BETWEEN THREE ROGUES

By Eric 'Erico' Lawson


Thirty-Three: Occupation(al) Hazards

The Valuan Flagship Lynx, Fourth Fleet

188 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

Morning

Belleza awoke at the sound of faint knocking to the door of her stateroom. She took a moment to recall where she was, swept her blankets back and went to fetch her robe. Once she slipped it on, she turned back to the door. "Come in."

One of the female officers aboard the vessel came inside per her standing orders with a tray holding her breakfast and a pot of tea. Lieutenant Alvarez, Belleza recognized her. The woman with short-trimmed blond hair gave her a polite nod, but a flagging smile.

"Morning, admiral."

"Good morning." Belleza greeted her in turn. "What's happened?"

"Nothing critical." The lieutenant said, setting the tray down at her small table and pouring out a cup of black tea. "Nothing that can keep you from eating your breakfast."

Belleza sat down and reached for her tea, glancing at the tray of buttered toast, bacon, and the bowl of oatmeal with some trepidation. Standard fare for voyages, really, but what she wouldn't give for a proper bowl of fruit. The things she missed on extended tours of duty.

"Are you handling me again, lieutenant?" Belleza asked, raising an eyebrow over the rim of her teacup as she paused between sips.

"Of course not, ma'am."

"Because I have told you that I'm watching my figure."

"Yes, ma'am." For who went unsaid, but Belleza knew well enough that even being Valua's spymaster didn't make her immune from rumors either, and most everyone on her crew knew that Belleza tried to spend what little free time she had chasing after Galcian. Alvarez stared at her for two awkward seconds before proving that fact. "But if you don't mind my saying so, the Lord Admiral's back at the Grand Fortress overseeing repairs still. And you've got another full day lined up for yourself. You could let yourself have a proper breakfast for once. You're going to need it."

Belleza sighed. That was likely the truth. "Very well. Did my Vice Admiral have anything for the morning report?"

"Vice Admiral Rawlin's report stated that the ships of the combined 4th and 3rd Fleets are maintaining position, blockading the harbor. All inbound and outgoing vessels continue to be searched, but there remains no sign of Captain Vyse, his two cohorts, or the Crown Prince and Princess Moegi."

Or the Moon Crystals, Belleza tacked on mentally.

"Very well. That will be all for now, lieutenant."

"Ma'am." Alvarez came to attention briefly, then walked out, taking the tray and the plate cover with her.

Belleza reached for one of the pieces of toast and ate it slowly as she looked out the window of her quarters. Through it, she watched as the morning light fell on Yafutoma City.

Lord Galcian was not the sort of man who tolerated fools for very long, but nor was he the sort who gave much concern to the methods used by the others in the Admiralty. Galcian cared only about results. Belleza, tempered by the pain of her childhood, used different methods than most would to achieve her goals.

Reach the continent under the Blue Moon. Overwhelm its defenders. Claim the land in the name of the empire and then take the Blue Moon Crystal. Vigoro and select ships of the 3rd Fleet had been paired with her in a subordinate role, but she preferred to keep him on standby. The delicate touch, the surgical strike were her trademarks. Of course, here in the unknown lands, there was no spy network she could rely on. No steady stream of gossip to make judgment calls with, no names or personalities to form a plan of attack. She'd gone in blind and snuck into Yafutoma on the smallest ship they had, parked it out of sight and then snuck into the city in the dead of night. A quick reconnaissance was all that she'd had time for, but it had been enough. Enough to realize that the Delphinus had beaten them here, which meant that Vyse and his band were present. Enough to sneak into the palace while the city was reveling the night away and the guards were more relaxed than usual.

Enough to witness a skirmish between Prince Enrique and one of the natives over the matter of a dark-haired young woman dressed in finery, and to seek out the sulking suitor after he was chased off. Enough to, with the limited study of the more ancient tongue of the region that Galcian's protege Ramirez had seen fit to provide to her, converse in halting pidgin and see the opportunity.

Belleza smiled to think of how seamless the coup had been. To think that there had been such a highly-placed individual within the Court who had no qualms about deposing their ruler for his own benefit. It was the kind of advantage most spies only ever dreamed of. To be fair, it wasn't as though Kangan Kurowei had committed wholeheartedly to her plan. There were other Westerners, after all, and their ship for all that it looked mighty, had sat harmlessly in the harbor for days while the most important people aboard it hared off on some fool's errand. When Belleza returned to Yafutoma the next morning with the full might of her task force arranged behind her, Kangan had quickly fallen in line. He would rule, but in a subordinate role. Not that Valua would care much about having a puppet in charge, it might make it easier to control the locals.

For all of her scheming and plotting, there had forever been one ironclad hallmark of her career; Belleza worked to minimize civilian casualties whenever possible. In that, she took great pride.

What she didn't feel pride for, and what continued to frustrate her days later, was that her near bloodless victory wasn't total. She had recaptured the Delphinus. She had taken Yafutoma, and the streets were patrolled by troopers who worked in tandem with Kangan's loyal soldiery. The resources of Yafutoma would, in time, be exploited and allow the Empire to tighten its grip on the world. Perhaps even retake Ixa'taka. What she hadn't done was to capture Vyse and his two female companions, or secure Prince Enrique or Princess Moegei. And the Blue Moon Crystal, the prize that had been their main purpose in coming, was nowhere to be found.

She frowned and picked up a piece of bacon, admitting to herself that it did taste quite wonderful to her growling stomach. Looking out of her window again, she watched the city full of walls for a few moments longer before diverting her gaze to the Delphinus, still moored in the harbor.

Conquering the kingdom (She refused to think of it as an empire, there was only room on Arcadia for one empire and Valua was ascendant) beneath the Blue Moon had been a relatively easy and bloodless affair. She couldn't help but wonder if keeping it would be exponentially harder. Especially with Vyse and his closest companions still free and at large.

Scowling, Belleza worked through the rest of her breakfast at a rapid pace. She'd sat idle for too long already. There was much work still to be done.


Delphinus

Dining Hall

One of the items on her agenda was to construct a proper psychological profile on Captain Vyse of the Blue Rogues, and his closest associates if possible. It was clear that they had a large influence on Prince Enrique, based on what little she'd seen of him before she and Vigoro had gone on to meet with the Emperor and begin the coup in earnest. She had a barebones draft from her time flying with them in Maramba, but it was horribly outdated now. It lacked the finer details to his motivations, his weaknesses, and his vices (Vyse's vices, she amusedly thought) that she needed to figure out what the Blue Rogue would do next.

The last time she'd crossed paths with him, Belleza had gotten lucky. He'd been reliant on the ship and the aid of One-Armed Drachma, whose own weak point had allowed her to implement a haphazard, though still effective ruse. If only Drachma hadn't ended up coming back to save them…

Something had changed Drachma's mind. Guilt, perhaps. Or was it something else?

With Drachma no longer in the Blue Rogue's company, she was left to look elsewhere for answers. Luckily, she wasn't short on prospective interviewees. They had taken an entire ship's worth of them, after all. She had already interviewed a few of the Delphinus crew yesterday between her other commitments and duties, and she had more lined up for today and tomorrow. If you wanted to understand someone, you looked to their belongings, their habits, and the impressions they wrought on others.

It was with that in mind that she sat at one of the tables in the lavish dining hall, glancing up at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling and the other luxuries every so often while the guards shifted. A folder full of paper was nearby, and she had her inkwell and quill pen at the ready as the doors opened and her first interview of the day was brought in. Not in chains, unlike some of the others.

After all, there were many in the crew whom Admiral Belleza could not charge for the usual crimes of piracy. Like this one.

He was older, in his mid to late 40's even with padding for poor aging and bad habits. Though his clothes were clean, he insisted on wearing an old brown overcoat with epaulets; a hallmark of his time in the Valuan Navy. Not the Armada, that style of uniform had been phased out after King Mathias's death and the transition from kingdom to Empire.

"Ensign Don Juan Artours. I am Admiral Belleza of the 4th Fleet." Belleza greeted him pleasantly. Don glowered at her, but made no move to assault her. The guards that had escorted him in sat him down at the table, one of them reaching for the manacles hanging off his waist to tie him down, and Belleza held up a hand. "I don't think those will be necessary, crewman."

"Ma'am." The helmeted soldier said stiffly, taking two steps back from Don after releasing him, but lingering close just in case. To his credit, he didn't argue against the decision. If Don took note of the highly charitable act, he didn't show any reaction to it aside from another scowl.

"Please, relax." Belleza encouraged him. "Could I offer you something to eat? A glass of something to parch your thirst?"

Don folded his arms and stared back. "I ate with the other prisoners."

"Technically, Ensign, you're not a prisoner." Belleza reminded him. "You, and the rest of the survivors from Esperanza have committed no crime against the Empire. From other accounts I have collected, it is clear that you and the others who joined up with the Delphinus did so after Vyse's engagement with the 2nd Fleet. There is only one charge that we can level at you, that of signing on with a known air pirate and wanted criminal. But, I would be inclined to overlook it."

"In exchange for?" Don drawled.

"Information." Belleza explained. "Nothing indiscrete. Nothing you would feel uncomfortable telling me about." Don kept staring at her, and Belleza fought down the twitch building up under her eyebrow. "Tell me about your new captain."

A light clicked on in Don's eyes. "Ah." The old Valuan sailor said with sudden knowing. "You're a spymaster." Belleza blinked, and he smirked. "It's been many years, but I remember the look of your kind." Don leaned back slightly, affecting a casual slouch. "This is an interrogation."

"It does not have to be unpleasant." Belleza pointed out crisply.

"Honey. Your troopers stormed onto our ship, roughed us up while a lot of us still were rubbing the sleep out of our eyes, and then threw the lot of us into the holds." Don reached up and twirled the end of his mustache. "Doesn't get more unpleasant than that." She made to argue the point and he cut her off with a smirk. "I know what you're going to say, and you're wrong. Pain only makes a person say anything to make it stop. It doesn't always get you the truth."

"Don't you want to go home?" Belleza asked, putting threats aside for a different tack.

Don's smirk faded. "I am home."

"Not - I meant to Valua." Belleza pressed him, allowing a little of her exasperation to show. Don shook his head.

"My home was the Kingdom of Valua. Not this - this bloated Empire that it has become after the death of my King. The King is dead and his son ran away from it because he could not stand to see everything his father loved and protected torn apart by power-hungry vultures."

The comment was rude and it was meant to be. Belleza stiffened up. "You say you care for Prince Enrique?"

"Yes." Don nodded once.

"Then you will be pained to hear that the Prince is gone. Gone with Vyse and his female companions." Belleza snapped at him.

"Then he is safe." Don smiled, relaxing. "For there is no one I trust more with his life than with my Captain."

"How can you say that?!" Belleza demanded. "If you were a true Valuan, you would -"

Don's clenched fist came down on the surface of the table, rattling the stained and finished wood and doing a fair job of silencing her out of shock.

"Do not talk to me about being a True Valuan." The aged sailor ground out, with enough heat that the soldiers behind him started forward. Belleza raised a hand to stop them, sensing that something had finally broken loose inside of the man. She didn't want to risk him bottling it all back up again. She needed answers, and if that required this old (Recovering alcoholic, if the slight tremor in his open hand meant what she thought it did) sailor got a little angry and fumed, she would put up with the vitriol to find the vital clues within.

Don breathed in and out twice, settling himself. "The Valua I served, the Valua I loved no longer exists in the homeland. All that is left of it is aboard this ship and in the heart of a prince who chose exile over silence and tacit approval. You say that just because you and I call the same place home that I, and the rest of us should serve you and turn against the others on board this vessel. We remember the Valua we served with pride and with honor, but it died. It died, and we were abandoned. Where was Valua when the great expedition to penetrate the Dark Rift failed? Where was Valua when the last of our good ships were taken away, and the rest of us were given our discharge papers and forgotten? Where was Valua these last 20 years when my countrymen, my fellow sailors broke apart for being discarded and began killing themselves rather than live with the disgrace?! Where in blazes was Valua when I was living in a bottle, drinking myself to death?!" He slammed the table again and snarled, spittle flying. "NOWHERE!"

Belleza didn't answer him, because how could she? She had just been a girl when that had happened, and the war had taken her father too. She just waited him out, because something told her that Don was the sort who insisted on filling the silence once he got going.

He did. "You know who didn't forget about us?" The Esperanzan asked her quietly. "Vyse and Enrique. You know who helped us? The Blue Rogues. They flew in one day, hellbent for leather and insistent that they were going to get through the Dark Rift. We all laughed at 'em, but they didn't let up. They didn't leave, either, even when your Armada showed up. Instead, they stayed in town. Even set up a medical clinic and started treating us at no cost. And Prince Enrique? He didn't demand our loyalty or our service. He apologized for what had happened to us. Said that we deserved better." Don wiped at his eyes. "They saved my life, and they saved all our lives. They gave us a chance and they gave us back our hope and they never demanded anything. They offered us a place among them. They offered us the opportunity to finish what we had started."

Don's mouth finally quirked into a proper smile. "We sailed through that maelstrom. It took us a week but we did it, and while we were inside, we rescued my oldest friend who I thought lost to the Abyss. And when we came out on the other side, do you want to know the very first thing Vyse did?"

"Yes." Belleza said immediately. "Will you tell me?"

There was a flicker of hesitation in him, but he brushed it off and sallied forth.

"If you want to know what kind of man Vyse is, Admiral, then set a course due south. Just past the Guardian Walls and the sky rift beyond them you'll find scattered islands in sight of the Dark Rift's exit. Look for a small island with no vegetation, just big enough to land a few skiffs on. On that island, you'll find a flag planted in the ground, the expedition flag taken from my old ship and left there in memorial for all the sailors who died trying to go beyond the edge of the world, and all those who withered to dust after, buried under broken promises and failed dreams." Don leaned forward. "Vyse put that flag there. He kept the promise that Valua failed to live up to. He's given us a new life and new purpose. The Prince, the next generation to rule stands at his side as a sworn brother in arms, and demands nothing from us save to live by the Code of the Blue Rogues. A Code none of us find fault with."

He paused, and Belleza realized she'd been holding her breath. She finally inhaled, and Don smirked at her. "He's better than any of you, Captain Vyse is. We are loyal, Admiral Belleza. We are loyal to our prince and we are loyal to Vyse and we are loyal to the Blue Rogues. Our friends. Our comrades. Our shipmates. We are True Valuans, and we have no loyalty to give to your Empire."

His point made, Don eased back in his chair. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like to be taken back to the prison hold where the rest of my crew is."

Belleza was stuck for a second or two, but finally nodded, and the man was taken away by the guards. On her notes, she carefully transcribed what she'd learned from the former Ensign Don Juan Artours.

Vyse draws in the dregs and the downtrodden and breathes purpose into them.

Very charismatic. Very dangerous. What's the Code of the Blue Rogues?

She needed more answers, more information. Thankfully, she was just getting started.


Midday

The Royal Palace

Belleza had been surprised to find that the Mid-Ocean trade tongue was known in Yafutoma, albeit not widely and not well. Scraps of it were taught, but nobody had made a true practice of it save for the missing Princess Moegi. It had only been Ramirez's primer that allowed for any communication at all, even limited as it was. Not that it was perfect by any means, and not for the first time in the past three days had Belleza wished that the coup's success had been total.

She would have loved to have Moegi, who had been much more fluent in the Mid-Ocean standard, here serving as her translator. Not that Moegi would have elected to do so of her own volition.

So, with (former) Minister Kangan watching on, she stood in the center of the locked chambers which had been set aside for the deposed Emperor Mikado Tokugawa, and which served as an effective prison for the elderly monarch with a contingent of both Kangan's guards as well as a rotating pair of Valuan troopers standing outside the windowless room.

The man himself was still wearing the same garments that he had been when the coup had happened, even though other simpler clothes had been set out for him. He sat on the edge of his bed, not even looking at her as he spoke.

"You...not win. Western Invader. The people - never - down to - war." That was what she could make out, anyways. She glanced over to Kangan, wondering if the man might assist her, but the dark-haired and mustached fellow only looked back with a placid expression. There had only been one thing that Kangan had insisted on; No harm could come to the Emperor, or to Moegi. So the Emperor sat under house arrest, withering away, defeated and yet unbowed.

"Forsooth, thou art certes. Thy people - kneel or be destroyed." Belleza countered. "Thou refused Valua. If thou wishes to save thine people? Thou bend the knee, and will the crown to Kangan in ceremony."

The Emperor had long ago lost all smiles. He looked to Kangan, over Belleza's shoulder.

"The wind howls. The mountain - not bow." He countered. "Divine wind - save us."

Belleza looked back to Kangan again, and watched him scowl. "Is story. Lies." The Admiral found his explanation lacking in substance, but it was clear that the Emperor could not be budged to surrender his crown publicly, as Kangan was insisting on. Today, anyways.

"You deliberate further. I return ere morrow. Naught but tea you receive." Belleza told the Emperor, then turned and walked away with Kangan leading her. Neither said another word until the doors were closed and they were out in the hallway, walking down the corridor.

Belleza huffed. "This would be a lot easier if you'd bloody just finish the old fool off." She muttered quietly.

"Pardon?" Kangan quipped back. Belleza resisted rolling her eyes. She wondered just how unfamiliar with the language the Minister actually was, and how much he was playing up ignorance at. If the Princess could speak it almost flawlessly, with an occasional missing conjunction or incorrect tense, then surely the former Chief Advisor must have had equal talent. For a land that seemed so clearly bent towards patriarchal structuring, how would a girl have the necessary skill in translating that men in high positions lacked?

"Why dost thou not extinguish his life?" Belleza asked in stilted, hackneyed (Outdated) Yafutoman. As always, there was a pinch in the man's eyes at her out of place dialect and her garbled sentencework. She was slowly picking up the added terms and replacement words of the modern Yafutoman tongue, but she diverted to what she had learned from Ramirez, and it wasn't enough on its own.

"He is a symbol. The Mandate of Heaven is in him. Divinity in flesh. Killing him will cause endless revolt." Kangan countered, and she picked out the important words enough to deduce the rest of the sentence's missing translation. Kangan raised an eyebrow. "Do you want the people fighting you, or do you want them pacified?"

Kangan knew what Belleza wanted. What she needed from Yafutoma.

"Force his hand." She pressed Kangan.

"How?" Kangan demanded, speaking in Mid-Ocean tradespeak for that one single word. "For Moegi, he would. But she is missing. As are your pirates."

He was putting the impetus on her to find them. It was cool and calculating and yet Kangan was managing the game very well.

"So is the Moon Crystal." She countered coldly. "I was told that Vyse gave it to the Emperor."

"Pardon?" Kangan requested innocently.

The twitch was getting harder to suppress. "The Moon Crystal. Vyse gave it to the Emperor. Yet - was not where thou said - would be."

Kangan nodded. "As I said. Either Vyse must have taken it, or Moegi did. If you want the Maga Sphere, then you must find the children. Only with Moegi's life at risk will Tokugawa allow the line of Kurowei to reign. Only then will my grip - our grip on these lands be secured." He nodded more to himself than for her benefit. "The searches in the city are turning up nothing. They must have escaped the city."

"How?!" Belleza snapped at him. "Thy harbor was blockaded. No ships passed in or out. Thy men searched every vessel once we ceased the stop."

"Tenkou. Maybe." Kangan conceded, and sensing her confusion, then added, "Air pirates. Thorns in my side for too long."

Belleza blinked at him. Air Pirates? Here? The thought rankled.

"Thou shouldst have been forthcoming of this news." She told him.

Kangan gave her a confused look. "Why? They are only pirates. Do you not have such in your lands?"

She did, Belleza thought, and therein lay the problem. Kangan dismissed these Tenkou as a threat. Just like the Admiralty had dismissed the Blue Rogues as a faction full of bark and no real bite.

Until Vyse. Nothing for it now, of course; she'd have to get in touch with Vigoro and her Vice Admiral and start some proper searches. She let the matter slide and moved on to the next issue.

"What is - Divine Wind?" She asked Kangan. "Precisely."

Kangan blinked. "Old legends. Stories. They speak of how the Blue Moon sent a god to protect us, in the form of a Divine Wind that blows all to their doom. Of course, such things aren't real."

Belleza held a different opinion, but then she had been witness to the resurrection of Recumen, and read the reports of Grendel's rampage that had sent De Loco's 5th Fleet fleeing for their lives. A deific spirit that conjured supernatural winds sounded very much like a Gigas to her mind.

"Certes, they are not." She lied smoothly. "Continue thy searches. The sooner Moegi is found, the better off we shall be."

Kangan effected a small, but courtly bow. "Agreed." He said smugly. Then he wandered off, leaving her alone in the corridor. Belleza watched him turn right at the next intersection, which would take him deeper into the palace and towards the chambers that were once the Emperor's.

Belleza marched ahead and turned left, making for the exit.


Delphinus

Early Afternoon

When Admiral Belleza had been given the crew manifest by the lieutenant that had led the advance teams in taking the ship, there were many names on it that she'd had no previous information on. There were names of crewmembers who served in vital posts that she wanted to meet with. Then there were crewmembers aboard who were already listed on Valua's bounty board and who merited summary execution. 'Loose Cannon' Lapen fit the last two categories, being a vital presence in the ship's engineering team as well as a wanted Black Pirate...although, news of him had gone dark, with the last sighting of him reported on Sailor's Island shortly before the Delphinus docked there. At least she knew now where he'd disappeared to after.

Though tagged for execution regardless, she held back on issuing the order for a firing squad. There were questions she wanted answered, after all.

Unlike Don, Lapen was brought into the dining hall in chains. Short ones at his ankles to hobble his speed and with his arms bound together and chained down low by his waist. He was still wearing purple, but much of the surly disposition her previous dossiers on the mechanically-minded madman spoke of was gone. There was a scowl there, but it was not the look of a man who wanted to see the whole world burn for some petty infraction. Given the way it deepened when he caught sight of her, there was only one part of the world he wanted to reduce to ashes.

It was Belleza's job to make sure that he, and Vyse, never got the chance.

The troopers plopped him down into the seat, and unlike with Don and some of the other 'low risk' interviews she'd already done, they chained him to the table. Lapen rolled his eyes.

"Well. 'Loose Cannon' Lapen. I'd say this was a pleasure, but you know how Valua feels about pirates."

"Oh, my. You caught me." Lapen said drolly, still rolling his eyes. "Whatever will I do."

"You could help your case a little." Belleza said to him. "I have my best engineers going over the Delphinus with a fine-toothed comb. For the lunaleagues that Vyse has put onto this ship, it's in remarkably impeccable condition."

"Why, thank you. We do try our best." Lapen snarked. Belleza tapped her quill down on her paper, waiting to see if he'd keep blathering on. Lapen seemed like a talker, that much sarcasm would drown most sensible people. He held his tongue, though.

"They were dismayed to find that this ship's primary weapons system was offline." Belleza went on. Lapen lolled his head up at the ceiling, not making an effort to focus in on the conversation. "Would you care to tell me how you sabotaged the Moonstone Cannon?"

Lapen laughed. "Really? You think that I had time to sabotage anything when your people came storming in?"

"Mission reports placed you in the forward compartment by the Moonstone Cannon's primary systems at the time of your capture." Belleza pointed out grimly. "I don't think that anyone ever did themselves any favors by underestimating just what you're capable of when you're determined to be a right nuisance."

Lapen cracked a laugh at that, letting his head loll back down to stare her in the eyes. "Well, you'd be right about that, honeybear."

Pet names. He was goading her with affectations. Belleza had heard too many of them over the years to be too terribly incensed. Compared to sugartits, honeybear was downright tame. Come to think of it, only one superior officer had never propositioned her or made a lewd remark. Another reason she pined after Galcian, she supposed.

Belleza tapped her page again. "I am willing to make certain considerations on your behalf if you were to render assistance to our engineering teams in reactivating the Moonstone Cannon."

"Such as?"

"A reduction of your sentence. Imprisonment instead of execution."

"Yeahhhh, no. No dice, sweetheart." Lapen muttered. "Besides, couldn't help you even if I wanted to. Yeah, I was pulling some wires when you came in, which your wrench turners have probably fixed by now, but it's still not working, is it?" Belleza stared at him, and Lapen smugged a little more. "Hate to say it, but Fina treats that big ol' gun as her personal property. She's tried explaining how it works to the rest of us, but hell if it doesn't just go flying over my head. I'm one hell of a mechanic. She told us she was taking it offline to make 'improvements', but what that consisted of? No idea. I'm a genius with a wrench, I built my own automated battletank out of pieces of one of your Valuan manned ones, but when she started explaining how that cannon works?" Lapen shrugged. "So, no. Couldn't help you even if I wanted to. Because I don't. So." He raised his hands up and flipped her a double bird. "If you've got any questions about routine engine maintenance, though…"

"I don't think so."

"Aw, come on." Lapen gave her a wildly facetious pout. "I bet I've forgotten more about skyship mechanics than you ever drooled over in those fancy academy classes."

"Get him out of here." Belleza growled to the guards, who got to work unchaining him from the table.

"What? Kicking me out already? But we were just starting to make a connection!" Lapen protested, still grinning like a madman. "Oh, wait, I get it. You think I'm going to give you bad advice. Absolutely not!"

"Goodbye, Lapen." Belleza glared death at him as he was carted off. It didn't stop him from looking back over his shoulder.

"You've got to remember to grease the shaft before you work it!" He yelled back at her right before they hauled him out of the main entrance. His next shout penetrated through the closing doors. "I thought what we had was special!"

Belleza held in her scream and jotted down more notes on her paper.

Silvite Fina apparently possesses working knowledge of advanced weapons technology. Previous evidence gathered showed no aptitude for anything aside from minor spellcasting and lorekeeper's knowledge of the ancient civilizations.

What other skillsets does she possess that I'm unaware of?


Evening

There were others on board the Delphinus listed as crewmembers who had no capacity in any sensitive role on the vessel. These were individuals like the ship's cook, Polly, and a fortuneteller named Kalifa, as well as the rubenesque merchant Osman and an Ixa'takan dancer named Merida. Most of the 'non-essential crew' insisted on staying with everyone else in the hold of the Delphinus, but as nobody trusted the food that would have been provided by the cooks of the 4th Fleet, Polly ended up being pulled out of the hold. She insisted on her husband Robinson coming along with her, a rail-thin excuse of a sailor whose recently trimmed hair was shot through with gray and whose ill-fitted clothes hung off of him poorly. Polly proved to be adept in the galley, with Robinson assisting her and the fortuneteller called Kalifa shuttling food down to the holds. Escorted, of course.

Given that it kept order aboard the ship and kept the crew from getting any ideas, it was a small sacrifice that Belleza was willing to put up with. And Polly was quite a good cook. A step above the staff on the Lynx even, even if she didn't understand the meaning of a 'small' portion.

Belleza could pick Polly's brain for information about Vyse and his closest companions whenever she felt like it. The runner, Kalifa on the other hand…

Well. Belleza hadn't gotten to where she was by not listening to the winds of opportunity. And she definitely had questions for the fortuneteller out of Maramba.

"Kalifa." Belleza stopped five paces short of the counter where the Maramban woman had been speaking with Polly and Robinson, inseparable as ever. Having pieced together the story of the husband and wife after her interview with Don, Belleza could understand why they were so loathe to be parted again. After 20 years of losing his mind inside the Dark Rift, it was a miracle he was still himself enough to function.

Kalifa spun around and looked back at Belleza through her thick glasses, tilting her head up so the reflection off of the room lights prevented the admiral from getting a good look at her eyes. "Yes? The Valuan admiral wishes something of Mistress Kalifa, Seer and chosen Oracle of the Moons?"

"Answers." Belleza nodded.

"Then I will require that my confiscated belongings be returned to me. Kalifa cannot unlock the secrets of fate and destiny without them." The Maramban said sternly.

Belleza couldn't help the smile that caused. "Let's talk first, and I'll see about giving you your things back. None of them qualified as weapons, after all, but I am under no obligation to be helpful to you without a little reciprocity."

Kalifa turned back to Polly and Robinson. "Mistress Kalifa should not be long in this little distraction. Will the food be ready soon?"

"Aye, give us a little time, but it will be. No soup this time; learned our lesson." Polly grumbled, giving Belleza the stink eye before turning back to her stove. Robinson stared at her and kept staring with his dead eyes until Belleza shivered and turned away, and Kalifa sedately followed.

Kalifa sat down at the table that Belleza favored for her interviews, and tapped a finger on the wood until she sat down across from her.

"Strange you should pick this table over all others." Kalifa mused.

"How so?"

"This is the Captain's table." The fortuneteller explained. Belleza looked around the dining room and frowned.

"It doesn't look any different from the other tables."

"It is not. But this was where Vyse would sit. It became his table."

"I see." Belleza considered that fact, then reached for her supply bag resting next to her. "If I might ask, who did he usually sit with?"

Kalifa smiled at that, a knowing smile that Belleza found unsettling. "Hm. Why? Such an unusual question. Why not ask what he would say to people? Why not ask about his routines aboard ship?"

Because Belleza was looking for weaknesses. Because Belleza didn't want to empathize with the young Blue Rogue, she wanted to find him and crush him. It was what Valua required, his defeat and his death and the end of the nuisance of the Blue Rogues. She reminded herself of all of that forcefully, and pulled out what she'd been idly running a finger against inside of her bag, setting it down on the table between them.

Kalifa's smile dropped in an instant.

"That," The Maramban fortuneteller said coldly, "Was not for your eyes."

"An interesting book." Belleza mused, letting go of it. Kalifa quickly grabbed at it and started thumbing through it, looking for edits or damage most likely. "Most would keep a journal or a log. But you, the would-be oracle, kept a ledger for an ongoing betting pool. On which girl Vyse is romantically involved with. And yet you have made no bet yourself." Belleza leaned forward a touch. Enough to be menacing. "That implies you know already."

"Or that I merely employ some professionalism in this little game." Kalifa countered, closing the ledger and glaring back at her. "It's improper for the house to make a wager; I already derive a cut of the final results. Why does it matter who Vyse invites to his bed?"

It really didn't, Belleza thought. Not to Valua. She just needed to know where his weakness was. Which one was more valuable to him, which made the better bait. And yet…

'I won't choose. I won't hurt them, either of them, by choosing.' That was what he had said one night as they journeyed to the Temple of Pyrynn when she was in disguise as the exotic dancer Bellena. A terrible disguise, haphazardly thrown together that would have fooled nobody with even a passing knowledge of her or her methods. It had fooled him, though. It had fooled Aika and Fina.

And for all of that, when she went to spring her honey trap, he refused.

'I won't do that to them.'

"Why did you join up?" Belleza asked the fortuneteller. "You were doing well for yourself in Maramba. You had a roof over your head, steady business, a good location next to the tavern…"

"You did your research. How many of your spies has Kalifa offered her predictions to over the years, Admiral?" Kalifa asked coldly.

"A few." Belleza admitted. "Not that you would know them as such." Kalifa snorted, and Belleza pressed her. "If you want your belongings back, answer the question."

Kalifa drummed her knuckles on the surface of her ledger. "Do you believe that the Moons determine our fates?" Belleza quickly shook her head, and Kalifa smiled. "Neither does he. Many believe what I do to be harmless entertainment. Good for a lark, or helpful when one needs an excuse to make a decision in a different way to absolve themselves for the blame of it. But this is not so. When I looked at Vyse, I saw a man on the precipice of great potential, how the currents flowed in his wake to speed him along. The second time I saw him, he was in the midst of it. How often are we given a chance to see the world changing from the center of the storm? How could Mistress Kalifa claim to serve the will of the Moons if I did not go with him?"

"Do you give him advice?"

"Rarely." Kalifa replied. "The good captain never looks to what others wish for in his actions. He lives by his Code and by his heart, and he makes things change because of his presence."

Belleza shook her head. "No pirate can effect such change on his own."

"He is not alone though, is he?" Kalifa pointed out. "You truly do not understand him, do you? That is why you fear him."

Belleza's eyes snapped up and she hissed. "You think I'm afraid of your precious captain? He's nothing but a boy, a stripling whose luck has run out. He's abandoned you all to your fates to save his own skin!"

Kalifa laughed at that. "Truly? Well, then. Thank you for the advice. Now, if you would care to make good on your bargain, Admiral? Return my things. And I will even give you some free advice as well. In return for your own counsel."

Belleza ground her teeth together, but hoisted her bag up and started removing its contents, one piece at a time. The heavy coinpurse with the wagers. The Marambam woman's crystal octahedron. The odds and ends she'd had on her when she had been arrested.

Kalifa took them all without comment, then set her crystal down on its base and touched it with a finger, sending a low current of spiritual energy through the glass. It rose up, glowing dimly, and began to spin in the air.

"Neat trick." Belleza remarked. Kalifa ignored her, and the sheen in her thick glasses increased, masking her eyes as the glow from her scrying stone intensified. A feeling of thickness settled into the air, the glass spun faster between Kalifa's open hands, and then...The Seer spoke.

"You think yourself in control, daughter of the barren lands of the storm, but you are not. You think yourself loved, but you are not. You think yourself unbreakable, but you are not."

Belleza rolled her eyes. Charlatan's tricks at their best. But what the fortuneteller said after made her go still and tremble, with the air closing in around her.

"You will die alone after everything you love has been blown apart. You will choke on the lies that you have lived by. It will end in Fire, and in Shadow."

The glass stopped spinning and Kalifa jerked her hands back. The heaviness in the air vanished, and the Maramban gasped when her scrying stone fell to its base with a dull thud.

Belleza said nothing after, and Kalifa packed up her things, looking pale and peaked.

"There is always a cost to Knowing." Kalifa said grimly. She stood up and went over to where her spot in the dining hall had been when the Valuan guards had arrested her, and set her crystal octahedron and its base in their proper place.

"One last piece of free advice, Admiral?" Kalifa said as she walked back to the galley and serving counter to retrieve the meals for the other prisoners. "If you want to know Vyse, then study his Code. Because you haven't won yet. He hasn't given up. Blue Rogues never do."


The Delphinus, Medical Bay

189 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

Mid-Morning

The Code. It always came back to The Code. As if that were supposed to mean something to Belleza. She knew that Dyne had always been a particular sort after he and what would become the core of the Blue Rogues movement had mutinied. They would attack Valuan military ships, including military transports, but there were no reports ever given of ships with Blue Rogue flags going after civilian merchant shipping. Not like other Air Pirates, who typically flew the black flag, did. Kalifa had mentioned tenacity as being a part of it, at least indirectly. Something about not giving up. And at his execution which Vyse had interrupted, Dyne's last words prior to that event had been to scream into the stadium that Blue Rogues Fly Free.

Knowing that understanding the Code of the Blue Rogues was a solid step in the process of unraveling the mystery of Vyse, son of Dyne, Belleza had sent for another name on the crew manifest that was of interest to her. This one was bound to be a touch more skittish than the others, so she changed her pattern up and went to their territory before sending the guards to escort them up.

Doctor Ilchymis du Argas was wearing white physician's work robes and was every bit the nobleman's son that accounts had described him as. His presence on board the Delphinus had been a total surprise, given how the man had been able to skillfully evade detection by Valuan pickets and scouts. His face had careworn lines in them, smile lines for the most part, but there was no evidence of such a smile now. Like all the others who had been arrested and put under guard in the Delphinus's hold, the man hadn't had the chance to wash up since then.

"Lord Argas." Belleza greeted him, the due owed to a member of the nobility.

"I prefer the honorific of Doctor, if you wouldn't mind." The silver-haired man replied. "You've been interviewing many people. I am afraid that, unless you require a physical, I would be of little use to you from an intelligence gathering standpoint. I was not involved with the operations aboard this ship."

Belleza smiled. "Naturally. Your pacifism and refusal to wield arms is well known, Doctor Argas. As is your rather storied disappearing act to avoid conscription into the Armada's medical corps. Yet for a man who wanted no part in warfare, here you stand as the bona fide ship's physician aboard a stolen Valuan vessel, in the company of known and charged air pirates."

"Blue Rogues." Ilchymis countered, his own answering smile much thinner, like a scalpel pointed at her. "There is a difference."

Belleza gestured to a pair of beds. "I am curious to know what that difference is. Doctor, can we be civil enough to sit down and talk properly?"

Ilchymis glanced to the thin and narrow mattresses set up for the treatment and observation of recovering patients, lifting an eyebrow over the rim of his glasses.

"Please." Belleza said, trying not to wince as the soreness in her neck she'd woken up with led into the beginnings of a proper headache. Ilchymis considered it for another two seconds before nodding and sitting down. Gratefully, Belleza sat down across from him. Unlike Ilchymis who sat stiffly on the side of it, she sank down onto the stiff white sheets and sighed as she leaned her head back against the lone pillow.

"Aren't you concerned that I might try to hurt you? Or escape?"

"You would not get very far if you tried to run, doctor. Nor do I think you are the kind of man who inflicts pain and suffering on others lightly, even for your own benefit." Belleza said. Vyse, she was still struggling to understand, but her dossier on Ilchymis was much more thorough.

He breathed hard for a couple seconds before speaking. "No. I am not." He admitted.

"I have heard from some of the other crewmembers I have spoken with that Blue Rogues live by a Code." She began.

"Um. Yes. They do."

"You do not follow it yourself?"

"I am not a Blue Rogue." Ilchymis said. "Not as the others are. I am a doctor. I heal the injured, treat the sick. I do not fight as they do."

"Could you tell me what the Code is?"

"Why?" Ilchymis set his hands on his knees, and Belleza turned her head from where she'd been staring at the ceiling to glance at him. He was frowning. "Why do you wish to know?"

"Vyse and Aika and Fina are on the loose. If I am to find them and end their little rebellion, I must understand them."

Ilchymis laughed at that. "I see. Very well. I will tell you the Code, but it will not help you capture them."

She waited as he drew himself up, bringing forth weight into his words. "Blue Rogues Leave Nobody Behind. Blue Rogues never back down from a Greater Danger. Blue Rogues always help out those in need. Blue Rogues Never Give Up. And Blue Rogues Fly Free."

To hear it all laid out so precisely made her shiver for a reason she couldn't fathom. "That is...quite something." He hummed in reply, and she whispered the words to herself, committing them to memory. She would put them to paper later, the mysterious Code of the Blue Rogues that had heretofore been part of the mystery and allure about the air pirates who quarrelled only against Valua and the Black Pirates. In those five simple phrases, she could see the elements that drove Vyse. A commitment to help the weak. A persistence in his purpose, the endless resolve that kept them coming no matter how dark things got or how outnumbered they were. A loyalty to their comrades that -

She blinked. "They're coming back for you." Belleza said, her teeth clicking as she snapped her jaw shut. Ilchymis smiled benignly. She scowled and looked back up at the ceiling. "Why, Ilchymis? What did they say to you to make you join up with them? Why are you here, on this ship, when by all logic you should still be hiding somewhere in the wilderness north of Valua where our scouts could never seem to find you?"

"Why indeed." Ilchymis stood up. "Those are all very good questions. I notice you seem to be in a bit of minor pain, dear Admiral. I could not well hold to my own physician's oath and not see to your care."

"You? Would treat me?" Belleza scoffed.

Ilchymis rolled his eyes. "Was that not the intention of the Armada when they attempted to forcibly conscript me?" It had been, she knew. A letter delivered to his home, telling him to report to the Grand Fortress via train the following morning. How he had not reported in, and when they went to find him, they found his family's estate dark, his room a mess with hastily packed clothes and belongings and the rest strewn about.

They never had found him, but the reports of a strange silver-haired physician and surgeon working his way through Mid-Ocean had kept the scouts busy. Always too late to capture him, though.

He didn't wait for an answer, he merely approached her bedside. "Headache, I imagine. Given how you're squinting and minimizing the movements of your neck and eyes." He reached a hand towards her, and on instinct, Belleza pulled back and drew out a dagger. He stilled. "I am not trying to injure you further, Admiral. My oaths prevent it. First, do no harm."

She felt ashamed. He could have fought his way out, in some of the close calls. He never had. He'd only ever run. She stowed her dagger and closed her eyes. "Do as you will." she conceded.

He rubbed his hands together, warming them, then had her sit up and turn so her back was to him. When his hands came to rest on her shoulders, she felt the prickle of magic on his fingertips. It wasn't the soft and suffusing glow of green magic, there were enough spellmages in the corps that she knew the taste and feel of that. This was something crisper, more clinical. More absolute.

"What…?" She whispered, shivering and starting to turn her head. She didn't get far before his words, and what she could make out from the corner of her eye stilled her.

"Please don't move, I'm still analyzing." He muttered quietly, while his hands glowed silver. A Curia spell. But not. She knew Curia magic, it was the most basic silver magic there was, albeit difficult to learn. All the spellmages who were able to cast it preferred to imbue the essence of the spell into empty spell crystals for instant use, it was not an easy spell and it took too long to cast in a combat scenario where time was of the essence. But when she'd witnessed them casting it, or seen a Curia Crystal being used, the glow around it had always been pale white, like the halo around a lightbulb.

His hands were shimmering pure metallic silver.

"Moons." Belleza whispered, finding her mouth dry. She didn't resist when he lifted a hand up and took her by the chin, turning her head to face forward again. Then the prickling intensified as he pushed his magic under her skin.

"Ah, there we are. Tightness of the upper trapezius and the scalenes. Tension built up with too much stress over time. Resultant stress headache. I would recommend a light oral analgesic no more than twice a day with food. For now, though…"

And the slight stinging of his magic went warm and flowed into her neck and her shoulders, rising up along the back of her head and coming up over to the front of her scalp.

It couldn't have taken more than half a minute or so, and the warmth and his hands both receded and pulled away. She was left blinking, feeling refreshed and hale and the headache was gone.

She whirled on him, knowing that the shock of it was showing on her face and not caring about it. "You can cast Silver Magic? That perfectly?!"

He shrugged, a twinge of shame in his eyes. "A work in progress." He admitted. "I am nowhere near as skilled at it as my nie...as the Lady Fina is." He hastily corrected himself, but too late to prevent Belleza from sounding the rest out. Niece. Which meant...

"You're a Silvite."

"By adoption." Ilchymis admitted with a sigh, outed. "I don't know where Miss Fina's people live, or how they stayed hidden for so long. But I know I trust her completely, and that I know better to argue than her claiming me as a distant uncle. I have no living relatives left. You keep looking at Vyse as the cause for how everyone on this ship came to be here, and that is a reflection of your own bias. He asked me to join him, and I refused. I didn't stay for him. I stayed for her. For what she showed me."

Belleza's heart stuttered. Silver Magic. The great and unknowable secret, the art of restoring and reanimating the recently departed, of bringing true death. Of healing any malady. Silver Magic, the Great Panacea. "How powerful is she?"

Ilchymis shrugged. "More than she knows. More than she wants to know, I suspect. That power could tear down civilizations if misused. In her, that strength is tempered by kindness and compassion. She is teaching me, and I still have a long ways to go." He narrowed his eyes. "If I might ask, Admiral...have you perused my medical files?"

Belleza had. "No." She lied. Of course she had, but only the files on Vyse and Fina and Aika and Enrique. Vyse and Enrique were the models of perfect health. His notes on Aika and Fina seemed more concerned with their reproductive health than anything else, and he kept making notations about improvements to the 'oral contraceptives' that he made for them.

Ilchymis kept staring at her, and Belleza stared right back. She was the spymaster of the Valuan Empire. She knew better than anyone how to fit on a mask, to play a role. To lie boldly and baldly, even to the Empress if it was required. She'd even been stared down by Galcian, who she lusted for, admired, and somehow masked her open desire and the pain of being denied the simplest phrase a man said to a woman after their coupling. An 'I love you' that had never been uttered by him. Even when she lay sweaty and disheveled and undone beneath the firm weight of him.

Ilchymis kept staring at her, full of disappointment and nonaggressive sadness. Something about that look stung at her, reminding her of her father's warm presence combined with her long-dead mother's barely remembered smile and adoring eyes. It was a look without any rage or anger or bitterness in it at all. Just a look that said without any words that You are better than this.

Belleza closed her eyes and crumbled. "Not all of them." She admitted, and Ilchymis hummed at that.

"Was it worth it? Did you find anything in my treatment notes that spoke to their character, or how Vyse would act?"

She hadn't. If she had, it would have given her a justification for it. A post-eventum justification, but there hadn't been. She mutely shook her head.

"I would see my files returned to their proper place and locked up again." He said, the heat returning to his voice.

"It will be done." She promised him.

"Good." Ilchymis hummed, having nothing further on the subject to discuss.

Her mind spun on through the shame of being found out, and she began to piece it together. Innocuous details, linked to other salacious ones. Linked to a possibility.

"You know, I spoke with Mistress Kalifa. It is my understanding that there is a 'betting pool' here on the ship for which of Vyse's two female companions are being Courted by him." She opened her eyes, reading his face. "I don't suppose you know which one of them he takes to his bed at night? Given that they're both on the same birth control?"

"You know? I couldn't say." The physician hummed, stepping back away from her with that placid smile back on his face again. It felt more impish this time.

"Couldn't because you don't know, or because you won't?" She pressed him. Ilchymis just laughed. A dead end unless she wanted to press the point. She found she didn't want to.

"Thank you. For the treatment. And for the information." Belleza said to him.

"Might I ask for a favor in return?" He requested. At her nod, he explained, "I should like to take a few things belowdecks. Some additional blankets, some basic remedies. Things I can use to tend to the wounds of the crew, being as your men weren't exactly that gentle when they stormed the ship."

"I can -" She said, and was cut off when the hatch to the physician's space of healing was swung open, a harried looking Valuan soldier without his helmet stepping inside and snapping to attention.

"Admiral Belleza. You're needed in Yafutoma City. There's been an incident, and Admiral Vigoro is requesting reinforcements."

She refrained from groaning. "Of course." She gestured to Ilchymis. "Give the doctor whatever medical supplies and sundries he requires for the care of the other prisoners. Doctor, we'll have to cut our talk short."

"Yes. Shame, that." Ilchymis hummed, folding his arms together. "You have a new annexation to the Valuan Empire to tend to. If you can keep it."

Something in those words felt like prophecy. Belleza held off her shiver until she was running through the corridor alone.


Yafutoma City

Belleza had thought the Yafutoman people easily cowed and servile, due to how they'd acted during the invasion and the coup. As she flew in on a skiff, escorted by a dozen other skiffs full of armed Valuan soldiers and saw a sea of the Yafutoman citizenry moving towards the scuffle, and heard the roar of them as they approached a quarter of the city full of teahouses and entertainments, she found herself re-evaluating that assessment.

They just hadn't found the time to get angry enough before. They were now.

"Do not open fire on the crowds!" Belleza yelled over the noise, and her small ship's communications officer went for the flags, running up the combination to make sure the other ships did as she'd commanded. A signal flag from a building rooftop nearby caught her eye as they got nearer to the site of the disturbance. It was a Valuan command post, set up expressly to ferry messages between the Armada parked outside the city's walls and its forces within. Given the arrangement of the flags, this had been the station to raise the alarm as well. "Take us down there, soldier!" She barked to the pilot, who complied quickly with the order. The two troopers on station quickly saluted when her vessel pulled up alongside.

"Status report." Belleza barked at them, hoping that they wouldn't waste her time by blathering on. Some troopers did that on occasion in their reports, not realizing there was a difference between useful and useless information.

"Admiral." The first said, lifting the mask of his helmet up enough to make his words lose the muffling quality it usually bestowed. "A patrol decided to visit the teahouse quarter. There was apparently a - a misunderstanding between the natives and them, and a scuffle broke out. The men took offense at being led on, and more of the locals got involved. They arrested their attackers and…"

"And the city exploded." Belleza concluded, staring to the Valuan garrison headquarters three blocks over. Or what qualified as blocks, the Yafutomans built their streets at odd angles and lengths, working with the terrain, as opposed to the much more orderly grid system employed by Valuan city planners and architects. "Very well. I'll see to it from here." She waved down another ship to their position. "I'm going to go resolve this. If, and only if the garrison is overrun, you are to fly back to the Armada and get in touch with my Vice Admiral on the Lynx to inform them of the situation. If you go flying off and we are not being slaughtered you are going to wish that you only got demoted. Am I clear, soldiers?"

"Perfectly clear, admiral!" The second squawked out, losing control of his pitch by how nervous he was. She nodded and gestured to her pilot, and they moved in.

The crowd's volume dimmed slightly and changed in pitch as Belleza and her small flotilla of ships full of soldiers came bearing down on them. The anger was there, but there was fear as well, which seemed perfectly reasonable given how many of the smaller swivel guns were pointed down at them. Belleza reached for her speaking tube and brought it up to her lips.

"Cease this!" She yelled down at them, the cone making her voice double in volume and allowing it to cut through the chatter. "No attack us. They fire if you attack."

"You - invaders think -won't stand for - brutality!" A man from the crowd shouted back, wielding a ditch digger's shovel up at her threateningly.

Belleza held her hand out. This could go wrong so quickly, so easily. "Please, cease!" She begged them. "I - find out what happened. Time, give me! Enough violence today. Enough blood. No more. Please!"

She was desperately calling on every scrap of applicable language she could remember in the middle of the crisis. Somehow, it felt as though she was speaking in even more garbled phrases than usual. Between her entreating and all of the guns pointed at them, the Yafutomans calmed down. Or perhaps it was because this had, by the report given to her, started because of violence directed at a woman by Valuan soldiers. Maybe they had figured that a woman officer among the invaders might be more reasonable to their side of it.

Taking the chance, she directed her pilot to set down in front of the garrison's doors. To her relief, the crowd backed away and gave them a spot to land, and left room enough for her to get out. The men in the crowd were still glaring, but didn't reach for her or charge forward again. A young woman reached out and touched her arm, and Belleza went still, hearing the guards on the skiff beginning to ready their weapons. She held up her hand. "Weapons down." She ordered them calmly, more calmly than she felt. She turned to the woman, seeing dried tears that had streaked through her white makeup, ruining it, and garments more ornate and elaborate than the other Yafutomans were wearing.

"Please. Sanada not - she just want them - stop. We - teahouse girls, not - pleasure women." Her face hardened at the end and she spat the words out.

Pleasure women. Prostitutes.

Oh, damn them. Belleza kept her face a mask and nodded. "Thou will have justice. This, I vow. As a woman."

The young teahouse girl nodded and let go of her. Belleza swept her gaze over the crowd one last time, reading their faces and breathing a little easier as the harder faces who had been close enough to overhear her conversation had softened up, exchanging outright hatred for more wary, but watchful scowls.

Belleza gave them all another nod and then turned for the doors, trying to open it first and then pounding and ordering the barred doors opened when they didn't give way. Panicked voices inside answered her, and she slipped inside.

There, an entire squad of heavily armed and armored Valuan soldiers were holding position behind hastily erected barricades, relaxing when she came into view. And leading them was -

"Belleza!" Vigoro greeted her. True to his name, he did so vigorously. He swept over the barricades, grinning widely. "I hear that it's calmed down out there. How did you talk sense into these barbarians? A little more gunboat diplomacy? You haven't fired any shots yet, which is a pity. I would have sent them running."

"Unfortunately, you were too busy cowering in here." She set a hand at her waist. "Care to tell me what's happened? And show me to the prisoners."

"What's to tell? Me and the men were visiting a local teahouse, and the women there were flirting with us. Out in the streets you had painted up hussies propositioning us everywhere, and so when we're inside, we figure hey, they're game for it." Vigoro scowled. "No sooner does one of my boys start groping her up than she's screeching her head off and throwing teapots at us! Full ones! With hot tea!"

"I see." Belleza felt the pit in her stomach get deeper. Moons, she wanted to strangle the man. "Vigoro. On the off chance that she had accepted the advances of you and your men, what exactly were you going to do with her?"

"I have hands, don't I? And a mouth?" Vigoro mused. He smirked a little, but with more cruelty than she'd ever seen from him before. "I'd make her feel good before we ruined her."

"Like you tried to make Vyse's subordinate Aika feel good?" Belleza countered, the nausea from dealing with the bastard rising quickly.

His face warped into a bitter scowl, and he clenched his hands into fists. "That red-headed bitch. If I ever get my hands on her, I'll show her what happens to women who cross Vigoro."

Thank the Moons she got away from you. "Where was this bravado when you screamed like a little girl and hid behind me because she conjured up a little fire in her hands?" The look of rage on his face worsened. "Get yourself under control, Admiral." She warned him. "We set the example of proper behavior for our men. Now. You, stay here. I have witnesses to interview."

She swept out of the building's foyer and marched to the back, where guards were posted in a hallway. They came to attention and saluted as she neared.

"Which room is the Yafutoman girl being kept in?"

"Here, ma'am." The first guard gestured.

"And the rest of the party who was with Admiral Vigoro?" Belleza prodded.

"Um. They're with the medic, getting patched up. Apparently they got some bruises out of the scuffles." Belleza nodded and opened the door to where the teahouse girl, Sanada, was being kept.

Belleza froze in the doorframe, looking to a young girl of perhaps Aika and Fina's age huddled on a mattress, her arms curled around her midsection. There were a couple other Yafutoman men in the room as well, leaning up on the wall and looking banged up as most men would after a barroom brawl. Belleza only had eyes for the girl though. There was dried blood mixed in with her facepaint on her cheek, and a deadly serious bruise that had puffed up painfully around an eye that looked to be closing up. The position of her arms seemed to be covering bruised and hurting skin beneath. Which meant they hadn't just struck her face, they'd punched her in the gut.

"You are hurt." Belleza said, and the girl sat up and looked at her. "Has a physick treated you yet?"

"No. No doctor." The girl whispered faintly. "Just guards."

Belleza saw red after that. In a whirlwind of motion, she helped the girl up and escorted her and the Yafutoman men to the garrison medics, lashing the healers in a loud voice until they stepped away from the soldiers with their minimal bruising and put their talents to work on her and the men who had been arrested trying to defend her. A Sacri crystal and some wipes and bandages later, Sanada had lost her facepaint and looked remarkably better, with the swelling around her eye much reduced. She was fearful of all the Valuans and stayed close to Belleza, gripping her arm with a shaky hand.

Sanada didn't trust the men. Belleza found it hard to disagree.

"Tell me, soldiers." Belleza thundered. "Did any of you think to look up the policy on fraternization between troopers of the Valuan Armada and civilians, or were you too busy trying to get your rocks off?" Without their helmets, their sheepishness was immediately apparent. "Did any of you forget about a little thing called Consent? Or did you just think that the Valuan Code of Military Justice didn't apply to people who didn't speak your language? Because I can guarantee that it does." Some of the guards that she had brought with her had filtered in, and she gestured to the troopers that Vigoro had gone slumming with. "Pursuant to Article 24, Section 17 of the VCMJ, you are all hereby under arrest pursuant to an investigation regarding your conduct during this occupation."

"Now wait just a minute!" Vigoro snapped, barreling in as her personal guard started slapping manacles on the wrists of his troopers. "You can't just go around arresting my troopers willy-nilly and letting these aggressors and this little slut off the hook!"

Belleza pulled her hand back, wound up, and then slapped him with everything she had. It was enough, off-guard as he was, to send him stumbling back with his head and torso twisted.

"I am the head of this expedition. Until this investigation is concluded, Admiral Vigoro, I am hereby reassigning you to the Armada. Minister of State Kurowei has spoken of some persistent air pirates roaming these skies. I advise you to turn your attention to tracking them down. And don't you ever go using that language in my presence again, you sick, crippled bastard. Galcian can overlook much, but only when it doesn't affect the mission." Vigoro was steaming, but held himself in check as Belleza looked up at him and somehow still stared him down. "Should I include how your own carnal appetites and poisonous attitudes almost turned the entire city against us?" He held his silence, and Belleza pointed for the door. "Get back to the Draco. Have your Vice Admiral report to me. I'm assigning him oversight of our occupation forces henceforth."

Vigoro stormed out, and Belleza gave herself a minute to recover and reassure the young Sanada before leading her and her defenders out.

The sight of Sanada and the men freed and looking better as well as the Valuans who had assaulted her being marched onto her transport in chains brightened up the crowd's disposition. The men passed by her, some staring in cautious disbelief and two of them even nodding respectfully as they shifted out into the crowd. Belleza took Sanada's hand before letting the girl go back to her friend in the dissipating mob.

"There shall be trial. If you speak, t'will make the burden of proof easier." She told the girl. "Sanada, will you stand witness to their crime?"

"Yes." She nodded once, offering a small, uneasy smile. Her friend took Sanada, bowing to Belleza.

"You - keep promise. Thank you."

"I promised justice." Belleza told her.

"You still invader, though." An older woman nearby remarked, and Belleza's casual attitude snapped shut. "Divine Wind punish you all. But maybe - spare you, red-haired one. Hope - spare you."

The crowd dispersed, and Belleza climbed aboard the small transport vessel, exhausted and worn out.

"We're done here. Get us back to the fleet." She ordered the pilot wearily.


The Delphinus

Prince Enrique's Cabin

Early Evening

Her Vice Admiral, Rawlins, had insisted on Belleza taking a few hours for herself after cleaning up the debacle in Yafutoma City, and though she'd found herself unable to get any proper rest, the break had given her time to put her thoughts together, compile a little more of her profile on Vyse, and to get some food and some tea in her. By the time Lieutenant Alvarez came into get her up for her meeting with Vigoro's Vice Admiral, Belleza was feeling much more like herself.

She found herself returning to the Delphinus shortly after, and sent word for her next interviewee to be brought up to her while she let herself into the cabin that had belonged to Prince Enrique. She'd been stunned to find that the enormous stateroom meant for the Prince had instead been given to Vyse by the crew reports. Why would Enrique allow himself to be deposed from the more expansive quarters? Was his respect for Vyse that great or had the Blue Rogue taken it as his due, forcing Enrique to the more spartan environment?

The Prince had little in the way of personal belongings. Had it not been for the careworn sword-cleaning kit that bore a personal message from Gregorio engraved into the underside of the lid of the wooden box, she would have so easily dismissed it as just another officer's cabin. It was along the same corridor of staterooms that also included the captain's cabin, as well as two which she had earmarked as belonging to Aika and Fina, per ship's records. Aika's had odds and ends of blueprints, half-repaired bits of machinery, and a whetstone meant for sharpening knives. Fina's had even less in the way of personal belongings than Enrique's room did, and seemed sparingly used. Or it had been cleaned on a fairly regular basis, it didn't exactly look lived in.

Enrique's room was definitely lived in, although the man clearly spent most of his time when he was in his cabin sleeping. She re-read the inscription from Admiral Gregorio again and smiled to herself, tracing it with her fingertips.

To my Prince- May your father's courage and compassion be yours, always.

'Uncle' Gregorio

A knock at the door brought her back to her senses, and she closed the lid. "It's open." She said, and the hatch opened to reveal a soldier and a squirming child on the other side. The child was a squirming brat of a boy with rumpled and greasy clothes, spiky red hair, and a frayed green scarf wrapped around his neck. He glared daggers at Belleza. Belleza found herself smiling back at him.

"Oh, you have to be little Marco." She chuckled when he puffed up, looking insulted. "Thank you, soldier. I think I can manage him from here. Close the door after you leave, please." The fellow saluted and shut the hatch, leaving the freckled boy Marco fuming and standing in place with his arms folded defiantly over his chest. Daring the world, daring her, to make him do anything he didn't feel like doing.

"I didn't think that the Blue Rogues recruited children."

"Valua figured I was old enough to die." Marco countered. "Captain Vyse showed me how to live."

Belleza blinked at the fire there, but latched on to something else. "Your accent. You're Valuan. Lower City, if I'm right."

Marco kept on scowling. "So what?"

Belleza blinked again, then took a seat at the desk by Enrique's cleaning kit. "Why don't you sit down?"

"S'not my room."

"True. It's Enrique's." Belleza nodded. "Do you know why I wanted to talk to you?"

"You're talkin' to everyone." The boy grumbled, though he did move over to the bed and flump onto it. He actually flumped. And sighed, relaxing into the mattress. Apparently, the prisoner accommodations in the hold were lacking. Nothing for it, really.

"What's a boy out of the Lower City doing on a ship like this?"

"What's a cake eater like you doing invading other countries? Oh, wait. You're Armada. Stupid question." He snarked back at her.

"Young man, I'm doing my best to make this pleasant for you."

"This is pleasant? Getting shoved into the hold of our ship? Being told that we're gonna be executed at the end of it?"

"You don't have to be." Belleza told him, trying to sound consoling. "You're Valuan. We can take you back. Get you a post as a cabin boy. You can work your way up. Some day, you could even become an officer."

"What's the catch, sister?" The boy snuffled, pulling his head up from the bed.

"Tell me what you know about Vyse."

"Why?"

"I'm searching for him."

"Because you wanna kill him."

"In a perfect world, he would stand trial for his crimes first. But pirates don't often give us that chance, they prefer not to be taken alive."

"Blue Rogue." Marco snuffled again. "He's a Blue Rogue."

"He's also not coming back." Belleza told the boy. "Unless we find him, and then he's coming back in chains. He's abandoned you."

"He did not." Marco snapped at her, pushing himself up off of the bed. "Vyse isn't like that. He's brave, and he's strong, and he's not afraid of you! Just you wait, he's gonna come back and pull something awesome, and then you're all gonna be begging for mercy!"

"Why do you hate Valua so much, boy?" Belleza asked him, exasperated. "It's your home." Marco stared at her, an odd look on his face. Then he started laughing. Hard. Belleza waited him out. It took a while before he finally settled again.

"Stop pretending you care about me." Marco finally said, his voice harder than Belleza would ever expect a twelve year old boy's voice to be. "Nobody in Valua cared about me when I grew up thievin' and eating scraps out of the garbage. Nobody in Valua cared about me when I was so cold and hungry that I couldn't even sleep. Nobody cared about me until Vyse came along and gave me a reason to keep living. He told me about a whole world outside of Valua, a world where people cared for each other." There were tears in his eyes as he glared at Belleza, harder and worn, but ever defiant. "You know what Big Sis Aika said to me? Home is people. Home's not a place, it's a feeling. Valua's a shithole, and it never did anything for me. You want me to sell out Vyse? Or Aika and Fina? Or Enrique? Fat chance. They're my home. This ship is my home. The people on it are my home. So you can just go get bent."

"Listen to the mouth on you." Belleza muttered darkly. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

Marco wiped at his nose again. "My mama's dead. She and my dad got killed by Valua. By soldiers like you." He jumped off the bed, sniffling and crying and angry. Belleza walked by him and pounded on the door, and it was opened up by a pair of Valuan guards.

"Get him out of here." Belleza said woodenly. The lead guard paused for a bit, then held out a hand to the boy instead of grabbing for his arm. Marco slipped his hand into the guard's and let the man lead him back away for the hold. The cold feeling in Belleza's heart stayed after he was gone, and she didn't even care that the other guard lingered.

"Tell me something, soldier." Belleza said to the remaining Valuan trooper. "Why did you join up?"

"I figured it was better than being conscripted. Ma'am. How about you?"

"Because I wanted to bring peace to the world by helping to stop the fighting. But there are days I forget that."

"Ma'am?" The guard asked nervously.

Belleza waved off his anxiety. "Nothing. Just talking to myself, I suppose. What do you think about that boy?"

"I - I don't think I signed up to make children cry. Ma'am." The guard sighed.

Belleza stroked the side of her arm slowly. "Neither did I."


Captain's Cabin

Delphinus

Evening

She could have, and probably should have returned to the Lynx after her meeting with Marco. She'd run flat out of steam to conduct any more interviews, after all. Belleza found herself walking instead in the direction of the captain's cabin, Vyse's cabin, and there she stayed. Her Vice Admiral finally sought her out with dinner in hand and found her buried in her notes.

"This isn't healthy, ma'am." The ever reliable Vice Admiral Rawlins told her, sitting with her at the desk after setting all of her papers into a pile on top of the enormous bed. "For yourself or for the combined Fleet. Please, eat something and then return to the Lynx. Surely you have learned all you can about Captain Vyse and the companions he escaped with by now."

"You would think so." Belleza murmured. "But his crew is remarkably tight-knit. All I've been given are glimpses, just tiny glimpses into what motivates him. I know the Code of the Blue Rogues now, at least. But I'm missing something. Something big."

"Right." The brown-haired officer sighed and leaned his chin on his fist, staring at her. "Please. Eat something, would you Nadia?"

"Stop mothering me, Daniel." She grumbled, sulking back at him.

His flinty blue-gray eyes softened. "Stop making me have to." She sighed and reached for her knife and fork, carving into the roasted chicken breast that he'd brought with him. "I asked Miss Polly to cook that."

"And it's not poisoned?" She asked incredulously. He chuckled a bit and shook his head right before she popped it into her mouth. It was delicious. She dug into the rest of her dinner with far more gusto after that, and Dan Rawlins smiled and relaxed as she did, tucking into his own. A victory on two fronts, her now happy stomach reported.

A few minutes later, she pushed her empty plate away and he collected it. "Are you coming back home tonight?" The way he phrased it made her laugh sharply and sadly. "Uh, Admiral? Did I say something funny?"

"No, it's just - Well. There's a boy on Vyse's crew. 12 years old, full of fire. You hear about the ones who fall through the cracks back in Valua."

"Aye." Rawlins said understandingly. "More these days than before, sadly. I take it this Marco was one of them?"

"He was. Until Vyse saved him." Belleza shook her head. "I think we've been wrong this entire time, Dan. About the Blue Rogues. About their motivations. The people on his crew, the ones aboard this ship? They are loyal to him. Loyal in a way that no Valuan commander ever inspired loyalty. They all believe, I am certain of it, that Vyse will come back for them."

"That's a good thing." Rawlins said, stacking the plates and dirty silverware and glasses back on the serving tray to be carted off. "He still has the Moon Crystals, after all."

"Including the Blue Moon Crystal." Belleza murmured. Rawlins narrowed his eyes.

"That's confirmed?"

"It's the most likely scenario." Belleza clarified. "Vyse doesn't strike me as the sort to make the same mistake more than once. He lost the Red Moon Crystal to me before reclaiming it. The Green Moon Crystal was apparently kept by the Ixa'takans and used to summon Grendel, but they had it with them when Ramirez captured them at the sacking of Nasrad. If he had the choice, he wouldn't let the Blue Moon Crystal out of his sight. Or the Princess wouldn't at least. I could see her grabbing it when she fled during the coup to warn them and get them away."

"Speaking of the occupation and politics…" Her Vice Admiral led off casually. "Vigoro's Vice Admiral just finished the transfer of command to the garrison we have stationed in Yafutoma."

"How did our demoted admiral handle his change in station?"

"Grumbling, but knowing there was little he could do about it." Rawlins explained. "Minister of State Kurowei actually got in touch with us after your little stunt earlier today. He said that you handled the incident with 'remarkable delicacy.' I suppose that was meant to be complimentary."

"About as complimentary as that man gets." Belleza pointed out. "He's a snake."

"True. But he's our snake." Rawlins answered.

For now, Belleza thought. The man had been the Emperor's most trusted advisor, and he'd betrayed one master already. She'd be a fool to think he wouldn't try to do so again. "Speaking of Kangan Kurowei, how has the integration of his own forces and ours been going?"

"Fractious, at times. Today didn't help any." He explained. "Followup reports indicated that they didn't exactly warn Vigoro and that squad about the misunderstandings they were operating under, and that when things went wrong, they were curiously absent."

"Setting us up to fail and take the heat, while holding himself up as the beleaguered native." Belleza pointed at him. "Tomorrow, first thing, get in touch with your fellow Vice Admiral. I want the two of you to work up some guidelines so I don't have to clean up another mess like that."

"I'll take care of it, ma'am." He nodded. "There was one other thing; Minister Kurowei passed along a request."

"What did he say?"

"Actually, he wrote it down." Rawlins reached to the inner pocket of his uniform coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "Apparently, written Mid-Ocean was easier for him than spoken. Or he just wanted a paper trail."

She took the note, broke the wax seal on it, and then read it briefly before scowling. "Astounding. He wants to put his son in charge of the Delphinus. In the 'interests of cooperation between the Valuan Empire and the Vassal Territories of Yafutoma.' Who the hell does he think he is?"

"Currently, the only thing standing between us and the entire population of Yafutoma rioting and ruining all our hard work."

She made a face. "Damn him. And Lord Galcian needs this to go smoothly."

Belleza was looking away from her vice admiral, so she didn't see his face when he spoke. "Does he? Or do you just want it to go smoothly to try and win his affections?"

She jerked her head up and stared at him. Daniel Rawlins, Vice Admiral of the 4th Fleet. Her trusted right hand, a capable messenger and coordinations expert, but without her skill in subterfuge and spycraft. Five years her senior and never sore about it. In fact, he'd never had a cross word for her aside from berating her for taking too much on herself and relying on risky operations too often, in his opinion. He wasn't one for the enormous helmets that were standard in the Armada and preferred his officer's longcoat, allowing him to wear his service medals and his epaulets.

He was looking at her with those blue-gray eyes of his, chin resting on his hand again, and the short-trimmed brown hair on his scalp had only the faintest touch of thinning along the top. He looked at her in pity.

"Excuse you?" She found herself demanding of him. Dan's face got even sadder.

"He doesn't love you, Nadia." He told her. "He's just using you. He's always used you. Has he ever shown you any courtesy? Sent you a token for a job well done? Has he done anything that a man would normally do for a woman he was interested in?"

"How dare you." She seethed, rising up and staring him down. "How dare you. What business is it of yours who I consort with?!"

"It's my business when it interferes with your job!" Her Vice Admiral insisted, staying seated but looking no less bitter about the conversation. "It's my business when you pine after him and starve yourself because you think it'll make him notice you! It's my business when all he has to do is hook his finger in your direction and you go running off after him! It's my business when you come back a few hours later looking rumpled and miserable and reaching for alcohol, wondering what you did to drive him away. It's not you, Nadia, it's never been you!"

She was trembling with rage and hurt, and he wore an apology openly.

"It's him." He finished, softer than before. "He doesn't have enough of a heart in him to love you the way you deserve. He never did. All he knows, all he cares about, is power."

Tears stung at her eyes. "And did you ever think that maybe I want power as well? That I might want him because he's so powerful?"

"You don't want power, Nadia, you -"

"Call me Admiral!" She thundered, and he bit his lip and ducked his eyes down.

"Admiral. You want control. That's different than power. You always wanted control over your own life. I can't imagine the kind of hell you went through as a woman in the Academy and the officer corps. Having to face that kind of a double standard. It's why you're so good at your job. You're used to wearing masks. You're used to finding weaknesses in others. You had to. It was how you survived. But you don't need it. Not here."

"Don't I?" She huffed frostily. "My own Vice Admiral thinks to comment on my life as though he had a vested interest in it. What, are you going to try and blackmail me? It won't work, others have tried."

"I have never said anything to anyone about you in all the years I have served under you. And do you really know my weakness?"

"Of course I do."

"Do you?" Daniel asked her flatly, and stared at her face without a shred of any guarded expression or a mask at all. It stopped her cold as she looked at him, really looked at him for the first time in all the years she'd known him, and saw -

"You…" Her legs suddenly weak, she sank back down to her chair. "It's me?" Vice Admiral Daniel Rawlins nodded his head once, lips pressed tightly together. She blinked, shook her head. "No. It's impossible. You never -"

He smiled, and that made her stop. "When could I have said anything? It's against regulations. You're my superior officer."

"How long?" She got out, her throat going dry.

"Long enough." He shrugged and looked away. "You deserve better than him, Nadia." She went to answer him, and found that she couldn't speak. He took her silence to mean something else. "I won't risk your career. I'll put in for a transfer. I'll resign my commission first. There will be other Vice Admirals."

"Don't, Daniel." She begged him suddenly, and he turned his head back around and looked at her with something that made her freeze and feel miserable. He looked at her with hopeful longing.

She shut her eyes. "I need you where you are."

"You deserve better. You deserve more."

"Maybe." Belleza got out. But what she wanted, what she deserved wasn't what she got. It never had been. She sucked in a lungful of air. "You - you should go. You need to go."

Silence, and then the sound of his chair pushing back away. "As my Admiral commands." He said, and she heard him pick up the serving tray with their dirty dishes. "Are you coming back to the Lynx tonight, Admiral Belleza?"

"I think it's better if I don't." She whispered, hurting and heartsore, hating herself and hating him for dropping all of that on her. "Please go." He did so with slow and loud footsteps, and the door to the cabin opened and closed with a steady click, leaving her alone again.

Numbly, she got up and wandered over to the bed built large enough and lavish enough for a king on voyage where her Vice Admiral had stacked all of her notes for her profile on Vyse. She straightened them out and prepared herself to read them, and - just. Couldn't.

She sank onto the bed, tired and emotionally exhausted and lonely. The weight she never let anyone else see, ever, manifested. No, that wasn't true.

She'd let Vyse see a glimpse of it. Just once, back when she had tried to seduce him. That had scared her after the fact. At the time, she'd only managed to feel hurt and jealous that he refused her.

Belleza let her notes drop out of her hand and rolled onto her side, staring towards the head of the bed and the enormous congregation of pillows arranged there. More than one person would ever reasonably require.

"Blue Rogues." She whispered, thinking of the Code. How they helped others who were weaker. How they never backed down against aggression and tyranny. How they never left anyone behind. Or never gave up. And how they always, always, even in the face of their own destruction, flew free and never submitted.

Even among the Blue Rogues she'd heard of, had there ever been another Rogue (Even his father who must have created the Code), who lived up to those simple virtues as honestly as Vyse did? She'd been looking to him as a mystery to be solved, a puzzle to be unlocked. Yet for every member of the crew that she had questioned, she found nothing in his words or in his actions that was useful as blackmail. Her study of his personality, by the words of those who traveled with him, lent him the status of a nigh-mythical heroic figure, a man who stood strong and unbowed with his heart out for all to see. He was a man who challenged others to become more than what they were, helped them to reach for their dreams. He had turned Ilchymis from a hermit into a ship's doctor, converted brigands and buccaneers to sail under the Blue flag instead of the Black. He had saved a child that nobody ever gave a thought for, and by Kalifa's ledger, had two beautiful women fighting for his affections…

She stopped and blinked, staring to the pillows at the head of the bed. Too many for one person, she'd thought, and dismissed, as idle observation.

Belleza rolled onto her hands and knees and crawled up to those pillows, pushing the rumpled covers away from them and searching for a clue that nobody else in her employ would have thought to try and locate. She searched for hairs...and she found them.

Amidst the rumpled sheets, she found strands of hair that had gotten stuck to them and to the pillows. Brown hairs. Vyse's. Platinum blonde. Fina's.

But there were red hairs as well, and even more curiously, sometimes the blonde and red strands were intertwined and stuck together. She held the evidence in her trembling hands and realized she had the missing piece of the puzzle of Vyse, the most troublesome of the Blue Rogues. Nobody who had placed a bet in Kalifa's ledger was going to win. Nobody on the crew who'd made a wager on which girl he was with had been right.

Belleza's laugh was incredulous and cracked a little at the end as she clenched her hand around the evidence. "Both of them." She whispered, and felt her eyes burn. "You're with both of them." And if she had to guess, the girls were an item as well. She remembered how Fina had drawn close to Aika when they saw Vigoro. Which meant it was all three.

She thought back to that night in Nasr that she'd offered herself to him.

I won't do that to them.

Even before they'd ever made a move, he had known his heart and known they both had a place in it. Belleza sank her head down on the pillows and breathed in slowly, smelling the scent of him, of Aika and Fina. Of them.

It was unnatural. It was unspeakable. It was a perversion that would never stand in Valuan society. She cried all the more because of that. She understood him at last, and realized she was jealous of him. But also she was jealous of his women. His women who were both taking the same contraception that Dr. Argas had manufactured for them. Because of who they were with. Because neither could risk being gravid in the middle of their war against Valua.

I hope someday your man accepts you for the treasure you are.

She was the Admiral of the 4th Fleet, the leading officer of the Expedition to the Lands under the Blue Moon. She had power that others craved, a position of respect and fear. But she didn't have control, and she didn't have love.

Crying silently, Belleza fell asleep surrounded by the smell of the Blue Rogues who had gotten away from her, and who had the freedom to love and be loved by the partners that they longed for. They were braver than she was.

They flew free.