratton, then to herself, "are under the command of the President of the Colonies. He has decided that the Aerilon General Strike cannot be allowed to continue, and that the Colonial Marine Corps will break that strike. I am here to convey his order to you, the Commanding Officer of those Marines. We, you and I..."

Was it Bratton's imagination that Culverson's face softened, just a hair?

"Maybe we have opinions about that order. But what it is, Sir, is a legal order, duly issued by our superior officer. And, like all such orders, it will be executed by us, his subordinates."

Definitely her imagination, Bratton decided. Under other circumstances, she might have admired the self-discipline it must have taken for Culverson to say that without comment or even a caustic tone.

"What I need from you, General, is a simple yes or no. Will you execute the order?"

For the first time in her life, Kimberly Bratton felt trapped.

What we do here, she thought, the next words out of my mouth, will have repercussions for decades to come.

# ACT FIVE.   
DANCING ON THE RIM OF THE VOLCANO.

## Chapter Thirty-Three: Nagala.

April 11.

Four days before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies.

It was Monday the 11th of April on Caprica when the Admiralty Board met for what would prove to be the last time. On Virgon, it was the 41st of Aura. On Picon, it was the 9th of Elaphios, and by the time Corman returned to FHQ, it was early evening. Nagala had been about ready to call it a day.

He was feeling better, he had to admit. It was an awful thing to say aloud, but Canceron had let him feel useful again. He had not realized how badly he had needed to deal with something concrete; to take immediate command and confront a problem he could wrap his hands around. It had been reinvigorating. He had even seen glimmers of hope that relations with Cav House could be repaired. Perhaps Adar had screamed himself breathless in private; that was his business. But he had said little in public, and he had sent no less than his Chief of Staff to liaise. J.G. Kominsky had proven soft-spoken and reasonable. He struck Nagala as someone he could work with.

"Pete, do calm down. All I need's you stroking out on me."

In Nagala's absence, Corman had assumed duties as the Chairman of the Admiralty Board, and he looked to have been fuming for the entire flight back from Caprica.

"I don't know what they were expectin', puttin' a frakkin' kid in charge of the Cav House Mil Office? Gerstmann, they put a frakkin' college professor on top of MoD?" He paced back and forth. "None of them get it. None of them can make Adar understand. They have no i-dea. No clue at all."

"That man will never understand anything that doesn't suit his immediate need. If Bratton couldn't talk him out of using Marines against a civilian population, no one can talk him out of anything."

"They don't understand the consequences to the things bein' set in in motion."

"What things?" Concern stirred in Nagala. "What motion? For goodness' sakes, would you sit down and tell me what's happened?"

Corman dropped into a chair and stared into the unlit fireplace. "The Caprica unions situation. You been followin'?"

"Unions?" He blinked. "Of course not."

"I'd not, either, beyond what you see in the papers. Their teachers are strikin' a couple of days a week over some malolly or other. But Special Branch, turns out, has infiltrated the public sector unions, and they have convinced the President that they plan on striking in solidarity with the teachers. Including the cops. Sound familiar yet?"

"Worrisomely. Go on."

"Gerstmann put a draft order before the Board today. It'll direct the Marines to deploy to positions across Caprica and hold there in preparation to take law enforcement positions and break strikes and pickets as necessary. We're directed to impound any ship Cav House designates. I got fifty cubits says there's an order telling Special Branch to do the same. It's back-to-work at the end of a godsdamned bayonet."

"He can't do that," Nagala said immediately. Too quickly. There were a dozen reasons why—and yet...

"It's done." Corman's tone was flat and he met Nagala's gaze with a little shake of his head. "The lawyers have to sign off on the final text, but Gerstmann was crystal clear it's a done deal unless the strike ends this week."

It's happening again. It's happening just like it did a year ago. Nagala ran a hand through thinning hair and said nothing.

"The Secretary of Education is trying to negotiate with the unions, but I did not have the impression they hold out any expectation that she will succeed." He paused. "Adar's always been a prick, but I read History as a minor, and this story..." His voice was strained. "This is the same story I've read a dozen times, and it's never yet ended well for anyone."

They sat in silence for a few moments. Before Nagala could say anything, there was a knock on the door and there emerged into the room an Enlisted wearing a Signals Corps patch below her FHQ shoulder-patch. She couldn't have been more than 19, he reflected.

"Sir, I have a telex. The President wants to see you in his office. It says ASAP."

Nagala sat forward, clasped his hands, and gazed silently at the desk for a moment. He glanced at the Enlisted, then met and held Corman's eyes. "What time is it in Caprica City, Specialist?"

"Six." Corman and the Enlisted chorused. That was a curious coincidence, Nagala thought; it was the same time in Perkinson.

"And how far away is Virgon right now?"

"Virgon, Sir? Fourteen light-minutes."

Impressive that she knows that without missing a beat. "I see. Thankyou." He grabbed a piece of paper and started writing. "Admiral Corman, find us a Raptor and a pilot. Quickly, if you would. Specialist—" He signed the paper with his expansive signature, the last stroke of the final a curling back around his name. He folded the paper and handed it to her. "I would like you to send this as a telex to General Bratton at MHQ. Right away and under cypher, please. After you've done that, I would like for you to wait until it passes midnight in Caprica City, then reply to the President's telex with the following. Word-for-word, if you would."

Amesbury, Virgon.

Two of the three most powerful people in the Colonial Forces sat in a nondescript Pancake House in a nondescript suburb two hundred miles south of MHQ, wearing nondescript civilian clothes. The third arrived wearing jeans, a t-shirt proclaiming allegiance to a psychedelic-rock band, and her hair down. They were as anonymous as they could possibly be.

Bratton dropped into the booth across from Nagala and Corman. Hands were shaken. In Boskirk, it was a little after 18:00; in Amesbury, it was 20:00. Back in Perkinston, it was gone one in the morning, and Nagala felt that reality in his bones.

"My apologies for dragging you down here." A lifetime in the service had beaten every ounce of aristocratic pretense out of him, but never Virgon's polite, deferential manners. "This is not a protocol I ever wanted to use."

"There's a reason we set it up. Always smart to have contingency plans." Bratton flipped nonchalantly through the menu.

"Start you with some tea?" A waiter appeared beside them. "Coffee?" He took orders for coffee from Corman, tea from Nagala and Bratton, and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

"I've never been here," Bratton said, casually but loud enough that if the waiter were listening he would overhear. "What's good?"

"It's been a while," Nagala said, matching her tone. "I used to like the short-stack with Pican bacon. Otherwise you'll have to put an extra klick on your run in the morning."

"I'm trying to cut down on it. Hrrr."

"Which, the bacon, or the runnin'?" Corman cracked. He sounded nervous, Nagala thought, which was probably appropriate.

Bratton didn't look up. "Why are we here, Ed?"

"Pete says you missed the Board meeting this morning. Have you talked to your people yet?"

"No." She frowned. "They won't report until morning. You didn't fly a hundred and a half million miles to slap my wrist, any more than you did to buy me dinner. You don't attend those meetings anymore either."

"Quite so. Pete, did you take a copy of that draft, or are we relying on your memory?"

Corman had the good grace to feign offense. "We were sternly admonished to leave our copies in the board room when we left." He pulled a copy out of his jacket, put it on the table, and pushed it toward Bratton. "Oops."

She put down the menu and reached for the sheaf.

"Gerstmann presented that to the Board. It's a draft, subject to technical corrections by the Counsel's offices at Cav House and MoD, but we are to expect it to be an order from the Commander-in-Chief by end of week. Early next at the latest."

She read the first page, turned to the second, paused, finished it, skimmed the third, and sat back, wordless.

The waiter returned with their drinks and gestured to the menus. "Do you need a minute?"

Bratton scoffed.

"Yeah," Corman said. "Give us just another minute if you would."

"They've learned nothing," Bratton whispered.

"No." Corman shook his head. "No, they have not. I'm not doin' it. I won't. And I'm not tryin' to tell you what to do, Kim, but—"

"I'm not either. Not after what happened in Balfast."

"They say Adar feels badly about that," Nagala observed.

"Does he? Apparently," she tapped her fingers on the paper, "not enough. So it's to be treason, then? I won't have my Marines put into a situation where they might have to shoot at civilians." Bratton shook her head emphatically. "Not again. I won't allow it."

Everyone, Nagala remembered Corman saying not so long ago, has their breaking point. "As I read this, it's not a deployment order. Not yet. They're just staging them in case needed, though I think it's clear they expect to. We have a few days to maneuver. Pete has an idea."

"What I've got in my mind is the Hague letter." Corman looked between them. "He wanted to have the senior officers sign a letter to the Trib. What if all the uniformed members of the board plus the senior officers in the chain of command issue a joint public statement that we won't implement this order, and we'll all resign if the President makes it a direct order?"

"Will that stop him?"

"Not if it's done privately," Nagala said. "But in public? With the Twelve Words watching? It might. Adar is acutely worried about how history will remember him, and above all, he yearns to be loved and appreciated by the people, in the moment. This hits him where it hurts."

Bratton thought for a minute. "Say I'm aboard. How would we do it? I suppose we'd have to leak the text," she tapped a finger on the sheaf.

"FHQ does not leak," Corman said. "Period."

Beside him, Nagala winced, the jab not lost on him.

"Not just a summary of it, either," Bratton added. "We'll have to out the draft itself. And swear to its authenticity. No one's going to take this on faith. And good luck finding a journalist with enough clout to get it out before it's official."

Corman stared daggers at Nagala. "Are you gonna tell her or am I?"

"Tell me what?"

"Sometimes," Corman said, darkly, "FHQ does leak."

Bratton looked between Corman and Nagala. "Will one of you spit it out? We're not frakking around here, this is serious!"

"I know someone," Nagala admitted. "I can get it done."

"You're going to have to do better than that."

Nagala grimaced, grinding his teeth. "I have established a mutually beneficial relationship with Jennifer Forsyth at the Caprica Tribune. For the last year or so. She helps me with copy, I leak things to her here and there, she sends me things that she can't print." Saying these things aloud made his skin itch. "That sort of thing."

"Sensible," Bratton said.

If it bothered her at all, he could not detect it. She was not that much younger than him, and yet...

"So," she added, "the idea is—you give it to her, she breaks the story, and then—what? We make ourselves available to do the news circuit?"

"Something like that. At minimum, you and I should be on Caprica when the story breaks. We should all sign a letter and she can have it in the paper at the same moment it lands on Adar's desk."

"How long? Can you give me a timeline?"

"A few days. I'd guess Thursday or Friday, and I'm told Adar rarely appears downstairs before nine. The timing's the trick of it, so let's assume Friday at 0900 Caprica City Time. Kim, draft something you can live with and send it to Pete under personal cypher. I trust your judgment. Pete, I'll drop you back on Picon. Both of you start sounding out the board if you can, quietly. I'd like the Cav House Mil Office taken off the Heartbeat Reports; leave MoD on there for now. For a day or two, we can make it look like an oversight, a technical problem, anything you like. Let's start rumors at FHQ and MHQ that I'm considering retirement; put it in the clear in some routine transmission overnight and it'll filter into the chatter back to Pyrmont. Gossip's the only thing in the universe that moves faster than the speed of light, and it'll put them off balance."

"Agreed," Corman said. "Wait—drop me off? Where are you gonna be?"

"I need to wrap up a couple of things on Picon, then I'll stop by Caprica to make the handoff to Forsyth. Then I'm going to jump out to the Atlantia. This seems an excellent moment to disappear, and she's well off the beaten track in Delta. It's somewhere to hide out that's outside of voice range. I'll play the sad old man going back for one last look at his ship. Kim, it would be most unfortunate were you to be on leave at, say, a campsite that isn't reachable by phone. I'll come pick you up at MHQ at 0700 Friday morning, Cap City time, and we'll all meet at the Ministry of Defence at 0900. What day's that here?"

Bratton's eyes flickered as she did the math. "It's before dawn on Bodhi second," she murmured.

"Well, that's perfect," Nagala deadpanned. "Mutiny on the second, give it three weeks for a court-martial, and we can all be shot for treason by the first of Kaia. I never liked autumn anyway."

## Chapter Thirty-Four: Carolyn.

Cavendish House.

The morning of Tuesday, April, 12.

When Carolyn's alarm finally woke her, everything felt stiff. She hit snooze and dropped her leg out of bed. It didn't jump-start her. 0610 came and went before she dragged herself upright and padded into the kitchen. The coffeemaker had not run; she massaged her temples and swore. Had she forgotten to set it? Maybe. The days were starting to run together.

Nicola was already up, chain-smoking over a stack of papers and notebooks.

"Busy week?" Carolyn asked, rolling her neck, trying to work out the crick.

"Yeah. Sorry, I've gotta skip our run."

"Fine. I'm not in the mood anyway. May I?" She stole one of Nicola's cigarettes and lit it. "Is it a bad sign to wake up with a stress headache?"

"It's not a good sign."

"Yeah. Frak," she sighed. "I don't mind carrying the worlds on my shoulders, but they oughta buy me some Muscle Rub."

"Try an orgasm," Nicola said, and Carolyn couldn't tell whether she was joking or not.

"Who has the time?" Carolyn muttered. She dressed and walked to the ferry terminal, buying an overpriced cup of coffee and a muffin from a vendor there. It wasn't the right coffee or the right breakfast, but it was good, she told herself, and wasn't that what mattered? She could be more flexible.

At 0630, as the ferry lumbered across the water, her watch tapped her wrist, reminding her that it was time for to leave the apartment for their morning run. She scoffed, lit a cigarette, and tried to pick out Innes' building from the black hulks lurking out of the dark on the south shore. With Kominsky splitting weeks between Caprica and Canceron, she was left carrying his work and her schedule was shot to hell.

By her count, she had dealt with seven crises in four months. The parade of leaks to Forsyth had been strangled, and the resulting stories that had so piqued the President had dried up. Two down. Kent Novak and the groundwork for his future Presidential campaign had been dynamited. Three down, and with the driving force behind it gone, Caprica's incipient trade war with OTEC had evaporated. That (plus exercising her 'stock options' on Sam Reed) had taken the wind out of the Scorpian secessionists. Four down; line 'em up. All of this had improved the President's mood (plus frakking the Secretary of Education—more ammunition for Carolyn should it ever come to that), and that plus Kominsky's solemn injunction had stopped his bitchy comments about Haiden. Five down.

Canceron was a problem, but natural disasters happened. What did they want her to do about that?

There remained the ongoing unions problem. Some of them wanted money and were happy to pretend it was about an Aerilon Inquest. Others wanted an Inquest and were happy to pretend it was about money. It didn't really matter who was jumping on which bandwagon; from a distance, Carolyn had respected the expert cynicism with which they were playing the game. It was less fun since it became her problem.

And while Kominsky had always enjoyed a relationship with the President that let him be a counterweight, taming the President's worse instincts, Carolyn could barely get a meeting. She had to doubt whether Adar would tell her if he did something regrettable, let alone consult her beforehand.

The mood at Cav House was dour. If Claire Kikuchi had ratted and been for the chop... Of course people were going to wonder who was next. And, meanwhile, the more times Volakis and Haiden debated, the sharper the contrast became between their good cheer and the capital's dispirited malaise. As she walked through Pyrmont, she wondered whether it was her imagination that the permanent staffs now looked at her as if bidding her goodbye. And in many cases, she would hate to admit, good riddance. There seemed a palpable eagerness to move on to whatever was next.

Adelyne had told her that he recognized the feeling. Some relative had been a doctor to the Virgan Royal Court when King Andrew's father had lingered on the edge of death, in and out of a coma for almost six months. 'Dead but still dreaming,' they had said, leaving everyone suspended in limbo.

It was so unfair. It was no way for the good guys to be treated.

"Miss Culverson?" A lanky kid with untidy hair and a rumpled, ill-fitting shirt caught her on her way through her door. "I'm Ben?"

"Is that a question?

"Ha, no, I'm, um, the overnight duty officer for the Mil Office? Um. Do you know where Mister Kominsky is?"

"Yes. Not here. What?"

"Um. I think I'm supposed to take this to him."

His hands were shaking. The kid was afraid of her, she realized; afraid of her reaction to whatever was in his hand, anyway. That had pleased her, once upon a time, but more and more, lately, she feared that what the flunkies saw might also be what Innes saw. She was trying, really trying to change; couldn't anyone see that? It wasn't her fault they'd been busy.

She gave him her most withering look.

"Well, the President directed Admiral Nagala to report to his office."

"'Directed'?" Carolyn snickered, leading him into her office. I bet Nagala loved that locution. "Alright. So he's here? Is that what you're telling me?"

"Um. No. That was sent last night. This, um... Over the telex, this came in overnight," the flunky said, proffering a sheet of paper.

Carolyn scowled at him, snatched it from his hands, and read it. It was short and she had always been a fast reader, but she stopped, swallowed, and read it again, this time slowly and aloud. "'I respectfully decline, stop, EN, stop'?" Culverson stared at the paper, the words on it failing to cohere into thoughts. Make that eight problems in four months. She had forgotten Nagala's impromptu hissy fit with the President. "Is he kidding?" If not, this is nine.

"Uh—well, Miss Culverson, I don't know? That's what came in." The flunky looked positively terrified now. "The coding is right," he offered.

She folded the paper and dropped it into her shredder. "That makes no sense. I can't put this in front of Kominsky; not like this, anyway. He's got enough on his plate as it is." And I'm sure as hell not waking the President. "Go confirm it."

The flunky didn't move.

"There's more, huh?"

"Um. Well, we don't seem to be getting the Heartbeat Report anymore."

"The what?"

"They're, um, automated reports that go out from Fleet Headquarters and Marine Headquarters. They give an overview of what they believe to be the current state of operational readiness and the current location of all active formations. There's a print version that goes to all commands daily, and tightbeam updates hourly to us, MoD, Area Commands... A few other places... But anyway, we stopped getting them a few hours ago. At first, I mean, I wasn't worried about the first one, but then another didn't come in, and another. Now, Lou, um, that's my boss, he told me to call over to MoD, and they're still getting it, so it's possible that it's just an oversight."

"That seems unlikely. Didn't you say it was automated? Some kind of technical issue, maybe?"

"Well, but Lou thinks that's unlikely because it's both FHQ and MHQ."

"Go confirm—wait." She thought for a few moments and drew a blank. There was a sure course of action that was obvious but unpalatable. On the other hand... She bit her lip. Did she really trust this kid? Or the Mil Office, for that matter? Still less FHQ? Trust was a commodity she had in short supply these days.

"Never mind, I'll do it myself. Telex FHQ that I'm on my way and I want to see Nagala as soon after I get there as he's available." Time to warm up that trump card.

"That might be a problem."

"What now?"

"So—they say, I mean... There's word he's considering retirement. Which is crazy, right," he giggled nervously, "and I'd not believe it, only he's apparently gone off somewhere. Or he's going somewhere right now. Like—as we speak. He's on his way to the battlestar... I think the Adriatica. Maybe I misheard that. Yeah, I definitely think it's the Atlantia now I think about it."

What little patience Carolyn had left was about ready to expire. "Could you explain the significance of that to me?"

"There's no tightbeam shore-to-ship. So you're left with wireless or physical mail, which massively cuts your bandwidth and increases transmission time. Depending on where Atlantia is, she might not be reachable by wireless for all intensive purposes."

"I'm sorry, I don't speak tech-geek. Walk me through this like I know nothing about the finer details of how telecoms work."

"Ah. Okay, so." The flunky unclenched a little, seeming happy to be back on a topic he knew. "Wireless is like throwing a stone in a pond. You broadcast, the signal goes out like ripples from throwing a stone in a pond, only they travel at the speed of light, and you receive the message in something like realtime, only on a delay, right? Tightbeam comms are different. You pull out your e-sheet or your cell phone, and you send a vid message to someone on, say, Picon. The data gets chopped up into digital bits, zips up to a satellite over Caprica, then gets shot out of a laser at a receiving dish over Picon. The signal travels at the same speed as a wireless wave, but it's digital and the bandwidth is much higher. Now, you can't do that for a ship, obviously—"

"Obviously."

"— not even... Ahem, yes, well, not even one the size of a battlestar. That kind of array has to be in continuous contact. Everything in space moves constantly, so these systems, each end communicates and realigns with the other, minute by minute, and you can only do that with relatively large, fixed-point systems. Wireless is much slower and has much lower bandwidth. That's why your Mesh bandwidth's crap on planes, even on good airlines and well-traveled routes. But the upside's that it's broadwave, you don't have to know where the recipient is. Low-tech though it sounds, the military mainly communicates with ships underway by mail. They have planes going back and forth carrying paperwork, they report flight-plans and whatever. This is how it works, Miss Culverson."

She took a moment to absorb that, and blinked several times. She clasped her hands and took a long, deep breath.

"It's, 'um, Ben,' you said?"

He managed a nod.

"Let me summarize, um, Ben, what I think you're telling me. You're telling me that the Chief of Fleet Operations is unreachable. He's gone to either the battlestar Adriatica or the battlestar Atlantia, we're unsure which, for no reason that makes sense. You're telling me that before he vanished to parts unknown, and apparently beyond the capacity of modern technology to get a message to him, whether by wireless, cell phone, telex, telephone, e-mail, handwritten letter, or frakking smoke signals, he refused a meeting with the President of the Colonies. And you're telling me that there is now some kind of communications breakdown between this building and the commands of the uniformed services. Do I have that right? Did I miss anything?"

The flunky literally fingered his collar and it took everything in her to not laugh at that. "Busy morning, huh?" he laughed, nervously.

"Alright." She sighed, feeling almost unnaturally calm given the circumstances. "I would like for you to tell FHQ that I'm on my way and would like to speak to Admiral Corman. If he's not available, I'll take literally anyone there who can give me a straight answer." She walked past the flunky and retrieved a go-bag from behind the door. "And I would like you to tell the Staff Secretary that I want a driver in the courtyard in five minutes and a ticket for the first flight to Picon after I can get to the Midtown Spaceport. Okay?"

The flunky nodded. "Is there anything else?"

"Yes, Ben, there is." She edged even closer to him. "Give me your phone charger and get out."

She could have bought one easily enough, but it was a stressful morning, and playing a little catch-and-release took the edge off.

As soon as the door was closed, she put her hands together over her face. The worlds are coming apart. The head of the Colonial Fleet just blew off the President of the Colonies.

She didn't doubt the signal's authenticity. She just didn't know what to do. She needed time to think. She needed fresh air. And grease. Surely to the gods there was someone in the square selling something comfortingly unhealthy.

We're the good-guys! Why can't they understand that? We're the ones who're trying to make the worlds better.

## Chapter Thirty-Five: Frances.

Seattle.

Forsyth's door opened and the journalist stared at her in surprise, bleary-eyed and wrapped in a robe. "Endymion's sakes, Frances, it's eight o'clock in the morning!"

"Good, I caught you."

"What are you doing here?"

"They called me in early." She didn't wait to be invited in, thrusting a sheaf of papers at Forsyth. "Read. The Minister of Defense delivered a draft to the Admiralty Board yesterday, and they need—or want, rather—me to sign off on the language. Presumably to cover them for when it goes to hell. I bounced it back over to MoD to clarify something and stepped out for a while 'to get a quick breakfast.' I think they bought it."

Forsyth kicked the door shut behind her, skimming through the papers. "Godsdamn, is he stupid?"

"Or desperate."

"They must think they're invincible. Who else has seen this?"

"Adar. Gerstmann." Frances stole a cigarette from Forsyth's stash and lit it. "I assume a few other people had their hands on it, a floor above me. Maybe Kominsky, though I doubt it."

"Why? If he's willing to corrupt government agencies to win an election..."

"Too busy on Canceron, for one thing. Besides, it's too blunt an instrument for him. In the old days, he'd have been one for poison and assassins, not pitched battles. That's it, so far as I know. The Staff Secretary handed it to me personally, so I assume Carolyn's not in the loop. She'd have loved the excuse to stop by."

"This is incredible. You said the Board—is anyone at FHQ in the loop? Or was this sprung on them, too?"

"I have no idea."

Forsyth winced. "That cuts back our options. Even if I can get it past Banaias, I'd risk exposing you if I can't safely attribute it to someone outside of Cav House."

"Your concern's touching," Frances said, acidly. "You mean, you risk losing your source."

Forsyth's eyes fluttered away and Frances felt sure that she had not been wrong.

"Can you delay it?" Forsyth asked. "If you sit on it, what happens?"

"A day. Maybe two. Any longer—I doubt it. If he's getting ready to stage Marines on Caprica, I'd say Adar's about out of patience, wouldn't you? Why? Is that long enough for you to do something with it?"

"It's long enough to try. I have a source at FHQ—"

"Of course you do."

"—so if it came across their desk, maybe. Otherwise, we can't risk it. We've got to drop this on them all at once, or they'll know there's another leak and they'll be back on the warpath. I can write it into the main story."

"This is a little bit time sensitive," Frances observed. "Can you be ready by then?"

"Yes. I'm aiming for the Weekend edition. Believe it or not, I write well under pressure. Speaking of... Did you bring it?"

"Yeah." The cigarette had steadied her nerves a little. She pulled three manila envelopes from her bag and handed them over. "This is the last of what I could raid from Claire's office." She handed a folder to Forsyth. "There isn't a smoking gun—"

"There's never a smoking gun. It's never that easy."

"—but there is a memo we didn't already have from the Deputy Minister over CBTAC confirming that audits have been ordered for a list of names. I don't recognize the names, but I'll bet everything I own that several are in the Volakis camp. Sooner or later, enough circumstantial evidence adds up to proof."

"Yeah." Forsyth skimmed through it, dropped the folder onto her knees, and leaned back against the couch. "Yeah, that'll have to do it."

"It won't, and you know it. You've still not asked me, Jen. We both know what you need. You need someone on-record, someone who's still inside. Otherwise they'll kill it again."

There was an uncomfortable silence. "You're right. I mean, I didn't want to say it, but... yeah. Just like they did with Claire."

"I'm not like Claire," Frances heard herself snap, more vehemently than she was proud of. "They think I'm weak. They think that because I dress feminine and wear my hair nice and I'm polite, I'm soft. They're wrong. I fight to win. If I'm doing this, they're going down. You need me to say I'll go on record, and you need me to still be there when you publish it. So, ask."

Forsyth stood, walked to the window, gazed out, and was probably hoping like hell that Frances hadn't noticed her reaction. "If it makes you feel any better, I actually don't want to ask you to do this."

"Frak you, Jen. You want this so bad you can taste it. 'I don't wanna ask'?" Frances scoffed.

"You think I want to break this story? I don't wanna be the person who took down my own fullback."

"Yeah. You do. Because you think it matters. And I'm just stupid enough that I think it matters too."

"You're wrong. I don't want to have to tell the worlds that the good guys—"

"'The good guys,'" Frances murmured, with a bitter snort.

"—are running a dirty tricks campaign to sandbag a guy I don't want to be President. This finishes Adar," she stabbed a finger in the direction of Pyrmont, "and it probably sticks to the Federalists for a decade. Maybe Haiden's got enough insulation to ride it out, but an agenda I voted for, one I've supported my whole life, is fucked. For years. We're gonna have to live with that, and I will, but—"

"You supported it your whole life? It was my life."

"It—" Forsyth stopped herself and the room was suddenly silent.

It occurred to Frances that she had to look a mess. Like she was about to cry or kill someone, one or the other. Forsyth's cat wrapped himself around her ankle and rolled over to paw at her.

"What's his name?"

"Huoban. It's Canceran for—"

"I know what it means, Jen."

Silence descended again for a few moments. Eventually, Forsyth said, "I know it's hard. When you realize nothing in your life's what you thought it was. But you can start again. That's probably the single most useful takeaway in ARF, to be honest."

Frances wiped tears away from her eyes, furious at herself. "Ask me."

"Alright. The documentary evidence is strong but not conclusive. What you've brought me is great, but it's not that much more than I had when they slammed the door on it last time. I need you to make the link, on-record, and I need you to still be there when we publish. Will you do that?"

"Yes. I will."

Forsyth breathed again for what had to be the first time in several minutes. "What are you gonna do when it comes out?"

"I won't resign. That's for damn sure. If Adar fires Kominsky and Culverson, maybe he really didn't know. If he fires me, he'll prove they all knew. And they did. They all godsdamned knew, I'm sure of it." She paused, a thought occurring to her. "They all... knew... all of it. What if there's more? I've given you everything I could raid from Claire, but what if Culverson has more? Or Kominsky, for that matter."

"Well, yeah. Of course there's more, but—"

"I could search in their offices."

Forsyth hesitated. "That seems dangerous, but..." She flicked her tongue through her lips and glanced away. "I wasn't going to bring this up. I don't have details and I can't prove it. But Adar gave the orders that pushed things off a cliff in Balfast. If you found something proving that..." She tailed off, letting the implication hang in the air.

Frances wished that she could disbelieve it. She couldn't even doubt it.

"My source for that thinks it's about his ego," Forsyth added. "He can't stand looking weak. Which I'd guess is why he's willing to roll the dice doing it again on Caprica."

"It's not his ego," Frances murmured. Then, with more certainty, "Not just. It's his legacy. Everything we've done in the last eight years, the predicate of his program's that the Colonial government can manage the worlds centrally, that we can be trusted to take control. And if they can't even manage some labor and political disputes..."

Realization dawned on Forsyth's face. "It calls all of it into question. Gods, no wonder he's taking the risk. Bad enough on an agricultural planet at the far end of the system; how much worse is it on Caprica, in their own backyard? And Kominsky's offworld, right?"

"On Canceron until Wednesday night."

"Damn, that's..." She reached for a pad of paper and started scribbling. "Kominsky was always Adar's even keel, and with him gone... That makes perfect sense. I mean, it's stupid but now I... You'd better get back there. Before you're missed. I've gotta get this written up; If you can find something, great, but don't risk getting caught."

"I bet I can guess Carolyn's password," Frances said, standing to go. "She woulda been the one to convey the order. And if anyone had it and kept a copy, it'd be her. And she's a machine; as long as I've known her, she walks in the door at 8:45 on the dot. If I get there early, I'll have time."

"If she catches you... I mean, I hate to say it, but you know what you have to do. Right?"

"No way," Frances scoffed. "I won't do that."

"You said it yourself. She's got the hots for you."

"I would never—"

"I'm not suggesting you do anything of ill repute. But if you were ever going to invite her to dinner, that's the moment."

Frances bit her lip. "Even if I hated her, that's not fair."

"'Fair'?" Forsyth grabbed Frances with sudden venom. "Fair? We're working on something that'll probably bring down the government of the Colonies! It might well hand the election to someone I don't want to win, and I'm pretty damned sure you don't either, and we're doing it anyway because it matters. Because it's the right thing to do, even if it hurts, even if it costs. We're a long way past fair.

"They have the resources of the Government of the United Colonies at their fingertips, and from everything you've told me, Culverson'll take you down if she has to, crush or not. If batting your eyelashes throws her off the scent—well, you've told, so you might as well kiss, sweetheart. When I told her she had to put her name on it, Claire choked until it was too late. You're willing to go there and that takes guts; all credit to you. But we've all got lines we don't want to cross. You wanna prove you're not her? Do what it takes."

And there it is. They said she'd do anything for a story, Frances scoffed to herself. And they weren't wrong. The problem was—it was true. Every word. She's right.

## Chapter Thirty-Six: Nagala.

FHQ.

The middle of Tuesday, April, 12.

Nagala took what might be his very last look at FHQ, then clambered into the waiting Raptor. He settled into the cabin, unslung his duffel bag, and unbuttoned his jacket. He had chosen duty blues for what would come next. They were recognizable when needed, otherwise unobtrusive, and if necessary the jacket could be shed—as for this next part, for which anonymity was needed.

He glanced forward toward the pilot. "It's Lieutenant Molenaar, isn't it?"

The pilot's head snapped around, his eyes wide.

He'd be a terrible card player, Nagala thought, stuffing the jacket into his duffel. The unspoken thought was plastered all over the man's face: 'Holy frak, the Old Man really does know everyone's name!'

"D'you know everyone's name, Sir?"

Nagala pretended to not notice. "What?" He pulled a light sweater over his head and took a telescoping crutch from the duffel. "Oh. Yes."

He didn't, of course. The pilot wore the insignia of a Lieutenant and a unit patch for the Bedford Naval Air Station; he had probably flown Nagala before, but Nagala could not have picked him out of a line-up. Still, mystique must be burnished assiduously to flourish, and before boarding, he had asked the pad chief for the pilot's name.

"Lieutenant, I apologize in advance for taking you out of your way."

"Not much of a deviation, Sir. I'm scheduled to jump out to Canceron anyway."

"Yes, I know." He wasn't talking about the jump to the Atlantia. And now they arrived at why the mystique was crafted... "Actually, I need to make a brief, unscheduled stop on the way."

The pilot considered that. It occurred to Nagala, not without grim irony, that he was requesting exactly the sort of improvisational flying that Robert King used to caution Midshipmen against.

The mystique won.

"It's your plane, Sir," Molenaar agreed. Then dropped into a pastiche of a taxi driver: "Where too, guv'?"

Nagala smiled thinly at that. "You can plot a jump to Caprica on your own, I assume?"

Molenaar looked vaguely offended.

"How close can you get me to the Tribune building in Caprica City? It's at the east end of Midtown."

"If they left the window open, I can put you in a particular stall in the tenth story men's restroom. A Raptor's a nimble little frakker in the right hands."

There wasn't a trace of boastfulness in the man's voice, and Nagala's smile widened. "My confidence in my planes and pilots is boundless, but I meant without attracting attention."

"I can land at the Midtown Spaceport if I'm unfortunately experiencing a computer glitch and don't want to risk it another five minutes to Bedford. That, ah, would make me a rather poor pilot, of course."

Nagala looked in the pilot's direction, as blankly as he could manage, and blinked slowly.

Molenaar shrugged. "Still, things happen. Better safe than sorry, 'specially over the metro area, right?"

* * *

As soon as they landed, Nagala found a public telephone booth and called Forsyth's cell phone. She sounded distracted, but agreed to meet. He parked himself in a coffee shop in the outer terminal, unfolded the first broadsheet newspaper he could put his hands on, and waited.

It was near lunchtime, and the constant stream of crowds provided perfect camouflage. With the crutch instead of his cane, and wearing the sweater and wrap-around sunglasses, he felt as close to being anonymous as he could reasonably get. When anyone wearing a uniform got too close, he raised the newspaper a little higher in front of him. He lit a cigarette and left it burning in an ashtray on his table, taking the occasional drag; Admiral Nagala didn't smoke, the mystique whispered.

A half-hour after he had called, Forsyth appeared. She ignored him, buying a cup of coffee before taking a seat that was next to him but facing away from him. That was clever; Nagala wouldn't have thought of that. She was better at this sort of thing than him.

Still, time was pressing. He cleared his throat and passed to her the first of the two envelopes he had brought with him.

"I should warn you that I'm no longer the Political Editor," she said. "They made me a Correspondent."

"Is that a promotion or a demotion?"

"Depends how you look at it. Probably doesn't matter for your purposes."

"Good. Naturally, you do not know the name of the person who leaked this to you."

"Fancy seeing you here," she replied, gamely. "I just come here to get coffee. They have the best Leonese Roast." She glanced at him, flashing that smile, that winsome smile from somewhere in the interstices of amusement and confusion, and for a moment he wondered whether all his choices in life had been wrong.

He grimaced. "Do they still study Classics on Picon? Do you know the line in Cartagia: 'Motus in fine velocior'"?

"'Things accelerate toward the end.'"

"I'm impressed." He leaned close to her, his voice barely above a whisper. "Things are moving very quickly now, Mrs Forsyth."

She stared at him. "It's been a while, but doesn't that passage go on to say something like 'character is discovered in action not reflection'? I, ah... I take it you mean to act on whatever's in these envelopes?"

"You've always been very astute, Mrs Forsyth."

"How do you want this attributed? 'Official speaking on condition of anonymity'?"

"Do as you like. But this one," he proffered the other envelope, "you're to use my name. And Bratton's. And everyone else whose name's listed at the bottom."

She started. "I beg your pardon?"

"This one is on the record."

She looked dazed, and he would be lying if he said that he didn't enjoy that just a little.

"You called me to ask for a statement regarding what's in that first envelope. After conferring with my colleagues, this is our joint response. Understood? It comes with one condition."

"Name it!"

"What time does the morning edition post?"

"Paper hits tarmac at seven."

"Good. Friday morning, then. This story breaks in Friday's morning edition."

A look of panic crossed her face. "That's not much time," she managed.

"I have every confidence in you," he said, standing and reaching for the crutch.

"Admiral? What's going to happen?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "With some luck, we will talk again on Friday morning."

* * *

"If you want to come up front, Sir," Molenaar offered, "you can see her."

"No, thank you, I"—know what she looks like. The line was so well-practiced and automatic. But now he came to think of it...

"Actually, yes, thank you. That would be nice."

The battlestar Atlantia had been a one-off. An experiment, a platform to test ideas and technologies that had eventually made their way into the Mercury-type. She was an ugly, misshapen thing, her crocodile-head too flat, her gun-deck little more than a series of boxes welded together, her flight-pods connected by the barest, most brutally functional struts, a sublight engine section that reared out of her stern, somehow out-of-scale, as if tacked on as an afterthought. She was not a pretty ship, and if he ever again had to go into combat, he would be lying if he said she would be his first choice. But she had been Nagala's command once, and now, in the midst of everything else going on, she couldn't have looked more beautiful to him.

Perversely, it felt like coming home.

The Raptor swept onto the Atlantia's flight-deck and rode an elevator down to the hangar-deck, where Nagala was faintly surprised to be greeted by Skip Landon and a small honor-guard. So much for being subtle, Nagala thought, regretting that he had not paid attention to what the pilot was saying into the wireless after the jump.

"Admiral Nagala," Landon said, saluting.

"Commander Landon." Nagala returned the salute briskly, then grinned as he stepped down out of the Raptor. "Good to see you, Skip. Please, this all isn't necessary." He raised his voice slightly for the benefit of anyone in earshot. "Atlantia was my last command; forgive an old man some nostalgia before retirement."

Landon's eyebrows lifted, but to Nagala's relief, he stuck to exchanging pleasantries until his retinue dispersed. As they walked off the deck, Landon lowered his voice. "Alright, Ed. Level with me. You'd take a bullet before retiring voluntarily." His eyes twinkled. "What really brings the Chief of Fleet Operations out to the ass-end of nowhere?"

"I need a hideout." Nagala eyed Landon; polite to a fault, even by Virgon's priggish standards, he made a point to never, ever swear. He smiled faintly. "Shit is about to hit the fan."

This time, Landon's eyebrows fairly shot up.

Nagala patted his shoulder. "Trust me that the less you know, the better it'll be for you later."

"In case whatever this is goes sideways, huh?"

"Truth to tell, Skip, I don't know which way that is any more. Don't take this wrong, but I intend to assume command. Just for appearances' sake, that's all. As far as anyone except you knows, I'm just a soft-hearted old man, taking the wheel one last time before retirement." He smiled, faintly. "I may even stand a watch."

"That's your prerogative of course."

"I'm not here to interfere. I just need to be hard to reach for a few days. Although... I need to be on Virgon on Friday morning. If it doesn't take you out of your way, perhaps a ride back to Alpha?"

## Chapter Thirty-Seven: Carolyn.

Cavendish House.

The morning of Wednesday, April 13.

Carolyn Culverson had rarely felt so isolated or powerless in her life as she skulked into Cavendish House through a side entrance, still wearing the same clothes she had worn when she left it twenty four hours prior.

The intervening time had been infuriating to say the least. After four hours smoking in taxis in traffic-jams, waiting in spaceports, and sitting uselessly in planes getting to FHQ, she had been stonewalled. Nagala was away, Corman was unavailable, and an aide—despite repeating in hushed tones the same scuttlebutt that the Mil Office flunky had suggested about possible retirements—could offer nothing of use.

What about this, what-do-you-call-it, the 'heartbeat report,' Carolyn had wanted to know?

The aide had sucked his teeth and explained, in faultlessly polite, apologetic, and utterly useless platitudes, that the inner workings of Fleet communications were not available to civilians. Not even to civilians flashing Colonial Government ID. Didn't they know who she was? Yes, of course, but unfortunately that doesn't matter, Miss Culverson, clearances are clearances and you don't have the right one.

That had angered her enough that she had decided to try her luck at MHQ. After several more useless hours in transit, it transpired that General Bratton was just as unavailable and unreachable as Admiral Nagala. The Desk Sergeant there had been less polite than the FHQ aide, and not at all apologetic, but at least he had done her the fraternal courtesy of being direct about it.

Something was going on. Of that, Carolyn was sure. But with everything else that was happening, it was still too amorphous to burden Kominsky, who was at all events not due back from Canceron until the late afternoon. Still less to take it to the President. And there was no one else.

Another round of cigarettes and bad spaceport food ensued, followed by scattered minutes of sleep stolen here and there on the flight back to Caprica. By the time they landed back at the Midtown spaceport, bringing her full circle, it was the morning after she had left, and it was at once too early to go to the office and too late to bother going home. Defeated and in no mood to walk, she had caught a cab to Cav House, even though no one would be in yet.

How was your trip, the Staff Secretary wanted to know? The woman was a machine, Carolyn swore; she never left her desk. She paused by her doorway long enough to lie that it had been fine, and to agree that yes, the C-Bucs were doing very well in the playoffs. IPL Champions? Well, maybe. We'll have to see.

When she finally broke free and walked into her office, she got the shock of her life. Innes was sitting at her desk.

"Hi, Frances...?" Carolyn stared at her for a moment. Was her mind playing tricks on her, or was Innes less well-put-together lately? Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and while she looked smart enough, something was different.

"I was waiting for you," Innes said.

"Oh?" Carolyn managed to close her jaw. She glanced at her watch. "It's a bit early."

"Is it? I've lost track. I couldn't sleep."

"Hm," Carolyn chuckled. "You and me both." She dropped her bag by the door and rubbed her eyes.

"Where've you been?"

"A frakkin' wild goose chase, as it turned out. I just needed a win, and I—" she stopped herself and did her best to saunter forward casually; no easy feat when you've spent the last day flying well over half a billion kilometers. Something was definitely off with Innes. It wasn't Carolyn's imagination; Innes loved her subtle perfumes and lotions, but now she smelled of nothing more than soap. "Something's going on with Nagala and Bratton, but I don't... Well." She doesn't want to hear you ramble on, dummy. Just shut up and let her talk. She swallowed. "Don't worry about it. What's up?"

"It's..." Innes hesitated. "It's personal. I wanted to catch you before you were on the clock." A long pause. "I feel like... The last few months have been really frakked up. And I feel really lost, and I just—am I the only one?"

"No, no," Carolyn soothed, only half-lying. "Of course not. Clio, you're not kidding; I just wasted a whole day, and... I'm, uh..." She shook her head and clicked her tongue. "I'm sorry, what were you going to say?"

"Um..." Innes wrung her hands like it was an effort to get the words out. "Would you like to have dinner with me?"

Carolyn blinked several times. "Sorry, I'm very, very jet lagged. I would of sworn you just asked me out to dinner."

"I just think it'd be nice to just relax with someone who understands."

"I—I would love that," Carolyn stammered. "I've gotta get some sleep tonight. I'm shattered already and I've got a whole day to get through. How about tomorrow night?"

"That would be perfect."

"D'you want to go somewhere, or...?"

"I thought I'd order in. We can watch a movie or just hang out and talk. Just—anything except about work. Well then." Innes flashed her a smile; "I'm looking forward to it."

Carolyn Culverson had rarely felt so lost for words in her life. She watched Innes leave, her pulse thumping in her head. Once the door closed, she allowed herself a shuddering breath. Well! And for the gods' sakes, it was only fair; sooner or later, she'd had to catch a break, and this one couldn't be timed better.

She pulled her cigarettes from her bag. It was far too early to be smoking. She tapped one against the pack absent-mindedly, opened a window, and lit it, blowing smoke into the air.

There was something a little off, but no conscious part of her mind noticed the way Innes held her jacket closed as she stood and left. Nor, with her head still swimming, did it occur to her that although her watch had not tapped her wrist, her computer was unlocked.

## Chapter Thirty-Eight: Luke & Haiden.

Boskirk, Virgon.

March 14.

The day before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies.

Of all the colonies, none had a history so complex and intertwined as Virgon's. No campaign could avoid it forever. At long last, the candidates had come to the outermost world of Helios Alpha, and as the Fat Chance cut into the atmosphere through towering clouds and strong headwinds, it occurred to Haiden that for better and worse, this world had once dominated the fates of all.

"And tonight," Sir Rowan Hopkins announced to a packed theater, "here"—he pronounced it more like 'hjaar,' and Haiden had to fight down a giggle—"in the heart of this great and ancient city, the candidates for President will discuss issues of relevance to the governance of the Colonies. Let us remember that we are tonight guests of His Majesty Andrew III: The King of Virgon." He doffed an imaginary hat toward a gallery box. On cue, a spotlight picked up a slight man of perhaps fifty, who stood and waved, even more slightly, to the crowd.

Luke's and Haiden's eyebrows went up, each for different reasons. The two traded glances and politely joined the applause. Neither held any brief for monarchy, though Haiden had occasionally wondered aloud whether Margaret Cavendish should not have just declared herself empress. Luke had grown up on Gemenon, a republic for twelve centuries; every criminal case from Virgon he had heard on the bench had been prosecuted in this man's name, and it was undeniably strange being in the same room as him. For Haiden, a reflexive ancestral hatred for Leonis' old enemy poked at some corner of her brain, and she wondered whether it was too late to find a halberd with which to chase him down.

Virgon was a strange place, Luke thought. For one thing, it was damned cold. Compared to Libran or even Tauron, it felt frigid. Haiden had grown up on Leonis and spent her career on ships maintained at Kobol-normative temperatures; to her, it felt little warmer than had Aquaria, though Boskirk was at least twenty degrees warmer than Heim had been.

Neither of them had been able to wrap their minds around the clock. On Caprica and Gemenon, the day was a hair over the 24 hours of the KSRC. Leonis had an idiosyncratic clock all of its own that worked out to about 26 and a quarter standard hours. Tauron's was just short of 22, and Libran's, 20. Virgon's was 31. They had arrived in Boskirk at just after 15 o'clock—the middle of the day, a spaceport worker had cheerily informed them. The debate was scheduled for a mind-bending 24 o'clock, and they would fly out at around 29 o'clock, headed for some city on Picon where, after a five-or-so hour flight, it would be 3 A.M.

For the Honorable Lucas B. Volakis, Chief Justice of the Colonies (retired), seasoned traveler on the lecture-circuit, it was almost too much to take. For Connie Haiden, space dog who'd flown billions of kilometers in her career but rarely setting foot off ships that operated on Perkinston time, it was too much, period.

On reaching the convention center where the debate would be held, an aide from the local Municipalist party had explained—eyeing the Federalist members of the group with unhidden hostility—that Virgon's day was actually very simple. At 4 o'clock, an hour or so before dawn, people working first shift started. Second shift started at 13. So, the aide chirped, most everyone in the Kingston and Staverton cantons will be home by 23 o'clock and can watch the debate live before bed by 26 or 27. "Everybody got that?" the aide had asked.

Haiden had thought it sounded insane. Luke had absorbed it as though the aide had explained that six of the twelve worlds are technically made of ground cashew pudding and cream-cheese. In the end, he had decided that he didn't care, so long as they could escape and get some fresh air and some food: "Just tell me where we can get a decent sandwich and how long before we have to be back here."

"It's coming on 16:30 now; curtain's at 24, so be back no later than 22," the aide said.

"If it's dark, you're late," Vanssen quipped. She had apparently taken it in stride with the insufferable mental flexibility of the young.

Scheduling mishaps were inevitable when gallivanting around the worlds, Haiden had reflected, but it was nice that it had worked out in their favor for once, leaving them at liberty for the better part of what she would think of as a day. The candidates had napped, but not before Haiden had ordered the staff to take at least three hours of non-optional vacation time.

"You can't give me orders," Sirica had said with a droll smile, but he complied.

Luke had suggested that they stretch their legs, and he and Haiden had strolled along the Clærwyn's eastern bank, first south to a park opposite where the Halys flowed into it in a churning whirlpool, then north, where Haiden was as surprised as she was pleased to find a Leonese restaurant with a view across the river to the oxblood brickwork and buff stone of the Faestenn's ancient walls.

The debate was in a decent-sized theater, and their moderator for the evening was another central banker. It seemed fitting; the first of these discussions had been moderated by the Chairman of the Reserve Bank of Helios Delta, and their first on Virgon would be moderated by the Custodian of the Royal Bank of Virgon. Sirica had tried to explain the rivalries and brinksmanship involved, but Haiden's eyes had glazed over, and even Luke, who had spent much of his life pondering procedural minutiae, had stopped him. The gist was that if Nathan Palmer had done it, E.B. Whitman wanted to, and Sir Rowan D. Hopkins KCOH, FVE, D.Econ (Cams.) would be damned if he'd let Whitman beat him to it.

"Who knew central banking was such a godsdamned soap-opera," Vanssen had joked, and she was barely joking, Haiden thought.

"Now, this isn't a debate, but rather a conversation between the candidates, so I hope to get out of the way and let Volakis be Volakis and Haiden be Haiden, with very little Hopkins in between. But I'd like to open the bidding with this, and answer it as you please. This election feels very different. Is this an election between moderates after three between extremists?"

"I think that's the wrong way to look at it," Luke said, with a chuckle.

"No, I don't think so," Haiden said at the same time. She smiled and pointed to him. "After you."

"Thank you. No; at least not in the sense I think you mean. I had to laugh a little just then when you asked if I was a moderate; no one tell the Picon National Post! Beneath your question there's what I think is a mistaken premise. It's tempting treat the middle as definitionally the place to be, as if there's something privileged about the position that's equidistant from Richard Adar and Rory Kemp, but—"

"Compromising isn't a good thing?" Haiden asked, innocently. She had heard this riff before.

"Sure, as a verb. But a compromise isn't good policy just because people on both sides hate it. If something's wrong, it doesn't become right just because people you don't like very much don't like it either. So, anyway, if you're right," he told Hopkins, "it's in the sense of temperament rather than substance. There's a lot of things on which Admiral Haiden and I disagree strongly, and anyone who's followed these debates has seen that. But what you've also seen, I hope, is that we like one another and we disagree agreeably. That's the key difference."

"Sure is," Haiden was nodding.

"One axis you can grade people on isn't about the substance, it runs... I suppose I'd say 'skeptical' to 'devout.' The devouts know everything and they're so sure," he chopped the air with his hand. "So certain of everything. The President's a devout, as are most of the people around him—"

"That's fair; though," Haiden cautioned, "it's not confined to one side."

"No, no, of course not. But the skeptics are the ones you want, I think. The practical people. The ones who—yes, of course we have ideological frameworks, everyone does, but we're not dogmatic by inclination, we're less sure of ourselves, we accept new information even if it means we have to change our minds, we don't get all fired up and angry—"

"We don't charge off, 'ready, fire, aim.'"

"Right! Exactly. So that's a good temperament, I think, whether you're running a courtroom, or a ship, or a bank or a debate," he gestured to Hopkins with a smile, "or a government. If we're 'moderates,' it's in that sense. And that's different to what you've seen in the last few elections, I agree." That got Luke some applause, he was gratified to see. He gestured to Haiden as if to say 'your turn.'

"I'd mostly agree with that. He may be more ideological than me, but it's also possible that his ideology's just more concretely articulated while mine lurks under the surface. He's spent a long time dealing with that sort of thing while I've been driving ships. But we're both skeptics, we both have careers that reflect the interplay of rules and pragmatics, and we're neither of us partial to that mindless reflex of 'something must be done, this is something, so this must be done.' I think that matters a lot. We disagree on all kinds of things, and I think that the worlds have a real choice to make this year in terms of the substance of what they want government to look like. But in terms of character and temperament, I think they have two good choices."

"If she wins," Luke grinned, "I can't see her being the wrecking-ball Adar's been, riding roughshod over anything in her path. Whoever wins, that's over, please the gods." That line, he was a little disappointed to see, the theater received much more coolly.

"That's perhaps a natural segue," Hopkins said. "Admiral Haiden: Why do you want to be President?"

Haiden said nothing for a moment. Then, quietly at first, "I've been thinking about that recently. I had my jokey reason when people asked me privately, and I had my political answer for events like this. I don't know that I had a good answer. Y'know, I read something recently. 'Haiden's unfocused, she hasn't explained the animating idea behind her or what she wants to do if elected; no plan, no program, not even a statement of philosophy.' A journalist wrote that in a Municipalist-friendly newspaper six weeks ago, and it bothered me. It stuck with me. And if I'm being completely honest—which both Luke and I really try to be in these conversations—what bothered me was that it was fair. I started second-guessing myself. And then we went to Canceron.

"We had, we both had," she pointed to Luke, "he and I, we had an immediate instinct that we needed to go there." His was much stronger than mine, she didn't dare add aloud. Candor could go only so far. "And I'd never seen anything like it. You almost can't take it in, it's too much. You can't help but stand there as one person and feel very, very small."

"Overmatched," Luke agreed.

"Yep. Inadequate. And the thought goes through your head, 'what can I possibly do?' And here's the really dangerous thing: It's a natural jump, you almost can't help it. Your mind skips from 'what can I do' to 'what can anyone do?'

"Well, there's an answer to that. What I realized while we were there—it reminded me of why I think this is important. It's not abstract, what we're talking about, it's not a classroom debate. It's about, when something happens and people cry out for help, is help coming?

"We went to Kalivia and Argolis. Local responders are there; Canceron's government's there; Colonial Forces are there; the Feds weren't there yet. And I don't want to fault anyone for that, because I'd like to think everyone did what seemed like the best in the moment. But it struck me: But for Admiral Nagala taking the initiative and having the kind of personal authority to come in and take command, no one would have known who was in charge. There'd be no clear line of authority. The resources available, a lot of that was the happenstance of Canceron being a well-administered world, and it's not a stretch to imagine a disaster like this on Sagittaron, for instance, on poorer worlds without that same capacity for self-help. When something bad happens, people look to government one level up from the problem, and it has to answer.

"I got into this race for reasons that in hindsight I maybe wouldn't admire, to be very candid. It turns your head when people say 'you could be President.' But we went and we talked and we watched, and when I stood there on a hill looking over what was left of a drowned city, my instinct was, 'I'm here to help.' And I knew in that moment, I could be President. It's an important job, and I can do it, and I know I can do it well.

That answer got riotous applause in the theater, including from Luke.

"And, by the way, I think the Chief Justice would do a good job, too. He's a good man, we've become friends. I've come to value his friendship greatly. But I think that he and I have a fundamental disagreement on what government can do and what it should do, from which flows all kinds of smaller disagreements. And I think that what we saw on Canceron underlines why, with respect, I think I'm right."

"Mister Chief Justice," Hopkins prompted as the applause died down. "You want to respond to that?"

"Well, first, I have to say that's a remarkable answer. It's a brave answer in its candor, and I applaud my friend. I understand her point." He clasped his hands together and leaned back in his seat. This was another affectation from Byrne, but it was effective 'postural punctuation' as she would call it. "Let me set out a different perspective. Let me try this a couple of different ways.

"First, I think it's risky to derive general rules from exceptional circumstances. In my line of work, they say hard cases make bad law, and I've always pushed back against that. I think often, easy cases make bad law. It's true that a natural disaster is something else entirely, but we shouldn't make rules about what government does every day based on what it might have to do one exceptional day every three years. Okay?"

"You're slipping into lecture-circuit mode," Haiden joked.

He laughed, too. "That's fair. Then let me put on my lecture-circuit hat, just for a minute."

"If he actually talks for 'just a minute,'" Haiden told the crowd to laughter, "drinks are on me, everyone."

He laughed at that, too. "A minute, I promise. On Virgon, handguns are legal, broadly-speaking, and every year, some number of His Majesty's subjects," Luke doffed his imaginary hat toward the gallery, "commit suicide using them. Maybe the government should do something. Some people want that something to be 'let's ban them.' Others say, 'hold on, every year, some other number rely on them to defend their persons and their homes from violent crime, so a ban may cost them their lives.'

"Everyone in this room has an opinion on which of those arguments is right, but the point is that everything has trade-offs. If we choose based on one high-profile example, we're back to the temperament point I was making earlier: Then we're not looking reasonably at objective data and making a reasoned calculus of what's more in the public interest, on balance.

"And the problem becomes more acute when you talk about a single rule for all the worlds, instead of letting different planets make policy that makes sense for them, because the worlds are different. I worked on Tauron for years, and there, suicide by firearm's unspeakably rare, for a variety of cultural reasons. So even if you have the exact same proposed law for the exact same reasons, the tradeoffs look different there.

"So, lecture mode off. Was that a minute?"

"Seventy seconds," Hopkins said, with a dry smile that Luke chose to assume meant he was joking. "I rule your money safe, Admiral." When the laughter died down, he turned to Haiden. "Admiral, may I follow up on something raised by the Chief Justice? The Adar administration's signature achievement has been a major expansion in federal regulation. A lot of things that used to be set as policy by individual colonies are now managed—critics might say micromanaged—by newly-erected Secretariats and Bureaus on Caprica. The Chief Justice says that that isn't the role of government."

"Of the federal government," Luke corrected.

"Of the Colonial government, yes," Hopkins corrected himself—a little snippily, Luke thought. "Do you agree?"

"I think government should protect people. That's—you'd at least allow that's a legitimate role of government, Luke? Right? And one legitimate role of a larger unit of government, I think, is to step in when smaller units of government aren't acting, or are acting wrong, or are working athwart one another in ways that are inefficient. I respect the view that says people should be left alone to do what they want, but there are things that should be outlawed because they're outrageous, practices that are just taking advantage of people in ways that are just wrong, and that shouldn't be allowed. Because we as a society have decided that this isn't something we think's acceptable—predatory practices that have no legitimate part of a civilized people. And government is the means by which we do things as a society."

Luke didn't interrupt her, but he started scribbling furious notes at that, and Haiden smiled to herself. She reached out and put a hand on Luke's arm. "I know you're itching to speak, but hang on. If the worlds aren't doing something needful, it seems to me that's when the Colonial government has to step in. I was in the military for a long time; you may have heard. Well, one of the hard things as you get promoted is giving up immediate control. If you're the CO and you call in the CAG and you say, look here, Jones, I don't like how Smith's flying, why've you not done something about it, if she says, well, I'm taking care of it in my own way, of course I should give Jones due deference, but ultimately, my desk is where it lands, and I have to make the call. And at some point, I have to step in. There are any number of things where you can say that the individual colonies should be the ones to act, but when they haven't, at some point, doesn't the Colonial government have to step in, and doesn't the President have to make that call?"

Luke huffed a little. "One of the words Admiral Haiden just used; let me zero-in on that. Efficient. I'm very sympathetic to that, especially in a hierarchical context like the military. But people are used to doing things a certain way, and maybe it's inefficient to let them, y'know, sell in whatever units they like, but when you're taking about a free people, it's their choice.

"And besides: Maybe they know something about their business that you don't. Here's a government at the far end of Cyrannus—a government that doesn't know much about you or your business, a government over which you feel like you've got very little power, and quite frankly a government it can seem doesn't like you very much—and it comes in saying, you have to change everything you do, because it's easier for us to administer, for what we deem the benefit of someone else on another world.'

"Now, I'm not making excuses for going to the sorts of extremes that we saw on Aerilon, to disastrous effect. But I understand, and I also come from a place where we don't work in abstractions. Every case I sat on was filed by a real person in a specific situation, and many of them started with a real person getting really screwed by a well-meaning decision taken by someone else. Maybe the Uniform Commercial Transactions Act was a good policy, for instance. I doubt it but I don't know—"

"You got a free cup of coffee out of it in Shorewood," Haiden joked.

"—but assume it was. If the Aerilan government had written that policy instead of the Colonial government, maybe they'd have tailored it a little better for local conditions. And maybe not so many people would have felt so screwed, or at very least, maybe they would've felt more involved, seen more recourse, they wouldn't have felt under attack, and we wouldn't have seen things start to spiral out of control.

"Now, here's another thing where we disagree. A few minutes ago, Admiral Haiden said that government is a word for what we do together. But a couple of months ago, like billions of other people around the worlds, we watched the Worlds Cup Final. Admiral Haiden, myself, some old friends and some new friends, the people around us. The families we gather around ourselves. And it's kind of a miracle, isn't it? The logistics of that simulcast. But the networks pull it off. It's not the government. We're still very much capable of doing amazing things without Pyrmont controlling everything.

"I'll agree that government is a way we can work together. One way. But it's not the only way. And, by the way, what about the people who don't care about the Cup Final? They aren't forced to participate as they would be if it were a government program. They're free to choose, and though I think efficiency's a good thing, I think that when you trade freedom for efficiency, it's rarely worth it."

"Well, no, hang on. The worlds are very complex. Someone has to make them comprehensible. When I make my morning coffee, the bag says it was harvested on Leonis, and with what you're describing, who would know if that's true, or where it's been and what's been done to it for processing, roasting, grinding, packaging, all the things we don't think about. Even if people are diligent and careful, you can't expect them to know those processes. Some trustworthy third-party has to regulate that stuff and so vouch for it, and it can't be the individual colonies, because their jurisdictions stop at high orbit. Intercolonial commerce would grind to a halt if you can't know who to trust, and you of all people know that you can't just wave the bloodied banner of an abstract concept against a practical reality. The Colonial government's the only thing that can serve in that role. It's the only one with no agenda."

"Oh, come on! The government hasn't got an agenda? If nothing else, governments are systems, and a system's goal is always to live, to grasp and consume and grow."

"That's cynicism," Haiden shot back.

"Hm. Maybe," Luke grunted. There was a lull. He turned to Hopkins. "You got another question?"

* * *

"That was very good. It may have been our best yet," Luke said, mopping his face with one of the towels that the event organizers had thoughtfully left in the dressing room. A strange planet, Virgon, but a most hospitable people.

"Gerald may have a different opinion on that," Sirica murmured.

"Why," Ostrakov asked, "because my candidate won?" That prompted roars of disagreement from Gutierrez and Katraine, but Ostrakov bobbed his head emphatically. "Bob, your candidate endorsed mine!"

"He did not—"

"I thought he did," Luke growled, to a laugh from Haiden. "After a fashion."

"After a fashion," Sirica conceded, "but you, Admiral, conceded the framing of this election as one of retreat from the mistakes of the Adar administration. And Gerald may have liked it, but I'll bet every cubit in my bank account that Richard Adar will pitch a fit in the morning."

"Morning? I don't even know when that is anymore," Luke said, ruefully.

"From the mistakes," Haiden insisted. "That's not the same thing as—look, everyone makes mistakes. Acknowledging them isn't a criticism, and making them doesn't commit you to continuing them. No one disagrees with that."

"When you realize you're on the wrong road, the best thing to do is to turn back," Gutierrez observed. "If progress is more than just movement in any direction, isn't going back to where you took a wrong turn the fastest route to progress?"

"Maybe," Haiden chided, "but who says we're on a road? When you're hiking and you're on the wrong trail, you don't have to turn back. You just stop and cut directly across to the right one."

"See, Emily, this is why you've got to choose your analogies with care," Luke said, with a wry smile.

The door to the shared dressing room opened, and Vanssen sidled through wearing an expression Haiden could only call amused.

"Mon amiral. Luke. The, um... The King of Virgon would like to meet you. Both of you."

Everyone stopped talking and stared at her.

Ostrakov chuckled and glanced at Sirica. "Look at that."

"That's not something I ever thought to hear," Luke murmured.

"I'm told your staffs are welcome too," Vanssen added, "which I guess includes Emmy if she's unarmed and promises good behavior."

Haiden pursed her lips and stood. There was a practical imperative here; when a public official came aboard ship, it didn't matter whether you had voted for them or not. There was a protocol and a job to do, whether you were the Commanding Officer or the deckhand who popped the hatch. "He's the King of Virgon. Have opinions about that if you want, but let's not keep him waiting."

They were ushered to a service elevator guarded by two men wearing teal-blue uniforms with shoulder-boards that bore the unmistakable lettering 'SR.' The RCSR is dead, Haiden thought; long live the RCSR.

The elevator lacked even the faintest calibration for rider comfort, shooting upward with startling speed to deposit them in a restaurant atop the convention center. The thought struck Luke that they had been in a lot of restaurants in the last few months, and every one of them had been cleared out by an advance team. These were not normal experiences.

Two stiff-necked guards were waiting for them. They wore similar teal uniforms, their shoulder-boards lettered "HG," and these men were visibly armed. That was something Luke was still getting used to. The Special Branch officers who had protected him on the Court almost certainly carried sidearms, but you never saw it.

Across the otherwise-empty restaurant, the man they had earlier seen on a balcony over the theater pressed a napkin to his mouth, rose, and ambled over to greet them.

"Ah, good. Judge; Admiral. Thank you for meeting us."

Up close, he had thinning, greying hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and wire-rimmed spectacles over limpid blue eyes. He wore burgundy suspenders and tie over a pinstriped cornflower shirt with a white collar, and if Haiden had passed him on the street, she would have guessed that he was an investment banker—certainly not the incumbent of a throne that had been ancient when Virgon declared itself an empire more than a thousand years ago, let alone when it had surrendered to history and re-declared itself a kingdom a century past.

"Should I curtsy?" Vanssen asked from behind them, provoking a snort of laugher from Gutierrez. Luke felt faintly mortified for no reason he could articulate.

Haiden smiled warmly. She had greeted many dignitaries in her career and she now offered her hand to the latest of them. "Your Majesty. It's an honor to meet you."

He returned the smile and more-squeezed-than-shook first her hand and then Luke's. "Please. The pleasure is ours." He gestured to his table by the window. "You must join us for something to eat."

Thirty stories below them, Boskirk's lights glittered. Everyone took seats and took in the view as waiters brought plates of some kind of citrusy sorbet that neither Luke nor Haiden could place but which Vanssen tore into as though she hadn't eaten in two days. Which, given their schedule, was entirely possible, Haiden lamented.

"We enjoyed the debate," the King offered. "In fact, it must be said that we are very pleased by the campaign so far. There were fears that this would be quite a bruising affair—even, ehm, nastier than the last one. But it has not proven so."

"We had the same fear," Haiden said. "We've worked hard to avoid anything like that. All of us," she added, nodding at Ostrakov. He returned the nod with a thin smile. "We've all got along very well, as you saw this evening."

"Wine?" a waiter asked, offering a tray. Everyone accepted immediately.

Gods, Haiden thought, after her first sip. That's not wine, it's sherry if it's not actually distilled.

"Ah. Yes, indeed. Might you level with us?" The King's eyes sparkled. "Is that, oh, what's the word... 'Schtick'?"

"I wish!" Vanssen said. "What you see is what we get, all day every day. They made us watch sportsball together!"

"Vanssen hates pyramid," Gutierrez, Haiden, and Luke chorused, prompting laughs all around.

"She means the Worlds Cup," Luke explained. "We watched it together."

"And it was a lovely night!" Haiden insisted. "We talked about anything except politics, we made stupid jokes and yelled at the fullback and ate bad food—"

"And drank," Vanssen lamented.

"Some of us drank too much," Haiden chided. Not that I'll be in a state to talk, she didn't add aloud, if we have another glass of whatever this is.

By the second course and the bottom of his third glass of wine, the King had dropped the regnal 'we.' He had gained a little warmth in his cheeks and a wistful look in his eyes, and his tongue was looser. "I would imagine the problem with being friendly is that one rather hesitates to go for the jugular, as it were."

"Look," Haiden objected quickly, "just because we're contesting for something doesn't mean we have to be arses to one another about it."

Vanssen nearly choked, leaning over to whisper in Leonese, "You can't say arse in front of a king!" She hesitated. "I mean—can you?"

"Enemies," Haiden corrected herself, with a grin.

"We're friends in this," Luke agreed, oblivious.

"And I appreciate that spirit of camaraderie, but the worlds improve through competition, don't they?"

"Sans conflit, aucun changement. Bien. But competitors don't have to be enemies."

"Change requires struggle," Vanssen translated, not entirely accurately.

"Some people will take that deal," Luke said. "They just want a quiet life. I can respect that."

"We took it," the King said, gesturing around. "Virgon, I mean. A long time ago. We were an empire; we took it for granted. We're top-dog, we don't need to grow, change... Risk... And after a while, 'why innovate' became 'why change' became 'why create at all.' We had become," he said, with heavy emphasis. "And the worlds passed us by." He swirled the remaining wine in his glass and stared into it, perhaps considering whether that hadn't been an indiscretion. Then he looked up at the nearest clock. "I'm afraid some time has gone by. I did not intend to detain you this long."

"No, no, it's our pleasure," Haiden assured.

"I wanted merely to thank you for the debate, for the civil tone of the campaign, and to wish you both good luck and safe travels. But I have very well enjoyed your company, and I thank you."

"This was lovely," Luke said, standing. "We may have needed it." He eyed his wineglass and tried to collect himself sufficiently to remember the schedule. "That's strong stuff. I'll need a coffee when we get to the spaceport if you expect any more coherent thought out of me before bed."

"Are you leaving Virgon tonight?"

"Yeah, though honestly, that's an exhausting thought. It tries your grip on reality, this running around the worlds business. Anne, Emily, remind me to have you build more breaks into the schedule."

"I see," the King said. A thought seemed to cross his mind. "You mentioned earlier that you have your own plane?"

"Gerald has his own plane, and he lets us to ride along, for which we thank him," Luke chuckled.

"Well, then you can make your own schedule, no? Come, take a night off. Be my guests. It's a little late for me to start back to the Clare anyway. We could stay at the Actian Palace; the Faestenn is only a short drive from here." He pointed out of the window in the direction of a dark, irregular hole in Boskirk's lights, vaguely the shape of a Pyramid court. "Yes, that's a much better idea, isn't it? There's ample room, and I shouldn't mind prolonging the companionship."

Haiden looked at Luke; Luke looked at Haiden; both of them looked to Vanssen, the unofficial Master of Schedules. She gave an indifferent shrug. And the thought suddenly struck Haiden that Andrew III, the ruler of all Virgon, the incumbent of a throne that had been old in the oldest of recorded days, was a sad, lonely, middle-aged man who wanted some company.

"I like that idea," she said.

## Chapter Thirty-Nine: Forsyth.

The Caprica Tribune building.

Thursday, March 14, 9 PM Caprica City time.

The night before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies.

"Clear the front page," Forsyth told Banaias, closing his office door behind her.

"I know that look. You got something?" A wolfish smile crossed his face; that wouldn't last, she suspected.

"I'm not kidding. Pick up the phone and clear the front page."

"It's already locked," he objected. "Give me more than that."

"Unlock it." She settled into a chair and fixed him on a pitchfork stare. It was the same chair she'd sat in almost a month ago when he had fired her in all but formalities. Now everything was different and no part of her could pretend to not enjoy this.

"You've got something." He picked up his desk phone and dialed. "Put a hold on the cover. Unlock it if you have to. Yeah, I know; I'll call back." He hung up and squinted at her cautiously. "All right. What's so urgent you can't spare a single moment?"

She held up two sheafs of neatly stapled papers and handed him the first. "Based on new reporing, here we have a conspiracy to weaponize elements of the Colonial government against people and material that will make life more difficult for the Volakis campaign. I've got it tied directly to the top of Cav House, specifically to Culverson and Kominsky, all by an on-the-record source, also and currently employed at the top of Cav House, with direct personal knowledge. And it all corroborates the earlier Kikuchi material that you, Caleb, wouldn't let me publish."

Banaias stared at the copy, aghast. His eyes darted back and forth between it and her. "This is all true?"

"Oh, that's not even the half of it," Forsyth said, enjoying the moment. She held up the second sheaf and handed it to him. "This one starts with the text of the order sending the Marines to Aerilon, including their rules of engagement. I got it, Caleb. And you'll notice that it's from the Office of the President, not the Minister of Defence. But that's only how it starts; I've got a leak of a similar order postdated three days from now, from two independent sources, and the senior uniformed leadership of the military on record refusing to implement that order."

He read silently. Then he re-read the first, and then re-read the second.

She watched, without sympathy. Like a rat in a trap, she thought.

"It's verified. 100%?"

"Every word. Impeccably sourced," she added, twisting the knife.

After what felt like an eternity, he looked away, retrieved a pack of cigarettes from a drawer in his desk and lit one. He took a very long drag before shaking the pack in her direction.

She shook her head. He can't even look at me, she realized. "No."

"If we publish these—you understand it's over? This will hand the election to Lucas Volakis." He took another long drag. "I've been a Federalist my whole life. I think... I don't think I even know anyone who voted for Kemp or Sutherland."

"We all voted for Adar. I know. But we have a professional obligation."

"You and your holy calling," he muttered.

"This is what journalists are for. This is why we do it; why we work long days and spend nights away from our families. It's not for 'area cat rescued from a tree' or a union wants another cubit an hour in a dying industry. This matters."

He stubbed out the cigarette, picked the copy back up, and turned it over in his hands. "No one else has this. You're sure?"

He wouldn't dare. Would he? "These are coming out. Tomorrow."

"Did I say—"

"No way. Don't you even frakkin' think it. I promise you, I will march straight across town and hand these to CNN if I have to, plus a third story about how the administration's pets at the Tribune tried to suppress it, which I'm sure they'll love."

"Now hang on just a—"

"I'm serious. You bury it, I walk. You fire me, I talk. Frak, you change a single word in the copy and I'll make sure the worlds know it. We're not doing this again. You can either publish this and share a Bentinck, or you can watch me break them on Good Morning with Mary Catherine frakking Cate. And if you think Helen will like finding out that her paper passed on this because her editor's running interference for Tricky Dicky, my bet's that you'll watch it from home, because if you want my guess, you'll be straight up fired."

"Jen..."

"No. I'm through appealing to your professional ethics. Maybe survival you'll understand." There's no 'later.' There's only now.

"Jen! I'm not trying to can it! For the gods'—alright. Listen." He rubbed his nose. To her eye, that looked furtive, and there was no doubt in her mind about his intentions. "We take a day. Alright? We think about it, we expand it for the Weekend edition. Meanwhile, we make sure it's airtight, that every corner's cut."

"Stories break tomorrow morning," she said, firmly. She owed Nagala that much, though she wasn't about to admit that to Banaias. "Both of them. It's up to you whether I break them in the morning edition of the Trib, but they break tomorrow morning."

"At very least we should call Cav House and ask them to comment."

"You mean, give your masters a warning?" Forsyth shot back. If he wanted to play games, fine. But she was done pretending to play along. "Call if you want, but the clock's ticking."

Banaias still couldn't meet her eyes. He picked up the receiver of his desk phone, weighing it in his hand.

"On speakerphone, please," Forsyth said, icily.

He glanced in her direction, still not meeting her eyes. He hung up the receiver, tapped a button, and dialed.

The first number did not pick up.

After three rings, the second did, and a familiar voice answered.

"Mister Kominsky? This is Caleb Banaias. I'm the—"

"I know who you are, Mr. Banaias. Why are you calling me at nine o'clock at night?"

"Right." Banaias winced, and Forsyth pretended not to enjoy it. "I'm sorry to bother you. Miss Culverson's not picking up, and it's kind of a—well, I need a minute of your time."

"Anything for our friends at the Tribune."

"Sir, you won't like this, I'm afraid. We have two stories, I believe that they will be cover stories in tomorrow morning's print edition, and I need to—ah... I should 'ask you for a comment'?"

Even behind the obvious nervousness, Banaias' voice was brittle.

"What do they say?"

"The first one establishes, based on documents and attributed sourcing within Cavendish House, that you directed a conspiracy to use the resources of the Colonial government to interfere with the election campaign of Lucas Volakis. It—uh." He cleared his throat. "It says that you conspired with your aide, Miss Culverson and several others to conduct a campaign of harassment against potential donors and staff. We now have two sources with personal knowledge of these events. We have, ah... We've been pursuing this for some time, but a second source has agreed to go on the record. This newspaper cannot in good conscience hold the story back," he added, in a pious flourish that Forsyth was quite sure was intended as much for his memoir as for her or Kominsky. "Sir, I have to ask: Is the President aware of this?"

There was a long pause. "And the other story?"

"The second story includes leaks of orders from a year ago sending the Marines to Aerilon, and from this week directing the military to participate in closing down the pickets on Caprica, enforce a back-to-work order, assume policing positions, and seize vessels designated by Cavendish House. It quotes Admirals Nagala and Corman and General Bratton, on the record, refusing to implement that order. Will you comment on that, Sir?"

There was a very long pause.

"Do you have any comment to offer, Sir?"

More silence. Then, eventually, "Who's your source?"

Banaias glanced at Forsyth; she shook her head vehemently.

"Is that your comment, Sir? I don't see how that's rel—"

"Who, Caleb, is your source? You said two. I assume Kikuchi's one. Who's the other?"

"Sir, as you know, we don't—"

"You just said they'd agreed to go on record. You said that's why you're running this. And we're talking about the morning edition, so you can tell me now or I can read about it ten hours from now. Is that not so?"

Banaias at least had the decency to go through the motions of looking conflicted before blurting "Francesca G. Innes."

"Of course it is," Kominsky snapped.

It occurred to Forsyth that there were any number of things Kominsky might do in ten hours with that information, none of them good. But it was too late now.

"Mr. Banaias, it's my understanding that you often supply advance copy to Ms. Culverson; is that correct?"

Banaias eyed Forsyth. "Sometimes."

"Good. I would like for you to e-mail me a copy of those stories, please. And I would like for you to carbon copy Ms. Culverson. And I would like for you to do that right away, if you would be so kind."

"Yes." There was a tremble in Banaias' voice. "Yes, I will."

"Thank you, Mr Banaias. Goodnight."

As he tapped the speakerphone off, Banaias looked more tired than she had ever seen him; more than that: Defeated.

Good. Bastard. I beat you; never forget it.

"You shouldn't have given him the name," Forsyth said.

"What does it matter now?" Banaias shrugged. "They've no comment." He tapped his fingers on the copy. "This is complete as is. You're sure?"

"Sure? I insist."

"You..." He scoffed silently. "You're one of a kind. You really are. Alright. Let's go win a Bentinck."

She could almost see the mental switch flip in him. Say what you like about bought men, at least you know they're for sale.

"A Bentinck? Frak, we'll be in the history books for this one."

"Right." He offered a mirthless smile and lit another cigarette. "Sure. Who d'you want to play you in the movie? Get a copy to the Sub. We'll re-lock the headlines by eleven."

She had anticipated that. The e-mail sending the stories to Banaias and the Sub was ready to go, and she tapped on her phone to send it. In the flush of victory, it did not occur to her to remove Banaias from the e-mail. "Done."

"My advice is, go home. You've done your part, so you may as well rest up. Tomorrow's gonna be the shitstorm to end all shitstorms; it'll start early and it won't stop, so get a good night's sleep and be back here by 8:30. Wear something that looks nice on TV, 'cause you'll be doing a lot of it. Mary Catherine Cate'll be watching you after this."

She wasn't tired, but it wasn't a bad idea.

As she walked past the Sub, he was reading on his e-sheet with a loose-hanging jaw. He looked up long enough to catch her eye and she gave him a victorious smile. She walked downstairs, out of the building, and glanced eastward toward Pyrmont and Cavendish House, wondering whether anyone was still in the office and whether they knew what was about to hit them.

She wandered west from Cheltenham to Seattle, in no particular hurry. The night was warm and clear. She found a food-cart still open by the park across from her building; surely to the gods she'd earned some unhealthy comfort food. She could deal with it at the gym after the morning shows. It'd be a good excuse to get away from the office... And from Banaias... Speaking of greasy little pigs.

I beat you, the thought again crossed her mind. I beat you, you little fuck.

Ari was already in bed when she walked into the apartment. She undressed, slipped under the covers, put an arm around him, and kissed his forehead. "I love you." He stirred long enough to grunt and reciprocate.

She had done what was right and what was necessary. The fallout would be... well, whatever it would be. The truth had been told, and as that sign from the Eastern Hemisphere's offices had said, anything the truth could kill deserved to die.

Besides, the election was months away. The stories were explosive but they didn't implicate Haiden or anyone close to her, and wasn't the conventional wisdom that the Federalists had picked Haiden precisely because she was not close to the administration? Hadn't Adar said some pretty nasty things about her not so long ago?

Heads would roll. The government was probably coming down, but it had been tottering anyway. It was just pessimism to think that they were handing power to Volakis by printing these stories.

Probably.

Well—maybe.

But for the first time in several years, Forsyth felt good about her job and she felt good about herself. She fell asleep soundly and easily.

## Chapter Forty: Frances & Carolyn.

Riverwalk. 10 PM.

"C'mon. Believe me, it's not as bad as mine."

"What's yours?" Frances pressed.

Culverson winced. "Daphne."

"That's nice! It's pretty."

"Don't make me blush. Alright, pay up, Innes."

"Fine. It's Geneva. Geneva! What kind of middle name's that?"

"It's pretty!" Culverson laughed.

Carolyn regretted that it came out sounding sarcastic. She meant it. She'd known Innes' middle name for a long time, and she honestly did think it was pretty.

From her perspective, the evening could scarcely have gone better. Innes had greeted her at the door, barefoot—barefoot!—and proffering the first of what would be several glasses of wine. The apartment was tiny, but in a cozy way; like a hug, warm, inviting, and enveloping, in all the ways Carolyn had never quite realized she wanted so badly.

The talk had not been romantic, but it hadn't been about work, of which she was glad, and it hadn't felt uncomfortable. To be sure, Innes seemed less than entirely at ease. But that was expected. Dating in the office was fraught; Kominsky wouldn't approve on the former point, but on the list of things Carolyn wasn't going to tell him for his own good, this was way down toward the bottom. And dating a woman... Canceron was liberal about such things, but not so liberal it didn't have words for it. So far as Carolyn knew (which was pretty far), Innes hadn't been on a date since arriving on Caprica, and, so far as she had been able to discover (which was also pretty far), she had never been with a woman.

Tonight wasn't going to change that, she judged. Innes wasn't that kind of girl.

And Carolyn wasn't, either. Not really.

She had used her sexuality when the job required. It was a useful tool, and if Carolyn Culverson was sure of anything, it was that the value she had always brought to the table was a willingness to use whatever tools were necessary to do what everyone knew needed done but lacked the spine to do themselves. Kominsky had recognized that as power, and Kikuchi had feared it as ruthless. Either way, that was her job. It wasn't her.

Not really.

She and Kominsky joked among themselves about that. That they were the masters of the dark arts and all that. But it was schtick, she told herself; trench humor. They did what had to be done, and Innes would understand that. In time. Everything Carolyn Culverson did was so that people like Frances Innes could keep their hands clean, those beautiful, creamy-white hands with skin that flushed pink to complement that hair...

Maybe, the thought crossed her mind... Carolyn was that kind of girl, if she needed to be. And maybe Innes... Maybe if they opened another bottle of wine...

No. Banish the thought. This was the start of the next phase of her life. Have patience. The election would come and go, and they would all move on to something else. To a less pressurized life beyond the suddenly grim visage of Pyrmont. Maybe to one with the woman across the couch from her.

Carolyn was getting ahead of herself. But it was all an excellent start.

An unobtrusive beep from her phone dragged her out of the moment, the second time it had done so in an hour, and she exclaimed in annoyance.

"Ignore it," Innes suggested.

Everything in Carolyn wanted to.

The unobtrusive beep became an insistent jangle.

"Can't." She smiled apologetically. "The boss gets his own ringtone. I can ignore everything except that one."

Some responsibilities couldn't be ducked. Something important might be happening and Carolyn D. Culverson, Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff, had been a pro for so long she had forgotten how to be anything else, no matter how much Carolyn might want to pretend for an evening.

Later, she might have thought it a mistake.

The voice on the phone was terse. "Check your e-mail." Before she could protest, the line clicked off.

She weighed that for a moment. It was gone ten, and nothing good comes of checking e-mail so late. She turned the phone over in her hands, considering her options. Innes was helping herself to another serving of food from the kitchenette countertop on the other side of her tiny apartment's living space, but that was all of four or five steps away and wouldn't provide sufficient time to read anything of any substance without appearing rude.

But... She had a direct order.

Carolyn D. Culverson, Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff, decided. Direct orders can't be disobeyed. And they were each several glasses in, so maybe an unsubtle artifice was good enough.

"Frances, can I use your bathroom?"

"Mm." Innes jabbed a finger toward a hallway behind the couch, her mouth full.

"Thanks."

Carolyn walked into the hallway, and couldn't help but notice the other door off that hall... Presumably the bedroom.

Maybe they were both that kind of girl.

Banish the thought.

From Frances' perspective, the evening had been torture.

The worst part of it was that it could have been enjoyable under other circumstances. Culverson might be the devil, but she had charm. She had arrived with freshly-washed hair loose and tumbling over her shoulders, and wearing a knee-length pencil skirt and a steel-grey short-sleeved blouse rather than her habitual jeans and long-sleeved shirts. It's for my benefit, Frances had realized instantly. She's making an effort. She wants to look good for me.

And the ghastly thing of it all was—she did. The blouse revealed what Frances had to admit were impressive biceps, the left adorned with what Frances would have guessed was a divisional tattoo. Culverson didn't like to talk about it, she had insisted. The tattoo itself begged to differ; MARINES, it shouted, atop a shield that contained a cannon, a vicious-looking knife, and two pairs of crossed rifles above the legend Utrum de mari an caelis. Pressed, Culverson had admitted after a glass of wine that, yes, it was a military thing, but, no, she didn't want to talk about it, and she had been uncharacteristically reticent about saying more. "It was good to have family," she had said, and would go no further.

There was a delicate balance to strike between 'get drunk enough to get through the evening' and 'stay sober enough to neither say nor do anything stupid.' By the time Culverson excused herself to go to the bathroom, Frances wasn't sure which side of that line she was on. Better safe than sorry. She poured another glass. Unsteady on her feet, she managed to drop her glass as she turned to walk back to the couch. The impact sent shards of glass and a pool of red wine scattering across her kitchenette's floor.

"Frak." She stared at the mess and sighed. "Just get through tonight," she murmured to herself. Tomorrow... Well, then we'll find out.

She was about to find a towel when Culverson emerged from the hallway to the bathroom, her hand and face twitching.

"You okay?" Frances asked.

"Um." Culverson stared at her. "I guess you really were Claire's protégé, huh?"

"I'm sorry?"

"No. You're not." Culverson scoffed. "The bitch of it is, you're not."

"What's going on?" Frances asked, warily.

"I just read what I'm told will be a front page story in tomorrow's Caprica Tribune." Culverson prowled closer, her neck reddening. "D'you want to explain to me why you're... Oh." She almost rocked back on her heels, and scoffed. "Son of a—I just put it together. That's why you were in my office. That's..." She laughed without humor. "You used me. You knew I liked you, so... Oh, that's clever. I'll give you that much. You bitch."

No point in pretending now. Frances felt her face twitch and she stepped over the remains of her wineglass toward Culverson, jabbing a finger at her. "I did nothing you don't do all the time." And after an evening pretending, she couldn't keep it inside. "How's it feel to be on the other end of it?"

It felt bad.

"You traitor." Carolyn could hear her pulse booming in her ears. "Godsdamnit, that's vicious. That's cold, even for me."

"What did you think, Carolyn? That I was weak? Fragile? Did you think I wouldn't find out—or that I'd be cowed, overawed, that I'd just go along with it? You never knew me."

Carolyn bit her lip trying and failing to center herself. Her breathing was off, a detached part of her mind left over from training noted, her breaths too short and shallow. "D'you even realize what you've done? If we don't stop Volakis, eight years of progress ends and probably washes away! Don't you understand? Everything we've built, it's—"

"If it's built on lies," Innes advanced another step toward her, "if we corrupt an election, our souls, what's the point of any of it? You can't buy anything worth selling your soul for!"

"What's the—" Carolyn scoffed. "You stupid frakkin' prig, you... You—then what about loyalty, Frances?"

They were inches apart by now.

"Loyalty? You're—" Frances almost choked, and leaned a little closer, dropping her voice to a contemptuous hiss. "I did only what was necessary, Carolyn," she snarled, "so that people like you can—"

"What about me?" Culverson shouted. "I loved you!"

She didn't see Culverson's right hook coming. As much from surprise as from the punch, she reeled backward into the kitchenette.

She had only an instant to register something wet and excruciatingly sharp under her foot before her ankle gave out and she fell backwards.

There was no time for Innes to shriek. It was over too quickly. With a wet thud, the back of her head crashed into the countertop and her body dropped to the floor, lifeless, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle.

Carolyn was still shouting for a few moments before she registered what her ears and eyes had just perceived. She stopped, and stared.

Blood was already pooling under Innes' head, a perverse rictus of a halo matching the puddle of spilled wine and the shards of broken glass at her feet.

"Ah, no... No no no. That's not—I'm sorry, I didn't... I'll call..."

She stopped herself. It was too late. Dazed, she stared at her intended and sat down carefully, cross-legged, in front of her.

She sobbed for a few minutes. Then, her mind blank, she walked out of the apartment into the night.

## Chapter Forty-One: Luke & Haiden.

Boskirk.

A small cavalcade of cars swept out of the convention center, crossed the Clærwyn headed northeast, and turned onto a boulevard atop the west embankment. Sharing one of the cars with Haiden, Luke gazed out of the window at the river gurgling past them.

"D'you realize," Haiden said, "a few months ago, if we'd been here together at all, you'd have been in your car with your staff and I'd have been in my car with my staff."

"A few months ago, if you told me we'd be on our way to the Faestenn to be guests of the King of Virgon, I'd have thought it was a euphemism!"

"Life is very strange, isn't it?"

Luke chuckled. The wine had been strong and plentiful, and it was going to his head.

"This is better," she said. "I'm glad we did this."

The cars turned off the embankment, sweeping up an incline toward the River Tower. As the King's car passed through the gate, the entire complex fairly exploded with lights and royal standards fluttered up flagpoles. They passed through another gate and pulled up in a courtyard behind the main palace building, where more guards stood ready, pointing them toward a doorway.

Sirica climbed out of another car and stood, marveling at it all. Luke met his eyes, and walked over to join him. "Where we're standing," Sirica observed, "was the ancient seat of power for an empire before my homeworld had land enough for my ancestors set foot on."

"And now we're honored guests," Luke agreed. The two men looked at one another and laughed. What else could you do? All of it had become surreal a long time ago, even without mind-bending time changes and strong alcohol.

"It's a long way from standing guard duty outside an outpost on Tauron, isn't it?"

"Whatever happens, I'm glad you talked me into this. Running, I mean."

"Talking you into it? Thank me for playing along," Sirica joked. Or at least—Luke thought he was joking.

Gutierrez and Vanssen were already through the doors; Haiden, they saw, was still waiting for Luke. "Go on, then," Sirica told Luke, with a smile, nodding in Haiden's direction. He turned to help Ostrakov out of their car.

Luke strolled back over to Haiden rubbing his hands together against the cold. "Is it strange that I'm nervous?" he asked.

She took his hand, squeezed, and led him to the door.

Inside, they crossed a black and white checkerboard floor guarded by statues of figures that towered toward the ceiling, whether mythological or historical Luke couldn't tell, and climbed a set of deeply worn siltstone steps. At the top, a set of double-doors led into a large drawing room; one entire side of the room seemed to be a single, vast window looking out over the Faestenn walls, the river beyond, and the city south of it.

"Aha!" Sirica said from behind them. He was beaming; Luke followed his eyeline to an ornate chessboard by the window. Sirica clapped a hand on Ostrakov's back and guided him toward it. "This is long overdue."

The King watched them with a faint smile before turning his attention to the others. "This," he gestured around the room, with more knowing sarcasm in his voice than Luke would have expected from royalty (or Haiden from a Virgan), "is called 'The Blue Room.'"

"Really?" Vanssen laughed. "Why?"

The carpet was of biscayan blue; the walls, where they peaked out from behind myriad gold-framed portraits and landscapes, were an azure blue; all the furniture was upholstered in a powder-blue silk. Even the ceiling was painted baby blue. Subtle recessed lamps sent pools of lighting flooding out from behind walnut and whitewood trims.

"Please," the King said, gesturing to a halo of sofas by the window. "The Majordomo is arranging to have rooms readied. Oh! Before we sit down. Now, ah, Judge, you are Gemenese, yes? And a bit of a history buff? I think you will like this." He led Luke to a display-cabinet, in which sat a simple crown wrought of a dull, silvery metal that looked unspeakably old.

"Is that...?"

"Yes."

"No! I thought it was lost? Melted down!"

"It was lost, for a while. Revolutions are nasty, messy things. But my ascendants were never short of flatterers, and many of those who would please them were people who knew how to find things. Would you like to hold it?"

"Would I like to hold... The actual crown of the Kingdom of Gemenon?" Luke asked.

"Your eyes are like saucers, chou," Haiden laughed.

"I don't dare!"

"It's solid platinum, Judge. I promise you won't break it." The King opened the top of the case, lifted it out, and handed it to Luke, who goggled at it, turning it over in his hands. "Well," he said, handing it back, "if I ever thought kings were big-headed, I know better now."

"We have our moments," laughed Andrew III, the King of Virgon.

Behind them, Vanssen emitted a delighted squeal, and Haiden and Luke turned to look. A large dog with a coat like autumn leaves had padded into the room and was eyeing the visitors.

"Oh," the King said. "This is Bryn. She's the Majordomo's, though sometimes she comes out to the Clare to run around in the countryside. Too soft to be a decent hunting-dog, but she's good company."

"I can see!" Luke said, kneeling to pet her.

"Careful of your knees," Haiden cautioned.

"Oh, frak my damned knees," Luke chuckled, fussing the dog's ears.

Haiden watched, pleased. I knew I had the measure of you.

A servant arrived carrying a tray of small cups, a teapot, and a tumbler containing ice and an amber liquid.

"Ah, yes, thank you." The King took the tumbler for himself and sipped. "Please, all of you, sit. This is a kind of herbal tea from Canceron." He poured two cups and carried them over to Sirica and Ostrakov, engrossed in their chess game, and returned to pour cups for the others. "It may help you sleep. Your good health, both of you," he said lifting his tumbler and nodding to Luke and Haiden. "All of you, in fact."

They talked for a couple of hours. When Haiden asked, as politely as she could muster, whether he had any advice for her, should she win, the King could only chuckle. "The monarchs of Virgon reign, and perhaps in some sense we rule, but certainly we no longer govern. What influence we have is by force of personality and culture; a tradition of deference. It's been so for many years, and the last king who forgot his place found himself dispatched somewhere he would not forget it easily."

"We killed him," Gutierrez said, softly.

"No, no, my dear. If he was killed in the action on Sagittaron, as is supposed—and I am not sure of that—then it was by his own field marshal." He shrugged. "They both met the end proper to the ruthless. You will all sleep safely tonight, behind walls of brick and stone that are thick, strong, and tall. Do you suppose they were built to keep out marauding armies of horse and foot fording the Clærwyn? They were built to ensure the fates of the monarchs of your homeworlds would not be the fate of ours. But safe is not enough for some people; power makes fools of men. Perhaps that should be my advice to you, Admiral."

After Vanssen and Gutierrez excused themselves and it was just the three of them sitting on the couch, the King drained another tumbler of the amber liquid and asked whether they had read Stantz. "He has a novel take on the old 'all this has happened before' line from scripture. The cycle of time, and so on."

Haiden shook her head. "I don't know it."

"I do," Luke said. "I wondered if that was what you were referencing earlier."

"I think he has a point. In Virgon's youth, as in yours and mine, we were vigorous. We were flexible and innovative; daring, even. Growing, becoming. Then the forms ossified and, triumphant, we had become. And what had we become? An empire, yes, but a gilded cage. Prisoners of assumptions we can't change, living on inertia stolen from our youth. Do you know, my Prime Minister visits me every week to tell me what he's doing in my name. And he asks my assent," he laughed without humor, "as if I could say no. Sometimes I think we are all just playing out our parts."

"I don't know the book," Haiden said, "but I know the analogy's wrong. Many organisms develop a hard shell, but they don't die. They shed it and live on. They grow a new shell. You never know what the future holds; I know I didn't when I retired. I would argue that despite President Adar's mistakes, that's what's been happening to the Colonies—that we're always becoming."

"Of course you'd see that analogy," Luke laughed.

"Do you disagree, Judge?"

"I do know the book, but I'm less pessimistic than I was. At the time, I saw a different analogy to Connie's. I thought of stars. They grow old and die, but at the end of their lifecycle, they spit out the foundations of the next generation, and in that sense live on. They leave a legacy." He hesitated. "Not long after I read it, this was a couple of years ago, my doctor found a mass. The same had happened with my wife and she was dead within a year, so I thought—'this is it.' They removed it and said I was cured, but I didn't believe it. I retired, and I was at peace with it. I thought, 'I've lived a good life and I've done important work. I've contributed what I can to the next generation. I've left a legacy.'

"But it didn't come back. And then we started this adventure. And it's not been at all what I expected. And now, I'm not waiting to die. Now I can't wait to see what's next. Connie may be right; maybe we can always be reinvigorated, renewed." He glanced at Haiden. "I know I have been."

* * *

Blame it on alcohol, blame it on too many long days on too many worlds, blame it on Virgon's disorientingly long day, they had all stayed up far too late. By the time the clock chimed 29, though, Luke and Haiden made their excuses and followed the lead of another immaculately uniformed guard up the stairs and along a wide hallway. He took them to a door, advised that this one was for Haiden and the next for Luke, and then took his leave, disappearing back around the corner.

"He's a gloomy sort," Luke chuckled.

"He'd had a lot to drink."

"So've we. I'm more of a happy drunk, I guess."

He turned to go, but she caught his hand. "Keep me company?"

He smiled at her. "Of course."

A fire had been lit in the room, and it crackled away in the hearth below an icon of Hestia, Patron of Virgon, Goddess of Home and Hearth. Waiting for her on the bed, good as promised, was a bag containing a handwritten note from the Majordomo welcoming His Majesty's most esteemed guests—and, more helpfully, slippers, sweatclothes, and a few extra blankets, thin but warm, a blessed relief to both innerworlders in Virgon's cold.

"Oh, thank the gods," Haiden said. "I've gotta change out of these clothes,"

"Oh." Luke shifted uneasily. "Um. Should I—?" He pointed toward a door leading into a little ensuite.

"Leave? No. I didn't even ask you to turn around. Besides, ships don't have separate facilities for men and women, Luke, and I served a long time. You don't even rate your own head on a battlestar 'til you're a major, and I was on destroyers most of my career."

The word besides rattled around his mind.

She had been wearing the same clothes for a day and a half; these she stripped off and gazed at herself in a mirror. She was tall and lean, her legs and arms still sinuous. But time claims all. Her flesh had lost its plump and sagged. Once upon a time, her hair had been a lustrous black, streaked by a white forelock. It had been her trademark. Her hair was coarser now, and the streak's lonely watch had been reinforced by several ranks of grays. Over the months, she had given up on the dye.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm fooling myself," she sighed.

"What do you mean?"

She glanced at him and smiled thinly. "I've probably had too much to drink and I'm being self-critical. Don't you ever look at yourself in the mirror and think 'who's this old person, whatever happened'?"

"I think you're beautiful, actually."

"You have definitely had too much to drink," she laughed.

She slipped under the covers. He stayed put above them. Always the gallant. she thought.

"Maybe I have. Well, frak, maybe it's a good thing, every now and again. I don't have to look in the mirror and wonder. I know what happened, what changed. This. You. I thought my life was over. And then I met you, and everything changed. Everything's different now. I feel—Connie? Um. I don't know when this happened or how, but..." He tried to force it out, hoping he wasn't making a fool of himself.

She smiled and squeezed his hand. "I love you too."

There was a little television by the bed, and she turned it on, flicking through channels until she landed on a sitcom of some kind. She pushed back against him, and they lay on the bed together giggling at bad jokes.

"Just because you love me doesn't mean I'm not coming after you on the campaign-trail," she cracked.

"I know. Ow." He stretched his back and tried to roll. "Getting old sucks."

She held onto him and squeezed his hand drowsily. "This is nice."

"Les enfants vont parler. Bob and Gerald, too."

"D'accord; laisse les parler."

"They'll never let us live it down," he chuckled. "I've never done the—what do you call it, the 'walk of shame' before."

"Would you be ashamed of me, Luke?"

He squeezed her waist through the sheets. "Never."

# Postlude: Machinae ex Deo

April 15, 2000 A.E.

06:58, Caprica City time.

Silently, unnoticed at first, ships began jumping into low orbits above the Twelve Worlds. Over thinly populated Aquaria, only two; over Caprica and Virgon, in swarms like plagues of coal-black insects. Over Canceron, they could have blotted out the sun. Just as Nagala had said, they came with neither warning nor fanfare.

Like clockworks, they took only moments to reach their designated positions, perform last-second adjustments, and prepare the weapons. Then, at 7 A.M. Caprica City time, to the second, hundreds of Cylon ships millions of miles apart puffed down upon the Colonies a cloud of death.

Peter Corman was among the very first to die.

It was early in Perkinston, but Corman was at his desk awaiting word from Nagala and Bratton. His plan was to catnap on the flight to Caprica. The Cylon plan called for wiping out FHQ in the opening salvo of the attack, and whether by accident or design, one of the baseships tasked to Perkinson jumped the gun, firing a full seven seconds sooner than the others. From a point blank angle, its missiles took barely half a minute to cut through the atmosphere.

The FHQ complex was the shape of an H with inward-turned kerning, and the warhead struck the tie dead center, tearing through the roof and two stories. It was inches above the floor when its pressure trigger fired. FHQ had been built tough, but no building stood a chance against a megaton-yield nuclear warhead. The detonation reduced it to atoms, and with it everything within a kilometer. Everyone within twice that radius was already dead, and the second warhead, mere moments behind the first, had yet to detonate.

Richard Harriman Adar, the seventh president of the United Colonies of Kobol, died in his sleep. He had never been a mornings person at the best of times; an attraction of working on Caprica was that the workday didn't begin until nine in the morning. And he had been up late, drinking, pacing like a caged animal, and cursing at absent enemies: Innes and Forsyth; Volakis and Haiden; Novak and Roslin; Nagala, Corman, and Bratton; and above all, the never-before-questioned implacable march of progress and its apparent desertion of him, its instrument. It would have surprised him to know that it was merely fortuitous accident rather than design that one of the first warheads detonated almost directly above his bed.

Luke Volakis and Connie Haiden also died asleep. They had fallen asleep together, quite drunk and very content. If any of the staff knew what the Tribune would be publishing, neither candidate did. All the vaunted strength of the Faestenn's walls did nothing to spare its guests.

Jennifer Welles-Forsyth wasn't asleep, but she died in her bed, next to Ari. The BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of a truck reversing outside had woken them early. They made love, and drowsy but unable to sleep, as much nervy as content, she lay listening to Ari snore lightly. Huōban made a lazy leap onto the bed and made a noise that demanded fuss or feeding. She scratched his ears for a minute and the cat, sated, curled around her leg and started cleaning himself. When the bombs fell, she had just glanced at the clock and was performing mental arithmetic to figure out the latest time that she could get away with getting up.

Carolyn Culverson was wide awake, and the blasts that killed Adar and Forsyth were the last thing she saw. She was halfway into her morning run. Arriving back at her apartment in a daze somewhere in the middle of the night, with no clear memory of how she had gotten there, she had fallen into bed and lapsed into an uneasy half-sleep. At 0600, her alarm screamed at her every twenty seconds with increasing volume until she wrenched it from the wall and hurled it across the room. Somewhere in the following half-hour she had made it into the living room, still dazed. When Nicola had appeared, she had put on running sweats and followed her roommate out of the door. She had no idea what else to do.

Nicola was jabbering happily about someone she'd bedded the preceding night. Carolyn barely listened. On any other day like this, the clusterfrak promised by the Tribune stories would be competing in her mind with replays of an early-morning conference call with Adelyne to assess potential damage-control plays. Today, that would have been complicated by the fact that neither Kominsky nor Innes were anywhere to be found.

As they passed the Concerthall, a thought meandered through her mind: Sometime later that day, by next week at the latest, someone would find the body.

They were turning northwest into the park when the first warheads detonated a mile and a half south over Midtown and four miles west over Downtown. Even facing half away from it, the flash was blinding; for an instant, everything was molten yellows and oranges, and then black. In the couple of seconds left to them, each, for different reasons, reflexively turned and defiantly squared their shoulders against the onrushing blastwave.

"Perfect," Carolyn snorted.

Edward Hackett Nagala's last hours were rather different.

The battlestar Atlantia.

"So then this asshole," Landon said, holding eye-contact with the Chief of the Watch while jabbing a finger at Nagala between hoots of laughter, "stands square in front of the Old Man and says 'After you, SIR'! Couldn't believe it," he managed, eventually. "Gutsiest thing I ever saw."

Nagala tossed a reserved smile in the vague direction of the Chief and Colonel Kirchoff, the Executive Officer. "Only about ten percent of this is actually true," he chuckled, to no one in particular. Ten percent or not, the Atlantia's CIC was not large enough that the crew wouldn't be hearing all of it, especially at Landon's accustomed volume.

Nagala felt the crew's eyes on him. That was fair; the Officer of the Watch was in nominal command, but the Commander, the X.O., and the Chief of Fleet Operations were gathered around the Conn, laughing and joking. That didn't happen every day. It had to have tongues wagging and imaginations stirring as to what was going on, but it couldn't be helped.

"X?" The O.O.W. touched Kirchoff's elbow. "We have the jump to Alpha plotted. Execute?"

The X.O. glanced at Landon. He nodded fractionally and the O.O.W. scurried off.

"Where are we jumping?" Nagala asked, glancing at his watch.

"A ways outside of Virgon's pattern. Don't worry," Landon clapped a hand on Nagala's back. "You'll make your appointment." For once in the man's life, he lowered his voice and added, "just don't want to draw attention to ourselves. She's a beauty, but a battlestar ain't subtle."

"Like a tarantula on a marshmallow," Nagala agreed. "Quite so." He marveled at the quiet efficiency of it all; despite Landon's big personality and propensity to exaggerate sea stories, there was no drama to any of it. The crew worked efficiently to reel in the CAP and rig the ship for the jump. His ship was in good hands, he thought. No—not just good hands. The best, really. Landon was loud, but he knew what the Service was about, and if any crew in the fleet was well-prepared for anything, his would be it.

The Chief of the Watch accepted a keycard from the O.O.W., walked from his station at the Conn to the FTL console, double-checked the work of the Specialist seated there, and looked to the O.O.W. She gave a slight nod. The Chief inserted the card into a slot on the console, and pressed a button...

And with no drama, and barely anything perceptible, really, they were at the far end of the worlds. The technology had come so far, Nagala thought; you barely felt a thing. It was executed with barely a raised voice.

"Jump complete," the Chief announced. "Sublight, rig for headway."

"Starting a track," the Tactical Officer murmured. "Tally; we're in position."

"These kids are really good," Landon smiled. "Makes this whole thing look easy. Major," he looked to the O.O.W. and held out a hand toward her, palm up. "To Virgon, if you please."

Nagala glanced at his watch. It was late; gone three in the morning at FHQ. Corman would be ready anyway. It would be about 7 A.M. in Caprica City. They had about an hour.

"Holy—" Across the CIC in the wireless shack, the Wireless Operator tore off his headset, cursing, and rubbed his ear. Next to him, the CapCom, responsible for wireless communications with the battlestar's own aircraft, shot him a puzzled look.

"There a problem?" Kirchoff called.

"There's a damn cacophony of noise on the civilian channels," he affirmed. He winced and put his headset back on. "Had the volume up too loud when the system came back up."

Had Skip Landon ever gotten the chance to tell the story, this would have been when he insisted that he'd gotten a bad feeling that something was wrong. He didn't. No one did.

"I have a DRADIS alert on the L.W.R.," the Tactical Officer announced, his voice a frown. "It's toward Virgon. But I don't understand what I'm seeing; it reads more like noise than multiple returns."

At almost the same moment, the Wireless Operator spoke up again. "X, you need to hear this.

Kirchoff and the O.O.W. exchanged puzzled glances, the former heading for the wireless shack, the latter to the tactical station.

Landon and Nagala looked at one another. "Now—you said I didn't want to know," Landon said. "But, ah... You're not expecting trouble, right?"

"Not for another hour."

"The Commander will have the deck," Kirchoff's voice cut through the growing noise.

Nagala and Landon turned to look at her. That was not a commonly given order. She was tying her hair back as she hurried toward them, and all the color had drained from her face.

"Set condition two throughout the ship," Kirchoff ordered, without waiting for a reply or pausing to explain. "Chief of the Watch, null the R.C.S. and rig for battle speed." She leaned on the Conn and eyed first Landon, then Nagala. "Hostiles are dropping nukes on Virgon. Hostiles are of an uncatalogued configuration, but Cylon in general plan."

She had lowered her voice, but everyone heard it. For a moment, as silence descended on the CIC, Nagala considered. "Navigation," he asked eventually, "how far are we from Picon and Caprica? In light minutes, please."

"Thirteen from Caprica. Picon, fourteen," a Specialist called from the nav shack. A Virgan accent, Nagala noted; the boy's voice shook, but he knew the answer. A well-trained crew.

"Broadwave wireless?" Landon asked, his voice hushed.

Nagala nodded and looked again at his watch. "There are two possibilities. This is their main force; this is one of several strike groups. I rather think the latter, but in ten or so minutes, we'll know. Tactical, start tracks on every ship in the system; Major, get us a chart and start marking off everything nearby."

The Atlantia had never been intended to serve as a command-ship, and no flag bridge had ever been built. The CIC would have to do. They gathered around the tactical station, where Kirchoff spread out a paper chart that overlapped its edges. "We're here," she said, tapping the chart. "The last Heartbeat Report says Battlestar Group 14 should be here, right outside the Virgon orbital pattern's outer marker. But we've no transponders from that bearing, so we have to assume most of them were already destroyed."

"Ares' balls," Landon swore.

"The Columbia," Nagala murmured; "the Horkos, the Alecto..."

"No." Kirchoff reached over the chart and marked another position. "Alecto was detached to run some kind of errand. She still has an active transponder, but it's squawking heavy damage, so we'd better count her out, too. That's the bad news. The good news," she pulled another chart onto the table and marked off several symbols, "is that Battlestar Group 31 is right here."

"Solaria," Landon said.

"Admiral Turner," Nagala said, pointedly.

"Yeah." The point evidently landed in a sense that Nagala hadn't intended. "Between you, me, and the gods, we used to call him 'Rick the Prick.' But he can take orders and they're all-but close enough for voice already."

An hour ago, it occurred to Nagala, a Commander calling a Rear-Admiral a prick within hearing of the entire CIC would have merited at the very least a stern admonition. War changed everything.

"Commander Watts is a friend," Landon averred. "He'll keep Turner in line."

"Yes, Sirs." Kirchoff, not unreasonably, seemed uninterested in the politics of it. "So there's Solaria, with Alastor, Nautilus, and several destroyers in tow. And over here, you also have the Triton; a bit of a walk away, but we can have a signal to her inside of ten minutes."

"Commander Norton's quiet retirement cruise just got jazzy," Landon quipped. He turned and lobbed a command in the direction of the wireless shack. "Signal Triton to haul-to and standby for orders. Wait." He eyed Nagala. "Sign it 'Nagala, ADM.' Send it broadwave in the clear, priority one." He turned back to the chart. "Looks like the next nearest is Galactica; Bill's ship. But she's all the way over here," he reached across the chart toward the orbit of Zeus. "An hour away, minimum."

"It doesn't matter," Nagala said. "She was decommissioned." He gave Landon a flat look with not a trace of inflection. "A few hours ago."

"Hmn." Landon chuckled softly. "Hell of a way to sail into a war. And damned if you don't pick your moments to go for a wander around the park, Ed. Still, that gives us... I mean, that's a decent amount of firepower. Assuming, that is, you're minded to do something with it?"

"It's not just Virgon," the Wireless Operator announced. "Broadwave traffic from Caprica and Gemenon just started arriving. They're under attack from apparently-Cylon ships of unknown configuration."

Grim silence settled over the CIC.

Nagala stared at the chart. "Focus on what's in front of us. We have five battlestars and six destroyers, arrayed against what can't be fewer than two dozen Cylon capital-ships."

"And about a billion Raiders," Landon observed, drily. "Do we go in? Or wait? The T.O. would say we gather more forces before mounting a counterattack. 'Course, they don't say how much is enough."

Nagala studied a telescope image of the closest enemy. It looked nothing and everything like the basestars seared into his memory four decades ago. The same configuration, twin hulls joined around a spindle, but lean, pointed, and coal-black. Dangerous.

Landon waited, appearing patient, though Nagala doubted that it was more than an act. Or that it could last long. Everyone in the CIC seemed to be holding their breath, fixed on him.

These were the moments for which the mythos was cultivated. The odds were against them; fearsome, in fact. But the crew was with him. No matter what he decided, they would follow his lead.

There was a gasp from the wireless shack. "Flash traffic over the Picon relay," the operator announced. "FHQ's gone dark, presumed destroyed."

The crew took that pretty well, all in all, Nagala thought, as he absorbed the news himself. He wished he could share their surprise, but war had finally galloped over the horizon, and that move wasn't unexpected. Still, it made the decision easier. "There are no more forces to gather," he murmured.

Admiral Edward Hackett Nagala looked up and met Landon's eyes. His voice was calm and even. "Commander Landon, sound action-stations, please."

The CIC fairly exploded into activity around them.

"Signal Solaria to accelerate to attack speed and form up on us. Signal Triton to jump midway between us and the enemy; I want her to draw a line and shoot down any Raider approaching it. Launch all fighters, load all tubes and guns." He clapped a hand on Landon's shoulder. "There's no cavalry coming to help us. We're it. If they're attacking Virgon, Gemenon, Picon, and Caprica all at once, they're attacking everywhere at once. Our forces are engaged. This is the fight. Win, lose, or draw, this is where we meet them."

Let us strap on our spurs one last time and ride out to meet the enemy.

"You have a good crew." He checked himself. That would not do; he raised his voice loud enough to be heard throughout the CIC. "This is the best crew, Commander. This is the best ship."

He eyed Landon. "Let's go get the bastards."

# Appendices

## Calendars of Picon and Virgon

Picon orbits Helios Alpha at .96 SU in 338 KSRC days with a 25-hour rotation. In local time, its year therefore lasts 324 ½ Picon days. Although Picon has almost no axial tilt, Solstice remains a major (albeit vestigial) celebration.

The _Realigned Picon Calendar_ ('RPC,' adopted as of January 1, 1970 (Cap.)) breaks the year into twelve 27-day months, adding a leap-day to Theoxenios every other year. Years therefore alternate between 324 and 325 days. Weeks are broken into seven days that process independently of date.

1. Heraios. 7. Heracleios.

2. Apellaios. 8. Artemisios.

3. Parthenios. 9. Elaphios.

4. Alphios. 10. Ilaios.

5. Athanaios. 11. Diohuos.

6. Bysios. 12. Theoxenios.

Virgon orbits at 1.06 SU in 395 KSRC days, with a 31-hour rotation. In local time, its year lasts 306 ⅘ days. It is one of three worlds in Cyrannus with a significant axial tilt (the other two are Tauron and Scorpia, and Scorpia's is marginal), giving it distinct hemispherical seasons.

The _Brady-Grey Calendar_ ('BGC,' adopted 1202) divides the year into four pairs of months, oriented around the Equinoxes and Solstices: A grammatically feminine month beginning with the alignment followed by a grammatically masculine counterpart ending with the next alignment. Weeks comprise six 31-hour days; in the winter months (from the standpoint of Greenwich, the meridian city) have six weeks and the summer months add an additional week per month.

1. Verna (Spring Equinox).

2. Corrini.

3. Aura (Summer solstice).

4. Bodhi.

5. Kaia (Autumnal Equinox).

6. Demetri.

7. Hestia (Winter Solstice).

8. Janii.

## Glossary of geographical locations

**Aerilon**. De facto subject-world of Canceron in Helios Delta. Homeworld of Abigail Ainslie and Romo Lampkin. Site of a controversial military action shortly before the events of this book. Visited by the candidates on the campaign-trail.

Ambois, LE. Connie Haiden's hometown.

Aquaria. Outermost habitable planet of Helios Delta; inhabited by the reconstituted historic nation of Aquarion since the 1200s. Homeworld of Gareth Lowell and Robert Sirica. Visited by the candidates on the campaign-trail.

Athlone, AE. Small city where Abigail Ainslie was born, later visited by Maggie and Abigail in _The Racetrack Apocrypha_.

Argolis, CN. City on the eastern coast of Heraklion, across the Peconic Ocean from Kitkatla. The city is a deep-red Municipalist area, andits particularly beautiful lagoonside beaches are a popular tourist attraction.

Boskirk, Kingston canton, VI. Capital-city of Virgon, located in the Kingston canton at the confluence of the Clærwynn and Halys rivers. Founded 2 A.E.

Cambridge, Staverton canton, VI. David Wright's hometown.

Canceron. The most populous of the twelve worlds, and the principal power in the Helios Delta system. Homeworld of Frances Innes and Claire Kikuchi. Site of the Kitkatla eruption. Visited by Nicola and Romo in _The Racetrack Chronicle_.

Caprica. The last colony; colonized late in history after centuries of kobolforming, accepted into the ICC as the Twelfth Colony of Kobol 1,272 A.E., it subsequently became the preeminent power among the worlds, and since 1,948 A.E., host-colony of the federal government. Caprica orbits Helios Alpha in a binary pair with Gemenon, with a barycenter at 1 S.U., giving the two worlds a 28.2-day quasi-seasonal cycle. Homeworld of William Adama, Kara Thrace, Karl Agathon, and Felix Gaeta; adopted homeworld of Richard Adar and J.G. Kominsky.

Caprica City, CA. Founded circa 1,210 A.E. Capital of Caprica since 1,262 A.E. Nominal capital-city of the United Colonies of Kobol since December 1,948 A.E. The Metropolitan area contains, inter alia, Burrard (location of Carolyn's and Nicola's flat), Cheltenham (location of the _Tribune_ building), Pyrmont (the Federal District, ceded Dec. 1,948 A.E., and containing Cavendish House and the Congresshall), Riverwalk, Rose Orchard (location of Kominsky's flat) and Seattle (location of Forsyth's flat). Outlying areas include Bedford (location of the eponymous Naval Air Station where Molenaar is stationed) and Belcarra (location of Gaius Baltar's house).

Carlisle, PI. County seat of County Marion, and Hometown of Margaret Cavendish, first President of the United Colonies of Kobol.

Cavendish House, Pyrmont, FD. Official home and workplace of the President of the United Colonies of Kobol and office complex occupied by EOPC. Built as a post-office circa 1,850 A.E.; gutted by fire in the earliest days of the Cylon Insurrection.

Celeste, SC. Capital-city of Scorpia.

The Clare Palace. Summer residence of the Virgan monarchs, and de facto seat of power at various points in history. Located approximately near Molesham, approximately fifty miles from Boskirk.

Coldstream, Labrashire, Kingston canton, VI. Location of Marine Headquarters since the Flint-McMorris Act. Formerly headquarters of the Virgan RRF.

_Cyrannus_. The star system containing the Twelve Colonies. Comprises two pairs of stars orbiting a common barycenter, plus Ragnar, a gas-giant currently orbiting the the Alpha–Beta pair. (Scientists do not believe that Ragnar is native to the Alpha–Beta pair; some theories argue that it may have previously orbited Delta–Gamma, others that its current orbit is a component of a figure-eight super-orbit around both pairs.)

The Hall of the Colonial Congress, Pyrmont, FD. Meeting-place and offices for the Congress of the Colonies and one of the meeting-places of the (itinerant) Quorum of Twelve. Located in the erstwhile Pyrmont district of Caprica City across Hastings Square from Cavendish House. Built as a railroad station circa 1,700 and repurposed for the more populous branch of the lower chamber after the war.

Ebacorum Bellum, SC. Hometown of Richard Harriman Adar, seventh President of the United Colonies of Kobol.

The Faestenn (Sæs., "keep"). The official seat of government for the Kingdom of Virgon. Walled fortress in central Boskirk, containing, inter alia, the Actian Palace, the official residence of the Virgan monarchs. The candidates and their staffs are guests here of Andrew III during the night of the Fall of the Twelve Colonies.

Falstone, County Marion, PI. Home village of Maggie and Nicola Edmondson, near Carlisle.

FHQ. Complex housing (and metonym for the) central administrative apparatus of the Colonial Fleet. Located on the outskirts of Perkinston, PI.

Gemenon. The first colony; world in Helios Alpha that orbits in a binary-pair with what is now Caprica. Historically the spiritual home of the Monad church. Homeworld of Lucas Volakis and J.G. Kominsky. Haiden and Volakis meet here to discuss the Entente.

Heim, AQ. Capital-city of Aquaria; founded 1229 A.E.

Kalivia, CN. Major city on the western shore of the Peconic Ocean.

Kingsholm, Berkshire, Staverton canton, VI. Ancestral seat of the Nagala family.

Kitkatla, CN. Volcanic atoll off the shore of Kaliva.

Leonis. Innermost habitable world of Helios Beta. Homeworld of Michel Piper, Connie Haiden, and Anne Vanssen.

Libran. Innermost habitable world of Helios Gamma. Established as a colony in 1172 A.E.; in 1,190, the ICC voted to headquarter its new Intercolonial Court in the Libran capital, Themis. After the Articles of Colonization were signed, the Supreme Court of the Colonies absorbed the intercolonial court and remained in situ; the Quorum of Twelve periodically sits here, too. Longtime home and workplace of Lucas Volakis.

Luminère, LE. Capital-city of Leonis; founded 378 A.E.

MoD (Ministry of Defence), Pyrmont, FD. Civil authority supervising the Colonial Forces and their adjuncts. Located at the east end of Pyrmont, Caprica City near Riverwalk. Houses the Admiralty Board, the mixed civil–uniformed advisory board that nominally and day-to-day governs military affairs.

Perkinston, County Wexford, PI. Second city of Picon and location of Fleet Headquarters since the Flint-McMorris Act, 1986.

Pianosa, CN. City on the west coast of Heraklion, the eastern shore of the Peconic Ocean, a thousand miles northeast of Kitkatla. Maggie and David take a brief shore-leave here in _The Racetrack Chronicle_. It sits atop high bluffs that deflect the incoming tsunami in _Evaded Cadence_.

Picon. Innermost habitable world of Helios Alpha. Subject to direct rule by the Virgan Empire 885–1,543 A.E., and home rule 1,453-1,892. Homeworld of Maggie "Racetrack" Edmondson and Jennifer Welles-Forsyth. FHQ, the Poseidon Colonial Military Academy (under Robert King in _The Racetrack Chronicle_ and later Natalia Caldwell), and various other important naval installations are located here. With neither a moon nor an axial tilt, the climate is calm and consistent; nevertheless, Solstice celebrations remain a cultural vestige of the Virgan supremacy.

Queenstown, PI. Capital-city of Picon. Jennifer Welles-Forsyth's hometown.

Rose Orchard. Neighborhood of North Caprica City, bordered to the south by the harbor, to the north by Birchgrove, to the east by Burrard, to the west by St. Hughes. Mixed commercial and high-grade residential. Location of Kominsky's apartment.

Scorpia. Principal power in Helios Gamma. Homeworld of President Sutherland and Skip "Payload" Landon, world-of-origin of President Adar and Carolyn Culverson. Visited by Innes and Culverson.

Scorpion Shipyards. Military shipyard and docks with its primary facilities orbiting Scorpia. Additional facilities located at Libran's moon Herse (visited by Maggie and Abigail in _The Racetrack Apocrypha_ ).

Shorewood, GE. Suburb of Langalac, Gemenon. Lucas Volakis' hometown.

Seattle. Residential neighborhood of Caprica City; located in Midtown, west of Cheltenham and the Rutherford Parkway, between the H-4 Expressway and the harbor. Location of Forsyth's apartment.

The Solovki. Building in downtown Boskirk; formerly a headquarters and prison of the RCSR.

Tauron. Outermost habitable world of Helios Beta. Homeworld of Aldred Marineo and Helena Cain. Long before the events of _Evaded Cadence_ , Volakis meets Sirica here during a wartime military assignment; later, they live and practice law here, and Forsyth achieves a major journalistic coup.

Themis, LI. Capital-city of Libran; founded 1068 A.E. Longstanding home of the Supreme Court of the Colonies and its predecessor, the Intercolonial Court, as well as several prestigious law schools and firms. The principal temple of the Latnock spirituality movement is also located here.

Ventnor, PI. Fishing-village south of Bride's Bay. Nearest settlement to the Poseidon Colonial Military Academy in _The Racetrack Chronicle_ , established on the erstwhile Nackimova Estate immediately west of Ventnor.

Virgon. Outermost world of Helios Alpha; principal of the Virgan Empire 885 A.E.–1892 A.E. One of only two of the twelve worlds with a substantial moon and one of only three with a significant axial tilt, dividing the year into natural seasons, and the only one retaining an extant monarchy. Homeworld of Edward Nagala and David Wright.

## Glossary of organizational terminology

A.R.F. Addiction Recovery Fellowship. Sobriety organization founded on the principles of the Latnock Libranese spiritualist movement.

CARC ( _SEE–ark_ ). (Colonial) Civil Aviation Regulatory Commission.

CF / CFR / CMC / CMCR (postnominal). Colonial Fleet / Colonial Fleet Reserve / Colonial Marine Corps / Colonial Marine Corps Reserve.

CRP. The Campaign to Re-elect the President. Umbrella organization for Adar in the 1,996 AE election.

CBMS. Colonial Bureau of Mining Safety. Subdivision of the Ministry of Environmental Standards & Resource Management.

CBTAC ( _SEA'bee–tac_ ). Colonial Bureau of Tax Assessments and Collections. Subdivision of MoF responsible for revenues.

E.O.P.C. Executive Office of the President of the Colonies. The apparatus through which the President of the Colonies makes and executes policy. Located in Cavendish House and its adjoining Annex.

F.H.Q. Fleet Headquarters, Perkinston, Picon. The uniformed administrative department supporting the Colonial Fleet and Admiralty staff.

F.I.C. Federalist International Committee. Umbrella organization coordinating Federalist Party activities throughout the Twelve Worlds.

F.V.E. (postnominal). Fellow of the Virgan Empire. Penultimate class of the senior Virgan civil chivalric order.

I.C.C. Intercolonial Commission. Defunct organization for diplomatic relations between the colonies of Kobol. First meeting: 33 A.E., on Gemenon. Last meeting: 1,821 A.E., on Virgon.

K.C.O.H. (postnominal). Knight Commander of the Order of Hestia. Virgan civil honor.

M.I.C. Municipalist International Committee. Umbrella organization coordinating Municipalist Party activities throughout the Twelve Worlds.

MoD or CMoD. (Colonial) Ministry of Defence. The civilian part of the chain of command.

MoF or CMoF. (Colonial) Ministry of Finance. The money-men.

MoJ or CMoJ. (Colonial) Ministry of Justice. Federal agency charged with law-enforcement.

O.C. (postnominal). Onyx Cross. Virgan military decoration.

OTEC. Organization of Tobacco Exporting Colonies.

R.C.S.R. Royal Commission for the Security of the Realm. Officially-defunct Virgan intelligence, security, and paramilitary apparatus. Actual status: Not defunct.

S.C.C. Supreme Court of the Colonies.

TEF. Tylium Exporters Forum.

## A note on canon

While Evaded Cadence is intended, to the greatest extent possible, to be susceptible of being read freestanding, it takes place in the continuity that I established in The Racetrack Chronicle. (The Racetrack Apocrypha, a collection of short-stories in the same continuity, will appear eventually.) The events of this book pick up shortly after those of "Poseidon" and take place at the same time as those of "Galactica." If you read "Poseidon" and wondered "gee, what happened next"—you have your answer.

That continuity, in turn, is an idiosyncratic take on the universe developed by Ronald D. Moore et al for Battlestar Galactica and its prequel, Caprica. At the end of The Racetrack Chronicle, I added a note explaining that book's relationship to the broader Battlestar canon, and it seems appropriate to do the same thing here.

The Racetrack Chronicle is, obviously, canon to Evaded Cadence. For any errors or discrepancies between the texts (and there are a couple—good hunting), I apologize. Both books accept as canon every episode of the Moore-produced Battlestar Galactica, including the Miniseries that preceded it and Caprica which followed it, excepting the episode "Hero." As I've detailed elsewhere, that episode would tie canon in knots, so my continuity treats it as though there were a deleted-scene at the end in which Adama wakes up, shakes himself, and says "well, that was a horrible dream." Nevertheless, by embracing Admiral Corman as a character, and certain pieces of worldbuilding from that episode (though not the specifics of the story), I hope to have it both ways: I hope that I've remained consistent with the episode if I can't persuade you that it was a turkey and preserved room for the idea that "it was all a dream."

The Map of the Colonies produced by QMX with the assistance of the Caprica showrunners is not canon, but it's normative for my continuity, with a few necessary corrections. You'll notice those if you look closely at the maps in this book and pay attention to the geography I've described.

First, as I've explained elsewhere, Virgon must be in Helios Alpha, and the cleanest solution was to simply swap QMX's orbits for Virgon and Tauron. This is a distinctive feature of the "maggieverse" continuity, because the geopolitical history that follows from it can't be unwound.

Second, Ragnar must orbit the Alpha–Beta pair not the Delta–Gamma pair, and it is appropriately moved. (There are words about this in the draft of the next book.)

Third, certain populations have been changed to be more realistic, most noticeably those of Aquaria and Libran.

Lastly, Edward T. Yeatts' Lords of Kobol books are assumed as canonical backstory. That's true even though the pantheon of the gods in Colonial religion in my continuity differs from the historical reality of the Lords of Kobol that Yeatts presents. Two thousand years is a long time for time to corrupt and myth to augment the truth. It should also be noted that Yeatts' forthcoming Colonies of Kobol series will take place in an alternate universe from mine, most obviously differentiated by the incompatible positions of Virgon, Tauron, and Ragnar. As the inexplicably-french Leonans presumably say: Vive la difference.

–SJD

## Out now: The Racetrack Chronicle

There are moments in life that seem... Hazy. Surreal. Did I dream the last two weeks? How did I end up here, in a cell?

Start here: My name is Maggie Edmondson. I was a sister and friend. I was someone's beloved. Even after everything else had been taken from me, I was an officer and a pilot. Then I made a mistake—so now I'm no one.

In better moments, I might find dark humor in that. There was a time I aspired to be no one. I kept my head down, and for a while, for a short, shining while, I thought my story would be a love story: 'How'd you meet your husband, Maggie?' 'We served together in the military.' It would have been a small, snug, happy story for a small, snug, happy life. A story for school fetes and coffee-mornings at a Demetan temple. 'I'm no one. Ask me about my kids; about my husband, the architect; my sister, the lawyer; my sister-from-another-mama, she's got an exciting story, she's a fast-climber in the Colonial Fleet. Me? No, I don't have an exciting story.' Just a happy one.

A perfect one.

When you're in love—when you love him with every fiber of your being, and when he dies... When the worlds end and then your world ends... How long can you do it?

How long can you wallow in catatonia and distract yourself with duty?

How long can you live knowing that today—today, finally, please lords—is the day the reaper comes for you, and part of you can't wait?

The man sitting across my cell from me is not my interrogator. He's here as a friend, he insists. And it's not lost on me that, for one better decision, we might be together in a different room... But I'm getting ahead. We'll get to that.

"I just—there has to be a reason, Maggie."

Gareth always recurs to this question during his visits. He says he's not my interrogator, and I believe him. Why? Well, there's some personal history, but mostly it's because I don't think they have questions for me. If they did, I doubt they'd be subtle about it. I wouldn't rank such an artifice. You should know, then, that I'm not holding out on him when I say—

"I wish I could tell you something. I would. Okay? I just frakked up; it was just... I don't know. A weak moment."

Gods, no wonder he's not buying it. I wouldn't, either. Look, let me try again:

"There's no story, Gareth, there's no—"

"I won't believe that."

It shoulda just been a love story. I was going to marry the man I loved, find a civvie job, have children, get fat, grow old together, and be buried with my ancestors. That was my story. I told it to myself in giddy, girly moments in the safety of my own head as our deployment wound down. Instead, I got a front-row seat to... Well, a different story.

How can I possibly explain to Gareth what I still don't understand myself? How do I explain: What happens when we aren't strong enough to do what duty requires? When love isn't enough, when they're gone and we're left to struggle on, desperate, alone? When our leaders and heroes fail us and still demand our trust? When guilt curdles into self-loathing and grief into hatred?

"I get that you want—look, I'm sorry. I joined a mutiny and I shouldn't of. And it's no excuse that I shoulda realized their endgame. But there's nothing special about me that's gonna put a nice bow on this for you."

"That doesn't mean you don't have a story. I want to hear it."

I scowl at him, mostly for show. "'It all started when I was a little girl.' That what you want?"

"Yes, actually. I like this caustic facade you put up; I enjoy it. But it's not who you are."

"Frak. Fine, what do you want to—I mean, I wouldn't even know where to begin."

He doesn't move. Which has to mean he's anticipated that objection.

"The first time I visited you here, you said you joined the Fleet because you needed to feel safe. Tell me about that. About Poseidon, and Abigail and David, and Galactica before the Fall."

Those aren't stories I tell people. But the story that was supposed to be mine? The coffee-morning love story? It died with David. A long time ago.

Maybe someone should know the story that was.

## Preview

Virgon.

Long, long ago.

The morning dawned unexpectedly cold in Molesham. The Chamberlain shivered under his covers for a few extra minutes, then rose only long enough to turn on the kettle and a heater.

He dove back under the covers for three more minutes, made some instant coffee, muttered something about the inclemency of it all, and returned to bed. His dog stirred and glanced up at him, jumped onto the bed, curled up beside him, and went back to sleep. Grateful for the extra warmth, the Chamberlain sipped his coffee under the covers and turned on the news, of which there was none. The snap freeze was delaying traffic fifty miles downriver in Boskirk, but nothing more.

The Chamberlain had been a courtier at the Clare Palace for decades. He had served the king's father; Richard IX was not the stickler for protocol Stephen XVI had been, and the Chamberlain was particularly grateful for that as he pulled an additional fleece jacket over his clothes. Richard was unlikely to object to irregular vesture and, regrettably, sure to approve of a late wakeup-call.

He pulled a dog-biscuit from a pocket and left it by the sleeping animal's head. He stomped across the courtyard to the main building. Guards—fewer of them than the Chamberlain thought proper, o tempora, o mores—nodded courteously; to a man, they knew him and held doors for him. This section of the palace was already warm.

A pot of tea, some light breakfast, and a newspaper were already prepared for him on a tray outside the King's Chambers. The duty chef stood to one side, ready and waiting in case more might be required. The Chamberlain acknowledged the Chef, took a moment to gather himself and shake the chill, then opened the door, picked up the tray, and strode into the King's Chambers, offering a hale "good morning!" in the bed's direction.

As he had every morning for years, the Chamberlain placed the tray on a low table, crossed to the windows, and opened the curtains. He was late, but not by more than a few minutes.

"It's quite cold this morning, I'm afraid," he offered, returning to the tray. He poured tea from the pot into the mug, happy to warm his hands on it. "No news to speak of."

The King had not stirred, and the Chamberlain found that annoying. A monarch may be many things, but never lazy. They might dally in bed, but not in sleep; there was a schedule to be kept.

"At any rate," he added, taking the mug and walking toward the bed, "this should warm your hands."

He stopped by the bedside, and cocked his head.

"Oh."

The Chamberlain of His Majesty the King of Virgon sighed, placed the mug on the bedside table, as gently as he could with shaking hands, and checked his watch. He knelt by the bed for a moment. Then he wiped his eyes, crossed the room, and retrieved a silk cord, a pot of quickset wax, and a seal from a cabinet set into the wall. It was the second time in his many years of service that he had been required to do what came next.

He left the bedchamber, gave the Chef a pointed look, then tied the cord around the doorhandles, poured wax over the knot, sealed it, and pocketed the seal.

The chef, too, had served long enough to understand that she understood what she had just witnessed. For a moment, the two of them stood in silence.

"Right then," the Chamberlain said. He put a hand on the Chef's shoulder. "We'd better wake the Camerlengo. I'll wait here; go get the Captain of the Guard."
