Author's Note
: Heyo! Some of you eagle-eyed smut connoisseurs may recognize this short story as taking place in an existing sci-fi universe of mine, so you can enjoy some callbacks to those characters and plot! If it's all new to you, however, none of that matters! Zero familiarity with this universe is needed to enjoy this story for what it is: a vehicle for gratuitous sex! ;)
So Much Trouble consists of three chapters and is already complete. The next chapter should be following this in a few days. :)
Chapter 1 here does not have sex in it yet and is a bit shorter than the others; it's just the setup. That being said, all characters in all chapters are over 18.
Thank you to AwkwardMD and Etaski for the last minute proofread and helping me choose a title. You two are the best!
I had fun writing this—I hope you have fun reading it!
~Eris/D&T
* * *
There were only three left once the last of the Ministers filed out of the Archregent's reception hall, way up in the bird and cloud levels of Zenith Tower.
Admiral Iqarius was one of them; Archregent Strati was another. The head of the Imbrian government had asked him to stay behind, a request he could only assume would lead to instructions she didn't want the Ministry to hear.
The third was Strati's daughter, Gallea, a shiny new and constant presence at state functions over the last few months. Gossip among the powerful whispered the Archregent was grooming her daughter to be her eventual replacement. The admiral had been a green cadet, probably the same age as the Archregent's daughter was now, when Strati had first shown off her baby to a cheering public.
She smiled at him. He returned it, polite, with a small nod.
A long shadow from the tower's southwest side cut an angled line across the hall's polished whitestone floor. Glare from a sun heading toward the horizon blinded on the other side of the shadow, the uncovered glass wall opening the space to blue sky and other tower tops, dozens of stories above the causeways of Cirrivus below.
"Argent," said Strati, addressing him by his first name now that the others had gone, "I need you ..." She put a hand over the lower half of her face, thumb and finger pressing against sharp cheekbones, covering her mouth below ice-blue eyes while she gathered thoughts. Her elbow rested on her opposite wrist where it crossed the front of her pale grey robes.
He stood and waited. The third corner of their triangle, Gallea, watched her mother with a fine line between her brows.
"I need you to have a battalion ready," the Archregent said at last. Her words echoed in the wide, empty hall.
Argent blinked. He opened his mouth, but Strati was there to intercept.
"I'm well aware of the Haaveti negotiation rules," she said. "And I have no intention of breaking the Truce. But should we not be prepared ..." The woman made a wide gesture with the palm that had covered her face. The tight roll of white blonde hair at the back of her skull made her features look even more severe.
He gripped one wrist in the other behind his back. "You think the Rhyolusians are insane enough to break the Truce?"
Gallea's lips had parted, and she looked from him to the Archregent. None of this had come up in discussion with the Ministers, and Strati's daughter, it seemed, hadn't the experience to expect such an open address to the matter of treachery.
"I wouldn't have thought so," said Strati, "but we've never had prisoners escape before, have we? And the one all-fired recessive we've seen in thirty years among them!"
Even the admiral drew his chin in at the cool-headed woman's unusual vehemence.
"We've been murdering each other for hundreds of years," she continued in her new, blunt vein, "and now they will have intel. Now they will know we have a live
presahria
among us, if they even remember what that is. There's no predicting what they will do, even under Haavet's Truce."
Argent frowned. How could Minister Wehr have let that woman escape? And the minister's own bodyguard a traitor right under his nose? But then the Minister himself had pulled a stunt the likes of which made the admiral shiver to remember. Half a fleet stuck still in the sky, all under the power of one man. One
presahria
.
Wehr had let the woman go. Their prisoner. The enemy. What secrets she'd uncovered and spilled to her superiors, none of them knew, but it had been enough to spur these negotiations. The Rhyolusians would know about Wehr now, Imbria's Scion and secret weapon, and Imbria couldn't afford for the balance to tip the other way.
"And you'll have me do what?" he asked the Archregent, sans formal address where the years had made them familiar. "I can't bring armed vessels into Haaveti space. It won't just end the negotiation—the Arbitrators will revoke all future access for Imbria. We'll never have negotiation opportunities again, at least not on Haavet." And there
was
nowhere else but Haavet, but the Archregent already knew that.
"I would have you position at least one battalion just outside of K-jump range," Strati said.
"Mother!"
Argent's eyes snapped to Gallea. Sunlight haloed the edges of her hair in gold and passed sideways through her eyes to make them shine an even brighter blue than her mother's. The outburst was not like the young woman who maintained a quiet presence at every meeting of late. Strati cut her daughter a look, and Gallea closed her mouth, packing away her shock.
The admiral shared Gallea's surprise, but he kept it off his face. He'd only held his current rank these last three months, ever since his predecessor, DiVerio, had been found lying broken in a stairwell of the CODef building, the metal spokes of a salt rose jammed in his temple. His murder had to have come at the hands of the escaping prisoners—to consider any other possibility was to invite chaos into their entire system.
As though anyone will miss DiVerio, the twisted prick.
"I can give the order," he said, rubbing his chin with thumb and fingers. "Do you want Wehr informed?" None of them could know the motivations of the Records Minister, not after his aid in the escape, no matter how sound his reasoning had later been in front of his peers.
Strati squinted and cocked her head the slightest angle.
"No."
Argent's brows rose. But then he gave her a nod. He was both surprised and not. After silence spread out in the hall, he cleared his throat. "Anything else?"
The Archregent inhaled and exhaled a deep breath. "I don't think so, Admiral."
Ah, the rank was back. He knew a dismissal when he heard it, but this was well, as he now had additional orders to hand down. "Shall I travel with the main delegation?"
"I think it best," she said. "It will look odd if you aren't there. It's my understanding the Rhyolusian fleet admiral will be there, along with the Zahr and his Phylarchs."
"Very well. I'll keep this quiet."
"Appreciated, Admiral." Her tight nod gave him leave to turn and head for the door to the elevator lobby.
"Argent! Wait!"
His name in the empty hall was a jolt to his spine. All shock and immediate focus like a blast from a cryogun. Argent turned to find Gallea with stricken features, her weight forward on one foot, as though she went after him. The Archregent stared at her daughter like the young woman was some exotic animal she'd never seen.
