“Remarkable, maybe it's true what the peasants say about you nobles being supermen,” Criestia said as she looked over a set of readings. Rene had been changed into a pair of his loose fitting fatigue pants and a white silk shirt that had been left open to allow the physician to monitor his wounds. She slid a sensor pack over his wounded abdomen, the cold gel chiling Rene. She didn’t look away from a holographic read out that evidently showed the subdermal injury. Ten had taken Rosaria away to find her a weapon and left Rene and Solae to their planning.  Criestia, greatly encouraged by Solae’s support of forcing Rene not to move around, had compromised by bringing the medical cot into the sitting room Solae was using as her headquarters. The contrast with the rooms tasteful decor was a little ridiculous but that was a small price to pay for not being separated from Solae.  

“I produce a lot of healing factors,” Rene admitted, “useful for a Marine.” Like all of the aristocracy he had the habit of keeping the exact nature of his genetic alterations quiet, especially around outsiders. The aristocrats feared that the common people might claim they were a different species, and though that was a gross exaggeration, it was the sort of thing that might catch on amongst rabble rousers.

“Well you are still going to have to lay still while you heal,” Criestia added somewhat pettishly.  Rene resisted the urge to roll his eyes, he wasn’t going to prevail with Solae backing the woman up. He did wish that Criestia would find somewhere else to be as he wanted to be alone with his fiancee, but he supposed her orders would prevent him from doing what he really wanted to do in any case. 

“Don’t you have one of those regeneration chambers, like the one I used on New Concordia?” he asked, thinking of how good he had felt after the battle at the plantation. Criestia clicked her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

“That kind of things isn’t available on worlds that aren’t under direct Imperial rule. You probably wouldn’t have been able to find it on New Concordia either if you weren't at the embassy,” Criestia explained. Rene didn’t bother to correct the doctor, as it was likely that the owner of the Plantation had smuggled it in with the aid of someone with official power.  Such medicine was expensive but, under the right circumstances, less so than questions at an official hospital.  

“I can’t believe that you are a Duchess now,” Rene said, turning his attention away from the probing fussing physician. Such an elevation would have been among the dizziest day dreams of Solae’s parents, a result possible only from a marriage to Duke Tan or one of the other Sector Dukes. Rene couldn’t remember if Tan himself was married, not that it mattered, if found innocent of Treason the woman in question would certainly divorce Tan and return to her own family in order to escape the worst of the scandal. At worst she might be pensioned off as a dowager, allowed to live comfortably but removed from official power due to the taint of her husband's actions.

“And I’m probably the youngest and least decorated Colonel in the history of the Marines,” he added with a chuckle. A Lieutenant-Colonel would normally command a battalion of three to eight hundred men depending on its balance of specialists. The irony of a Duchess without a Duchy and a Colonel without a battalion was not lost on him. The Empress had little she could give them at the moment so she had given them what she could, authority and legitimacy. Rene suspected that the fact that his father was sheltering her during whatever attempted coup was taking place on Capella played a large role in her generosity, though it made his legal situation considerably more complex. It wasn’t lost on him that the rank was probably the lowest that could be bestowed that would lend any air of propriety to a match between he and Solae, or at least Marquessa Falia, as a Duchess she had just become one of the most eligible women in the galaxy. His memory of what had happened in the PEA center was somewhat fragmented by the wounds he had suffered and the drugs he had taken but he supposed there would be time to get a full accounting from Solae when they were able to be alone.

“I am honored to be of service of course, though I suppose you are within your rights to request a more senior officer,” he said with a wink.

“Do you think we can trust Rosaria?” Rene asked frankly. He did not for a moment doubt that she could provide useful information, or at least access to where that information could be found but her motives were unclear. It was possible she planned to return herself to Thorne’s good graces by betraying them though Rene was inclined to take her at her word, having seen the bruises she had suffered in the course of her ‘lessons’.