Act 2 - Bargaining[]
With A Bared Sword[]
Chapter 32[]
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
Castle Davion, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Commonwealth
5 March 3057
Yvonne was waiting in the lounge of Kate’s apartment when the elder sister arrived, sprawled across the couch with one head resting on a cushion. She had a bowl of popcorn on the table in front of her and was holding a text book open in front of her face.
“Hi.” Kate unzipped her uniform jacket and hung it on the hooks behind the door, where someone would collect it for laundry purposes later. “Are you studying?”
“Kind of sorta?” The younger sister reached out and grabbed a handful of popcorn. “There’s something I don’t get about this.”
“Ah.” The blonde looked over and read the title of the book. “No, I don’t even know what language that is. Can’t help you.”
“Italian.” Yvonne shoved the popped corns into her mouth and started munching. With her second hand now free, she reached for a bookmark and slammed the book closed on it.
Kate removed her boots one at a time and dropped them on the rack before joining Yvonne on the couch, lifting her sister’s legs so she could sit down and then dropping them back across her lap. “Did you watch Victor’s message yet?”
“Would I sneak that past my beloved sister when we promised to watch it together?”
Kate cupped her chin and reached over for some of the popcorn. “When did you get another sister and when do I meet her?”
“Ha.” Her sister dropped her book on the table and then tugged the popcorn bowl back and out of Kate’s easy reach. “The sister who could send me to Tharkad for spring break if Victor doesn’t tell us something about what happened to Peter.”
“Oh…” She started undoing her hair from its clasp. “If you thought you could get away with it, yes.”
Yvonne raised one leg and dropped it down sharply. “Not yet, but I’m beginning to think that I should have. Do you want me to start it?”
“Go ahead.”
Reaching back under the cushion beneath her head, Yvonne pulled out a handset and lit up the trivee display across the room. Scrolling down the menu she went to the chronologically last message, which did show up as unread (for whatever weight that had, since marking messages as unread was trivally easy).
Victor’s face popped up, backdropped by the familiar view out of the window of his office, the mountains around the Triad.
“He still hasn’t redecorated,” Kate noted.
“I doubt it would ever occur to him,” her sister observed, taking more corn.
“Yvonne, Kathy,” their brother greeted them. “Thank you for your letters. I hope you don’t mind me sending you a joint message for once. There are some things I need to tell both of you.”
“Where’s Peter, you jerk?” Yvonne muttered and shoveled the popcorn into her mouth.
Kate started to tickle the bottom of her sister’s foot and Yvonne pulled her foot back and then kicked her lightly. “Don’t do that,” she complained.
“Don’t call Victor a jerk, then.”
“It’s about mother,” Victor continued and Yvonne twisted over to face the screen fully. Kate’s arms went slack, resting on top of her sister’s leg as she too gave the message her full attention.
“The investigation has had more success than I could tell you until now,” the Archon-Prince told them. “We caught the assassin over a year ago. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know, we needed to keep it a secret until I could find the paymaster behind him. That was… that was the hard part.”
“What…” Yvonne whispered. “Why…”
Their brother looked away for a moment. “I know I should have told you before, but it was clear early on that we were looking for someone with, at the least, connections at the highest levels. If they were alerted to how close we were to finding them, it is possible they would have been able to clean up the connections that we were trying to trace.” Then he raised his hand. “And remember, if I told the two of you, I couldn't justify also not informing Arthur and Peter. One of whose calm judgment I had reservations about.”
Kate’s sister clenched her knuckles. “I hate it when he’s right.”
“Mmm.”
“Obviously, I can’t tell Peter that now. I don’t even know where he is, although I’m assured he reached his intended destination safely.” Victor shook his head. “But I can tell you now. We have Richard Steiner, Robert Steiner and their wives in custody. It took one visit from his mother before Richard tried to turn state’s evidence.”
“Richard was behind it?” Kate exclaimed. She knew he was a traitor, but to rebel on that level?
As if aware of the reaction, her brother shook his head slightly. “He was involved but only after the fact, or so he claims. To be fair, the evidence does tend to support the fact that he learned of the plot only after it was too late for him to back out. I cannot feel sorry for him, since he had certainly moved into treason before he discovered his partner’s full actions.”
Then, with icy cold eyes, Victor told them: “Ryan Steiner hired the assassin.”
Yvonne seized up the popcorn bowl and Kate had to wrestle it away from her before she threw it at the trivee. Successful, she tossed it onto one of the armchairs, not caring that the remaining popcorn was scattered across the room.
“...almost admire him,” her brother’s recorded voice continued and the blonde blinked.
“What did I miss?” Yvonne asked from under her sister. The redhead wriggled free.
Pausing and rewinding, they restarted from the revelation.
“...hired the assassin,” the message repeated. “He almost got away with it. Until Richard gave up enough information for us to crack Free Skye’s records and from there get into Ryan’s dirty files, I was almost at the point of having to let him leave custody. Nine months of detention and questioning, and he didn’t crack once. If he wasn’t such a murdering bastard, I could almost admire him.” His lips twisted. “Almost.”
“He’s still maintaining innocence and seems convinced that I’ll have to let him go. Perhaps he has reason to believe he’ll skate off but he’s wrong. The courts are putting together the case and I’m rather looking forward to the day we present his legal team with the evidence so they can try to put together a defense.”
“The plan was 3036 but on a larger scale - a major revolt in Skye, with what they hoped would be major defeats on Skye, Glengarry and Hesperus II. Ryan would step in as peacemaker, broker a peace deal and then push for a vote of no confidence against me and against the Federated Commonwealth treaty. If I refused to go and used Davion troops, from his point, I would have handed him a civil war he seems to think he would win.” Victor shook his head tiredly. “What he imagines the Clans would have done in that case, I have no idea.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “In his ideal world, I would retreat to New Avalon and accept the division of the Commonwealth, maybe taking the Sarna March but otherwise leaving him as Archon, Robert as his heir and Richard would be rewarded with Skye and replacing his mother as the new General of Armies.”
“Could that have worked?” Yvonne asked incredulously, pausing the message.
Kate had been wondering the same thing. “It’s not completely impossible,” she conceded dubiously. “I can’t see him getting the unanimous vote against Victor the way grandmother managed when she was dethroning Alessandro, fifty years ago. But a majority would have been damaging enough and if we’d lost Hesperus II to Skye then it would have carried a huge amount of weight. I’m not sure how it would have gone… but I can’t see Victor simply surrendering the throne. Make compromises… I don’t know.”
Her sister shuddered. “Please tell me we don’t have to deal with that sort of plot here?”
“I very much doubt there were multiple conspiracies to murder our mom,” Kate said and put her arm around Yvonne. “Do you want to watch the rest now?”
Wordlessly, the redhead thumbed the control.
“There’s not much to say yet. The trials will take a while to work through, I have to dot the I’s and cross the T’s to depose well-established members of House Steiner, even with this level of evidence. And I need to see this through, so I’m sorry, Kathy, it will be a bit longer before I can come to New Avalon.”
“You jerk!”
“Kate! You hypocrite!”
“Big sister’s privilege,” Kate claimed, right before she got nailed in the face with a cushion.