“Eagles may soar, free and proud, but ferrets never get sucked into jet engines.”

—Chief Executive Admiral Herbert Corrino,

cleaning his jetpack

“No. They enjoy a billion other fascinating ways to die.”

—The Princess, watching him work

while eating ice cream

As she stepped outside, the Princess was momentarily blinded by the brightness of the artificial sky, feeble though it was. As vision returned, the Princess found herself facing a forest that, although thankfully absent chornoi, brought to mind an even more dangerous and inscrutable monster. Namely, her second cousin twice removed by blood and once removed by bloodletting, Daniel Kuntz, the late Tlatoni-Duke of Cleveland.

Daniel, an eccentric and a mean-spirited man, maintained that human rights did not extend to anyone who did not own shares in one of the great corporations or hold a degree from one the great spacing academies, namely the ones attended by himself. Since the Duchy of Cleveland was home to numerous citizens who did not meet either of the above requirements, an appeal was brought before the Chief Justice of Cleveland, Michael Kuntz. The latter rejected the appeal, citing his chief reason as “self-preservation” though “blood is thicker than water” would also have been acceptable.

Having made his point, the Tlatoni-Duke started to amuse himself by having his ground drones kidnap random pedestrians not currently employed in a faculty beneficial to the Kuntz family. The unfortunates were then forced to walk home through an artificial forest designed by the insane artificer Urban Vasillivich Yamamoto, whose work won several awards and numerous death sentences in absentia. About one in ten trees were robots programmed to work some manner of indignity or atrocity upon the poor wretches, while others were equipped with high definition recording devices that allowed the Tlatoni-Duke and his guests to enjoy the debaucheries from the comfort of the Tlatoni-Duke’s secret den of depravity.

On the rare occasion of a victim surviving the forest and making it to the surrounding countryside, an air drone would be immediately dispatched to catch the unfortunate wretch and replace them in the center of the forest. This process would repeat until nothing but trees moved in the Tlatoni-Duke’s forest.

Rather unfortunately for the Tlatoni-Duke, in one such instance, a young software developer managed to hack into a flyer drone and order the machine to take him to the capital instead of the center of the forest. There, he met with the Princess’s uncle, Chief Executive Admiral Herbert Corrino, and filed an official complaint against the Tlatoni-Duke’s conduct. The Admiral, being in an adventuresome mood, decided to forgo the usual judicial process and deal with the issue personally in a manner reflecting his disposition at the time.

Not wasting a single hour, the Admiral came to Cleveland in an unofficial capacity, in which he was accompanied by a number of very good friends from the Old Brigade. He must have been a friendly fellow indeed, since his good friends numbered about 8,000, not including combat drone operators, technical staff, and several Japanese cybernezumi on lease from the Mikado of Japan.

While not versed in jurisprudence, the Admiral nevertheless managed to come up with the strong, some might claim universal, legal claim of “I have more troops than you.” The Tlatoni-Duke objected to this legal strategy most vehemently, but the chief justice overturned his objection, citing, again, “self-preservation” though “molten gold is thicker than blood” would also have been acceptable.

The Tlatoni-Duke then sought to challenge the chief justice’s new ruling through the assistance of some very good friends of his own. However, the point became moot after the Tlatoni-Duke was catapulted into space in an accident that was described by eyewitnesses as “most amusing.” For his part in the Cleveland affair, the Admiral was officially reprimanded and unofficially commended by the royal family.

The Princess was nine at the time and was thus deemed too sensitive for a full account of the Tlatoni-Duke’s outrages. However, her royal father did make a point of ordering his Chief Executive Executioner and VP of Assassination Henrico Swift to instruct the Princess and Audric on ways to recognize and identify malicious devices masquerading as plants and minerals.

The Princess’s brother, who, as it was previously mentioned, was known for his keen interest in the macabre, had worked his unsavory contacts and obtained several recordings from the late Tlatoni-Duke’s private collection. In addition to being the Princess’s first introduction to human internal anatomy, the videos also were the source of the first serious shock the Princess had ever experienced, the specific source of the shock not being the aforementioned exposure to the decidedly unpleasant destruction of the human body, but rather the Princess’s indifference to the sight. While she was deeply sympathetic to the plight of the poor souls who were violated most vigorously by the robotic plants, she was not sufficiently disturbed or excited to stop sipping her hot chocolate and absentmindedly teasing Audric, a suckling cub at the time.

Of course, she commented on how terribly ghastly it all was, but she’d made the same comment on a dress her cousin ill-advisedly chose to wear for the funeral of a distant relative who was killed in a tragic but necessary accident. It now occurred to the Princess that, with the exception of her current predicament, few events succeeded in stirring her into emotions stronger than mild dismay or reserved appreciation. She occasionally saw people laughing or crying, usually from a considerable distance, and could never understand what drove them to such extremes of emotion. She was quite envious.

Presently, the Princess quickly scanned the surrounding grounds and decided that it would be a more worthwhile use of her time to search for natural trees than for artificial ones, as the former were obviously a negligible minority. Von Schmidt’s woods made the late Tlatoni-Duke’s forest appear like a site for romantic picnics. This was despicable, of course, but not without a helpful application.

“Oh, goodness me! Have you seen that?” she pointed at a spot she deemed the richest in murderous machinery.

“No,” Ivanov said.

“Hm,” Tanaka grunted.

“Well, while you two busybodies were staring at the walls, some fellow observed us from a distance and then retreated back into the woods. It might be that he’s the traitor responsible for the attacks in the passage. It’s best that we track him down, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Forest is empty. Stranger is product of decadent imagination of fearful Princess,” Tanaka said and turned his back on the forest.

“Fearful?!” the Princess exclaimed with honest indignation. “You’re the one who keeps pushing a girl half your age and half your weight every time you’re spooked by a shadow or suspect you’re about to be spooked by a shadow!”

Tanaka turned towards her. “Princess has no grasp of the philosophy of war—”

“Oh, you arrogant ass! ‘Princess’ is certainly bloody well more educated in any manner of philosophy than a mindless killing drone in the shape of a man! For instance, ‘Princess’ is acquainted with the idiom—”

“Enough. Stop yammering, two of you!” Ivanov’s expression was equal parts annoyance and concern. “I go and check forest for scary boogeyman now. Tanaka can join me or hide behind skirt of little girl, I am split on this. Only thing—stop making noise with your mouth.”

The Princess was a little disappointed by this turn of events, as she found herself growing fond of the young Russian patriot, especially when compared with the loathsome Japanese, whose air of oriental mystique, properly aired, revealed a dishonorable hypocrite. In fact, she hoped to later work some sort of deal with young Ivanov that would turn him to her side and help both return to Terra with their honor unsoiled and bodies unharmed. She suspected that such negotiations would be easier when conducted in a handsome dress than in space marine uniform, however, and so elected to delay them until such time as the chornoi crisis was through.

The Princess followed tensely as Ivanov took a brisk walk between the artificial trees, obviously more concerned with the appearance of scouting than with actual scouting. Nothing at all happened, and after a while the Russian returned and said, “Everyone happy? Can we proceed with mission like allies now?”

However, just at the moment two memories connected in the Princess’s mind to suggest a course of action. The first memory was Tanaka’s recent comment on the philosophy of war, which seemed to justify any manner of baseness as long as it advanced one’s goals. The second memory was the mechanical voice that had startled her in the kitchenette. Both had suggested direct action.

Not letting excessive consideration delay her attack, the Princess quickly picked up a small rock and hurled it at a random direction as discreetly as possible. Tanaka glanced over his shoulder to study the source of the noise, at which point the Princess shoved the man with all the strength afforded by her mechanized suit, which was considerably more than what her lithe limbs could produce.

Tanaka may have been as strong as a devil and skilled in every known martial art, but he was also quite light. The push sent him hurtling towards the nearest murder-tree. His perfectly tuned instincts did him a disservice on this occasion. While a normal person would simply have sprawled in the mud, Tanaka made some sort of feline martial arts move that seemed to defy the usual restrictions of gravity and anatomy and landed on his feet about three meters away from the Princess, between two gnarly trees that appeared to be taken straight from a cautionary fairy tale about the dangers of trees.