If senate hearings were dull, it had nothing on the convenes of the representatives. Some five hundred, and all clamoring to have their voices heard for one thing or another, and has he stood with his hands on the railings of the observation deck, Matt could feel his patience wearing thin. Rezkin, on the other head, was seated in her rolling chair with an expression of benign interest on her face as yet another passionate, newly brought on, would be idealist stood at the podium and all but pounded their fists to get their point made.

The issue was, even if they did make their point, there was no change to be affected here. This place, this echo chambers, was merely a place for the representatives to meet, talk with each other, have an opportunity to at least feel like they were being heard before returning to their home stations to hang on the mostly deaf ears of their senators, begging them to listen. Long tradition and distorted memories of the way things used to be had taken hold and evolved the customs and courtesies on the floor to almost resemble something like a working government, and that was a thing all by itself.

Matt, however, was not here to critique the representatives. He had done that enough when he had been masquerading as one himself. Instead he watched as closely as he could as Fletching wove her way through the outer ring, which was designated primarily for quietly held conversations between individuals bored of those enjoying hearing their own voices. The second ring was for those taking notes, in truth or otherwise. Sometimes a little bit of background noise was just what one needed to get that last little bit of paperwork done.

“She’s very good.” Durrang said. He was standing next to Matt, though not in the same hunched, irritated stance that Matt occupied. “Not too subtle, is what I can see. Impossible to get things done with subtlety.” He caught Matt’s remarkably irritated eye and seemed to straighten. “Well. Impossible to get things done quickly.”

Matt didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to be there, he didn’t need to be there, strictly speaking, but he had asked them here all the same. Four of the senators had arrived. Angela Michaels had not. No one had made mention of this, aside from Rezkin to say, “Yes, she contacted me.” With a small smile before she had returned to listening to the goings on in the establishment.

This of course left Matt without knowing if Michaels had decided that dealing with their little group and party wasn’t for her, or if she had simply informed Rezkin that the meeting had taken place at all. She did not share Durrang’s views. Matt tried to think back to a time when he would have believed with the man as well, but couldn’t.

“Have you encountered any undue suspicion in your circles, Senator?” Matt asked him, straightening.

“No undue suspicion, no.” Durrang said with a small chuckle. “A few of them were caught off in the… oh, what did those buffers say? Uncharacteristic and otherwise unforeseen alterations in my political stance regarding the energy situation.” Durrang shrugged. “But other than the usual blustering there wasn’t anything else said. I’ve made it my business to change my stance throughout the years on a few much more inconsequential things. Banking up the credibility, don’t you see, to be able to make a shift like this if need be.” He tapped his temple and smiled again at Matt. “Foresight, lad.”

Matt returned the smile halfheartedly. He enjoyed Durrang as a man, but sometimes the web of shadows that he had spun for himself was wareing in the situations when he knew exactly what to say in response, but couldn’t. “A skill I hold in high regard. I’m glad the transmission is going smoothly.”

The smile from Durrang was not exactly cold, but then it was not precisely a smile either. He turned back to the floor. “How was your meeting with Michaels? I expected to see her here.”

Matt nodded. “I had my hopes. It didn’t go badly, I just don’t think she was quite prepared for the major shift we’re proposing to come.”

“Did she communicate her wild conspiracies about Vulcan being the Cluster’s personal house of horrors?”

“Not a conspiracy. You voted on the bill.”

“Yes, but she’s under the impression that these technologies are not the defunct taboo textbooks most everyone thinks they are. She thinks they’re closer than most of the folks here think they’re up and running.”

“If they weren’t, I wouldn’t have directed resources there, Senator, what’s your point?”

Durrang considered Matt for a moment over his moustache. Then he leaned forward on his palms, looking down into the rambling representatives. “My point is, Senator Ziggenbor, that when you serve as many years in uniform as I did, followed by the comparatively few years in a suit behind a tie you learn two things. The first is how to tolerate more bullshit than you would like, and the second is to become acutely aware of when someone is lying to you.”

Matt felt his shoulders grow tense. “Who’s lying to you?”

“I would say you, young man,” Grumbled Durrang, his eyes dark. “But the first skill that I mentioned hasn’t been exceeded yet, and so I know you haven’t been lying. I think you’re more very bad at telling the truth.”

“I have not--”

“No, no, you mis-take me,” Durrang cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I do not doubt that you’re telling me the truth. You’re just very bad at executing that particular task. Think about it this way: I could explain to a civilian the basic maneuvers needed to execute a standard broadside attack and boarding protocol, yes?”

“Considering you were brought in to consult the third fleet in the CCC, I would hope so.”

“Just so.” Durrang sighed. “The issue is that I know a great deal more about what goes into a naval battle maneuver than just the basics. As such, when I try to explain it on the surface level, I stumble over my words. There are stuttering gaps where I would otherwise slot small nuggets of information of advanced knowledge that would be of no use to the average civilian. It might do more harm than good, in fact.”

Matt stayed still. “I still don’t see your point, sir.”

“Sir.” Scoffed Durrang. “Don’t sir me, boy. I got that enough in the navy.”

“Don’t boy me, sir, I got enough of that growing up.”

The two men exchanged good natured glares for a moment before Durrang let out a single, loud, guffaw, drawing scandalized looks from a number of the dignitaries seated in the observation area. Then Durrang’s voice dropped lower still and became serious again.

“My point is, Ziggenbor, that you have a great deal of the truth at your disposal. How could you not, being the Senator of the station you grew up at. But you’re not good at not letting on you know more than you do, and it could be a bad thing for you. I’m guessing that’s where you blew it with Senator Michaels. Gave her a right scare, didn’t you?”

“Guess that, did you?”

“Please, Ziggenbor. One of my intelligence officers was subjected to one of your rare arctic bursts of establishing your position, and he never let me forget it. Never wanted to be in the same room when you were being discussed, you or your brother. And Michaels has been trying to get someone to listen to her about her conspiracy theories,”

“They’re not--”

“For the sake of this discussion, in this location,” Durrang said, all casual statesman gone from his persona, replaced instead by a straight backed military officer who expected his word to be heeded. “They are conspiracies, Senator Ziggenbor. Am I clear?”

Matt felt himself deflate slightly, feeling heat on his neck as he looked Durrang full in the face. “Yes sir.”

Durrang grunted, and allowed it. “But, she’s been getting someone to listen to her on those subjects, I imagine when you established your position you gave her quite the sting. Normally I would say that was a mark against you, but she’s been so hellbent on getting people to listen to these nonsensical stories of hers that telling someone what a terrifying individual the fledgling senator is would be just another.” Durrang had continued as though there had been no interruption, and now he nodded as if deciding something at last.

“May I entertain a hypothetical scenario?”

“Certainly.”

“If Senator Michaels was right about the Vulcan, why would the commands consent to give it to Neerson?”

“Well, that’s obvious, Senator, and you know it.” Durrang wagged a finger, adding. “This here is what I’m talking about. Bad at this sort of thing, but I’ll entertain it. The answer is that if she were right about the Vulcan, it would be the worst kept secret in the Cluster, only a secret because of the same reason I was blind to the situation on Io.”

“You didn’t want to see it.”

“That, combined with the carefully controlled information I received about it made it quite the surprise when the truth finally came out.” He looked at Matt pointedly. “Enough so that I am willing to move heaven and earth, at least when it comes to paperwork and exercising my considerable love of hearing my own voice, to put a stop to it.”

Matt digested that. “I see.”

“Now,” Durrang went on. “As far as my old compatriot, with whom I was often at odds with when it came to tactics and the usage of information, he is a product of what he made himself to be. You know that too.”

“The blustering captain died a long time ago.”

“Yes,” Durrang nodded. “The memory of him did not. Even you, I think, might be surprised at the amount of people who think that they can get one over on Fleet Admiral Neerson. There’s even one or two of the Nine that don’t enjoy going toe to toe with him. They believe that his tendency to beat his head against something until it works in his favor will be applied in this situation, in the place where dead technologies are stored, and that he will find with the blustering captain found on so many fronts. Dead ends. Wastes of time. They think it’s a place that they’ve tucked him away to tinker with odds and ends safely away from any trouble that he had the potential to cause.” Durrang’s voice dropped lower still. “But you’re not the only one who stays up late reading, Senator Ziggenbor. And you’re also not the only one with access to mountains of classified information.”

Matt met Durrang’s gaze. “Before or after the vote?”

“As soon as I heard what was going on in the fieldings.” Durrang said. “Neerson isn’t the only one who didn’t think that St Angel was gone forever. He was just the only one to put his career on the line for it. Cowards like me are mostly just waiting for a clear road to walk down.”

“Of all the words to describe you, I don’t think coward is one that anyone uses often.”

“No indeed.” Durrang said, puffing out his chest. “I am one of the very few who can use it with impunity.”

“Who are the others?”

“My second grandson, who can beat me in chess harder than a drum, my youngest granddaughter, because she can say whatever she likes to me, and my wife, because there’s nothing in this galaxy that frightens me more than that woman.” He said at once, and shook his head. “Ask me a question, damnit, I’m starting to get tired of monologuing.”

“Why were you asked to retire from the navy?” From the way that Durrang stiffened, Matt assumed that this might not have been the question that he was banking on, nor one that he particularly wanted to answer.

The man closed his eyes. “You are your grandfather’s product, Matthias. And perhaps more well informed than I banked on, to be honest.”

Matt shrugged. “If you’re going to blow my cover on knowing more than I should, be prepared when I tip my hand.”

“You’ve done that already, but who said anything about blowing your cover?” Durrang muttered. “Now that I see what you are, I doubt there's any man that I might try to keep closer as an ally, perhaps Neerson himself.”

“Would you prefer to continue this conversation privately?”

“There are several conversations I would have with you in private.” Durrang studied Matt’s face afresh. “But it’s not much of a request when a Grand Admiral tells you your time is done. Less so when it’s three of them together. And it’s because I’m the man who refused to scuttle the Olympus.” Durrang nodded at Matt’s wide eyes. “Yes, that was me.”

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve tried to find out who?”

“No.” Grunted Durrang. “But it gives me a small amount of pride that I got to be the one to tell you. I think that for now, though, the meeting below is concluding.”

Matt looked down to where representatives were filing out and Rezink was rolling her way to the door. “I have a couple bottles of decently good whiskey in my apartment, Senator Durrang. Join me to taste them tonight?”

“I would enjoy that.” Durrang said with a nod.

--

The beauty of the night on Mars was lost on Cody as much as it had been for the last years. She sat out in front of the small outpost watching the gleam over the horizon, knowing that it was the continued evacuation plan of St Angel to abandon the planet before it was scrubbed. Unless some strange working in the Cluster’s heart was on their side, it sounded like the plan would be to get it handled within three hundred standard days, and even if they did make a run for it their chances of getting off the planet were likely the same. The Angels had been gunning for them a long time. Sometimes it seemed like they knew where her little group of mavericks was, but if that was the case Cody didn’t know why they hadn’t been blown to little red dust themselves.

It wasn’t like St Angel was waiting for her to come over to the ‘right side’ either. Two times groups from her own had tried to defeat, one openly and one covertly. She had known about both and hadn’t moved to stop them, because their fate was sealed and she knew it. They’d found the bodies of all of them, killed and laid side by side on the slopes of Olympus Mons. If it had been a message, it had been unnecessary. If it had been for dramatic effect, she could get behind that, but that wasn’t St Angel’s way.

That she did know.

As she sat in thought, the republic reconnaissance winged by again, and like she did every time they passed, she weighed the possibility of flagging them down, turning themselves in and being taken into custody. At least they wouldn’t be killed on the spot. She watched those pinpricks of light on their trajectories and wondered if they were on their way back to the Cluster to report their findings. She hoped they did.

“Black Bear,” Silas said, opening the door. “Jared says we’ve got something incoming, wants you to take a look.”

“Coming,” She said, hopping up and ducking through the doorway as she followed Silas into their makeshift command center. “What you got?” She asked. “Another rogue wing trying to scope us out or a lost freighter?”

Jared shook his head and pointed to the screen. There was a small transmission request pinging gently awaiting approval. It was small and encrypted heavily, the numbers 0375288 where there should have been a sending address. Cody’s heart leapt into her mouth, and as she tapped the message her hands shook badly.

Message for Code Name: Black Bear.

Scrub delayed. You have some time.

Lay low. There is a visitor coming. Listen closely to her when she does.

Help is on the way.

NS

“The navy’s shadow.” Silas hissed, his eyes going from the message to Black Bear. “He’s coming for us?”

“That’s what it looks like.” Cody said, trying to control her emotion, which had very little to do with the actual contents of the message.

Silas let out a huffing breath and closed his eyes.

“Keep this quiet.” Cody said to Jared. “Monitor for atmospheric disturbances and report to me when you see one.”

She left,Silas behind her as they went into a small room. Then she sat down hard.

“He didn’t forget.” She said in a whisper.

“You’re an emplaced military asset.” Silas said. “He doesn’t forget those sorts of things lightly. And you shouldn’t either.”

“You gave up on him a long time ago.”

“I gave up on him coming.” Silas snapped. “But I knew he wouldn’t forget. Not us.”

“Do you think he’ll let us bring the others?”

Silas considered that. “I honestly don’t have an answer for that.” He said quietly. “But we need to talk at some point about what to do if he won't. And what to do if they won't. There’s a good many of them who won’t want to go into the hands of the Republic Navy, no matter who the commander is.” He paused, before saying. “And that’s something that you’re going to need to live with.”

Cody closed her eyes. She hadn’t been wanting to think of it, but she had at least known that Silas wouldn’t have let this moment pass without reminding her that the fifty left there were indoctrinated more by her bitterness than their own experiences. And he was right about that.

“We will.” She said. “And I will.”