Author's Note: The only reasonable explanation for my delay in posting is the global conspiracy which prevented me from working on, and then from posting this chapter.
B.L.A the Mouse: Yeah, I'm sure you've noticed by now how much fun I have writing Beka with Nietzscheans. I'm a little predictable that way! Also, it's possible that you haven't seen the last of the dynamic duo… but I'll say no more. (and hearts for cryptic!Tyr)
-o-
The first thought to cross Beka's mind when she saw the Jaguar Matriarch was: finally. She had been waiting for a total of two and a half hours, punctuated by a quick sandwich and coffee run after the first hour. The second thought, tinged with envy, was: Divine, she looks like a twenty-something rock star, and she could probably bench press me to boot. The third thought was a fervent hope that she did not have anything stuck in her teeth.
Upon closer examination, Ishtar Nikei did not perfectly imitate a twenty-something rocker. Gray streaked her ebony-dark hair, and very fine wrinkles crinkled the skin around her eyes and mouth. Except for a dramatic streak of kohl and perhaps a touch of lip balm, Beka could not detect a trace of make-up on the woman's face. There was no reason for it. No one expected a Matriarch to be young, after all.
"Rebecca Valentine," Ishtar drawled in a deep contralto, "So kind of you to decide to stay." When Beka had left for her snack break, she had been informed upon her return that the Matriarch had come and gone again during those fifteen minutes. Beka stood and tried not to fidget under Ishtar's smoky green gaze. She forced her muscles to relax, to hold her still as she kept her eyes steadily on Ishtar's face.
"Matriarch," Beka replied a little stiffly, "the important thing is, we're both here now. Was there something you wanted to discuss?" She felt silly even as the words tumbled from her mouth. Of course there was something she wanted to talk about; Ishtar Nikei did not strike her as a woman who had much time or patience for idle chatter.
The woman raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms over a mostly-bare midriff. "Unless you're here to look at the wiring, that's why I invited you here."
Part of Beka wanted to laugh, and another part of her wanted to spin on her heel and stomp away. She settled for a tight smile and wished the Matriarch's secretary were not staring so openly at them. "Right," she replied. "Well, by all means, let's talk."
Through an open door, Beka could see a Spartan office, white and chrome trappings where necessary. The Matriarch provided a stunning contrast to her surroundings, currently clad in low-riding beige leather trousers and a top consisting solely of two wide mocha straps, all of it studded with jewel chips. Matching necklace, helix, gun belt, and belly chain polished off the look, leaving Beka feeling even more drab than she usually did next to Nietzschean women.
To her fleeting confusion, Ishtar closed the door to her office and led the way out the exterior door after shooting a cryptic command to her secretary. "Now that you're here, I may have something for you, Captain." She spoke briskly as she navigated carpeted hallways that would have fit right in a posh FTA office building. Sarcasm and leather aside, she carried herself like a very busy and very successful businessperson. There was little of Charlemagne's languid luxury here.
"If you don't mind, I'll reserve my gratitude until after I see it." Beka had to trot to keep up with the Matriarch and sent up a silent thanks at least that she was not wearing heels.
This merited her another long look. "Naturally." There was a curt note in her voice, and Beka hoped she would not start their acquaintance on a sour note. A pessimistic voice in her head told her that she would not amuse this woman the way she amused Tyr and then Charlemagne.
Silence fell for the length of another corridor while Beka thought stubbornly that she was not going to force the conversation. She was not the one who had called this meeting.
"You work for Darjella Milein," Ishtar began without preamble. "It speaks well of you that she ever hired you. I've found her to be a reasonable person in our few dealings together, sufficiently self-interested but not stupid about it."
It was not the faint praise that caught Beka's attention. "Dealings? Was this before… the Arch Duke bought all those death contracts on me?"
One more turn, and they were standing before an armed guard Beka had passed on her way in. He nodded slightly at the two of them and opened the titanium-core door to a bright wash of sunshine on white rock. Beka blinked and rubbed her eyes while Ishtar replied.
"Long before." She sounded very nonchalant. "We were never friends, of course, but our circles overlap." An unexpected chuckle hummed in her throat. "You'll be flattered to know how difficult she made life for me during that unpleasantness."
Actually, she was flattered. Darjella had never told her much about the steps she had taken to… persuade the Jaguar hierarchy to persuade Charlemagne to call off his mercenaries. Ultimately, she was not sure how much effect those efforts had had, but for Ishtar to mention them now, they must have been significant.
They continued to make impersonal conversation as they walked, during which Beka had the constant suspicion that Ishtar was keeping the conversation just a notch above Beka's usual level. Even when she was not being sarcastic, the Matriarch possessed an extremely sharp intellect and not a jot of dissembling courtesy.
Soon, Beka heard the sound of shots in the distance, but the noises were so regular that she was sure it was some sort of training exercise. Just as she predicted, they turned a corner and found a wide, grassy plain stretched out before them, dotted with moving targets and the soldiers bobbing and weaving and shooting at them. After just a few moments watching the exercise, Beka could say with absolute certainty that these people were all better shots than she was, at least on this simulated battlefield.
"Nice," she called over the din, "I'm so glad to see that any one of these soldiers could take me out with a single shot."
Ishtar snorted and surveyed the field. "What would you prefer to see?" she asked.
Slowly walking around the perimeter of the firing range, Beka considered this. Well, she supposed this was a more encouraging sight than a bunch of bullets flying wildly. "Whatever it was you said you might have for me," she finally replied.
They came to a small stand of trees, somewhat cut off from the racket of the training soldiers. The shots were muffled here, but they could still watch the proceedings.
"I enjoy my displays of force as much as anyone," Ishtar said, "but I have better uses for my time. We're waiting for that something here. Two somethings, actually, both of whom I hope are impressing their instructors at the moment."
The shooting around them was not deafening, but neither did it make for easy conversation. They waited without speaking, Beka not daring to stir an inch beyond the semi-circle of trees in case something noxious lurked in the weeds. Harper had borne terrible tales of poisonous plants back on Earth, innocuous-looking things whose slightest touch gave him horrendous (and, for listeners, hilarious) rashes. The woods did smell nice, though, clean and faintly fragrant, clashing jarringly with the smells of discharged weaponry. From the sounds she heard, Beka thought she could identify at least half a dozen different kinds of guns used out on the field.
A few minutes later, the noise began to die down until just an odd shot or two echoed across the field. Beka watched as the soldiers scattered to the perimeter, singly and in small clumps of avid conversation. Two of them came jogging toward their little copse, both taller than the Matriarch and wider. They did not salute, but they held themselves as upright as any pair of eager ensigns.
The dismay of the two men upon seeing Beka was just as painfully visible as their military discipline.
"Matriarch," the sandy blond barked, "we received the instructions and await your orders."
Because she was dividing her attention between the three Nietzscheans, Beka could not be absolutely sure that she saw a tiny grin twitch at Ishtar's lips just then. In contrast to the stiff posture of the two soldiers, the Matriarch stood with one hip cocked and her arms crossed. Even so, she emanated more authority in her easy stance than the two men combined.
"Good," she said brusquely. "I'm glad to hear communications are functioning adequately. This is Captain Valentine, Bolivar's latest business partner."
Judging by their expressions, Beka would have bet that neither one of them had bothered to do any reading on the subject of those instructions.
"She's…" the other one, sporting a clean shaven scalp, sputtered.
"Not a kludge," Beka supplied helpfully. "You see, the term applies to unmodified humans, and I got some real fine tweaking outta Thalia by Ignatius. I'm also standing right here, you know."
Clean-shaven glowered at her and gave the Matriarch a questioning look. Ishtar just shrugged and relaxed further into her pose. "It's a job," she said, "I have no place in labor negotiations." She might have had no place there, but she made no move to leave.
Sandy hair's lips tightened as he looked Beka over. "You require a medic and an engineer, I understand? Wilhelm and I performed at the top of our class in those respective fields and have traveled with the Jaguar fleet in those capacities."
To be fair, Beka was sure that she did not look any happier than the men at the prospect of living on the same ship. "I can just imagine Wilhelm's bedside manner," she muttered.
"I won't hold your hand," the one she took to be Wilhelm snarled, "but I doubt you've ever had an equally capable medic. You may not be aware, but leeches are no longer the height of medical technology."
Oh, wasn't this fun? The Nietzschean had spirit. "If they came out more than ten years ago, I wouldn't expect you to know about them."
His right hand flew to the gun holstered at his hip, and Beka laughed. "First, do no harm," she chortled. "I'm sure you would defend my ship's honor to the death, but you'd probably kill me first." She did not bother to hide a yawn as she met Sandy hair's eyes. "Nikolai?"
To his credit, the young man did not glance at either Wilhelm or Ishtar but looked a little sheepish under Beka's attention. "No," she continued after a pause, "you need more experience on those tugboats you people favor before I let you touch my ship."
Another pause. "Uh, interview complete."
From behind her, Ishtar spoke up in that contralto drawl. "You've completed your service, Jaguars."
They nodded, looking a bit more certain, and jogged back to the plain, now deserted. Beka turned to Ishtar, eyes wide in an incredulous expression. "Had you ever met them before you recommended them my way?"
Incredibly, a small but definite smile danced on Ishtar's lips. "They were awaiting my orders because they saw me standing here, but they did not receive my instructions. One little word, Captain, so much meaning."
Beka furrowed her brow. "What are you talking about? If you didn't try to hoist them off on me, who did?"
"Now Captain," Ishtar chided, "I can't think why that information should be relevant to this discussion."
Beka thought back to her conversation with Charlemagne and managed a thin smile. "Heinrich Sharoky, the Alpha. It was him, wasn't it? For… whatever reason," she fluttered her hand dismissively, "he doesn't want those two around."
Ishtar shook her head slowly, but Beka thought it was a gesture of wonderment, not denial. Her next words did not much clarify the situation. "As I said, not important." Her tone was light, but Beka was sure she was quite serious about not elaborating further.
They left the grove on the training field, Ishtar strolling purposefully through the fringers of the verdure as Beka followed and hoped she wasn't stepping through anything poisonous. The field was completely deserted; strain as she might, Beka could not spot a single lingering soldier. Wilhelm and Nikolai must have fled to base camp after the botched interview, she thought with a quiet laugh. Probably going to dish the dirt on Charlemagne's business partner, Valentine the Uppity Kludge.
As they rounded the plain and returned to the small compound where Ishtar kept her office, Beka began to see signs of life again and sighed with no little relief. Being taken out into the middle of the woods – or so it had felt, walking in tree shadow – by an armed Nietzschean, she could not have helped entertaining paranoid thoughts. Ishtar laughed her throaty laugh to hear Beka's sigh and chuckled again to see the Arch Duke himself waiting at the compound's entrance, glaring with distaste at dust fringing his dark ivory trousers.
Beka was not sure what sort of greeting to expect between a field marshal cum arch duke cum whatever and his matriarch, but in her imagination, a number of formal hand gestures and possibly ritual phrases figured in it. Instead, Charlemagne barely raised his head to nod at Ishtar, and in return, she snorted.
"Matriarch," Charlemagne drawled, "I hope you weren't dragging Captain Valentine through the poisonous sweetsop. Some of the new recruits have had amputations, you know."
As he spoke, Beka realized that, although physically the two Nietzscheans resembled each other very little, they both wielded a velveteen voice with great effect. Come to think of it, so had… no, never mind that. If looming proximity were the stick they used in interpersonal relations, that voice must be the carrot.
She resented being manipulated like that but mostly resented the implication that she was going to lose a foot. It might come off as a little childish to hit Charlemagne, so she scuffed up a respectable puff of dust at his pants and smiled when he danced away and glared at her. On second thought, kicking dirt at him was not much more mature.
"If I let any more soldiers near her, Arch Duke," Ishtar replied, watching Beka with a faint smile although she was ostensibly addressing Charlemagne, "I would fear further injury to our forces."
"If nothing else, I'd dust up their uniforms something fierce," Beka quipped, wondering what Ishtar made of the tableau in front of her. She thought she had made a decent impression on the woman despite her early concerns, but something about Charlemagne brought out the mischievous child in her. As someone who had raised children, Ishtar had probably seen scenes like this between toddlers.
Charlemagne frowned at his shoes. "I hope your ship has better laundry facilities than mine." He looked up again. "Did I tell you, you and I have a mission? Your employer sent a courier. It's very official. Probable genocide, but no one's going to believe a Nietzschean's word that Nietzscheans were massacred."
Faced with the Jaguar Matriarch and a fleet of troops in close range, Beka could hardly refuse. She wanted to kick more dirt at Charlemagne but restrained herself. "Better laundry facilities," she said, "but less wardrobe space."
Ishtar looked between them and snorted again. "Both of you apparently regress thirty years in each other's company. I've met Captain Valentine, and as you can see, I did not lead her into the toxic undergrowth." She shook her head and turned on her heel to enter her compound, nodding at the guards as she passed them.
Beka wasn't sure if she'd just been chastised or not. If she had, it was undoubtedly Charlemagne's fault somehow or another. "Great," she said, "I still have no engineer, no medic, and instead I get to prove the good names of a bunch of… tell me they aren't Dragans."
"They're not Dragans," Charlemagne said obligingly. "Volsung, actually. Distantly related to the Kodiak."
"The Kodiak," Beka repeated flatly. "Fantastic." As she stalked away, she kicked up another puff of dirt and bit her tongue so she wouldn't giggle at Charlemagne's frantic back-steps to avoid the dust.