40. Talking Shop

Of the three military branches of the Time-Space Administration Bureau, the Navy had changed the least since the days of the Sankt Kaiser and the Belkan Empire. Whilst the Army and Air Force had undergone dozens of reforms, gradually turning them more into police than soldiers as non-lethal combat tactics became more and more prevalent, the men and women who crewed the Bureau's mighty spacecraft had stuck to what they were good at – namely, making enemy ships explode and preventing their own from doing the same thing.

As the centuries went by, it was inevitable that traditions would emerge, legends would be made, and dynasties would form. Whilst the countless legions of the Harlaowns were undoubtedly the most numerous, there were quite a few families that were both older and considerably grander... such as the Thundras.

Fleet Admiral Sagitar Thundra's ancestors had often had their hands in both civilian and military space travel, and more than a few of them had profited greatly from shrewd investments made in various trading deals. The most obvious evidence of this was the Thundra estate on Mid-Childa, a sprawling, beautifully-landscaped collection of ornamental gardens around a house that blurred the definitions between 'mansion' and 'palace'. The family home was lined with portraits of heroic family members in various media (though they'd had to disable the sound on Uncle Magotan's hologram after one childish reprogramming too many), as well as the hundreds of souvenirs they'd brought back from their exploits.

Sagitar had turned it into a luxury apartment building at the earliest opportunity.

It wasn't just because even a fleet admiral needed some extra income, or because the estate, lovely as it was, was right in the middle of nowhere. He had never married, and the fact remained that after his aunt had died, his sister had moved off-planet, and his brother had eloped with the hermaphroditic linguini-waitress from Fedikia, Thundra House had been a little too large and empty for even someone as habitually misanthropic as him.

As things stood, he had two homes – his quarters in the central office, which had mostly survived the invasion, and his office in Naval Command, a quiet little place some distance from the hubbub of the main floor where he did most of his work. He had converted the latter into quite a tidy pseudo-apartment, a good place to grab a few moments of peace during a particularly hectic day, or shack up in when he had extended business on the surface. The funny thing was that in that part of town, a room a quarter of the size would have been both obscenely expensive and near-impossible to obtain. Government work had its advantages.

Or, at least, it had until some bright spark had decided to leak his office's location to the rest of the Bureau.

The heavily-built officer leaned forward on his sofa/desk, projecting an aura of raw, irritated alpha-maleness that was only slightly hindered by his floral-print pyjamas and fluffy slippers. On the plus side, the person on the other side looked almost as uncomfortable as he felt.

"Mr. Fleetwood," he said slowly, his voice taking on the (entirely appropriate) tone of a bear woken up halfway through hibernation, "get out of my office before I throw you out."

The Member of Parliament blanched, waving his hands in protest. "Thundra, please be reasonable here. Most of the government – of our leadership – is gone, and the NCP is gaining ground on all fronts. A power struggle's the last thing we need in the middle of a crisis like this, and the public support of Operation Guardian's commander would help us enor-"

"The ambitions of the National Conservative Party aren't my problem, Fleetwood. Was one of your lot's electoral promises less military intervention in civilian politics, or was getting crucified over that Varduk Prime article a figment of my imagination? Because I can't see how I could hallucinate that I was smeared over five front pages and three fucking days of news, but there you go."

"Yes, and we do apologise for-"

There was a long, complicated mechanical sound, and the politician suddenly found himself looking straight at the business end of a huge, black-and-gold crossbow. Seemingly dozens of metres away, a single, bloodshot eye gazed at him impassively through the sights.

"Thirty seconds."

"This-"

"Twenty-nine."

"But I-"

"Twenty-eight."

Fleetwood bolted.

Thundra waited until his panicked footsteps had faded into the distance before pulling the trigger on his arbalest, blasting a shallow crater in the wall and filling the corridor outside with glittering shrapnel and indigo fire. It was astonishingly cathartic.

"Gosh, I know people complain about the wallpaper here, but I didn't realise you felt that strongly about it."

Lindy Harlaown strolled through the open doorway, dispelling her faint, diaphanous shield with a flick of her wrist. She was dressed in black mourning clothes, and there were signs of runny mascara around her eyes, but she nevertheless managed to favour him with a dazzling smile.

The current head of the Harlaown clan was well past forty, but didn't look a day older than twenty-five. Though she had clearly been the recipient of some measure of cosmetic surgery – the cluster of four blue opal bindis implanted into her forehead were more than enough evidence of that, as was her long, turquoise hair – Thundra doubted that that was the reason for it. Some women simply possessed a timeless beauty, and Lindy was one of them.

"Afternoon, professor. Good to see you're as polite as ever to our employers."

The fleet admiral grunted, telekinetically dragging an armchair over to his desk with a sweep of his arm. "Academy was a long time ago, Harlaown. You can stop calling me that now."

Her eyes sparkled as she sat down. "'Professor', or 'polite'?"

"... Yes. So what brings you here?"

She held up a detached epaulette, bearing the exact same rank symbols as the ones on his own uniform.

"Oh, bloody hell," Thundra growled. "Tell me that's not what I think it is."

Lindy – or, more accurately, Fleet Admiral Harlaown – sighed. "I'm afraid so. Rejoice, professor, for Operation Guardian has a new joint commander. I managed to get myself negotiated down to an advisory role, but... well, you see how it is."

"I do indeed. So how did I end up screwing up badly enough to need my hand being held? I thought the shitstorm from the invasion had passed over by now." His tone was light and ironic, but didn't quite manage to disguise the hurt and outrage he felt. This is my command, damn it.

She leaned back to give him space, her expression full of gentle understanding, and he reflected, not for the first time, on what an extraordinarily lucky man the late Clyde Harlaown had been. "You'd think that, wouldn't you? Turns out that it just keeps hitting us from different directions. Put simply, you're a political liability."

"Really?" Thundra perked up, wiping an imaginary tear from his cheek. "My word. It's... it's everything I dreamed of and more. And how did I finally achieve this... exalted status?"

Lindy emitted a decidedly unladylike snort. "Curiously enough, the government seems to believe that you harbour some rather conservative attitudes."

"Oh? On what grounds?"

"The drunken rant you made against the Chief Administrator at last year's Naval Dinner. Your repeated, disparaging remarks against our various ethnic minorities, in particular, Mid-Childa's small Earthborn population. Your commentary on the Varduk Prime cleanup operation entitled 'Why I'm Voting for the National Conservative Party'. I doubt that the fact that you shot at a promising young Member of Parliament with an exploding crossbow bolt will win you many friends on that side of the aisle, either."

"But I waited until he was out of range!" Thundra protested weakly, before immediately shutting up as the younger fleet admiral fixed him with a look usually reserved for when one's young toddler had smeared something sticky and unpleasant all over the ceiling.

"That's why Fleetwood came to see you," Lindy continued. "The NCP has been recasting you as a champion for their cause. You can see it already, can't you? A noble old warrior, unafraid to speak his mind, defending the Bureau's traditions against the alien menace threatening us all. Bloodhaven's set to be a propaganda coup for them, and the Progressives want to mitigate it as best they can. That means either getting you on their side, or bringing in someone more sympathetic to them so they can get to share the acclaim."

He swore. "And this is why I don't read the news any more. So what's in it for you? I mean, I'd like to believe that you volunteered for the pleasure of my sparkling conversation, but..."

"Sadly, you're right. The NCP may be going up in the world, but they still haven't fully recovered from picking the wrong side when the Scaglietti Incident went public, and they need all the allies they can get. They've been making promises to everyone with a grudge against the Progressives and the current administration – the Belkan Independence Front, the Family Council... and the Humanist League."

Thundra's bushy eyebrows rose. That was the closest thing he'd ever heard to pure vitriol from her, even counting the business with the overly handsy maths teacher in the third year.

"That last one's new to me," he said, discreetly closing the pop-up dictionary in his Device's HUD. "I take it that they aren't all about promoting a moral and philosophical theory primarily concerned with self-realisation through secular rationality?"

This smile was razor-thin, and entirely devoid of her usual warmth. "Not exactly. Have you seen the new legislation the NCP wants to level against 'artificials'? I'm not joking – that's the term they use in the documents. It's supposed to impose controls on the ones who are partially or entirely built for combat... and according to the criteria, Fate qualifies. So do a good number of her friends. This war has already taken one of my children from me, Sagitar. I'd prefer if it didn't result in my daughter being reduced to a second-class citizen as well."

Her eyes gleamed wetly, an errant drop splashing onto the table as her mascara was further ruined. Smooth, Thundra. Real smooth.

"Is this going to be a problem, Harlaown?" he asked bluntly.

She straightened and wiped her eyes, leaving a faint, dark smear across both her cheek and her sleeve. "No. No, it isn't. This is one of the largest military operations in Bureau history. I'd prefer to think that I'm professional enough not to turn something like that into my personal quest for revenge."

Thundra simply nodded, completely out of his depth in any situation requiring tact. Think, man. What would Wilson do? He dismissed half-a-dozen possibilities involving tea, crumpets, and carefully-folded socks, before reaching into a desk-drawer, retrieving a crumpled mass of white silk, and thrusting it in the other fleet admiral's general direction.

"Handkerchief," he muttered, by way of explanation.

Lindy took the proffered object delicately, and commenced wiping. "Thank you."

"He was a good kid," Thundra ventured gruffly, taking tentative steps across the treacherous ice-sheets of social nicety. "Brave. Smart. Deserved those stars on his shoulders."

There was nothing but raw pain on her face, and he looked away, silently cursing himself once more. "He did. He really did."

"Well," he said over-loudly, changing the subject as if the last couple of minutes had not happened, "I can't say they sent you over at the best time. We're almost ready to set sail, but there've been a few... complications. Again."

Lindy noisily blew her nose, raising a hand in silent apology. "Such as?"

"State-sponsored terrorism, for a start."

She stared at him. "You're kidding."

"I never kid about terrorism. Well, except for that article on Varduk Prime, but that was an isolated incident, I'd had a bit too much to drink at the time, I thought I'd posted it anonymously... I'd prefer not to talk about it. Anyway, the Alpha Quadrant's been doing what it does best – namely, hitting itself repeatedly over the head. There were a series of attacks across Federation, Klingon, and Aldebaran Alliance space two days ago – mostly crude but effective bombings, highly coordinated, and targeting both infrastructure and VIPs. Needless to say, they didn't take it well."

The grief was gone from her expression, shunted aside as the keen analytical mind of Fleet Admiral Harlaown took over. "Those targets – strategic, or symbolic?"

"A bit of both – we think they were trying to mask their intentions by hitting non-essentials. Among the more significant ones, they took out five shipping magnates, four Starfleet admirals, two starbases, this major Klingon holy site called the Temple of Boreth, Aldebaran's primary spaceport, half a dozen Federation Councillors, none ideologically aligned with each other, including the Betazoid representative... and Chancellor Gowron of the Klingon High Council."

"Kaiser's blood..." Lindy breathed. "I thought you were calling this terrorism, not a full-scale military assault."

"I was. It's those antimatter warheads of theirs. Ever since the Federation started decommissioning their photon torpedoes to be replaced with quantums, everyone and their pet tribble've been able to get their hands on some surplus from some source or another. This strike's big, but hardly unique."

"Tribble?"

"Don't ask." Thundra let out a rumbling sigh. "On the one hand, the Empire managed to get a replacement head of state quickly enough. Chancellor Martok, by all accounts, is far more stable, reasonable, and politically-aligned with the Bureau than his predecessor. On the other..."

"... there are going to be questions raised about how one of Gowron's apparent political rivals managed to seize power so smoothly," she finished for him. "You said this was state-sponsored. I'm presuming the new boy's innocent?"

"Near as we can tell. At least, he wasn't the prime mover. Some of the folks in Intel suggested Gowron's death was a copycat, an attack of opportunity, but that got shot down pretty quickly. Too well-planned, and the pattern was all wrong for an imitator at short notice."

"So who was it?"

"Took a while to figure that out, from what I hear. Our investigators were working with the affected nations – always a good idea to rack up some goodwill points with your new allies – and found this complete and utter maze of different players. Dozens of groups were claiming responsibility or had evidence leading to them, and each had their own motive. We think the perps were trying to fake something like a 'stand-alone/complex event' – or, at least, that's what Intel thinks. Not my field. Ever heard of one of those? Jargon that flies over my head makes my teeth itch."

"It's a bit like mass hysteria," Lindy explained. "Basically, lots of individual actors decide to do similar things at once, like copycats without an origin, creating the illusion of an organised conspiracy. I'd presume the trigger for this instance would be Picard's speech in the Federation Council Chamber, creating a backlash of panic, resentment, confusion, and fanatical support that feeds on itself, growing larger and larger. Eventually, rumours of armed conflict between the bickering factions begin, of calculated violence to make a political point. It's difficult to fact-check things happening half a galaxy away, and as the rumours spread, fiction becomes reality, hundreds of imitators, bandwagon-jumpers, and opportunists cooking off at the same time. At the very least, it would explain the wildly disparate targets; every attack had a different motive."

She smiled at Thundra's stunned expression. "My daughter-in-law is former Intelligence, after all. You pick things up. Except, of course, that that's not how things played out in the Alpha Quadrant. Those attackers didn't move of their own accord – somebody set them off. Someone with considerable intelligence resources and an axe to grind against all three nations."

"The Cardassian Union," they both chorused in perfect unison, before glancing at each other in surprise and embarrassment.

"How did you find out in the end?" Lindy asked, once the awkwardness had died away.

"Remember I said most of the bombs were past their sell-by date? The antimatter in some of them had completely decayed, and our agents were able to recover and analyse them. Turned out that quite a few were of an old Cardassian military design – just an indicator, since it used to be a popular brand for paramilitary work, but it pointed us in the right direction. We doubled back on our investigations, and with a little application here and there of that good old Bureau magic, we started to find that more and more of the groups involved in the attacks had ties to Cardassian interests. Some were only tangential, and others were hidden behind dozens of front organisations, but taken as a whole..."

She nodded. "I see."

"It's quite obvious what they were trying to accomplish, of course," Thundra continued airily. "Picard's presentation was creepy enough from our perspective – just imagine what it must have been like at their tech-level, especially for a bunch of paranoid military-nuts. The attacks were designed to paralyse those three nations with internal strife, so that the Cardassians could cripple them before they managed to properly deploy their new superweapons. Unfortunately for them, they didn't count on us finding out the truth so quickly. Or, at least, that's what I think."

Technically, it wasn't so much what he thought as what his Intelligence staff thought, but he saw no reason to mention this. After the lecture on seated suplex events or whatever, he was damned if he was going to let himself be shown up again by a former student two-thirds his age.

Lindy's forehead creased. "That's... logical, I suppose. Even so, it doesn't explain how they managed to come up with something like that just a few days after the broadcast. I mean, not to disparage your efforts, professor – quite the opposite – but look at how long it's taken you and your staff to get Operation Guardian pointed in the right direction."

The old officer was suddenly very glad that he'd bothered to read the Intelligence write-up in detail. There was a certain cosmic injustice, he felt, in being forced to do revision in order to keep up with one of your protégés.

"Again, they panicked," he replied. "Odds are that most of their agents were in place a long time ago, tailored for all sorts of different missions. They just decided to set them all off at once."

"Fair enough. So how've our allies reacted... or do I not want to know?"

"Truth be told, you probably don't. Our diplomats have been doing the best they can, but the Klingons especially are out for blood. More so than usual, I mean. Apart from anything else, Martok likely wants to remove all remaining suspicion about the last chancellor's death, and there aren't many better ways to do that than obliterating the folks really responsible. Best-case scenario, the resource drain from the extra patrols on their borders is going to cut their contribution to the Bloodhaven offensive in half. Worst-case?" He smiled grimly. "Those wonderful new Spiral Drivers our labcoats handed over are going to be used to pound an interstellar civilisation into dust."

The aforementioned protégé paled. "You're right. I didn't. Anything else popped up over there, or is that the worst of it?"

"Wouldn't that be nice?" Thundra growled. "It isn't just their patrols that are causing problems – turns out some of our own ships have gone missing, too. Five squadrons, all deployed in or around the Alpha Quadrant. I checked with some of the people running the show around there, and they said that they'd been reassigned to a special mission with omega-level security clearance. Kaiser's blood, Harlaown, some of that stuff's out of my league."

"Did you get the mission category, at least?"

"Yep. 'Artefact retrieval'."

They shared a significant (and mutually unsettled) glance. One of the Bureau's highest duties was the capture and containment of dangerous magical artefacts – so much so, in fact, that captains assigned to such missions were effectively given carte blanche to act as they saw fit. Ever since the then-admiral Lindy Harlaown had helped disguise the effort to capture Jail Scaglietti behind the front of 'Artefact Retrieval Section Six', the category had been used as informal military code to describe any similarly unrestricted operation. Judging by her expression, she was quite aware of the irony.

Her mouth worked soundlessly. There was no curse her sense of decency would permit that adequately described the situation.

Thundra leaned back, a bitter smile on his face. "So, in conclusion, the broadcast we sponsored triggered a terrorist uprising, the nations we gave superweapons to are thiiis far from committing genocide, and several of our people are running around doing Kaiser-knows-what with enough firepower to crack open a planet or two. Other than that, our foreign policy in that neck of the woods seems to be doing absolutely fine. How about you? Anything else to add to the pile?"

The turquoise-haired woman shuffled awkwardly in her armchair, causing the ancient piece of furniture to squeak its feeble protest. "Well, it's not to do with the Alpha Quadrant, thank goodness, but there was something."

"Go on."

"I had a chat with someone in the waiting-room on the way in. Nice girl, recently got engaged. Apparently, she's a goddess from another dimension who wants to report a missing-person case."

As the nominal head of Operation Guardian, Thundra had long since ceased questioning the bizarre events that the universe seemed to adore throwing in his face so much. He simply sighed, and pulled a notepad out of one desk-drawer... and a bottle of hard liquor out of another.

"Isn't that a little outside our jurisdiction?" he asked, after taking a few calming swigs.

"Less than you might think," Lindy replied, politely waving away the bottle as he offered it to her. "Apparently, she was last seen falling into a hole in the space-time continuum whilst chasing after a – and I quote – 'skeevy Nordic fisherman' who had earlier given our deific ambassador some rather good dating tips. According to our testimony, said fisherman was an agent of Chaos. A daemon, specifically."

"Oh? They do slavery, pan-universal conquest, and relationship lessons? And here I was thinking that the transcripts from that assassin we captured were an isolated incident. Did you get this lady's home address? Be good to see how far they've spread, if nothing else."

"I wouldn't call this a reliable indicator, to be honest. Her universe is pretty much on the other side of Bureau territory, and it was fairly clear from what she said that this chap had taken a wrong turn and was far from home. Still, it might be a good idea to send a ship or two in that direction, if only because it'd be nice to have some gods actually owing us favours rather than wanting to do unspeakable things to us. Think of it as a long-term investment."

"Provided, of course, that it goes better than our other interventions so far," Thundra replied drily. "I swear, if I see another universe hooked on lethal alien artefacts, drowned in political turmoil, or jumped on by insane abominations operating off guilt-by-association, I'm going to head over to the Diplomatic Corps's offices and start administering crossbow-based suppositories. Still, I'll admit that a daemon running loose is not the sort of thing we want to encourage at the moment. Think I'll place this one in your court, Harlaown – you've run this sort of operation before, and my diplomatese is rusty. Barely know how to order those tasty sandwiches with the cheese and cucumber anymore."

Lindy saluted, a twinkle in her eye. "Roger that, professor. Before we catch up with our runaway, want to place an advance order for advice on your love-life?"

It was Thundra's grave misfortune that he was having another drink when he heard that.


Eventually, they managed to clear most of the alcohol from the walls, and almost all of it from the fabric and paperwork-related parts of the bed/desk. At the very least, Lindy had said that she couldn't spot the difference... which, on closer reflection, was probably a thinly-veiled reference to the natural state of his office. She was the driest of them, thanks to a hastily-raised shield, which was why Thundra had her uniform jacket draped over his shoulders like a bull wearing a napkin. He wasn't entirely sure how this was supposed to help, and the colour clashed horribly with his pyjamas, but it was the thought that counted. Besides, it had been his own silly fault for spilling a five-dimensional bottle indoors. Scratch that – it was my own silly fault for buying a five-dimensional bottle. Note to self: next time, make your purchases from the distillery before you sample their products.

"What about the Bloodhaven front?" the jacket's donor asked, apparently taking her own turn at changing the subject to paper over an awkward moment. Cosmic injustice, I tell you.

"The Bloodhaven front? It's several hundred light-years of contested space. You'll have to specify a little."

"What was the fallout from my son's death?"

She was looking straight at him, her eyes like chips of ice. Kaiser's blood, I walked right into that one, didn't I? So much for getting rid of the awkwardness...

He paused a moment, waiting for his whisky-addled brain to restart. "Less than you might think, actually. The data leak that resulted in his and Camargue's changeover getting jumped doesn't seem to have given away much else about our operations around there, and since the latter was still in the vicinity at the time, we managed to patch up the leadership gap before they could properly exploit it. Camargue's taking it pretty badly – by the time we reinstated him, he was all but falling on his sword. Literally."

A slight quirk of Lindy's eyebrows was all the reaction she gave to this news.

"It's a big sword," Thundra added.

The State of Harlaown remained a zero-sympathy zone.

"Look, I'll realise that he's not exactly the first choice for the command – wouldn't have organised the changeover otherwise – but it's only a temporary measure until we launch the invasion proper. Besides, he's been doing a pretty good job at keeping Chaos patrols from slipping through our lines so far, which is really all we need at the moment."

"Not good enough."

There was a flat, deadened calmness to his student's voice that made his hand reach unconsciously for the pocket-watch that was his Device's storage mode, and made him wonder once more why that maths teacher had one day decided to seek employment elsewhere. Sanity prevailed, though, and for the second time that day, Sagitar Thundra also managed the extraordinary feat of keeping his mouth closed rather than digging himself in deeper.

Well, she's going to find out sooner or later. Might as well be on my terms. "One thing we did get out of the ambush, though, was the identity of the enemy's current fleet commander. Apparently, she went to oversee the operation personally."

Lindy smiled sweetly, in the exact same manner she had when they had met to discuss her grades back at the Academy... and with the exact same (devastating) level of effectiveness. "I'm listening."

"It's no less than the former captain of the Stiletto, a lady called Rong-Arya. We cross-referenced the comm-intercepts we picked up from the battle with voice-clips from the Year of Chaos, and got a positive ID."

"Oh?"

"Rong-Arya is, in the simplest terms, the woman who provoked the war. At the very least, she's responsible for a good number of the war crimes that led up to it. She's wanted in at least three universes by at least sixteen different interstellar law-enforcement agencies, including our own, and her capture would serve as both an invaluable symbolic victory and another bargaining chip with which to improve our shaky relations with the Alpha Quadrant's denizens. In short, we want her alive and in a fit state to stand trial, not sacrificed on the altar of somebody's grudge." Thundra shot his new joint commander a meaningful look. "Not that I'm implying anything."

Her smile merely broadened, becoming something decidedly predatory. "Race you."

He should have chewed her out. Open defiance on their very first day working together was nothing but a sign of instability to come, a liability in battlefield conditions. For it to happen regarding such a politically-sensitive manner, or be so clearly motivated by emotion rather than reason, was even less forgivable. Instead, he felt his lips curling upwards, matching her grin with his own. Lindy had not been the only Harlaown he'd taught, after all, not the only one whose award ceremonies he'd watched on his monitor, nodding in quiet approval all the way.

"You're on."


Author's Notes: Ayup, that's right, folks – after half a year of busted computers, university complications, nervous breakdowns, and... the Morocco incident, the Doorstop is making its triumphant return!

Apologies for the mixed-up formatting on other chapters – has apparently decided it hates me and wishes for my eternal unhappiness, so I've been experimenting with various ways to bring scene-breaks back in. Hopefully, I'll be able to sort out a consistent system eventually.

Now, all that remains is to upload the other chapters and answer the reviews all you lovely people posted in my absence. Here goes nothing...