“I will hear no more of your nonsense,” Gisella snapped with aristocratic pique. She tossed her hair in irritation and glared daggers at  Solae.

“You may lay with an untitled murderer if you like but he will never steal my daughters inheritance!” The PEA array went suddenly dark as the distant noblewoman cut the connection. Rene blinked his eyes too stunned and logi with reaction to the meds that were keeping him on his feet. Something twisted in the pit of his stomach as he realised that something had gone wrong though it took his mind a moment to process exactly what it was.

“Stars be cursed… can she really be that stupid?” he gasped. As Solae had intimated, creating a fake rebellion was an insane accusation, something that Gisealla need only mention to Imperial Intelligence to bring down the razored axe of the security services.

There was a snarl of frustration and a thump on the backside of the armored door as Bhast realised that the alarm had been broadcast to Capella. At least she thought so. Solae shot Rene a concerned look. The whole idea of contacting his father had been to avoid alerting any conspirators that Duke Tan might have in the wider galaxy. Should they now try a general broadcast to the diplomatic corp? His mind was glacial and cold, unwilling to rapidly process information as the situation demanded.

“Both of you are dead!” Bhast snapped, “By the stars you will both burn for this!”

Rene didn’t see how that followed, afterall the only hope that Duke Tan had was to get a PEA operational before Imperial forces could destroy him and his conspirators piecemeal. Was Bhast so angry that she would risk that. No. You didn’t get to be a General by letting your temperature rule your actions, no matter how bad things got. Which meant that Bhast’s anger, while real, was also for show. Rene’s eyes widened.

“Decimal give me audio for the corridor,” he snapped.

“I am unable to compl....” the AI voice cut out with a discordant whine.

“Damn it,” Rene whispered casting a wild look back at Solae. Bhast must have sent one of her men to perform a hard reset on the AI, that would only give her a minute or two to act, but a minute could be a lifetime in combat. Rene grabbed a heavy terminal and shoved it sideways with all his strength. The six foot machine moved slowly at first, toppling sideways and jerking momentarily as data cords and power leeds free in a shower of sparks. The heavy machine crashed across the door in a waist high barricade of steel and silicone. 

With Decimal’s central processor rebooting, the commands he would have issued were temporarily disabled, that meant that Bhast had enough time to breach if she was quick. Breach and secure Solae before she could assume control of the rebooted system. He checked the load of his rifle before grabbing a second terminal and shoving it over behind the first. It wasn’t much of a barricade for a single man to defend against a determined assault force but he had to buy time for Solae to get out a second message to… to who? The Navy? The Marines? The Diplomatic corp? His mind refused to come down on anything definitively. He could feel the blood running down his leg from where his exertions had torn his wound open momentarily. 

“We need to send out an alert to the…” Rene began but before he could finish the PEA lit up again. Rene pivoted to see Solae once again illuminated by the brilliance of the crystalline phosphorescence.  A pair of figures appeared, hanging in the air in a full form hologram that used a shockingly high proportion of the PEA’s invaluable transmission bandwidth. The taller figure, at the rear, was a severe looking man with features that bore an obvious resemblance to Rene, though the lines seemed harder and more severe. He was perhaps in his fifties although the only sign of it was a slight touch of silver at his temples. Dark eyes seemed to watch everything at once. Alric Du Quentain wore armor, not the white and gold gilded armor he wore for court affairs, but true battle dress, similar to Rene’s in all respects though far more expensive. In front of him stood a young woman in an expensive dress of white silk. Her eyes were slightly upturned and almond shaped and glinted with a keen intelligence that seemed to pin Rene where he stood. She wore no makeup and though her eyes were pouchy with lack of sleep, she all but burned with vitality.  Rene had seen her exactly once before and she was the very last person Rene had expected to see.

“Marquessa Solae Falia,” Mercedez Vilentrae, Empress and monarch of the Stellar Empire, said in a calm controlled voice, “I am pleased to meet you at last.”