Once the approval began to die down, Rieven spoke, “Item two: Promotions.” He turned to Gahst, “We’ll start at the top and work our way down. Lieutenant commander Gahst, come forward.” She stood rigidly, and marched with strict formality to stand before him, the box between them on the floor. She gave him a salute which he returned. Once she stood at attention, he began in the formal cadence of the Imperial Court, “Lieutenant commander Gahst, as a result of your years of loyal, exemplary, and most competent service I do now promote you to the rank of Commander within the Imperial Navy. The ship you are assigned is the Hidden Dagger, attached to the Black Drake Navy. There you will stand your post until relieved.” He reached to her shoulders and removed the emblems of office that rested there, then moved to her collar and did the same. He turned to his Adjunct and took the emblems of commander from a box of wood he held. He affixed them to commander Gahst and saluted her with strict formality. She returned the salute and marched back to her seat and sat.

  This is going to take forever, thought Rieven as he called the next name, repeating the process for each individual until they had made it through the list. It only took another forty minutes. After the last new officer sat, he heard the snick of the box Jackson held being closed. The sound cut through the stillness of the room like a lasgun. Rieven took that opportunity as the sign to speak. “We have eighty-seven minutes remaining until the Navy-wide broadcast; item number three will have to wait for another time. Please return to your commands and after my words to the navy as a whole are concluded, meet with those you command. Give them a chance to hear the plan from the lips of their commanders.

  “This is important. Commander Gahst is fond of the ‘chain of command’ idiom. It is suitable here. You are a link in the chain. When you return to your commands, make sure the chain links below yours are aware of the current situation. Let them hear from you and not from rumour. I will address much of the concern, but there may be other questions I will not address. Do not create answers from whole cloth. If you do not know the answer, that’s fine. There’s not much we do know right now, just the direction Homeworld is, and the promise we can have ten more days to prepare ourselves for the journey. Are there any questions here before I dismiss you?”

  An uncomfortable silence stretched from one minute to two, the type of silence that comes when people have questions but don’t want to ask them. Finally one of the marines stood up at attention. “I have a question, sir.”

  “Your name?”

  “Sergeant general Heymiss, sir.”

  “What is your question, sergeant general Heymiss?”

  The man gathered his thoughts for half a moment and then just sent the question out into the room with a jumble of word vomit. “How’d we get here? No one knows why we’re here, or why the dragons are giving us grace, or time, or anything. Why are we taking years to get back? Can’t we get back the same way we got here? I have kids I’d like to see while they’re still kids, sir. It doesn’t make any sense to me, or anyone else I’ve talked to. Not to mention that there’s quite a bit of money riding on the answer, sir.” That got a round of laughs.

  Rieven chuckled out loud. “Short answer Heymiss is that we don’t know how we got here. The red dragon says that he doesn’t know. I’m inclined to believe him. That’s a question I will pursue with him again at our next meeting. It will take years because we don’t know a faster way to return home. The good news is that we are not going to conquer every system between here and there. There’s no point, we aren’t an occupying force, we have no accountants, administrators, or lawyers with us; we have no resupply, we have no relief. If we are to conquer everyone and then move on, what keeps them conquered? Nothing. It becomes a waste of time, money, lives, and resources. I refuse to waste my soldiers in futility. That was the centre of every red smile you witnessed earlier. I refuse to repeat that filth. So no, sergeant general Heymiss, we are not going to conquer. We are going to travel and defend ourselves as necessary. We will not be taking a longer route than necessary, nor will we allow others to take advantage of us, nor will we be afraid to retreat and go another way if needs require. Be at peace, marine, your marines are care for.”

  His shoulders sagged in relief at the answer to the unasked, but implied, question. “Thank you sir. I’m grateful for your honour.” He sat back down.

  “Any further questions?” There was another pause, but briefer this time. Commander Briggs stood up this time.

  “Sir, how much of the salvage are we taking with us? My engineers are complaining of the work that’s required to figure out what’s what, especially if we will just be abandoning much of it in ten days. That’s my question, sir.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “That’s a good question commander Briggs. We will take as much as we can. I fully expect us to be towing several vessels and ships. It won’t be long before we need them for parts, and most of them are capable of sustained flight on their own, they just need some manual guidance. They will serve as stores for all the parts we can cram into them. They are going to be our only source of non-ship fabricated parts for years. If the fabricators aren’t booked with that, they can continue to give us food, water, fuel, and ordinance. That will keep them fairly busy as it is. They’ll need rest to not wear down. It takes as much time to make a new fabricator as it does a new FTL engine. I don’t want to lose months in the middle of our journey if we don’t have to. Whatever we can’t take with us gets destroyed here. I am leaving nothing the dragons can use to determine more of our technology. I refuse. Does that answer your question?”

  “Aye, that it does sir. Thank you.” He sat back down.

  Rieven looked around again, waiting for another question, but there wasn’t one. “Very well, you are dismissed. Broadcast to commence in seventy-nine minutes. Mandatory viewing is hereby instituted.” There was a great shuffling noise as everyone rose, stretched, and made their way out, many engaged in deep conversations as they departed. He turned to those to his right and left and said, “Thank you for your time. I’ll let you make ready for the broadcast. Please be present aboard the Death’s Silence fifteen minutes prior to broadcast start.”

  He waved his hand and the box at his feet gently floated over his head to rest a metre behind him and slightly to his right, hovering over the ground. It would be out of the way there. As he started walking the Dragon Guard surrounded him, their dragonclaw necklaces rattling against their armour, and the new navy standard was born at his back behind the box. The eyes of everyone were glued to it as he passed by them in the corridor. He made for the shuttle bay. He turned to see Jackson and Ono were with him. Ono said, “Glad you liked the new standard, sir. ‘Twas a bit of a gamble, springing it on you, but the boys really wanted to make an impression on you and had the thing fabricated right away. I also took a formal poll and almost ninety percent of the navy wanted that name. The rest weren’t polled. It was unanimous amongst the polled, sir. Don’t lose sight of that in the time to come, sir. That has meaning and it makes all the difference.”

  “Thanks Ono. I appreciate your words. Do know, however, that I will be avenged for both the tapping and the blindside just now.”

  “Aye, sir, wouldn’t expect any different.”

  “In other news, Jackson, how is the Adjunct rank being received?”

  The dragon growled deep in the back of his throat. It sounded to Rieven like the verbal equivalent of shrugging your shoulders. “Hard to say m’lord. It seems nearly an impossible task to separate the rank from the race. Their reactions could just as easily be from seeing a dragon as they could be from my new rank. I suspect that the uncertainty is so great that I could claim anything and they would obey. I’m not concerned about it yet. As long as they do not impede, and provide you the respect which is your due, then what matters their true thoughts yet? It will float to the surface once we leave this empire, I am sure.”

  “Hmm. That’s a good point Jackson. I had not considered it. How do you feel about my pearl?”

  “What about it? It’s a pearl as far as I’m concerned. It looks like you got a nice floating tank of water there for it, and it seems friendly. Honestly, m’lord, if it becomes a problem, we can deal with it then, but with you being constantly surrounded by humans who are now aware of the potential problems those things can cause, and who are paranoid beyond the norm, I don’t foresee any trouble.” Rieven saw him pull out his datapad and tap a message out and send it. He looked at him, “I truly am ok until proved differently, m’lord. Trust me, please.”

  “I do, Jackson, I do. Thank you for your effort. Last question, how much of the Death’s Silence have we cleared?”

  “About fifteen percent, m’lord. But it’s the common fifteen percent: the internal domicile, the mess, the greater ready rooms, and the command room. So long as you don’t deviate from those locations, you should be perfectly safe. I recommend the Internal Domicile, as they have just recently finished affixing your prize to the wall.”

  “Oh really? That’s impressive, especially considering he started ossifying immediately after I ate his heart. I like that image. We’ll do that. The only shame is that the dragons haven’t cracked our signals yet, I’d love to see their reactions to that.”

  Jackson laughed. “They would be impressed and furious in equal measure, I’m sure. They won’t have the same gut reaction a human would to seeing one of his race mounted on the wall. Dragons are predators only. To admit to any prey tendencies is only done to prevent death. You will disturb sensibility but not culture or tradition.”

  As they were walking up the ramp into his new shuttle, he asked “Do you desire quarters aboard the Death’s Silence, Jackson?”

  “Yes, m’lord. It would only be proper that your Adjunct be near you symbolically.”

  “Very well. Make that happen then.”

  “Already done, sir. The Inquisition of Mind-readers are stationed near me as well. It made sense to my draconic sensibilities.”

  Rieven chuckled. “That works for me Jackson.” The ramp rose up behind them. Thankfully the humidity was not overwhelming any longer. Werner works quickly, thought Rieven, I’ll give him a raise, or maybe more alone time with my new ship, he’ll like that.

  He looked around the shuttle as it made its way to the Death’s Silence, his new eyes fascinated by the way the dragon’s technology interacted with axiom. It always influenced it, but never had any inside of it, beyond what existed there naturally. It was a sight to see. The strange things was how compatible their two empire’s technology was. There was minimal transitioning required for the two to work together complimentarily. Axiom was truly wonderous.

  He cast his mind forward to his next meeting with Big Red. It would need to happen just before they were ready to depart. Time would tell, but he figured the dragon would be willing to give him his best guess as to how their navy had arrived here in the first place. He hoped so. Not having an answer was a sense of dread creeping up behind him. Not being able to rely on the constancy of the stars was slowly shattering his confidence in reality; never knowing whether his next step would take him to a new reality or keep him in his present one. One way or another, he would have answers, and if it was an intelligence responsible, well then, so much the better. Killing something would go a long way to calming his nerves. A long way indeed.