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You haven’t had that dream in a long time. (Not a nightmare. You don’t have nightmares. Just a dream.) Coronation day. Ejecting from your Mech, somehow shutting down and overheating at the same time thanks to enemy sabotage, before you were cooked in your cockpit. Watching Mastiff’s mech go down under the concentrated fire of someone you trusted, helpless in your ejection pod. Watching the DropShip he gave his life to defend be shot out of the sky. (You didn’t see it happen when you were living it, but you saw the footage plenty of times, and in your dreams, it happens right in front of your eyes.)
A lot of what you remember about that day is wrong. The footage was of a different DropShip, nothing but Directorate propaganda claiming Lady Kamea Arano was dead and there was no opposition to the new regime. You only learned that recently, when the Lady herself hired you to win her throne back. When she stepped onto the bridge of your ship, it was like you were looking at a ghost. (You’ve seen ghosts plenty of times. Never awake, though.)
And now you’ve learned that Mastiff survived. That he spent the last three years languishing in a hellish secret prison for political prisoners. A prison you could have broken him out of if you had been a little bit faster. (It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know. Even Lady Arano didn’t know, and she was the one who put the mission together.) But instead, you learned he’d survived Espinosa’s betrayal only when you found him dead somewhere else.
There wasn’t much time to process your old teacher’s survival and death, for you or for High Lady Arano. There was still work to be done for both of you. Living people depending on you. So you pushed everything aside and got the job done. High Lady Arano gave a speech. It was a good one, full of fire and promise. Something to get the people behind her. (Other people, anyway. Her backers’ money has already bought your loyalty. No amount of speeches will change the fact that you have a mercenary company to think about, and just causes don’t pay your debts.)
Now it’s the next day. You still have plenty of responsibilities, of course, but the post-mission chaos has already been handled. Moving into the new ship the High Lady has graciously gifted you is already in progress, and your XO, Darius, is handling the logistics. Your company knows what they’re doing, and part of your job is knowing when to stay out of the way and let them do theirs.
So when you get your coffee, you visit Lord Alexander Madeira and let him know you’d like to speak to the High Lady whenever she has a moment. He tells you she’s unlikely to have one. She may have declared Weldry liberated from the Directorate, but actually making that happen isn’t quick or easy. But considering your role in that liberation, he’ll let her know and she’ll get back to you if she can.
She can and does, but not until late that night. For obvious reasons, your ship’s day/night cycle is aligned with her timezone planetside, so it’s an awkward time for both of you, but it’s all she has to spare. You take the call in your cramped cabin instead of the bridge; this conversation isn’t something for your command staff to join. (You wouldn’t mind having them to back you up. Lady Arano definitely would. And this is your job, not theirs.)
“Commander,” she greets you when the call connects. She hides her exhaustion well. If you didn’t know better, you’d think she was calling in the middle of a slow day. “I understand you wanted to speak with me?”
“High Lady Arano, thank you for making the time to talk with me. I wanted to thank you for your assistance in battle yesterday.” Despite what Darius says, you can be diplomatic when you need to. Those lessons were drilled into you when you were still a noble scion, long ago.
“You’re welcome, but if that was all you wanted to say you’d have just told Alexander that. Skip the formalities. What do you actually want?” You’re surprised by the bluntness, but it seems she’s read you correctly. Honeyed words won’t win you over; directness might. (Not that you need winning over. Not when she’s bought up all your debts.)
“Right. I appreciate your help. But please don’t do it again.”
“Excuse me?” She raises an eyebrow. “You want me to stop providing you reinforcements?”
“I want you to stop being the reinforcements, High Lady.”
“Is that so? You have a critique of my performance? I was trained by Mastiff Montgomery just like you were, and as I remember the fight, your Centurion was in dire straits before I intervened. Together we tore through the last two enemy Mechs without any return fire getting through our armor. Which part of that did you feel was insufficient?” She sounds offended. Well, she did think you were insulting her prowess as a pilot, and she’s right to be proud of her skill. (Mastiff taught you both well. He won’t be teaching anybody else anymore. But you already believed that three years ago – why does it feel raw again?)
“It’s not a question of ability. Your presence on the battlefield changes everything. Killing you stops your whole Restoration dead in its tracks, and your enemies know that. The Icebox’s defenders didn’t realize who you were, but now that you’ve openly declared war, sending that speech out to the whole Aurigan Reach? Just by being there you make yourself the highest priority target on the field. Which means our highest priority has to be your safety, at the expense of our own and our mission objectives. You need to stay out of combat.” Mastiff died protecting her. She should honor that sacrifice. (Except he didn’t, did he? Instead he sacrificed even more than you knew.)
“I was hardly a liability in that battle. I can take care of myself, and by the time I joined you, most of their defenses were already destroyed. I would have been fine even if the remainder had focused on me, so long as you did your job and finished them off. And you don’t give me orders, Commander.” Anger creeps into her voice.
“No,” you concede. “You hardly took any fire, and you made finishing off the enemy lance a lot cleaner than it would have been. As I said, High Lady, I am not questioning your skill as a pilot. You’re more than a match for any of my warriors, myself included. But our battles aren’t all going to be against a token reserve force with no reinforcements or backup.”
“I’m not an idiot or a rookie, and I’d appreciate you not treating me like one. I wouldn’t have deployed personally if you were facing an overwhelming enemy force. But a single lance you were already pinning down? I was in a position to help, so I did. And I couldn’t spare anyone else to reinforce you.”
“… as you say, High Lady.” You still question her decision, and mistakes like that on her part could lead to a disaster for you and yours. But you can tell arguing isn’t going to accomplish anything except making her angrier at you, and that’s not going to do you any good either. “I would still request that you stay away from the front lines, but you’re in charge, and I will defer to your judgment.”
“Good. Do your job and trust that I am doing mine. You are my sharpest knife, Commander. Keeping you that way is worth a calculated risk.” (You want to believe she’s being sincere. But she’s a politician, and empty flattery is empty flattery.) “Is there anything else, Commander?”
You hesitate. (It’s inappropriate. It’s too familiar. He wouldn’t have cared. Neither do you.) “Just one thing. I doubt we’ll have a chance to speak again before we’re moved into the Argo and leave for another job. But next time we meet, if we can spare the time… I’d like to talk face to face. About Mastiff, and the others we’ve lost. Maybe some drinks, to toast them.”
“That’s quite the change in subject.” She pauses, and you worry you overstepped. “I would like that as well. If we can spare the time.” You can hear the exhaustion in her voice now. She’s been avoiding thinking about his second death as much as you have, and it hurts to stop and acknowledge it. She knows you feel the same, and so she’s letting her mask slip a little bit. (Or she’s acting the way you want her to. Will you ever be able to tell?)
“That’s all I wanted to say. Have a good night, High Lady Arano.”
“Goodnight, Commander.”
It won’t be, for either of you. But there’s more work to do tomorrow, so you’ll have to make do.