“Do you have an alternative?” Jainan interrupted. Kiem stopped talking. Jainan was sitting very upright in his seat, staring at Lunver. “Who would you replace him with?”
“Apologies, Your Highness,” Lunver said to Kiem, “but it should be someone less connected to Taam. The representative doesn’t have to be a prince. Upper nobility, or a general, perhaps. With the cooperation of the Theans, of course,” she added, with a nod to Jainan.
“I fail to see how that will solve the problem,” Jainan said.
Kiem, who had been about to open his mouth to say he didn’t mind, stopped and rethought. This was how he screwed things up: he went along with what other people wanted and he didn’t think. “I’m with Jainan here,” he said. “Not sure that’s going to fix anything. The Auditor said the problem was Taam—speaking of, how about that crash data?”
He looked around hopefully, as if they were having a friendly meeting rather than hearing a senior military official ask for his resignation.
“Your refusal has been noted,” Colonel Lunver said. She sighed. “Your Highness, I don’t want to have to take it up to the Emperor.”
“She’ll be so pleased. I think she misses me when I’m not in her inbox,” Kiem said. He changed his tone to plaintive. “The crash data? I thought that was why you agreed to see us.”
Lunver glanced at Jainan as if she’d expected something more from him, then grimaced and rubbed a hand across her face. “Saffer.”
“I’ll get you that,” Aren said, hastily getting to his feet. “This way.”
As they followed him out, Aren frowned over a mini-screen hovering over his wrist. “I have all the personnel records for the unit,” he said as an aside to Kiem, “so the colonel got me to track it down, but I’m not really senior officer material. Too much management rubbish.” He leaned against an empty desk, spinning through some options, and then entered a command sign. “It has to go through Internal Security. There.” He finished the command with a flourish and grinned at Jainan. Even talking quietly, their voices echoed in the old room. Jainan kept glancing at the handful of soldiers within hearing. “That’s a fairly ghoulish souvenir you want, but it should be with you within a week or so.”
Kiem refrained from saying that apparently the officers hadn’t needed to see them in person to transfer the data after all, which was not making him feel any more well disposed toward Lunver. Jainan’s eyes went back to Aren’s face. “A week.”
Aren’s mouth took on a rueful twist. “’Fraid it’s an Internal Security issue,” he said. “They put a block on all the investigation materials, so we have to go up the chain of command to get them released.”
“But you have the crash data,” Kiem said. “Come on. Jainan’s been trying to get it for weeks. I gave it a royal seal. I don’t want to start getting official about it—do us a favor.”
“I—” Aren looked between them, but Kiem thought he’d got his measure, and he was right. Aren gave a fluid shrug, shot a mildly guilty look at Lunver’s office door, and gave another command. Jainan’s wristband buzzed. “All right, then. Jainan’s got a copy.” His voice lowered, semi-comically, as if he was letting them in on a secret. “Please don’t hand it to your friends back home.”
The line of tension hadn’t left Jainan’s face. “I wouldn’t.”
“Why shouldn’t he?” Kiem said.
For a brief moment Jainan and Aren both looked as if Kiem had grown a second head. “Oof,” Aren said. He traded glances with Jainan. “How to put this, eh? Kingfisher isn’t hugely popular on Thea.”
“Mm,” Jainan said.
“Sort of dead-cat-in-the-river levels of popular, in fact. Look.” Aren gestured another command and a screen sprang up vertically above the desk. After a moment’s browsing, he threw up a fringe-press article with the headline Iskat’s Mining Smash-and-Grab. And another, with a university logo: Activist Drones Sabotage Refinery. A third just said Sorry, Were You Using Those Minerals? over a smiling picture of Taam.
Jainan had gone a shade sallower. “I hadn’t seen those.”
“Idiots,” Aren said cheerfully. “Students and fringe obsessives, mainly. But to answer your question, Prince Kiem, that’s why we’re running a lot of Kingfisher at high classification. I was assigned to the op as the strategic comms officer to try and fight this sort of bad press, but the positive spin just didn’t take. Hey, there’s a thought.” He threw himself back into a sprawl in the desk chair and eyed Kiem speculatively. “We’ve got a strategic comms post going spare. Spinning Kingfisher to the Thean newslogs. You’d be a natural.”
“Uh,” Kiem said blankly.
“Oh, come on,” Aren said, half laughing. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Kiem took a stab. “Because I look great in a uniform?”
“You use that well, sure,” Aren said, grinning. “It’s more how you were the royal family’s biggest embarrassment a few years ago, and now you get asked to charity galas and interviewed for homemaker magazines and handed a diplomatic marriage.” He folded his arms and leaned back. “Half the planet seems to have bought this ‘turned over a new leaf’ story. I’m serious—if you can pass the physical, I’ll swing you a major’s commission on Kingfisher. We need someone who can work the press.”
“I don’t—what—” Kiem scrabbled for what to say. He felt faintly sleazy, though it wasn’t as if it was a lie: he and Bel had positioned some stuff based on how the newslogs would take it. “I don’t do that on purpose.” He glanced at Jainan, who had linked his hands in his lap and was staring down at them. “I’m not the military type.”
“Skies above, now I’ve put my foot in it,” Aren said. “Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, believe it or not. I’m sorry.” He sat back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him, and looked between them, now completely sober. “I get why you asked for the data, Jainan, but I hope you’re wrong. I know you won’t mind me saying that.”
Aren had a point. Jainan hadn’t voiced any suspicions out loud, but if the crash hadn’t been a chance failure, then the Auditor was right: Taam’s death wasn’t an accident. And if Internal Security hadn’t caught it, they were either incompetent or had decided to cover it up. Kiem felt slightly queasy at the thought. They didn’t have any proof. Yet. “Will you be in trouble for skipping the approvals, Aren?”
Aren waved a hand. “I’m a forgiveness-over-permission sort. Really, though, don’t send these to the Thean embassy. The new ambassador seems like a good old boy, but every time we’ve told him something, it’s gone straight to those fringe logs I showed you.”
“No,” Jainan said. “Of course.”
“Then go ahead,” Aren said. “Knock yourself out. I hope to hell you don’t find anything, but”—he crooked his head to one side, his face wryly sympathetic—“I get it. Forget the politics. No one can fault you for being sensitive about this.”