The Empress appeared to consider it for a long moment and then her image reached forward to touch something just out of the range of the hologram pickups. Turning her head she spoke a few words to Alric who gave a curt nod and then his lips blured as the privacy mask intervened to protect the speaker from lip reading as well as audio eavesdropping. The communications suite at the Summer House was state of the art in all respects. Mercedez gave the older man a nod and then turned back to face the hologram pick up. Nothing showed on her face to hint at the import of the concealed conversation.

“We have maybe thirty seconds before they breach!” Rene yelled from his improvised cover. The sight of his Father’s face stung him but he couldn’t afford to look for more than a moment. He slapped the visor of his helmet down and turned on the anti-shock filters that were built into the unit, using a squad leader function to engage the same function on Solae’s helmet, even though she wasn’t currently wearing it. The faceplate blanked as a polarizing field altered it to resist the effect of breaching munitions, and the audio pickups began to broadcast a subsonic damping field to protect his hearing. It wasn’t perfect protection against the concussion, flash and disorientation of a breaching grenade but it was what he had to work with.

“I am unwilling to commute Mr Quentain’s term of enlistment,” Mercedez Vilentrae declared flatly, holding up a finger to forestall any objection.

“The question of his guilt or innocence, as well as that of his family affiliation will be revisited at another time. I will, however, promote him to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and assign him to you as your chief of security and military liaison.  As of this moment you are the new Duchess of the Eastern Cross, all rights and privileges formerly assigned to Alexis Tan fall to you, until such time as the situation is resolved.”

The import of the short statement was stunning for both Rene and Solae. Marine officers were not drawn from the same pool of murderers and other miscreants that made up the ranks and were not subject to the same strictures. While the Empress decree forbade Rene from simply resigning his new found commission, his status as a felony in the process of being pardoned for service had been lifted. The rank of Lieutenant Colonel was stratospheric when viewed from his previous lowly position and normally the height of attainment for any officer who was not on a command track. For Solae the implications were even vaster. At a stroke she had been made the pre-eminent noble within the Eastern Cross, the titular liege of all of the lesser nobility and one of the seventeen electors who would convene to determine the Imperial Succession should Mercedez perish without naming an heir.  

“I fear, Duchess, that few in your new realm will accept you unquestioningly, but I charge you to defend it as best you can until my forces can reach you,” Mercedez added as though reading Rene’s mind. Of course that didn’t really matter if they were killed or captured within the next few moments.

“Renard,” Alric spoke aloud for the first time since the call had began. Rene whipped his head away from the door for a moment to watch his father's unreadable place.

“I am pleased to hear of your engagement to a worthy woman,” he said with the slightest ghost of Rene’s own easy smile. There was a whir as a sophisticated printer produced a rosette, a diplomatic document that served as the official credentials. It was palm sized and made of dense synthetic crystal. The black and red design indicated it had been issued under the authority of the House of Vilentrae, while a golden circlet ringing the Imperial Sigil showed it had been issued by the Empress herself. 

“Is there anything more we can do for you?” Alric asked, a military man recognizing the appalling tactical situation and perhaps as a father concerned for his son.

“Father I…” Rene began and then paused, clear thought forcing its way through the fog of injury and the drugs allowing him to continue functioning through it. He was moving before his mind could have articulated what he was doing, leaping up the stairs three at a time. 

“Yes, keep the call running,” he called, grabbing Solae’s helmet and slipping it back on her head, concealing her beautiful face behind the polarized shield.

“Up against the wall,” he yelled, half directing half carrying Solae back down the short steps.

“Mia can you hear me?” he snapped into his helmet.

“Yes Colonel Quentain,” the AI responded in a particularly sultry voice, demonstrating that she had been keeping track of events.

“I need you to take control of my helmet, disengage all external sensors, and reconstruct a simulation from my sensor data,” he commanded. Almost immediately the world went black and then sprang back into wire-frame relief, a computer generated composite of his video recorders and the returns from the LIDAR and RADAR returns the helmet used to peer through smoke and darkness. None of it was real, but the internal compass meant that so long as nothing had changed since he had seen it, the representation was as good as reality.

“I need total exterior sensory deprivation,” Rene told Mia, “radio from Solae only.” All the sounds of the outside world cut off abruptly, the background of humming computers, the clink of metal on metal and the rattle of equipment much more noticeable for their absence. He pressed Solae into a corner, shielding her body with his own. Slinging his carbine he pulled two breaching grenades from his belt. For a moment there was nothing but silence and then the door exploded inwards as Bhast’s breaching charge cut through the armored door. Rene couldn’t hear it but he felt the shock of the blast as well as the rain of debris that pattered across his armored back and shoulders. A heart beat later the breaching grenades went off, bright enough that the actinic discharge was visible at the seam where his helmet joined his throat armor. Though Rene could neither see nor hear it stunner fire poured through the door, aimed at the pair of figures on the PEA dais. The images of Alric and Mercedez were, or course unaffected by the spray of electrical darts, but they fit the mental picture of what the attackers expected to see.  Rene leaned back and tossed a breaching grenade through the shattered door and then flicked the other one towards the dais. Both went off within a half second of each other with syncopating booms that he felt through the soles of his feet. Attackers were screaming in confusion and fear but in the silence of helmet Rene merely grabbed hold of Solae and ran through the shattered doors.

“Mia drop the..” the AI anticipated his command by a fraction of a second and his face shield depolarized. The stunned rearguard had dropped his weapon and was clutching at his eyes while the shouts of confusion and the snarl of gunfire filled the PEA chamber. Rene pulled his pistol from his belt with his off hand and shot the disoriented soldier in the chest, the plasma bolt liberating its energy with a subsonic whoomp. The gout of vaporized ceramic and plasteel pitched the unfortunate soldier back into the wall with enough force to crack his spine if he hadn’t been wearing armor.

“I surrender!” Rene heard his father call from the room behind them, doing his best to add to the ruse. Rene pulled the final grenade from his belt, a standard high explosive frag and tossed it back through the doors before leading Solae down the corridor at a sprint. The bomb went off with a crump and was followed by screams of pain. Rene doubted it would kill Bhast but he supposed he had already had enough luck for one day. They turned a corner and pounded into a stairwell that spiraled down towards the ground floor.

“AI system D1124.3 online, system recognizes the authority of Duchess Sola Falia as senior Imperial Official on site. Please instruct.” Decimal’s monotone voice declared as the AI came back online. Bhast’s people had been able to reboot the system, but they couldn’t keep it down forever, the program existed in too many redundant nodes. Judging from the lack of even the rudimentary personality Decimal had exhibited, they had, accidentally or not, resorted it to its factory standard.