Archive of Our Own ^beta

This. Sucked.

Vasha slumped lower in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, and deliberately ignored the drone of voices in the conference room. God, he was bored. He'd been up since dawn - dawn! - and so far it'd been the longest morning of his life. His House uniform was stiff and too small since his growth spurt. He kept having to yawn, but the one time he did the look his father gave him had made him want to crawl under the table - not that he'd let on. He'd just glared straight back. If Father thought he was the only one in this family with a patented Imperial Death Glare, he could just think again. Vasha was tired, pissed off, and bored out of his skull, and he didn't mind sharing.

And all because of a stupid prank.

He probably should've known better than to try and pull something like that off while Father was off-planet. Da had a short fuse these days. Not for Aral, of course, oh no, never for his precious heir. And not for Natasha, his perfect little angel. But with Vasha, it didn't take a hell of a lot to set him off. A grenade-launcher, a few junkyard aircars on auto-pilot, and he flipped his fucking lid. At first it'd been funny, but then Da had stayed mad, which was weird. Father did the slow-burn thing. Da exploded and got over it.

Not this time.

Vasha had sort of hoped Da wouldn't tell Father about it, but in hindsight, that'd been stupid. Da had been ten kinds of pissed off. Vasha hadn't really meant what he'd said about hoping ImpSec would think it was a planetary invasion. ImpSec wasn't stupid - they'd have figured out the aircars weren't manned eventually. No one would've gotten hurt, and if ImpSec was embarrassed, who the hell cared?

Well, Da did, obviously. And Father, from the looks of things. He'd come back from Komarr the day before and cornered Vasha in his room after dinner. He hadn't shouted like Da. He'd calmly informed Vasha that he wasn't going to school the next day, but with him to work. "Be ready at 0600," he'd finished, turned on his heel, and strode out. Vasha hadn't even had time to protest that there was no way he'd be up at that hour.

Which, come to think of it, was probably just as well.

But now here he was. "Take Your Delinquent Heir to Work Day," Da had called it at breakfast while shooting Vasha a vengefully satisfied smile. Vasha had thought for all of about two minutes that it might be interesting - hell, at least it wasn't school - but that was before his father dragged him to a meeting with his council of economic advisors. Economics. Vasha hated math.

He was so thoroughly wrapped up in his hatred of all things economical that it took him a minute to realize that the rumbling monotone had finally stopped. He looked up, shoved his hair out of his face, and realized that his father was sitting stock-still, staring at a flimsy in his hand. A messenger stood at attention at his shoulder. His father stood abruptly, forcing everyone else in the room to their feet, and crumped the flimsy up in his fist.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice very low and with a weird edge to it Vasha'd never heard before. "We're going to have to reschedule this, gentlemen. Next week, perhaps. My apologies for the inconvenience."

The men were obviously surprised, but it wasn't like anyone ever argued with the emperor - well, Da did, but that was different. They filed out.

Vasha, still standing, looked at his father. He still had that crumpled-up flimsy in his hand, and he was kinda white. Vasha wondered if he should ask what had happened, but then his father turned to his secretary and said, "I want to see Allegre in my office in two minutes. And Miles."

"Yes, Sire." He ducked out.

"Uh," Vasha said, "what's going on?"

"Come with me," his father said, and strode out of the room.

Vasha gaped after him briefly, then followed. "What happened?" he demanded, forced to almost jog to keep up. His father's legs could really eat up distance when he wanted to. Usually Vasha wouldn't have even bothered trying, but something told him this was not the time to feign indifference. All he could see was the back of his father's head, but people coming towards them kept blanching and bowing and ducking out of the way. Vasha gulped.

"There's been an . . . incident," his father said flatly, keying them into his office. "Sit." He pointed to a chair set off to the side.

Vasha sat. It was pretty much the most uncomfortable chair his princely ass had ever experienced, but he wasn't stupid enough to argue. "What kind of incident?"

"The kind with bodies." His father paused, looking out the window. His face looked suddenly like it'd been chiseled out of marble. Vasha found himself shrinking back in his seat. "Entirely avoidable. Stupid. Someone was careless." He turned. "Careless and hasty and now at least one person is dead and we'll be lucky to avoid a interplanetary incident."

"But what -"

The door sighed open to admit Vasha's da. "What's going on?" he asked.

Father shook his head, leaning against his heavy wooden desk. "I'll let Allegre explain it himself," he said. "If he can. Vasha," he added, "I'm letting you stay, but I don't want to hear a word from you. Not one."

Vasha nodded, deciding the wordlessness could start right now. He didn't trust himself to speak. He'd never seen his father like this, all . . . cold fury. Even Da looked unnerved as he settled in next to Father to wait. Vasha could hear the ticking of the old fashioned chrono on the wall and realized then that he was a little scared. If it'd been anything too terrible he'd probably have been shunted out of the room right away, but still. Bodies. Da was frowning, bringing out all the worry-lines all over his face, but Father was expressionless and . . . forbidding.

Vasha didn't usually think of his father as the emperor, but right then it was hard not to.

There was a knock at the door. His father straightened, followed by his da. Vasha tried to squirm further back into his chair so no one would notice him. "Enter!" his father said.

Allegre stepped inside. He looked . . . green. Vasha frowned, but he made sure his mouth stayed shut. "Sire," Allegre said, coming to attention. "My lord consort."

"General," Father said, which was sorta weird since he usually called Allegre 'Guy.' "I won't bother to ask how your morning has gone. Mine has certainly just deteriorated. Please explain the events that led to the incident that occurred at 1107."

"Yes, Sire," Allegre said, going even greener. "As you know, this morning we received information that a Komarran terrorist group was planning to set off a bomb in an office building in the financial district." Da and Father nodded, looking unsurprised. Vasha hadn't known, but then, he'd been kept cooling his heels in the hallway during the security briefing, much to his annoyance. "We went forward as we'd discussed, Sire, surrounding the building and sending in a team. But our information was bad."

"How bad, General?" Gregor asked, very softly.

Allegre swallowed. "Bad, Sire. It wasn't the Komarran Defense League at all. It was a group of Komarran intellectuals here for a conference. Some had been involved with the revolt in their youth and some had written papers - but they weren't the KDL."

"And the bomb?"

Vasha could see the way Allegre's throat moved when he swallowed. "There was no bomb."

"Please tell me, then," Father said, voice going softer with every syllable, "how we go from bad information to the son of a major shipping syndicate dead?"

"My men," and Vasha didn't think he was mistaking Allegre's slight emphasis on my, "went in prepared to face terrorists. Their nerve disruptors were armed. The man who died - Harold Toscane - had a stunner and pulled it -"

"Fucking hell," Da breathed.

"They saw a silver glint and thought it was a nerve disruptor. Someone fired. The man next to him was caught in the backwash. He's at ImpMil now, but the prognosis is poor."

No one said anything. Vasha listened to the chrono ticking away, not daring to glance at his father's face. Da stared out the window, his jaw set.

"The man who fired the nerve disruptor," Vasha's father said at last. "Has he been relieved of duties?"

"Yes, Sire."

"And the informant who gave us the bad information - where is he?"

Allegre cleared his throat. "We're looking for him, Sire, but I don't think we'll find him. Not alive."

Da's head came around. "You think this was a conspiracy? Not just a monumental cock-up?"

Allegre smiled, very tightly and with zero humor. "Is there any reason it can't be both, my lord consort?"

Da's mouth opened, then shut. "Quite."

Vasha's father let out a breath. "Fine. I want an update every half hour. Dismissed, General."

"Thank you, Sire. And for what it's worth . . ." Allegre paused. "I am deeply sorry."

Father was silent for nearly fifteen ticks of the chrono. "I know, General."

Allegre took his leave. Vasha swallowed and attempted to straighten in his chair, wondering if he'd get sent back to his rooms now. Part of him fervently hoped he would; part of him, strangely enough, hoped he wouldn't.

"Well, this is going to be . . . messy," Da said at last, rubbing a hand over his jaw and leaning back against the desk.

"Two steps forward, three steps back," Father muttered. "And this time it was no one's fault but ours. Anyone who didn't think ImpSec was paranoid before is going to be convinced of it now, and we'll be damn lucky if we don't have a real bomb go off before this all plays out."

"ImpSec is paranoid," Da said. "Professional paranoids. I should know."

"Hmm."

They fell silent again. Vasha tried not to fidget. He thought they both might've forgotten he was in the room and he wasn't eager to remind them of it. Apart from wanting to avoid a tongue-lashing like the one Allegre'd just gotten, Vasha'd mostly decided he wanted to stay if he could. If they let him. Or at least didn't kick him out.

He should've known better, really. Another ten ticks of the chrono went by in silence, then Father raised his head, looked straight at Vasha, and said, "What do you think I should do now?"

Vasha's eyebrows shot up. "Me?" he said, in an unfortunate squeak.

"Him?" Da echoed.

Father gave Da a look. "He is going to be emperor someday." Da muttered something under his breath Vasha was just as glad he couldn't hear. Father's smile went kind of . . . ironic. "I just want to hear his ideas," Father said. "How he thinks we should handle this." He turned his gaze back to Vasha, who tried not to quail. "As crises go, this is bad and could get worse if we handle it poorly, but so far it isn't all out civil war. How do we keep it that way?"

"Uh." Vasha blinked and wracked his brain. "You'll need to have heightened security at the shuttleports, right? And increased surveillance on known Komarran terrorists? Because they'll be pi - er, mad."

Gregor nodded. "Good. That's the security. And the politics?"

That was harder. Vasha'd been fed politics with his baby food, but even so, he kinda sucked at them. They were complicated. And people were so sensitive. Something like this, you said the wrong thing and suddenly there you had a thousand people dead instead of one. He swallowed. "Holovid address? To - to all three planets. Or maybe a special one for Komarr? To, er -"

"Apologize?" Da suggested. "Take responsibility? I realize you aren't familiar with the concepts -"

"Miles," Father said mildly, just as Vasha started to bristle. Da subsided, arms crossed over his chest. "Anything else?"

Vasha was all out. He shook his head.

"That's right, more or less. I might be making a trip to Komarr in a few weeks as well, depending. But there was something you missed." He reached for a flimsy on his desk, rattled it faintly, and read, "Harold Toscane, twenty-seven years old, doctor of philosophy with distinction from Solstice University in recent Komarran history and politics. Survived by his mother, Mara, his sister, Jeanette, and numerous other relations." He looked up and set the flimsy aside. "It's not all imperial politics," he told Vasha. "Sometimes it's just writing a letter to someone's mother to say you are so very, very sorry."

"Oh," Vasha said, vaguely ashamed that he hadn't thought of that. The human factor, Da called that sort of thing. Father was . . . really good at it. Vasha'd forgotten it even existed.

Father straightened. "I need to do that now, and meet with my speech writers. You should go back to the Residence - I'd send you to your afternoon classes, but I don't want you out and about just now. I'm sorry we have to cut this short -"

"Do we have to?" Vasha blurted, then fought the urge to clamp a hand over his mouth.

Father raised his eyebrows. "I'm sorry?"

"I could stay," Vasha said. "Just sit here. And not say anything."

Father and Da exchanged a glance. Da shook his head, ever so slightly, but Father just smiled thoughtfully. "All right," he said at last.

"Gregor," Da muttered in a warning tone.

Father laid a hand on Da's wrist. "Trust me on this, all right? But," he added to Vasha, "one word out of you and I'll send you out. And if I do send you out, for whatever reason, you'll go without argument."

"Yes, sir," Vasha said. Da lifted an eyebrow at him, like he suspected sarcasm, but Vasha'd meant it. He settled back in his chair against the wall, prepared to sit through what was bound to be a long and unpleasant day. Da and Father conferred quietly for a minute, then Da turned and left, his short legs eating up the distance between the desk and the door faster than Father's long ones had the hallway.

Father seated himself behind his desk and drew out a flimsy and a stylus. He bent his head without looking at Vasha and began to write. Vasha listened to the faint ticking of the chrono and watched his father, framed by the Imperial seal behind him.

He is going to be emperor one day, his father had said. It was a fact. Vasha knew it. Vasha didn't remember ever not knowing it. But it was possible he'd never understood what that meant. Still didn't.

For the first time, he thought he might be interested in finding out.

Fin.