16-Oct-2004
Title: Tetractys: Chesed, I
Author: Sol 1056
Rating: R for violence and language, some adult situations
Pairings (currently): 1+R, 1+2+3, 2x3x2, 4x5xM
Warnings: politics & economics, this chapter
Disclaimer: no, don't own 'em... duh.
Archived: sweetlysour and gwaddiction
Critiques: always welcome, natch!
Lena stared at the eggs on her plate, but didn't see them. She'd slept through the night, exhausted, but grieving felt too far away. If she were in battle, she could push it away with the hundreds, thousands, countless other deaths she'd known in the past decade. But that one moment, that small smile on Une's face as she stared into a future no one else could see...
"Relena?" Pargan's voice was soft, thicker than she remembered, and hoarse with age. "You need to eat."
"Yes, Pargan," she replied, automatically lifting the fork to her mouth. There were still battles to face, still lives to win or lose. She would simply have to mourn the losses later.
Always later.
She finished her breakfast, demurring politely when Pargan's sister Elizabeth sailed in and out with refills of coffee and offers of more eggs or sausage. Lena waved away seconds, thinking of the rations she'd eaten for more meals than not, over the previous decade. It seemed a world away from what she was planning.
At eight, one of the Lords' daughters came to the house, cheerfully carrying in a large suitcase. She paid her respects to Pargan, whispered for a few seconds with Elizabeth, and was gone in a rush of short skirt and clattering heels.
"Pargan," Lena said, a bit suspiciously. She lifted the suitcase, grunting at the unexpected weight, and gave Pargan a puzzled look when he stumped into the foyer, leaning heavily on his cane.
"You can't speak to Parliament in bloody clothes," he pointed out.
"But I wasn't expecting... " Lena frowned, then unzipped the suitcase. A royal blue ballgown billowed out, and she rocked back on her heels, away from the dress. "What... what is this? I haven't worn anything like this... "
"If you're going to play a role," Pargan said, quietly, "you must appear to be filling that role already. Will you need Elizabeth's help?"
"I don't know," Lena said, staring at the closed front door.
If she'd known, she might have asked the young Duchess to stay, to assist her. But it was too late now, and no need to make people linger. The Foundation had stopped watching Pargan years ago, leaving him to some version of peace in his lonely retirement. Sighing, Lena shoved the dress back into the suitcase, and began hauling it up the stairs to the guest room.
It took two hours to dress, from the undergarments to the full crinoline, and she was ready to scream at the idea of wearing heels when her feet had seen nothing but boots for so long. At least the dress had a hidden zipper on the side, and Lena scowled at her reflection before taking a deep breath and letting the expression relax into the impassive, slightly friendly look she'd been trained to wear as a child.
Pulling her hair up into a raised chignon, she carefully inserted the comb holding it in place, and tried to ignore the diamonds and pearls hanging from the intricate gold framework. The pearl-drop earrings felt heavy in her earlobes, and beat lightly against her neck with every move. The large gold necklace, encrusted with diamonds and a center stone of ruby, was a cold choker holding back her screams from escaping.
It was all from the family's stock; the dress itself was probably one her mother had worn. She reminded herself, that alone gave the costume significance. What better way to remind the Lords of her family's place than to wear it?
Shoving her feet into the low heels, she gathered up the gloves and the cloak-like coat, draping it over one arm. It took a pass or three down the hallway and back again before the art of walking with a full skirt came back to her, and she took another deep breath before descending the stairs.
"They will say you look every inch the queen," Pargan stated, from his place in the living room. A newspaper was in his lap, but he was smiling; his hair was whiter, a little thinner, but his eyes were kind, if fading.
"It's the clothes," Lena replied. She stared down at her hands. Would the gloves really hide the bloodstains on her hands? She stifled a giggle at the thought of introducing herself as Lady Macbeth.
"No, you are a queen even in jeans and boots," Pargan remonstrated. He patted the seat next to him. "Don't forget that."
"I'm not a pacifist, now," she replied, shaking her head, but she dutifully joined him, her head bowed while she waited to hear what he had to say. She continued to draw the gloves back and forth through her fingers, until he placed his aged hand over hers, stilling her motions. "I'm not worthy to be a queen, Pargan. I've murdered and fought and spilled blood... "
"This country argued for pacifism, based on your father's ideals," Pargan said. He was staring off across the room, then he closed his eyes. "But your adopted father was a wiser man, I think. He could see that there had to be a balance."
"I know," Lena said, but he patted her hand, shushing her.
"Your mother wore that dress to her formal introduction, when your parents' engagement was announced. She was not yet queen in title, but she was queen in the hearts of the people," Pargan continued. His hand slipped free of Lena's to run gnarled fingers across the silk's glistening surface. "Your first mother was... " He sighed, heavily. "She was a good woman, who loved her husband, and her adopted country, and her children. But she was not a queen like... She was not what you need to be, now."
"Pargan," Lena replied, not understanding.
"Sanq was once five kingdoms," Pargan said. He looked up at the painting held on the vid-screen above the fireplace. "It was a queen who united them, and a queen who held them together. A warrior queen. Only once we were past our bloody history did we think that pacifism... " Pargan shook his head. "Your father's ideals were right, but I think the world wasn't ready."
Elizabeth entered the room, signaling silently towards the back. Lena kissed Pargan on the cheek. She stood up. A car was pulling around the back of the row of houses; she'd depart through the back gate in the wall, straight into a dark car to take her to the Parliament. Lena pulled on the gloves, straightening them with quick snaps at the wrist. She tightened the sash around her waist, and turned to show Pargan the Sig .45 tucked into the back, before draping the cloak around her.
"I'm not a queen," she told Pargan, with a smile. "But I am a warrior."
Cat woke up, stared up at the cloudless sky and the rising sun in the distance, and realized she was still alive. She sat up, groaning at the itchy feeling of hay and weeds poking through her flight suit. Then she realized her head had been in Heero's lap.
"What... " She put a hand up, to the back of her neck, and gently prodded the bandage. "Did it work?"
"I think so," Heero said, a tiny smirk playing around his lips. He fiddled with a radio set hooked to a small laptop, and entered several lines of code. Pulling the headphone away from his ear, his smirk widened. "From what I can tell, there are some very confused Foundation operatives right now."
"What happened?"
"After you passed out?" Heero's smirk became an outright grin. "I did the best I could to figure out the chip. It appeared to be a combination of listening device, tapping into the muscular movements of your eardrum muscles, and a tracking device."
"Did you destroy it?" Cat sat up further, turning around to sit next to Heero, cross-legged. In the distance she could see a blue truck pulled over on the side of the road. "Wait... you left me here?"
"Had to." Heero shrugged. "You needed the sleep, anyway. I didn't want to risk destroying it, so I drove into town to find a place to leave it." His smile became positively smug, and Cat frowned, elbowing him. Heero chuckled softly, and ducked his head. "I snuck on a transport bus, and left it there."
"But the sound?" Cat wasn't sure whether to laugh at his abashed, pleased expression, or smack him in the head for making her drag it out of him. Under it all, she was relieved he'd decided to investigate rather than assume her a willing participant. Better he used a knife to cut open, rather than a bullet to blow it away.
"There was a television on the bus. I wired the chip to the speaker, so it'd be transmitting signal instead of muscular pulses. Then I changed channels until I found one that advertised itself as the romance channel. So I programmed the set to be stuck on that channel, permanently."
She blinked once, twice, opened her mouth, closed it.
Heero half-shrugged, his cheeks lightly pink. "Blame Duo."
She opened her mouth again, only to laugh. The laughter grew from a giggle to a full-throated sound, and she threw her head back, then fell backwards.
Heero chuckled, quietly, but when Cat sat up, looked at him, and started laughing, he couldn't help it. Soon they were both lying on their backs in a fallow field in northern Spain, laughing as the sun rose.
Lena squared her shoulders, staring down the guard with the metal detector. Slipping her hand under the flowing cloak, she pulled out the Sig and ejected the round. The metal shell landed on the marble, skittering across to come to rest at a guard's foot.
"I carry my weapon at all times," she informed him, cocking the slide and hearing the next round slide into place. Accepting the round from the guard, she tucked it away in the cloak's enormous pockets, and stuck the gun back in the sash.
"Ah." The guard shifted from foot to foot, then nodded, a bit nervously. "Carry on, Ma'am."
"Thank you," she said, and sailed past. The Lords Ordainer and Counselor, Beauchamp and Foliaux, followed in her wake.
Down the broad halls she'd seen only a few times in her childhood, attending with Noin, and she had to grit her teeth to keep the impassive, controlled expression on her face. Costumed guards stepped forward to open the large wooden doors, sweeping her into the next hallway, but she never broke pace, heading inexorably towards the House of Lords.
At the main door, she paused, gathering herself as though she were preparing for battle. The guards waited, looking a bit ostentatious – she stifled a smile – with their powdered hair and ancient style of lacy cravat, knee-length leggings, and silver-buckled shoes. At her nod, they pushed the doors open, and Lena entered the palace's grand House.
It was not the original, she knew, but for all its modern construction, it had been raised on the same floor plan and disregard for simplicity. Baroque carvings covered nearly every inch, with a massive chandelier in the center. She barely noted them, too busy registering the faces seated in rows around the room, and the lone chair behind the podium that would be her destination.
A man at the podium, dressed in the same pomp as the guards, was in the middle of speaking. He paused, frowned at the guards, and then took a half-step back. Lena took that as her cue, and moved forward.
"The Princess Relena Marie Christina Douglass of Peacecraft," a strong voice announced. The room rustled, then sighed, creaking, as the eighty-two men and women came to their feet.
Lena looked neither right nor left, but continued with a steady pace towards the podium and the grandly carved chair, her eyes fixed on the Prime Minister. He blanched, then stepped out of the way with a low bow. Grateful she'd taken the few minutes to practice, Lena caught her skirt with one hand and stepped gracefully up onto the low platform, taking two measured steps before turning around to stand before her seat.
She waited, not sitting. The men and women rose from their bows, confusion on a few faces when they realized she had not seated. According to protocol, they would have to wait until she had seated before they could do so. Lena didn't move. She wanted a moment to take it all in, marshall her thoughts; she needed a moment to get her heartbeat down. If she spoke now, they'd hear the quaver and she'd lose everything she'd just gained with her entrance.
So, she waited, and remained standing. The Lords and Ladies shuffled their feet, glancing between each other, until finally they grew still, waiting. Lena turned to look at the Prime Minister, caught halfway up from his bow. He frowned at her, then dipped his head again, before coming upright. He backed off the podium, and joined the highest ranks along the benches on her right-hand side.
"Lords and Ladies of the Parliament," she said, keeping her voice modulated and calm. "I have returned to Sanq. I intend, this time, to stay."
There was a long silence, and Lena could feel her heart pounding enough to make the silk across her chest shudder with the strain. Then someone began clapping at the back, and slowly it grew. Some of the men and women frowned, uncertain like the Prime Minister, but Lena let her gaze move across them, a challenge. Caught, they began clapping as well, until the room was filled with the thunder.
"What happens now?" Meiran wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and laid down sideways until her head was in Quatre's lap. He let a hand fall onto her shoulder; his other hand was occupied shoveling the last of dinner into his mouth.
"Do we work our way back up the coast?" Wufei gathered up the ration containers, breaking them down into a small collection of garbage.
He shoved it under the smaller rocks nearby, to cover the tracks of their stay, out of habit and precaution. The destroyed base along the coast had been abandoned, but the fore-end of the hangar was still useable. The back part, and all the living quarters and meeting rooms, were buried under rubble, or exposed to the sky.
Quatre shook his head, and swallowed. "The word I got while you two slept is that... well, the Children's Crusade, as the media's already named it---"
"That was fast," Meiran muttered.
"Romantics," Wufei scoffed.
Quatre ignored them both. "---Is well on its way. At least three different factions have attacked Foundation headquarters in North America, Europe, and the Australian continent, claiming membership in the organization."
"Doesn't sound like much of an organized movement," Wufei said, frowning darkly. "Any word on Zhiyi's whereabouts?"
"No." Quatre's hand began stroking Meiran's arm, and Wufei moved to sit next to Quatre. The two leaned against the blanket-clad foot of Nataku, and Meiran was quiet against them for several moments, until Quatre stirred. "There was word on one rebel 'net site that she's with the Irish leaders, and a doctor, whom I guess is Marco."
Meiran murmured something under her breath, and sighed.
"There's also indications that the organization is already... " Quatre rubbed his forehead, and tried again. "Anti-Gundam."
"The daughter of a Gundam pilot, figurehead for that?" Wufei looked disgusted.
"I doubt it was her choice," Quatre pointed out.
"That brings us back to the original question," Meiran said. She stretched, bringing a hand down on Wufei's thigh, and her fingers moved in absent-minded whorls. "What do we do now? The citizens are fighting. We should work as their backup."
"A statement was issued a few hours ago to the effect that they disown the Gundams, in a word." Quatre leaned over until his head was Wufei's shoulder.
"Idiots," Wufei grunted. "They're going in without any firepower. Mariemaia is going to slaughter them, wholesale. They're just civilians. They have no idea what they're up against."
"But they have everything to lose," Quatre replied. "And that can make a person fight ten times as hard, when it's his own life and living on the line."
"And that leaves us... where?" Meiran twisted to face the two men. "I don't want to spend the duration of any war stuck in a cave in Chile, thanks. It's cold, dirty, and there's not a lot of good German restaurants in easy walking distance."
"There's one place that has yet to begin the fight, where our strength will be needed," Quatre replied, and leaned back to look up at the darkness over their heads. He smiled, and disengaged the arm around Wufei's waist to point upwards. "We're going to the colonies."
"I must formally state my disagreement," Prime Minister Baltoja said, bowing again as if in regret. His gaze was sharp when he looked towards Lena, but his tone was apologetic, and his gestures languid. "Relena Darlian abdicated the throne almost ten years ago."
"I did no such thing," Lena replied, fighting to keep a defensive edge out of her voice. Moron, she wanted to say. She hoped it didn't show.
"The Princess is correct," Lord Ordainer said from his position on the third row up, on Lena's left. "The Princess simply never accepted the position formally, and the seat was left absent in her brother's death."
"Then allow me to speak bluntly." Baltoja bowed again, but too quickly to allow Lena a chance to react, and he adroitly spun on his heel to face the waiting Parliament, avoiding meeting Lena's gaze. He raised his hand dramatically. "This woman stands for everything we do not. Her entire adult life has been anathema to Sanq's principles."
Several voices murmured assent; others in the audience shook their heads. Baltoja raised his hand higher, signaling for silence.
"At this very moment," he intoned, dramatically, and paused. He had their attention, and he played it up. "Sons and daughters of the Lords Aster, Foliaux, and Warren, are transporting a Gundam from its hiding place in Middle Sanq, and bringing it into the city itself!"
The gasps that met this proclamation were louder. Lena's first urge was to show annoyance; if Baltoja were aware of this fact, there was a leak among her advisors, or their families. She had to suppress an equally strong urge to roll her eyes, but at the rest of the Parliament. They were responding with shocked looks like self-righteous teenagers, willing to pretend anger, as though the Gundams hadn't fought to protect Sanq's borders enough times during Khushrenada's conquest, and then his daughter's attempt. Sanq had certainly welcomed the protection, then.
But Baltoja wasn't done yet. His hand went up, even higher, raised over his head, and it became a fist.
"A weapon of mass destruction," he yelled, over the rising voices in the Parliament. "Stored in the bowels of this very building!"
Well, Lena thought, dryly. This is where we sink or swim, but there will probably be a great deal of thrashing about, either way. Her gaze moved across the Lords and Ladies; some looked worried, others were watching the Prime Minister with slight frowns. Several were arguing amongst themselves.
The problem was that if any had ties to the Foundation – and the Lords Chamberlain and Ordainer had insinuated as much, while briefing her – then this information would be sold to the Foundation as soon as Parliament broke up. Unless, of course, she could do something before that; until then, she could rely on the building's security dampeners to prevent cell phone, net, or wireless signals. It wouldn't stop landline contact, but the guards had been told to prevent any persons from leaving. Lena sighed, looking across the room, and moved forward to stand at the edge of the podium.
"I believe in pacifism," Lena said, loudly and clearly.
Baltoja coughed, and it sounded suspiciously like a sarcastic laugh, bitten-off. Lena turned to face him, a half-smile and soft laugh coming from her, as well. He frowned, dropping his hand from his face, and narrowed his eyes. She kept the smile, turning again to the Lords and Ladies.
"I am not, however, a coward, nor am I a blind fool to my ideals," she continued, as though she'd never been interrupted. "The concept of total pacifism is a pipe dream, ladies and gentlemen. In times of peace, it is a luxury we can afford. In times of war, it means only that we will be the first conquered." She lowered her hands, and let the cloak slide off her, revealing her mother's blue gown, the jewel-encrusted sash, and the black butt of the gun at the small of her back.
"And we were," she added, staring down the sullen faces of some of the Lords and Ladies. "This country fell before Khushrenada's Oz, and then again in Mariemaia's onslaught." Lena kept her hands at her sides, fingers relaxed, and stepped off the podium. As she moved down the center aisle, she could hear whispers in her wake. She kept her smile secret, knowing they'd seen she was armed.
Lena turned at the end of the aisle, and fixed her sights on the Prime Minister, purposely setting them as two points at either end of the spectrum.
"Not only has pacifism not worked, but the concept of a unified world government is also a failure." Lena drew herself up, straightening her spine. "We are a separate nation, and it is time we took back that title."
"We can't secede," a Lord close to her cried. "That's treason."
"It is not treason if we are not bound by those laws," Lena answered smoothly, though she wondered if he could see her heartbeat fluttering in her throat. "We have our own laws, and our own people, and our own customs. Our strength is in that identity. We have given up too much in the name of pacifism. Our identity, our rights, our culture – and in return we have received nothing."
"Mariemaia's kept the world at peace," another Lord muttered. He glanced at Lena, then away. "Only the Gundams were fighting. Without them, we would have peace."
"That's not peace," Lena snapped, unable to keep her anger from rising. Idiots, she wanted to scream. Idiots! "That's tyranny. Zhiyi Long said it yesterday, and I say it today, and I will say it tomorrow. If you live in a box, and you are never allowed fresh air, sunlight, or room to move, you are not living a peaceful life. You are living in a box."
She swept down the center of the grand room, until she reached the middle. Turning in a circle, she raised her voice despite the silence of the Lords and Ladies. She was no longer the malleable, idealistic child they'd seen ten years before. She was a Gundam pilot, she reminded herself. All the jewels and pretty hair-combs and high heels wouldn't change that fact.
"You have no say in the world government, except by decree of the Earth Sphere Union, which toadies to Mariemaia's wishes. The values of your exports and imports are set by accountants twenty thousand miles away. Your economy has been crushed under the competition from a thousand other former nations. You have no jobs, except those provided by the inadequate tourism industry. Your few profits have been shunted to propping up the Foundation's tyranny in other nation-states, rather than remaining here to support your people and your country."
Lena took a deep breath, and mentally reviewed the briefing. She did not look at any of her advisors, but hoped she'd hit the important points while retaining an air of knowing the details better than many of the Lords and Ladies. Some small voice in the back of her head mocked her doubt, reminding her that she had the ability to memorize and understand complex electronic and mechanical schema after one look. Economic principles should not be half as hard as the squiggly lines on a diagram.
"A world government does not promote peace," she stated, turning in another circle and fixing each listening Parliament member with a cold gaze. "It promotes the suppression of freedom. It promotes the abolition of rights, on a national, cultural, and personal level. It promotes the destruction of equal and fair trade between nations. It promotes the repression of cultural and personal differences." Lena turned in a circle again, her voice rising with her anger. "Are you truly content, knowing that you have condemned your own people?"
A bit melodramatic, she thought, at first, seeing the blank and stunned expressions of the eighty-two men and women around her. Then one by one, they seemed to shake themselves, looking down, looking away, looking anywhere but at her. Finally, one elderly lady stood at the end of the row. Her dark dress glittered with encrusted jewels; her blue sash indicated she was aristocracy of Old Italy. Her voice was soft, but firm.
"I remember the days before Mariemaia, before Oz, before the Alliance. We were not always at peace with the world, but we had peace within our own borders." The woman slammed her cane down on the boards, and the sudden thump made several Lords nearby jump in surprise. The woman sniffed. "For better or worse, I will stand with the Princess Relena."
Lena held her breath, waiting. One by one, other Lords and Ladies announced their positions. Some stepped back, shaking their heads; others stepped forward. Nervous, anxious, fearful, suspicious – Lena could see the gamut of emotions playing across their faces.
When the last person indicated his choice, Lena turned in another circle. There were roughly fifty-seven people looking at her, nodding when she met their gaze and mentally counted their agreement. That left thirty-five? Twenty-nine? For a moment she quailed, unable to do the math in light of the shock making itself known. She felt hot, cold, feverish, giddy, scared.
"Majority votes in support of Princess Relena Christina Maria Douglass of Peacecraft," the house's Speaker announced. "Sanq will secede from the Earth Sphere Union."
Duo flew Deathscythe Hell over the third smoking ruin of a Foundation base, and reviewed the original plans in his head. When in the hell had one of the pilots managed to make it all the way south to take out the ports of the African continent?
He shook his head, and angled southeast towards Tauodenni. The sun was halfway to setting. The glare on Deathscythe Hell's monitors was giving him a headache. Annoyed, he lowered the brightness on the screens and ran another check on the international frequencies.
Picking up a signal from a local relay tower, Duo ran a download off the net for as long as he stayed within range. Checking his coordinates one more time, he grinned at the ease of maneuvering the Gundam while running comprehensive checks on all incoming messages. Breaking the keyboard onto the throttles was awkward to get used to – he'd had an hour of inadvertently typing gibberish on his side-screen until he got used to the addition – but it was proving to be another excellent modification.
"Bet Heero's going to turn green when he sees all this," Duo told Deathscythe Hell cheerfully. "Have we got any mail?"
The decrypted messages came up in a list, and Duo typed in a few commands to open them. The first was from Quatre, further encrypted in the code they'd created for one of their first missions.
Duo blinked, then gave the screen a thoughtful look. Quatre, Meiran and Wufei were heading for L1, currently the nearest satellite to the southern hemisphere. Duo pondered that, and skimmed the next few messages. He wasn't surprised to see that seven or eight of them – the majority – were spam.
"Some things never change," he told the Gundam. Deathscythe Hell didn't answer.
Ignoring the auto-sent messages, he pondered Trowa's minimalist report. There was no indication Trowa would not be at the rendezvous point. There was no word from Heero, Cat, or Lena, and Duo sighed, shutting down the inset screen.
The news broadcasts caught his eye, and he frowned, turning up the volume on that frequency. The signal from a North American station was bouncing off the atmosphere. It garbled the visual slightly, but he caught the gist, nearly sending Deathscythe Hell nose-down into a low desert dune in surprise.
Mariemaia's government had broken into three parts.
Intrigued, Duo turned up the signal, risking the chance of detection as the price of opening the lines further. At dawn the civilian reserves, under the command of Admiral Dinh, had attempted a coup, beginning in Asia. Duo pursed his lips, and wondered if that had been in the works for some time, or if Admiral Dinh had hoped to capitalize upon the chaos created by the Gundam's worldwide attacks. He suspected it was likely the latter; Admiral Dinh's proclamations following the attempted coup, as repeated by the news announcer, sounded like the man was blaming the Gundam attacks on Mariemaia's incompetence as a leader.
The second faction, Duo was surprised to learn, was Sanq. There were no details as yet, and a spokesperson for the five-state former nation could neither confirm nor deny the rumors of a Gundam in the capital city. The Sanq Parliament, despite being a puppet government, was in session and debating the position.
Duo clicked off the news report and settled back to consider the information. If a Gundam had arrived in Sanq, the Gundam pilot's identity could really only be one person in particular. And if Lena was going to push her little country to stand up to Mariemaia, the fight would center itself there, first.
"The rest of the world will rise or fall, based on what happens there," he whispered to Deathscythe Hell. Nodding to himself, he grinned suddenly, no longer bored with more hit-and-run attacks, or worried about whomever had struck before him. He'd met up with Trowa at Tauodenni, and together they'd head to Sanq.
Lena would need the backup.
Duo listened to the purring verniers, and began to hum. It was one thing to bomb and hide, but to see the world crashing into pieces, to know the days and nights of flying, fighting, killing, running were having an effect..? He grinned cruelly. There had been two choices he could see, two futures, equally possible. The resistance would crumble, leaving Mariemaia victorious. Or Mariemaia's support would shatter in the wake of the Gundams. New futures untwined around him, dazzling him with the brilliance.
He followed the threads playfully, weighing the chances and risks and moments that were multiplying with every second, until he was both laughing and half-blinded by the radiance. When he focused his eyes on the world below Deathscythe Hell's shadow, the future was no less bright than the Mali wasteland turned gold from the sun's rays.
"Preposterous!" Baltoja yelled, over the babble of voices that greeted the Speaker's words. He stepped down off the podium, moving to stand before Lena, glaring. "You are going to destroy this country. It wasn't enough that you left us in ruins. Now you're coming back to finish the job. Mariemaia will crush us," he spat.
The room fell silent; Lena could see guards approaching, weapons out in case Baltoja moved closer. With one hand at her side, she gently motioned them away, and stood her ground.
"You are wrong... former Prime Minister Baltoja," she said coolly, "Mariemaia did nothing. We got down on our knees of our own accord. It is time we stand up and fight for our rights."
"You are signing a death warrant," Baltoja replied.
Lena yanked out her gun, and aimed at Baltoja's chest. She kept her finger off the trigger, but the motion itself was fluid and fast. His eyes widened. He fell back a step.
"I know how to use this," she told him. "It is not a toy." She holstered the gun, her point made. "I have killed. I have commanded others, and ordered them to kill. I will be at the head of the battle, at the forefront of my people, and I will strike down all those who attempt to countermand our nation's right to rule itself."
"Easy to say," Baltoja sneered. "It's another thing to do it, Princess." Immediately he realized his mistake, and paled.
"I have put my life on the line for ten years," Lena shouted. "If we go into this divided, you are signing the death warrant of all those people who will join me on the front lines. We will be shot, and we will die, and our blood will be on your soul." She brought up her hand, pointing at him derisively. "If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately!"
Baltoja shrank backwards under the strength of her cry, and a ripple ran through the room. The majority had voted, and Lena knew it had come down to whether the minority would join the union. There were ancient divisions in the aristocracy, and she wondered how many had voted for or against based solely on their allies and enemies. Stupid petty politics, she thought, and wished she had Talon with her. A good stomping, and a few of the dissenters might change their minds...
No, she berated herself. I will not be Mariemaia.
"We must have a unanimous decision," she said, stepping away from the shaking Prime Minister. Her voice was low, and she didn't bother this time to hide her exhaustion. She stared at each Lord, each Lady, begging them silently to recognize the truth of her position. "If we do not, we are all dead."
She turned, and in the silence of the large room, the sweep of her gown across the floor was a whisper, a sigh. Her footsteps were dulled under the swish and sway, and the small coronal comb in her hair felt heavy. Lena kept her eyes on the throne, and turned when she came to stand before it. With dignity and some relief, she sank slowly into the seat.
"It is your decision," she said, quietly. "I have said my piece."
One by one, men and women began to sit; those who had supported her arguments. Left standing were those who had dissented, but one by one they, too, took their seats. Finally only Baltoja and six others remained. Those six stared at Baltoja, still in the middle of the grand Parliament hall. He turned to stare at Lena, and gone was the pompous, self-rightous expression. He looked haunted, and old, but Lena didn't give an inch. She merely watched, impassive.
Baltoja remained there for a long time, until he paced forward. At the foot of the podium, he bowed deeply, holding the position for a long time. Lena held her breath, counting the heartbeats until Baltoja came upright. Without a word he moved to the benches along her right. Turning, he caught the tails of his dress uniform, and flipped them out of the way. He sat.
Lena wasn't sure whether she was going to smile or pass out. She settled for moving her attention to the remaining six. One by one, each sat.
When the entire eighty-two members of Sanq's Parliament were seated, Lena nodded.
"We have consensus," she stated. "Sanq is now an independent nation, and we must prepare for the likelihood that the Foundation will take this as a declaration of war. Please contact your jurisdictions and begin assessment of what you will require for defense. I will identify my lead advisors and generals by dawn." She caught the Speaker's gaze, and nodded, too tired to say more.
The Speaker stood, and pounded three times with his gavel.
"This session of Parliament is now closed," he announced. "All rise."
The entire house rose as one, and Lena stood as well. Under the watchful, frightened gazes of eighty-two aristocrats, five advisors, and ten guards, she swept from the hall.
She didn't look to the right or the left as she departed.
End Part 25
(:./sol/tetra25)
