Stanislaus Skjorning waited patiently as the armed guard checked his ID. Some of the brand new Republic's citizens were already muttering darkly about "imperial trappings" and "new aristocracies," but for most, the memory of Fionna MacTaggart's assassination was still too recent, too raw. And here on Novaya Rodina, there was the Tsuchevsky murder, as well. Like Stanislaus, most people were more than willing to put up with armed security and ID checks to prevent still more murders.
"Thank you, Lieutenant." The guard handed his ID folio back. She wore the uniform of a Federation Peaceforcer, but the Federation patch had been removed from the right shoulder and replaced with the plain, unrelieved black shield Novaya Rondina had adopted in memory of Pieter Tsuchevsky. "The President is expecting you."
"Thank you, Sergeant." Although Stanislaus had left the Beaufort System only three times in his entire life before this trip, his deep voice carried only a hint of his older brother's famous accent. Of course, he had less need to make a statement about who he was than Lad did these days.
"The elevator is through the foyer and to your left," the Peaceforcer said helpfully, pressing the button to open the powered door. "And," she smiled faintly, "inside security's got us on visual now. You're cleared all the way through to the dining room."
"Thank you," he repeated with another smile, and stepped through the open door.
The elevator delivered him quickly and smoothly to the eighth floor of what had been Novaya Petersburg's best hotel. Of late, the Sherevenko Arms had been renamed "Convention Hall," and its suites were packed to the bursting point with delegates from other worlds. The staff had taken it in stride and was managing-somehow-to maintain the Sherevenko's reputation for attentive service, but he noticed raw fiber optic cable runs running along the tops of the corridors' panelled walls. The Constitutional Convention's technicians had been busy upgrading the hotel's communications systems for over two weeks now.
Another guard glanced at him alertly as he approached the dining room door, but the sentry only nodded as he stepped past, and Stanislaus' lips quirked in a wry smile. He wasn't exactly the hardest person in the galaxy to recognize, he supposed. Like Ladislaus, he had the Skjorning nose, and he was a good six centimeters taller than even his brother.
"Stanislaus!" Ladiuslaus Skjorning rose with a smile as his brother entered the private dining room. He walked around the table to shake hands, then threw both arms around Stanislaus in a bear hug. "Father wrote me you were to be coming, but his wording never said you were to be here this quickly!"
"My orders came through sooner than expected," Stanislaus said, hugging back. He clapped his older brother on the back, then stood back, hands on Ladislaus' shoulder and examined his face carefully.
"You're to be looking more worn than I'm liking, Lad," he said quietly.
"Aye?" Ladislaus' smile went crooked, and he shrugged. "I've the hearing there's to be a lot of that going about these days. And will be, for quite a while, I'm to be thinking."
He started to say something else, then changed his mind with another shrug and turned Stanislaus to face the other two guests sitting at the table. "Stanislaus, be known to President Li Kai-lun of Hangchow and to Ms. Tatiana Illyushina, President of the Duma. Kai-lun, Tatiana, this is to be my baby brother."
"It must be something in the Beaufort water," President Li murmured, gazing up at Stanislaus' towering centimeters as he shook hands. "But how do you all avoid nosebleeds at that altitude, Ladislaus?"
"Pay no attention to him, Lieutenant Skjorning," Illyushina said sternly as she shook hands in turn. "He's been making sizeist remarks ever since he arrived."
"Has he, now?" Stanislaus' smile broadened as he took in the Duma president's blue-eyed beauty. "Well, it's used to it we are, the both of us. I've the thinking that envy can be an ugly thing."
Li laughed, and Ladislaus shook a finger at his brother.
"You'll not be setting my diplomatic efforts back that way, Stanislaus. Even if it is to be truthful you are!"
"That's all right, Lad," Li said, dark eyes glinting wickedly. "I know something the lieutenant doesn't. And, secure in my secret information, I intend to await his well-deserved comeuppance with gleeful anticipation."
"You do, do you?" Illyushina looked at Li speculatively. "And what sort of 'secret information' would that be?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be secret anymore, would it?" Li said smugly.
"I tried, Lieutenant!" she told Stanislaus with a chuckle, "but I'm afraid he was too smart for us."
"Well, as to that," the corners of Stanislaus' eyes crinkled with amusement as he smiled down at her, "I wouldn't be so very sure he really is to know something I'm not." He shook his head, then looked back at Li. "I've already gotten my orders, Mr. President," he said, Beaufort accent vanishing completely.
"Drat," Li said comfortably.
"Orders?" Ladislaus repeated, looking at Stanislaus speculatively as he waved his brother into a chair between his own and Illyushina's.
"Aye." Stanislaus settled a bit carefully into the chair. Furniture on most worlds wasn't built with the bulk of a Skjorning in mind . . . as he had already rather abruptly discovered since his arrival on Novaya Rodina.
"What President Li meant," he continued as the chair creaked but stood up manfully to the strain, "is that I've been assigned to the Marine detachment aboard Longbow."
"You have?" Illyushina frowned. "But you just got here, didn't you?"
"This morning," Stanislaus agreed, unfolding his napkin and draping it across his lap. "From what they tell me, though, the Navy's been raiding the crews which came over more or less intact for cadre for other units. Which means they have to find replacements for the transfers somewhere."
"Then I'm thinking they'll just have to be making do with such as you, and a sad thing it's to be, too," Ladislaus sighed, but there was a twinkle in his eye.
In fact, Stanislaus had held a captain's commission in the Beaufort Peaceforce, and one of his few trips off world had been to spend eighteen months on active duty as a Federation Marine as part of his training. Where, as Laidislaus knew perfectly well, he had received glowing evaluations from all of his superiors and promises of rapid promotion if he would accept a regular Marine commission.
"Aye," Stanislaus agreed mournfully. "Still," he brightened visibly, "I understand Captain Li runs a taut ship. She won't let anyone pick on me, I'm sure."
"Oh, of course not!" President Li agreed.
"Well, if it's assigned so quickly you're to be, the more reason for us to be snatching what time together we can," Ladislaus said more seriously. "How long are you to be having before reporting?"
"Longbow's out on maneuvers at the moment," Stanislaus said. "I understand she's due back in sometime the day after tomorrow, and I'm to report on board when she enters orbit again."
"That isn't very long," Illyushina observed. Stanislaus looked at her, and she shrugged. "I mean, you won't have time to see much of my planet before they drag you back off it again, Lieutenant."
"Aye," Stanislaus said, and sighed gustily. "Still and all, I'm to be thinking as how, with time to be so short and all, it might be more of it I could be seeing with a local guide to be showing it to me." He looked earnestly at the head of Novaya Rodina's government. "Would you be knowing where I might be finding such, Ms. Illyushina?"
"Well, Chang?" Commodore Li Han tipped back her chair in Longbow's briefing room as she regarded her chief of staff. Commander Robert Tomanaga, her new battlegroup operations officer, sat beside Tsing, and the pair of them were flanked by Lieutenant Commander Esther Kane and Lieutenant David Reznick, Han's staff astrogator and electronics officer.
"Commander Tomanaga and I have gone over the Fleet ops plan, sir," Tsing replied. "We'll know better after we run it on the tac simulator, but for now, it looks solid."