Disclaimer: I do not own Youjo Senki

Chapter 30

May 20, 1930, Addis Ababa, Abyssinia

There were advantages to gaining the gratitude of a king. For one, everyone in the capital knew who you were, and knew to bend over backwards to cater to your every wish. Second, you had the king's ear, which meant you could broker all sorts of advantageous deals for you and your allies. Third, you would be living in the lap of luxury with an army of servants at your beck and call, at no cost to yourself.

There were also downsides to gaining the gratitude of a king. For one, everyone in the capital knew who you were, which included the king's enemies. Second, you had the king's ear, which meant you were inundated with shysters and sycophants hoping you could broker them an advantageous deal. Third, you were expected to live in the very luxurious accommodations the king assigned to you, including an army of servants eager to spy on you both for the king and for anyone else willing to slip them a bribe.

In particular, securing my mail became a nightmare. For over six weeks now, I and Visha have had to hand-deliver our letters to and from the telegraph and post offices, and stand over the workers to ensure no one kept a copy.

Luckily, most of my correspondence involved the businessmen of Djibouti and our efforts to improve trade between the port and Abyssinia. I didn't care who knew about these missives, since I had already technically succeeded the moment the king gave his approval to the expansion of the Franco-Abyssinian rail line. The governor had kept his word and cut back on duties, trade was already picking up, and my railway shares were looking quite healthy.

So I couldn't help but occasionally ask myself: Why was I still here?

In the end, I could only conclude Visha had a point when she said I had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. It would explain why when King Tafari asked me to advise him on the modernization of the Royal Army, I stayed behind and did my best to streamline his procurement process instead of simply handing him the number for Velvet Iron's Colombian liaison.

That's not to say I didn't hand him Velvet Iron's number. Abyssinia lacked the manufacturing capacity for too many military essentials like field dressings, painkillers, medicines, entrenching tools, waterproof tents, rain jackets, water purifiers, and so on. Little things, but ones that could make or break an army's ability to stay in the field. As I explained to the king, items like these could immediately improve an army's efficiency while not costing nearly as much or drawing as much attention as state of the art weaponry. Moreover, most of these items used raw materials that were available in Abyssinia or nearby countries, and were relatively easy to replicate. In time, he should be able to copy the designs and produce them in his own factories. Not only would it reduce his reliance on foreign suppliers, but it would also generate employment for his own people.

Of course, I couldn't steer him entirely away from the big-ticket items. Like most monarchs, no matter how enlightened, he liked his shiny toys. Unfortunately for him, the Ildoans, Francois and Albish were all invested in keeping his army primitive and harmless. And seeing as how his country was completely landlocked, large items like artillery, aircraft and armor weren't making their way in anytime soon. His only option, so I told him, was to make nice with the Empire, and try and get them to pressure Ildoa into giving him sea access so he could import Imperial hardware.

He didn't like that idea. Abyssinia had fought long and hard to remain independent, and were justly suspicious of anything that smacked of European influence.

I shrugged and left the king to his dilemma, since I never pretended to be a diplomat. Instead I focused on what toys I could get him, namely machine guns, computation orbs, and the new Scorpion machine-pistols for his personal guard. These were much easier to smuggle into the country. I had learned my lesson, though, and I made sure the actual smuggling was carried out by Abyssinian agents. Let the King bear the risk, I wasn't having any more of my companies getting caught up in gun-running. Cold Steel was bad enough.

Particularly vital to Abyssinia's needs was mage-detection equipment. Abyssinia had a few scanning stations left over from their wars with Ildoa and their attempts to conquer parts of Somaliland during the early part of the century, but they were all decades out of date and sporadically placed to boot. Modern mages could run rings around them, and I was fairly sure European mages could recon the country almost at will as long as they were even slightly cautious.

Fortunately, mage detection equipment was not nearly as closely controlled as computational orbs. King Tafari was fully aware as to just how much havoc mages could wreak unopposed. With my encouragement and advice, he started a massive program of building mage-scanning outposts and acquiring anti-aircraft weaponry. Without a meaningful air force of his own, his only hope of opposing European air forces was a combination of AA fire and surprise attacks from mages.

Now that he also had access to combat-rated orbs courtesy of yours truly, he also started a program of testing and mandatory conscription of anyone with mage potential (because of course he did) and started shopping for trainers.

I was only peripherally involved with most of these projects. Sure, I advised the King on them, but they were ultimately carried by his own people. More of my attention was taken up with the expansion to the railroad.

Here I ran headfirst into the obduracy of the provincial feudal lord. King Tafari could order what he liked, but the local lords also had a tremendous say on what went on in their territory. Some of these hidebound reactionaries saw the new rail lines as one more threat to their traditional way of life, and were opposed to it on general principle.

Then there were the other sort, the ones who, when asked to find labor, chose to supply slaves. I was opposed to them on general principle. Apart from despising slavery for its sheer inefficiency, one of the big benefits to large public works was the way they could generate employment and stimulate the economy. This benefit went out the window if all the work is done by unpaid labor. Well, not quite unpaid. The slave-owners would get paid quite well for the rent of their property.

My stance was not popular. The king might dislike slavery as well, but he was willing to look the other way for the sake of getting the job done. And my fellow European investors, magnificent hypocrites that they were, only cared that the rail line got built as cheaply as possible, no matter how morally dubious the methods.

Strictly speaking, if the king was willing to sabotage his country's growth by allowing the prosperity of slavers, that was his affair. This wasn't my country, and I wasn't even being paid for this advisory post. Burning my political capital on this quixotic quest benefited no one. It was just the awful misuse of human capital that stuck in my craw.

Pacing the floor of the master bedroom in the small mansion the king had provided me, I was speaking my thoughts aloud. "Looking at it rationally, it really isn't any of my business. If the King chooses not to take a stand on the matter, well, it's his country. I'm not here to reform this medieval hellhole. In fact, the only reason I'm here is to see this railway job done right. And if it's not going to be done right, then we might as well pack up and go back to Djibouti. At least then we'll be able to get some privacy instead of living in this glorified fishbowl..."

My voice trailed off as my eye caught movement. Visha had been lying on the bed and listening to me vent. Now she was sitting up and stretching, her thin negligee giving me an excellent view of her toned figure.

This was perhaps both the greatest blessing and the greatest curse of my current situation. Visha and I had often shared bedrooms in the past, but we'd still slept in separate beds. Now, though, we were under constant scrutiny as the King's new favorites, and the role of Boris and Svetlana very much demanded that we share the same bed. Visha had no problems with it of course, and why should she? We were both women, our relationship nothing more than strictly platonic. If she only knew how much I struggled to keep things professional every night! It didn't help that Visha had developed the habit of using me as a body pillow in her sleep.

The whole experience was enjoyable and frustrating in equal measure, and topped off with a dash of guilt at the way I was exploiting her trust. I couldn't even take a cold shower, thanks to the tropical heat!

By the time Visha finished stretching, I'd managed to regain my composure. Seeing me silent, she took it as her turn to speak. "Tanya, who exactly are you trying to convince?"

"Convince of what?"

"That you don't actually care about the slaves. It's a horrible system, and like any good person, you want to fight it tooth and nail. Why do you act like it's a failing to feel that way?"

I scoffed. That just showed how little she understood the real me. If I'd been reincarnated as a slave-owner, I might have treated my slaves well, but I was certain I would have fought to hold on to my property as long as it was profitable to do so. Of course, my 21st century knowledge would have let me see the exploits in such a system and I'd most likely have ended up freeing my slaves anyway, but that would have just been good business.

In this case, I felt that ignoring the slavery issue was running counter to King Tafari's stated goal of modernizing his country, and thus I was opposed to it, seeing as I was his adviser, even if an unpaid one.

She listened to me patiently as I explained my position (minus the bit about reincarnation), then said, "What about Colombia?"

I blinked. "What about it?"

"You negotiated so hard on the behalf of the workers. Why did you? That wasn't your job."

"I was being paid to keep the peace! How much peace would there be if the workers were on the verge of revolt? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, you know!"

"And Africa? All the slaves you freed and armed, the rogue miners you helped… and let's not talk about the Seychelles plantations and the Ashanti king."

"And I made money off of it. I made a LOT of money. You did as well!" Reaching a nearby desk, I pulled out the latest message from Berun and waved it at her. "Have you seen the figures? Would an altruist have this many zeros in their bank balance?"

What I was waving was the breakdown of the sales of our shares in Cold Steel. I'd once awarded Visha 8% of the company's stock back when it was a small start-up. Investment from other sources had diluted her percentage down to around 3%, but even that portion had cleared 1.5 million marks when the dust settled. As for me, I'd held almost 25% through Manpower Plus. Normally, disinvesting that much stock had to be done slowly lest it crash the price. However, an Albish purchaser had picked up 10% shares from me in a private purchase, and moreover they had paid a premium on an already overvalued stock in order to maintain strict confidentiality.

I had no idea why some Albishman would pay so much to secretly own Cold Steel stock, but it meant my sales were almost complete. All that cash, combined with the value of my remaining holdings, made me a millionaire in Pounds Sterling, currently the most highly valued currency in the world. I wasn't sure quite how much it translated to in 21st century terms, but right here and now I was at least moderately rich.

All this, I felt, made it indisputable that my actions in Africa had been driven by nothing higher-minded than the profit motive. I had failed to account for Visha's stubbornness.

"You make money because you see opportunities that others don't. That doesn't change the fact that when we ran into that awful man and his slave camp, you were the one who fired the first shot."

I clearly remembered firing the first shot because the situation had already devolved past the point of no return. However, I decided not to waste my breath arguing further. It was obvious Visha had reached conclusions that were superficially logical, but based on flawed assumptions.

Unfortunately, for all her intelligence, it was clear she was not willing to admit that her starting position may be faulty, even in the face of new evidence. I let it be because her faith in me wasn't doing anyone any harm. Still, if Visha ever wished to stand on her own two feet as a rational freethinker like me, she really needed to learn how to check her assumptions.

Deciding to return to the original debate, I said, "Well, whether my actions are driven by ideology or greed, does it really matter? The King's not going to fight over the slavery issue, my work here is done, why shouldn't we just pack up and take off for somewhere more comfortable?"

"Because," she said softly, reaching out a hand and pulling me down to sit beside her, "You are Tanya von Degurechaff. And no matter how impossible it seems, I've never seen you give up. So tell me this, what would it take for the King to make a stand against slavery?"

"Overwhelming force," I replied drily as I tried to ignore her curling around me like a contented cat. "He needs a stick to beat the ras into line, and the royal army isn't big enough."

"Does he actually need an army?" Visha murmured as she leaned against me. "A single mage was enough to solve that little civil war of his."

"Apart from the fact that he can't have some foreign woman going around kidnapping his vassals, I refuse to let you go off unsupported. It worked once because no one was expecting it. Don't assume the next enemy will be so complacent."
"Does my being foreign matter if I am officially acting as his agent?"

"Perhaps not. But one person isn't enough, and Boris isn't supposed to be a mage."

"But it's not just the two of us," she pointed out. "You can pick up the phone right now and have a platoon of the best mages in the world dropping by inside a week."

"Sure I could. And while I'm at it, I might as well take out an advertisement in the Londinium Times announcing my exact location. And don't say 'disguises'," I lifted a hand to forestall her next words. "There's no way anyone will see a gathering of that many unknown aerial mages and not become suspicious."

"You're right," she agreed. "People will be suspicious. But as long as there is plausible deniability, I'm pretty sure the King will ignore any demands to surrender us. After all, we'll be acting as his iron fist and we'll be training his new mage corps."

Visha had a point. King Tafari desperately needed a mage company to carry out his will, and he'd certainly be very resistant to any calls to give us up. But as the Empire had proved, national borders were only a suggestion if you wanted something badly enough.

"Visha, we have Francois to the west, Ildoans to the north, and Albish to the east and south. All of them have reasons to capture me, and any of them could send a full company on a quick jaunt over the border to take my head."

"I'd like to see the mage company that could take you with the rest of us there."

"You mean like the 207th?"

Visha sniffed. "Considering how they've made a complete mess of things in the Congo, I think you're worrying too much."

I sighed. "So they're terrible policemen. That doesn't make them bad soldiers." The Imperial 207th had been sent down to the Katanga region in the Congo to suppress rogue mining operations (and most likely, to look for me as well). Except, they'd been so heavy-handed that Grantz, commander of the Elisabethstadt mage garrison, had come out in open opposition to them in the name of protecting Imperial subjects. Given the massive advantage represented by the Type 97 computation orb, matters would have most likely gone poorly for Grantz if it had come to an actual fight. Fortunately, Lergen had shown up in time to sit both sides down before anything irreparable happened.

While this performance did not speak too well of their intelligence, I could not hope for them to be incompetents in the air, and Visha should understand that as well.

"Well, if they're bad detectives, then all we have to do when they show up, is hide. Or are you saying there are any mages in the world that can find us if we choose to go to ground?" Visha asked me smugly.

That I could not dispute. Even I wasn't sure how I would find me in a crowd. I couldn't imagine any force of mages being able to track me and my cadre if we chose flight over fight. Especially when the country as a whole would be hostile to their presence. "All right," I admitted. "So we can probably run if someone does send a big force after us. That still doesn't explain why I should take the risk."

"Oh, come now." I shivered as I felt Visha's warm lips brush my ear, her breath tickling my neck. "We both know you're itching to play the white knight. For a company of veteran mages, the King will agree to almost anything. You get to build the rail through honest labor, and you get to put the screws to those trying to keep the country backward. And if you insist that you only do things for 'rational' reasons… well, how much do you think the King would be willing to pay for his own personal magical troubleshooters?"

I, of course, saw through Visha immediately. That little escapade with Ras Gugsa had only whetted her appetite for adventure. She was probably getting bored of playing the vapid vamp and wanted to get back to her true calling of bringing harm to the enemy. She was undoubtedly looking forward to how the European powers will react once they realize who exactly King Tafari's newest military consultants were.

I opened my mouth to turn her down, but it was at that point she hugged me from behind and started nuzzling my neck. My train of thought thoroughly derailed, I could only stay silent as she made one more argument, "Besides, aren't you tired of having to stick to the ground? It's been months since we could freely take to the air. Tell me you don't want to fly again."

That really was a good point. However much I might try to ignore it, there was no denying that flying was one of the few things I truly loved about my new world. And a thrill junkie like Visha undoubtedly felt it even worse than me. Her words were pretty much a declaration that she was on the verge of doing something extreme to alleviate her desire for excitement.

In the end though, it wasn't the thought of doing some good for the country, or the desire for whatever goodies I could squeeze out of the king, or even the perfectly rational fear of what Visha might get up to that led me to agreeing to her plan. I was honest enough to admit it, but I was once again proving the adage that men will do anything to please a pretty woman. Even if the man in question hasn't been a man for over sixteen years.

May 27, 1930, Londinium, Allied Kingdom

"Well, we've done it," grumbled the Allied Kingdom's Finance Minister. "It cost us over a quarter of a million pounds, but we now have a man on the Cold Steel Trading Company's board of directors." He tossed an unfriendly look at the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. "I hope it's going to be worth it."

The SIS Chief was confident. "It will be. If we look at the news coming out of Africa, it's clear that a section of the Imperial government is using Cold Steel as their tool in an economic war against both us and internal opposition. With Degurechaff as their agent provocateur. Now that we have someone on the board, they'll be hard put to slip anything else by us. And we'll get some solid insight into what the movers and shakers in Berun might be up to."

"Isn't it strange, though?" mused the Prime Minister. "If Cold Steel's doings are that sensitive, why are they going public in the first place?"

"Money, of course. It's clear that whichever government faction is behind the company, their funds are limited. They had to go public if they wanted to keep financing their African operations." replied the SIS Chief.

"So the Bank of England is now indirectly paying off Degurechaff?" came the Prime Minister's dry response.

"That's a very narrow view," coughed the SIS Chief. "Now that we're on the board, we can demand detailed information on all of Cold Steel's operations. Who exactly is doing what and where. Those guns showing up in Ashanti hands, someone in Cold Steel is behind it. Once we have proof, we can start putting pressure on the Imps to stay out of our turf."

"There are other uses as well," remarked the representative from the Foreign Office. "With Cold Steel's close involvement with the colony's administration, we'll get some pretty decent insight on exactly what the Imperials are up to in the Congo."

"Not just in the Congo," said the SIS Chief. "This is just a preliminary report, but Cold Steel is said to hold significant shares in two companies on Commonwealth soil. Black Diamond out of Rhodesia, and Black Earth in the Seychelles."

"Good grief. What are they doing there?" asked the man from the Admiralty.

"We don't know. But now we can find out."

"Seychelles…" mused the PM. "Any relation to King Prempeh's great escape?"

"It's certainly possible," the spymaster allowed.

"More than possible." Attention now turned to the representative of the Home Office. "The king disappeared at a ball where representatives of Black Earth were on the guest list. If that isn't enough, Interpol is reporting suspicion that Degurechaff had been hiding out in a leper colony. A leper colony barely thirty miles from Victoria, where the king was being held."

"A leper colony?" asked the PM, aghast. "Do we need to warn people of the danger of infection?"

The Home representative cleared his throat. "By all accounts she'd isolated herself from the general population. I don't think we need to worry."

"Oh. Well, that's a relief." The PM's brows furrowed. "Did they check the leper colony to see if any other fugitives are hiding out among the inmates?"

The Home Office man blinked, then replied, "I'll… tell the Governor to get on that."

The Finance Minister made a valiant effort to get the discussion back on track. "At any rate, what's the likely fallout if the Imps figure out we're buying into Cold Steel?"

"Officially, not much they can do," responded Foreign Office. "Just like we can't really stop Cold Steel from investing in Albish companies, they can't stop us. Might make things a tad awkward though."

"Oh, we'll make things more than awkward if we get solid proof they're supplying the Ashanti," promised the Prime Minister. "That's almost an act of war is what it is!"

June 9, 1930, Berun, The Empire

Elya Roth got up and stretched with a groan. "I'm going to go blind trawling through these bits of paper. How can anyone even understand this crap?"

Not getting a response, she huffed and looked around. As she'd predicted months back, the office was hot and stuffy, the European summer almost as bad as the tropics.

Mary was half-drowsing in a corner, struggling to keep her eyes open as she went through lists of money transfers. In a chair close at hand, looking up at the ceiling, was the strange little Francois who'd attached himself to their Interpol team for the last several weeks.

"Looking for inspiration from the heavens, Mr. Paquet?" she teased.

Looking down at her, the man twitched his waxed handlebar mustache and gave her a pleasant smile. "Why look above, when the beauty of the Heavens is right in front of me?"

Elya laughed. She'd never expected to like a Francois, but the bald little middle-aged man with the ridiculous mustache had a way of responding to her teasing that was humorous without ever trying too hard.

"But no, what I have been trying to divine, mademoiselle, is the probable next step for our formidable Mme. Degurechaff. And for this we must turn to the psychology of the woman," continued Paquet, while indicating the records in front of him.

Looking over, Elya saw that he was not looking through financial records, but rather Degurechaff's military record.

"You've mentioned that before. That people are creatures of habit, and even in new circumstances, they will still seek familiarity."

"Just so. Degurechaff might be a fugitive, but if we look at her known activities, we can find certain similarities to how she conducted herself during the war."

Elya nodded. "She did gather a cadre of mages around herself as soon as she could."

"Close, but not quite. It is the cadre part that is important, not the mage part. Degurechaff is someone who seeks control, and surrounds herself with people whom she can train to be loyal. Even at the age of eight, she specifically asked for an officer's rank. During the war, the 203rd was formed on her recommendation, a battalion that operated almost entirely independently. As the commander of the 203rd she had more control over her forces than anyone short of a ship's captain."

"So she's a control freak?"

"No, not quite. It is clear she expected her trusted subordinates to act independently and show their own initiative. It is a strange thing, it is as if she finds comfort in positions of power, but has very little interest in exercising that power except in pursuit of specific goals. It is certainly fascinating. Most personality types that avidly seek power do so in order to have freedom to indulge their vices. Yet Degurechaff as a personality is largely free from any obvious vice. She doesn't even seem to enjoy power for the sake of power, often eschewing privileges that officers take for granted."

"Well, she was only twelve when she went on the run. Maybe she's developed a few vices since? Definitely a good taste in wine."

"Yes, the lack of information for such a vital portion of her formative years is certainly vexing. However, I have identified certain patterns of thought that seem to have held true."

"Oh?" Elya could see Mary sitting up and taking notice as well.

"Indeed. For a start, in spite of the Imperial propaganda that painted her as a shining example of courage and nobility, her battle record indicates that she prefers to fight only when the rapport of force is very much in her favor."

"A soldier who prefers to outnumber the enemy." Elya raised an eyebrow. "Shocking."

"It is more than mere preference. In every case where she had the initiative, her strikes are calculated to hit the enemy at their weakest, do as much damage as possible, then retreat at the first hint of serious opposition. The few times she stands her ground against a stronger force are almost always because she has been ordered to by someone else, including the action that won her the Silver Wings."

"So she likes to hit and run. So what?" muttered Mary.

"Ah, Miss Sioux, there is the genius of Miss Degurechaff. The hit-and-run, it is an obvious tactic, no? So obvious that even with the best orbs in the world, armies would still find ways to guard against it. Yet, in spite of everyone's best precautions, she consistently finds a weakness to exploit. Often, they are things that conventional wisdom would not even call a weakness, until she came along to prove everyone wrong." The man was growing more excited as he pulled out papers, this time of Degurechaff's more recent career. "Looking now at her criminal activities, the same can be seen. Find a weakness, and exploit. Disappear at first sign of serious opposition. In New York, she exploited the criminal underbelly to create a protection racket that successfully maintains a veneer of legality. In charge of it, she placed loyal subordinates that could work on their own initiative. And at the first sign of pursuit, she flees the country to Colombia. Where she once more finds a weakness to exploit, takes advantage of it, and flees at the first sign of trouble. The Congo, once more, the same."

"So… where do you think she's gone now?" asked Elya.

"Ah, that is the difficulty is it not? Assuming she took temporary refuge in the Seychelles, there are so many places she could have gone to from there. Exploit the racial tensions in South Africa? The growing instability in the Turkmen Empire? Destabilize the Suez? I feel the best thing we can do is listen for unusual activity. Not violent or chaotic, but unusual. Because Miss Degurechaff sees things others do not, and the effect is a sign of its own."

"Really?" came the sardonic reply from Mary. "Because in that case, I got something." She waved a piece of paper. "Someone bought a huge lot of Cold Steel stock with cash in a private sale. Except the buyer's anonymous, and the seller's an unknown out of Waldstatten."

"Waldstatten? With their banking laws we'd have better luck chasing down Degurechaff on foot," commented Elya.

"Indeed. And yet, if these numbers are correct, this buyer bought a very large quantity at a premium, while going to considerable effort to minimize fanfare," said Paquet.

Elya looked at the others. "So, any of you thinking what I'm thinking? Because I'm thinking, someone just got paid off."

June 23, 1930, some distance from Addis Ababa, Abyssinia

Over the last month, my fellow mages have gathered from around the world. And along the way, they seem to have multiplied. Koenig and Becker had stayed back in Central Africa to keep an eye on things. However, when Royce, Teyanen, Walther and Vogel joined me in Abyssinia, they were accompanied by three African natives that had tested strongly for mage potential.

Two were young men Koenig had found in Rhodesia, but the third was a fifteen-year-old girl that had been forwarded to Royce by Shaman Abara on the very day he was planning to leave for Abyssinia. Sometimes, divination was just plain cheating.

Emilie had thankfully showed up alone. But I was surprised to find Joe Barrow present, and accompanied by a nineteen-year-old Qinese girl named Mei Lin. She was apparently a half-sister's cousin's brother's… I honestly couldn't figure out her exact relationship to Changying, the CEO of Household Magicks, but at least she was vouched for and very unlikely to be an undercover police officer.

All the newcomers, and Barrow himself, had only received a few month's training with flight orbs, meaning they could just about fly in a straight line. Well, no matter. We were going to be training King Tafari's conscripts, they could just join in.

I had not been idle in the past month. Boris and Svetlana had made their excuses and taken off for parts unknown. And in turn, I had resurrected my persona of Jennifer Ecks. Not as a member of Velvet Iron though. I doubted Lena would thank me for dragging her into this mess. Instead, I was now the leader of a private security corporation, which I decided to call Silver Lance, Inc.

By this point I was practiced enough with wigs and makeup that I didn't need an illusion to maintain the disguise (at least from a distance), so I could participate in full-power drills without worrying about the audience. Besides shaking the rust off, I and Visha had also started off on our plan of bringing the lords to heel. With King Tafari's blessing, more and more recalcitrant lords found themselves suddenly being transported to their king's presence in their pajamas. Only a few failed to take the hint, and sabotage and slavery disappeared from the railway construction.

While Visha and I were handling that, the others had been getting the training grounds ready, and drilling the new recruits on the basics of magical thrust. And today, I will be taking my first class, with the most advanced batch.

I could admit I was looking forward to it. While I had trained rookies before, back then I had been constrained by Imperial rules and regulations. This time though, I could indulge myself.

I marched out to grounds with military precision, and planted myself firmly in front of the fourteen cadets in the advanced class (including the five from my own people). All fourteen of them stared back at me dumbfounded. I glared at each of them in turn, and then I barked, "Why the fuck are you all upside down?!"

Barrow, having had experience with my methods, got himself oriented the right way immediately. The others took a bit more screaming.

A few hours later, Visha and I were walking back and discussing the lesson. "It is essential that we get rookies thinking in 3 dimensions as soon as possible." I explained. "Imperial Mages form so many bad habits that then need to be unlearned in the middle of battle, all because the Empire insisted on them keeping both feet pointed at the ground."

Visha was nodding along enthusiastically. "That explains why you always seemed to fly so differently from everyone else when we first met! It's so obvious, too!"

I chuckled. "The best ideas often are obvious in hindsight."

Eventually we came to our new quarters. While a far cry from the luxurious dwelling King Tafari had bestowed on his favored adviser, I found myself preferring the spartan log cabins for a number of reasons. First and foremost, privacy. With no servants getting underfoot, I could actually relax completely for the first time in weeks.

The second was a bit of a mixed blessing, in that Visha had finally gone back to sleeping in her own rooms. While part of me did miss her embrace, I felt we needed to re-establish a bit of professional distance, and having individual cabins for our company meant we no longer needed to share living space. Visha had definitely been a bit disappointed at losing her pillow, but she'd have to learn to live with it. With all the responsibility and danger that this new venture entailed, I couldn't afford any distractions.

Right now, my company was the only thing securing the skies of Abyssinia. Even with the massively truncated training course I was putting together, it would be at least six months before the locals could start taking over the burden. In the meantime, I wouldn't just have to deal with the people chasing me. I'd also have to handle the inevitable attempts from European powers to interfere in the country's development. This would be the first contract accepted by Silver Lance, and I couldn't afford to screw it up if I wanted the organization to serve as at least a semi-permanent cover for my activities.

There was one last worry. I was starting to feel concerned that spending so much time around Visha may have infected me with her reckless spirit. Because in spite of the massive risks that I was facing more or less on a woman's whim, I couldn't help but look forward to it.